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| The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr |
| This site includes The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s pictures, online articles, slideshows, reviews, table of contents, and more. |
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Click cover for larger image.
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Author(s):
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Subjects(s):
Comparative Religion
Environment and Nature
Islam
Metaphysics
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Price: $24.95
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ISBN: 978-1-933316-38-3
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Book Size: 6 x 9
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# of Pages: 272
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Language: English
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Description
Seyyed Hossein Nasr is a world-renowned scholar on Islam, Sufism, and the Perennial Philosophy, and is the author of over fifty books and five hundred articles on topics ranging from comparative religion to traditional Islamic philosophy, cosmology, art, ecology, and mysticism. The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr is an anthology of 21 of his most representative essays, including several rare articles which have not been easily available in the U.S., carefully selected and edited by William C. Chittick, a former student of Prof. Nasr and leading scholar of Islam and Sufism.
Dr. Chittick chose these essays to be truly representative and illustrative of the wide range of topics on which Dr. Nasr has written for over fifty years. Readers new to Dr. Nasr's work will find here a wonderful introduction to his thought. Readers already familiar with his writings will certainly find some new materials previously unavailable to them, as well as clear proof for why Seyyed Hossein Nasr is considered among the most important Traditionalist writers.
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Seyyed Hossein Nasr is now the foremost living member of the traditionalist school and is also recognized as a leading spokesman for Islam world-wide. The author of over thirty books and three hundred articles, Dr. Nasr is one of the world’s most respected writers and speakers on Islam.
Edited by William C. Chittick, The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr introduces the reader to the significance of the traditionalist perspective for the understanding of religion in the contemporary situation. Dr. Nasr has been nominated for inclusion in the series of The Library of Living Philosophers. He has also delivered the Gifford Lectures in Glasgow, Scotland. Dr. Nasr is the only person ever to have received both of these honors. The Gifford Lectures provided the basis for Knowledge and the Sacred, widely considered one of the great intellectual achievements of the 20th century. Dr. Nasr is a University Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University.
Huston Smith says in his foreword, “This valuable book distills the essence of the thought of one of the most important thinkers of our times.”
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William C. Chittick is one of the most important contemporary translators and interpreters of Islamic mystical texts and poetry. He is a professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. Among his publications are The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (1983), The Psalms of Islam (1988), The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-`Arabî's Cosmology (1998), Sufism: A Short Introduction (2000), and The Heart of Islamic Philosophy: The Quest for Self-Knowledge in the Teachings of Afdal al-Dîn Kâshânî (2001). World Wisdom titles featuring Dr. Chittick:
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“Nasr is a living legend in Islamic Studies…”
—Publishers Weekly
“[Nasr’s] knowledge of western scientific writings is profound … his criticism well documented.”
—Times Literary Supplement
“The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr is an important and timely introduction to the work of the world's greatest living philosopher.”
—Resurgence Magazine
"Nasr is not only a highly regarded and influential Islamic scholar (George Washington Univ.); he is also an extremely prolific writer who has produced more than 50 books (e.g., Religion and the Order of Nature) and 500 articles. For this reason, creating a book from his writings that accurately portrays his most important ideas is a major challenge. Editor Chittick (Sufism: A Beginner's Guide) meets this challenge in an exceptional way. After his informative introduction and a helpful foreword by Huston Smith (The Soul of Christianity: Restoring the Great Tradition), Chittick divides Nasr's key ideas into the categories of religion, Islam, and tradition. There are three chapters under the first category and nine chapters under each of the latter two categories. Considered as a whole, the book reveals Nasr as a major Islamic scholar who is also very knowledgeable about other world religions and with philosophy in general. With this broad intellectual background, he is able to write insightfully about myriad topics relating to religion. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries."
—Library Journal, review written by John Jaeger, Dallas Baptist Univ. Lib.
Collections strong in either philosophy or Islamic religious beliefs will welcome The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a collection of writings by a living legend in Islamic studies and a spokesperson for Islam whose essays and reflections represent a traditionalist perspective on Islamic thought. These scholarly writings expose the basic concepts and struggles of Islam and are a top pick for any spirituality collection seeking discussion and interpretation routes.
—Midwest Book Review
“The highest honor a philosopher can receive is to be nominated by his peers for inclusion in the series of The Library of Living Philosophers … [for which the] latest entry is The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr. And the highest honor a theologian can receive is to be invited to deliver the Gifford Lectures in Glasgow, Scotland. Seyyed Hossein Nasr is the only person ever to have received both of these honors.…This valuable book distills the essence of the thought of one of the most important thinkers or our times.”
