Media Kit
Martin Lings (1909–2005), the former Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts at the British Museum, was a leading member of the Perennialist school of thought and a renowned author, editor, translator, scholar, Arabist, and poet. After a classical education he read English at Oxford where he was a pupil and later a close friend of C. S. Lewis. Lings is the author of several award-winning books on subjects ranging from Sufism to Shakespeare, including A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century: Shaikh Ahmad al-?Alawi, His Spiritual Heritage and Legacy, the best-selling Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources (translated into over a dozen languages), and Shakespeare in the Light of Sacred Art.
Reza Shah-Kazemi (b. 1960) is an author in the fields of Islamic studies and Comparative Religion and was a close associate of Martin Lings for many years. He is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, and has been involved in important interfaith initiatives for the last two decades. Dr. Shah-Kazemi has edited, translated, and written numerous books and articles, including Paths to Transcendence according to Shankara, Ibn Arabi & Meister Eckhart, the award-winning Justice and Remembrance: Introducing the Spirituality of Imam Ali, and Common Ground Between Islam and Buddhism, which was prefaced and launched by HH The Dalai Lama. Shah-Kazemi lives in Westerham in the south of England.
About the Author(s)
Martin Lings
Martin Lings (1909-2005) was a leading member of the “Traditionalist” or “Perennialist” school and an acclaimed author, editor, translator, scholar, Arabist, and poet whose work centers on the relationship between God and man through religious doctrine, scripture, symbolism, literature, and art. He was an accomplished metaphysician and essayist who often turned to the world’s great spiritual traditions for examples, though he is probably best known for his writings on Islam and its esoteric tradition, Sufism.
Dr. Lings co-edited The Underlying Religion (2007) with Clinton Minnar. This book is a survey of central perennialist ideas and authors. Dr Lings contributed the following essays to various World Wisdom books:
Read More
Reza Shah-Kazemi
Reza Shah-Kazemi is a Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. Dr. Shah-Kazemi writes on a range of topics from metaphysics and doctrine to contemplation and prayer. He is the author of Paths to Transcendence: According to Shankara, Ibn Arabi, and Meister Eckhart, a look at of how three sages (a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Christian) approached the Transcendent Absolute. Dr. Shah-Kazemi's other contributions to World Wisdom projects include:
Read More
Reviews
- This marvelous anthology draws on Lings’ masterly exegeses of sacred texts and doctrines, his peerless lives of the Prophet and Shaykh Ahmad al-‘Alawi, his elucidations of Shakespeare and the Sufi poets, his acute diagnosis of our contemporary spiritual malaise, and his reaffirmations of the perennial wisdom. A veritable treasure-house!
Harry Oldmeadow, Bendigo University, author of Frithjof Schuon and the Perennial Philosophy
