This is the keynote address delivered by Professor Naquib al-Attas at the “First World Conference on Muslim Education” held in Makkah al-Mukarramah in March 1977.

    This edition saw a number of corrections and amendments to the text. It is one of the best-selling childrens' and adult books on Islam in the world (196,000 copies printed), giving a comprehensive introduction to the religion in an affordably priced and well-produced volume. It is ideal for young Muslims, new Muslims and non-Muslims who want an easy-to-read overview of the final revealed religion. Many schools and Islamic centers now use Islam: Beliefs and Teachings as a standard text.

    This book is an attempt to keep that discussion alive.

    

    Henry Corbin himself outlined the plan for this book, whose title implies a common centre for these diverse studies. The two essays that open this collection might appear out of place in the perspective of the Temple; yet Corbin included them precisely to point out that Shiite hermeneutics necessarily leads to a theosophy of the Temple -just as the Temple itself has no meaning, if we have not the method and ontology to lead us there. From a consideration of the philosophy of colours in Islam, followed by a study of the metaphysical and mystical foundation of the science of correspondences, "The Science of the Balance", the author proceeds to reflect on the role of the heavenly Temple, or the archetype of the Temple, in the spiritual traditions of the Religions of the Book. No other work of Corbin brings out more clearly the hermeneutic correspondences among spiritual visions belonging to these religions. Thus we understand why Corbin wished to link the themes of "Temple" and "Contemplation": the theory of visionary perception allows for the emergence of the Temple, but the processes of visionary knowing are themselves based on the eternal presence of the Imago Templi.

    I have also discussed the nature of various movements working for the renaissance of Islam, their achievements and their shortcomings. On the positive side, my own prognosis for fruitful revivalist work has been expressed schematically.On the basis of my analysis, I have also suggested a basic programme. As an immediate concrete step towards the realization of an Islamic revival, the plan for the establishment of a Qur’an Academy has been presented in detail.

    

    

    

    

    

    

    The rare Sufi classic of seven hundred years ago in a bilingual English and Arabic text.

    These poems were written to be sung whenever Sufis gather to "drink the wine of Love".

    He warns that great case must be taken in this day of search and upheaval to examine the prevailing movements that promise solutions for humanity.Marxism, which holds special appeal for the world's oppressed peoples and those sensitive to their suffering because of its emphasis on justice, merits particularly close scrutiny. Shari'ati analyzes its roots in materialism, its relation to the Hegelian dialectric, its preoccupation with matters of production, the sources of its diametrical opposition to Islam, Marx's objection to religion, and other crucial aspects to Marxism.But his attention is not confined to Marxism alone. He discusses the established religions, bourgeois liberalism, and existentialism, beginning with their fundamental notions of man. He examines the characteristic refusal of the major freedom-seeking movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centures to accept any spiritual dimension in man. Throughout hs inquiry, Shari'ati offers comparisons with the ideology of Islam, drawing upon the principles and precepts contained in the Qur'an as well as cultural material from the history of Islamic society. Gradually and eloquently, he expounds his persoai view of Islam as the philosophy of human liberation.

    The Epistle, which ironically purports to be a defence of the practices of singing-girls and their masters, is a vivid account, touched with humor, of this aspect of the social habits of the richer classes at that time.