—Huston Smith (from the foreword)
"The Essential Nasr is an excellent introduction to the thought of one of the most prominent Islamic scholars of the 20th-21st centuries. William Chittick has done a marvelous job selecting, organizing and editing texts that illustrate the essence and richness of Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s scholarship and wisdom."
—John L. Esposito, University Professor, Georgetown University
"The wide corpus of Seyyed Hossein Nasr's writings, which he has so eloquently presented in the last half of the century, pose a challenge for those who want to gain an insight into the complex web of his ideas for the first time. William C. Chittick's lifelong association with Nasr and his writings has provided him with a unique insight into thereby enabling him to bring together, the essential writings of Nasr for those who would like to gain an understanding of the salient features of his ideas and that of the perennial perspective."
—Mehdi Aminrazavi, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, University of Mary Washington
"The profound writings by S.H. Nasr belong to that kind of fascinating and inspired texts which are universal in their metaphysical essence and, at the same time, reflect the particular historical situation of our contemporary world which lost its inner spiritual light and needs to be guided intellectually through the uncountable delusions and perils of modern life. The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr provides the necessary guidance for any serious spiritual student whose discrimination increases and spiritual sight is strengthened by those philosophical insights which reveals the timeless principles and eternal truths hidden in the depths of all authentic religious traditions of humanity."
—Algis Uzdavinys Lithuanian State Institute of Culture, Philosophy, and Arts and editor of The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Platonic and Pythagorean Philosophy
"A careful and intelligent selection of essays, unique for their range of coverage, by the indisputably most prominent Islamic thinker of today. I highly recommend this collection to anyone interested in comparative religion, science and the present predicament of human thought."
—Ashk Dahlén, Uppsala University and The Swedish Royal Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities
"This judicious selection of writings from Seyyed Hossein Nasr's prodigious oeuvre confirms that he is one of the era's most profound thinkers and the pre-eminent contemporary exponent of the philosophia perennis. He reaffirms the message of Tradition, particularly in its Islamic forms, in a manner attuned to the most urgent imperatives of the age, and thereby kindles the hope that we may yet find a way out of the spiritual and material crises which imperil our very existence."
—Harry Oldmeadow, La Trobe University Bendigo and author of Journeys East
"In a divided world with growing animosity Seyyed Hossein Nasr is a leading spokesman for Islam. His traditionalist perspective for the understanding of religion is recognized world wide through his essays and books. In the book, we discover the great work and teachings of this renowned scholar. I encourage everyone to read the teachings of this great spiritual figure in order to discover his perspectives and understand Islam in this globalized age."
—Dr. Akbar S. Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University Washington, D.C.
"Remarkably, in twenty-one essays this anthololgy manages to offer a representative and balanced selection culled from an opus comprisiing over fifty books and five hundred articles. A masterful introduction to one of the most eminent scholars of our time, and a veritable feast for the educated reader."
—Wolfgang Smith, author of Cosmos and Transcendence : Breaking Through the Barrier of Scientistic Belief and The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology
"The book The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr, is a multifaceted work. It contains a portrait of a person who embodies the perennial wisdom of the Eastern tradition as well as the finest scholarly precision of modern Western knowledge. The selected pieces from Nasr’s enormous contribution, which he modestly terms 'voicing the rich heritage of Islam,' provides a glimpse into the complexity of the human dilemma of living in the secular age while longing for the certainty of the divine. It also presents a wonderful introduction to Nasr’s works that are insightful, revelatory and comprehensive. The editor of work, William Chittick, an achieved, fascinating, and insightful scholar in his own right, should be congratulated for being able to make such precise choices from among the ocean of Nasr’s contribution in own contemporary knowledge about religion, tradition, Islam, science, the environment and literally all human scholarly endeavors."
—Farhang Rajaee, Carleton University
The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr, expertly edited by William Chittick, one of Dr. Nasr’s foremost students, is a true gift to humanity. Besides being a leading authority in Islam and Sufism, Seyyed Hossein Nasr is equally at ease with Eastern and Western philosophy and religious thought. His wisdom is more crucially needed today than ever before. It is almost as if the eminent philosopher and mystical poet was meant to be exiled to the West, so that his learning could be understood in a global basis. Nasr’s sapiential knowledge is such that I can only think of him as the Qu†b or Pole of his Age. Through his writings, he acts on those around him as a spiritual axis, as heaven’s true viceregent. He is indeed a bridge between this corporeal world and the One, as well as a bridge between East and West. I wholeheartedly celebrate this book, which is a quintessence of his traditional teachings."
