Almost all these letters are concerned with the method and the operative aspects of the Way and are considered among the most direct instructions given on Sufic method to be found in all Sufi literature.

    

    The New Review of Books and Religion Fakhruddin Iraqi: Divine Flashes translated and introduced by William C. Chittick and Peter Lamborn Wilson prefaced by Seyyed Hossein Nasr Before this there was one heart but a thousand thoughts. Now all is reduced to There is no god but God. Fakhruddin 'Iraqi (1213-1289) Fakhruddin 'Iraqi was one of the foremost expositors of Sufi teachings and one of the greatest of Persian poets. Born in 1213 (618) in the city of Hamadan in west Persia, he lived during the revival of Islamic spirituality that was shaped by the writings of Jalaluddin Rumi and Ibn 'Arabi'. 'Iraqi's masterpiece Divine Flashes became a popular and influential text in Persian speaking Islamic lands. The work's beautiful descriptions of the mysteries of Union in the language of love are classic expressions of Sufi love mysticism. In this volume, William Chittick and Peter Wilson present the first English edition of Divine Flashes with a sensitivity that conveys both the metaphysical richness and the poetic subtleties of the work. Writing in the preface to this book, Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr says of Iraqi: If he sang the love of God in verses of great beauty, it is because his soul had itself become a song of God, a melody in harmony with, and a strain of, the music issuing from the abode of the Beloved. +

    Born Abdullah Shah, Bulleh Shah belonged to the oral tradition and his poems are primarily in Punjabi as well as in Siraiki. Bulleh Shah's poetry is in the Kafi style, already established with the Sufis who preceded him, and extensively use the Rubbay (Quatrain) form. Several of his verses are an integral part of the traditional repertoire of Qawwali, the musical genre which represents the devotional music of the Sufis. Following the tradition of Sufi poetry, the poems in this collection refer to love of or for God, or the Mentor, or the desire for absorption in nature, described through symbolic references to local customs pertaining to weddings, funerals, journeys, and harvests

    Making spiritual ideals a reality in everyday life.

    

    In this book the author provides a translation of some of his works, including his spiritual autobiography. Al-Ghazali's description of his own emergence from scepticism anticipates the philosophical method of systematic doubt employed by Descartes. Another work translated here sets out Al-Ghazali's ideal of how a religious person should order his life from hour to hour and day to day.

    Focussing on Deoband, the most important Islamic seminary of the period, she discusses the ways in which the ulama enhanced a sense of cultural continuity in a period of alien rule. Deprived of a Muslim state, the leaders of Deoband sought to renew Islamic spiritual life by teaching early Islamic principles. To this end, they concerned themselves with popular behaviour and the education of both elite and non-elite Muslims through the spoken language, Urdu.

    Its full title may be rendered as "The Divine Favors of the Hidden Faculties of the Soul." This important document, by one of the more recent great Sufi exponents of the Islamic tradition, is regarded in both East and West as a fundamental text. Of importance to both scholars and devout students, Professor Jalbani's rendering, excellently presented by David Pendlebury, shows how the 18th-century mystic of Delhi discharges his task. In Waliullah's own words: "The purpose behind writing this discourse is that only those problems pertaining to perception and the mystical unveiling are mentioned."

    These stories and anecdotes from the life of the Prophet Muhammad and his Companions illustrate the Islamic teachings on loving your neighbor.

    

    He became known thereafter as the "Murdered Sheikh."  In addition to his monumental exposition, The Wisdom of Illumination, and other major works, he left a number of smaller treatises which form an important part of the Sufi heritage. Nine of these treatises, dealing with the initiation of the aspirant into the spiritual realm, are here presented in English, with an introduction by the translator, W. M.Thackston, Jr.

    is it not of importance that a woman of such stature and independence of mind existed so early in the story of Islam, to show what women could be, and how they could be regarded? Introduction by Doris Lessing

    

    

    . . . In Professor Rahman's view the intellectual and therefore the social development of Islam has been impeded and distorted by two interrelated errors. The first was committed by those who, in reading the Koran, failed to recognize the differences between general principles and specific responses to 'concrete and particular historical situations.' . . . This very rigidity gave rise to the second major error, that of the secularists. By teaching and interpreting the Koran in such a way as to admit of no change or development, the dogmatists had created a situation in which Muslim societies, faced with the imperative need to educate their people for life in the modern world, were forced to make a painful and self-defeating choice—either to abandon Koranic Islam, or to turn their backs on the modern world."—Bernard Lewis, New York Review of Books"In this work, Professor Fazlur Rahman presents a positively ambitious blueprint for the transformation of the intellectual tradition of Islam: theology, ethics, philosophy and jurisprudence. Over the voices advocating a return to Islam or the reestablishment of the Sharia, the guide for action, he astutely and soberly asks: What and which Islam? More importantly, how does one get to 'normative' Islam? The author counsels, and passionately demonstrates, that for Islam to be actually what Muslims claim it to be—comprehensive in scope and efficacious for every age and place—Muslim scholars and educationists must reevaluate their methodology and hermeneutics. In spelling out the necessary and sound methodology, he is at once courageous, serious and profound."—Wadi Z. Haddad, American-Arab Affairs