Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
A great and beautifully written book, 14 Dec 1998
By A Customer
I truly enjoyed reading this book. Mr. Chittic does an excellent job in explaining Sufi way of understanding Koran and Islam. The author has another fine and very readable book on the great sufi master Ibne Arabi " Sufi path of knowledge". I highly recommend this book. While reading the sufi path to knowledge, I made some interesting observations. Almost for every page of the book I could come up with a corresponding saying( Hadith) from the Shiie Imams from Shia hadith sources. This was interesting to me, since in many books there are discussions as to the background and sources of great masters such as Rumi and Arabi. By the time I was done reading the great book" sufi path to knowledge, I had related almost every theme of Ibne Arabi's discussion back to a saying from these earlier sources. My take of these great masters are that they unfolded these compressed teachings of Koran and Hadith from Prophet and Imams. Just as in science F=ma, tells us all that there is to know about the motion of bodies under the influence of gravity, these sayings also contain all there is to know about the Islamic understanding of God-Man-Universe. And just as it takes a great and experienced scientist to unfold the detail of F=ma, and land a person on the moon, it also takes a great master like Rumi and Arabi to unfold the teaching of these sources. I think to map Rumi and Arabi's teaching to these earlier sources would be very useful and enlightening and may answer many questions as to the background of the sufism. I don't think this mapping of ideas to its origin is a difficult task. I came up with some interesting results and yet all I had was a few shia hadith books and the books wirtten by Mr. Chittic.
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1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Book of Intoxication and ecstacy, 10 April 1999
By A Customer
To be very precise this book is full of intoxication and ecstacy of GOD.
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1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Conflicting and contradicotry messages, 18 Dec 1998
By A Customer
Of all the scholars that I have read their book on Islam, there are only three that I have truly enjoyed their work and I think have a deep and profound understanding of Islam. These three great scholars are Professor Corbin, Dr. Nasr and ofcourse Dr. Chittic. The sufi path of love is indeed a great book giving a glimpse into Islamic spirituality and love. As great as this book is, there are a few weaknesses in the book which rather contradicts the theme and mood of the book. Dr. Chittic at times reports some of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad which, though accepted by main stream Moslems, nevertheless they are others who have opposed the authenticity of it based on Koran, and history and plain basic human values. One of them mentioned in this book is the saying reported from Muhammad as having said" My companions are like stars, whichever one of them you follow you will be guided ." This hadith is one of most misleading and dangerous ones that I have come across. Anyone familiar with the early history of Islam immediately after the death of Muhammad, and indeed from his last few days, will notice a not so exemplary behavior by these companions. In a conversation with an Egyptian gentlemen who was well versed in Islamic religion, I showed my concern about the status of Moslems and how a man like Saddam has caused much killing among Moslems, and to my surprise he refereed to this hadith and said " Fighting and killing each other is not a sin, since the companions loved each other and yet they fought and killed each other and some even died in exile". This indeed is the logical conclusion of this hadith" loved each other and yet killed each other" and since they are like "stars", in following them we are on the right track. Is this the meaning of Moslem or sufi path of love? Is this the vision of Islam? Certainly Saddam of Iraq is,then, well withing his religion definition of "love" in killing and waging war and destruction upon others, since he is not doing anything that "stars" before him didn't do. This "stars" mentality with it's historic reality, may explain why Moslems condemn US in bombing Saddam's facilitties, and yet they were totally silent when he was invading his neighbors and dropping cheical weapons on Kurdish women and children. " Love each other and yet kill each other" for this was the example set forth by the companions whom Muhammad( so we are told) designated them as "stars" of humanity. I really don't think Muhammad would have said something of this nature and give an absolute immunity to his followers just because they had seen him physically. According to Koran, Prophet Abraham went through so many tests before he was declared as an " Imam"( leader) and no guarantee was given to him about his offspring, but here we have prophet unilaterally give the status of "star" to all of his followers and tell the rest of humanity that they all lead to guidance. Is there a surprise then that Moslems have come to the absurd conclusion of" love each other and yet kill each other" and all is well. Should we accept any saying reported to Prophet without common sense and referral to Koranic and human principles? I think it would have been better to also mention that there are others who don't accept the authenticity of these kind of sayings. Or else it would be honest to paint a whole picture based on historic reality for the readers so they would know what" love" means in the Moslem contest. To talk about love and to write beautiful poems about it is not enough, it is important to show people based on hard data, how this concept of "love" has been implemented by those whom we are to take as our "stars". Incidentally though, I don't think the analogy in this "hadith" is a correct one either. It is doubtful that a person can navigate through the seas or find his way in deserts by randomly picking any star in the sky and figuring out which is west or east.
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