—Dr. Luce López-Baralt, co-author of Islam in Spanish Literature - From the Middle Ages to the Present: From the Middle Ages to the Present
“At a time when public opinion too often is dominated by stereotypes of Islam and its culture…the significance of the publication of The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr goes far beyond academic boundaries. One might not share or might disagree with some of the views of S.H. Nasr, yet undoubtedly nobody represents the image of enlightened Islam so strongly to the non-Muslim public. Nobody else could present the essential Nasr as brilliantly as Prof. Chittick, not only because he was Nasr’s student, but due to the fact that he himself is an outstanding scholar in the field of Islamic thought…”
—Marietta Stepanyants, Director, Center for Oriental Philosophies' Studies, Institute of Philosophy, Russian Acadeemy of Sciences
“In a time when religions suffer greatly from a lack of articulate and reasonable spokepersons, believers from any tradition who know Dr. Nasr’s work are able to raise their heads high when his name is mentioned and say: “He makes us all proud to be people of faith.” I have been reading Dr. Nasr for over twenty years and his intelligence, prescience and relevance astound me still.
“Dr. Nasr was perhaps the fi rst person to identify the causa profundis of the current environmental crisis, and in the mid-sixties he was a lone voice in the wilderness calling people’s attention to the grave danger that we now all recognize we are in. We ignore him to our own peril. He has much to teach us, and in an age that lacks wisdom, he is surely one of our great sages.”
—Hamza Yusuf, Director of the Zaytuna Institute
“A masterful introduction to one of the most eminent scholars of our time, and a veritable feast for the educated reader. Remarkably, in twenty-one essays this anthololgy manages to offer a representative and balanced selection culled from an opus comprising over fifty books and five hundred articles.”
—Wolfgang Smith, author of Cosmos and Transcendence: Breaking Through the Barrier of Scientistic Belief and The Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology
“Who speaks for traditional Islam: the Islam lived for centuries by theologians and jurists, by philosophers and scientists, by artists and poets, by Sufis and simple people of faith throughout the Islamic world during fourteen centuries of Islamic history—the Islam which is in fact still followed by the vast majority of Muslims from the Atlantic to the Pacific? There may be still many who speak privately for this tradition but there are only a few writers and, among these few, Seyyed Hossein Nasr is pre-eminent.”
—Charles Le Gai Eaton, author of Islam and the Destiny of Man and Remembering God: Reflections on Islam
“Seyyed Hossein Nasr is one of the few scholars who combine modern Western knowledge with a study of Traditional Islam.”
—Inamul Haq, Benedictine University
“This book is a first-rate anthology which offers to us some of the best pages of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the most important living thinker in the field of Tradition and Islamic studies. In the darkness and the spiritual fog of the ‘modern world’, which is harrowed by opposite fundamentalisms and in which we are shown a grotesque form of Islam that is just a ghost and false expression of its true nature, the words of professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr, enlightened interpreter of the deep meaning of Islamic doctrines, convey a message of peace and truth. He plays a pivotal role in the dialogue between the Islamic world and Western civilization because he knows their respective languages very well: the “traditional” and the academic. His function as cultural bridge between Islam and the West is highlighted in this book. In it, Nasr opens the mind of modern man, helping him to recover his true nature, forgotten because of a spiritual amnesia.”
—Giovanni Monastra, Managing Director of the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca per gli Alimenti e la Nutrizione, Rome
“Professor Nasr’s wisdom covers an immensely wide range of philosophical and religious knowledge, enabling him not only to elucidate the causes of our present dilemmas, but also to guide us in the task of rediscovering a world view in which Man, Nature and God are seen in their proper harmony.”
—Carmen Blacker, University of Cambridge
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Foreword
Introduction
Religion
1. Living in a Multi-Religious World
2. The Traditionalist Approach to Religion
3. Religion and the Environmental Crisis
Islam
4. One God
5. Many Prophets
6. The Nature of Man
7. The Integration of the Soul
8. The Throne of the All-Merciful
9. The Role of Philosophy
10. Suhrawardî
11. Mullâ Ṣadrâ
12. Existence and Quiddity
Tradition
13. Scientia Sacra
14. Renaissance Humanism
15. God as Reality
16. Time and Eternity
17. Pontifical and Promethean Man
18. The Cosmos as Theophany
19. Traditional Art
20. The Wisdom of the Body
21. In the Beginning was Consciousness
Biographical Notes
Index
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