Nurullah KOLTAŞ THE POSSIBILITY OF TRAVERSING THE IMAGINAL KNOWLEDGE-REMARKS OF MUHAMMAD B. ABD AL-JABBĀR AL-NIFFARĪ ON VISION (RU'YAH) AND ABSENCE (GHAYBAH (original) (raw)

Kernel of the kernel: concerning the wayfaring and spiritual journey of the people of intellect: a Sh'̄ ̄approach to Sufism:(Risāla-yi Lubb al-lubāb dar sayr wa …

2003

Attraction to the invisible world is in man's primordial nature 2. The Straight Path means a combination of exoterism and esoterism 3. The Holy Qur‹ān calls for purification along with intellection 4. Mullā Ó Sadrā's recommendation for humility of the heart and acquiring intellectual sciences 5. The chain of gnostics during the last hundred years 6. Reasons and motivations for compilation of this treatise       ⁄  7. The human being in the darkness of materialism 8. Wayfaring and spiritual journey according to the gnostics 9. Difficulties in passing through the intermediate world and the realm of multiplicity of the soul vii 10. The spiritual traveler entering the realm of spirit 11. The goal of the traveler is companionship with God and His Image 12. Murāqabah, its stages, and effects 13. The meaning of wine (mey) according to gnostics 14. The traveler observes his own soul 15. The traveler observes Divine Names and Attributes 16. Immersion in the Divine Essence of the Lord and subsistence in the Worshiped 17. The station of being present in the world of multiplicity while simultaneously witnessing and experiencing the realms of Divine Lordship 18. Reasons why not everyone can reach the station of human perfection 19. The inability of words to describe the realities of the lights of catharsis and the Realms of Divine Lordship 20. The world of sincerity (khulūÓ s) and its hierarchy 21. Peculiarities and manifestations of sincerity of essence (khulūÓ s-i dhātī) 22. Freedom from the world of multiplicity is one of the first and most essential necessities of spiritual journey 23. One's detachment from one's essence 24. The need for Divine Grace for total victory in the struggle against the carnal soul 25. The necessity of observing all religious duties throughout spiritual journey 26. Observing religious duties by the Perfect Man is by virtue of perfection, and not for finding proximity to God 27. Brief description of the realms preceding the realm of sincerity (khulūÓ s) according to Qur‹ān viii Contents           K H U LŪÓ S ⁄  28. The Greater Islām (Islām-i Akbar) 29. The Greater Faith (Īmān-i Akbar) 30. The Greater Migration (Hijrat-i Kubrā) 31. The Greater Spiritual Struggle (Jihād-i Akbar) 32. The Greatest Submission (Islām-i a⁄aÔ zam) 33. The Greatest Faith (Īmān-i a⁄aÔ zam) 34. The Greatest Migration (Hijrāt-i ⁄uÔ zmā) and the Greatest Spiritual Struggle (Jihād-i a⁄aÔ zam) 35. Choosing to Die 36. Explanation: Special privileges granted to Muslim spiritual travelers over travelers of of previous religions 37. The Station of Righteousness (Ò SulūÓ h) 38. Different kinds of righteousness (Ò SalāÓ h)              ⁄  39. The necessity to seek reason to prove the truth of religion 40. The effects of lamentation and pleading to God with humility to find faith in the World of Meaning 41. Conversation between the prophet Ò HaÓ drat-i Idrīs with ⁄Allāmah Ò TabāÓ tabā‹ī in a dream 42. God will guide those who search guidance from Him with sincerity and purity of heart Contents ix 43. Knowledge and action complement each other 44. The necessity of having bodily organs share the joy of faith 45. The absence of sadness and fear for the selfless traveler 46. Wayfaring in the Angelical Kingdom is not in contradiction with being in this world 47. Prayers and supplications of the Shī⁄ite Imāms were not merely for guiding and teaching purposes

Kernel of the Kernel: Concerning the Wayfaring and Spiritual Journey of the People of Intellect (Risala-yi Lubb al-Lubab dar Sayr wa Suluk-i Ulu'l Albab) A Shi'i Approach to Sufism

2003

Imagination - Sufism

In his book Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, Corbin gives a detailed account of both the function and the ontological significance of the faculty of Imagination vis à vis theophanic revelation. The Imagination is here conceived as an organ which is essential for mystical knowledge, and Ibn Arabi even goes so far as to regard it as the very matter of Divine epiphany. This paper’s aim shall thus be twofold ; the first shall be to give a detailed account of Ibn Arabi’s treatment of the concept of Creation — and in a second movement, I shall try to ascertain the manner in which Creation correlates with Imagination in his theosophy.

Reflections Of A Sufi

Reflections of a Sufi, 2018

The fifty-two chapters (not counting five appendices) that make up the main body of this book encompass lectures, articles, and letters/e-mails written over a period of about eleven years (from about 1998 through 2009). The material covers a variety of thematic topics both within Islam, in general, as well as in relation to its mystical dimension of tasawwuf - known in the West as 'the Sufi path' or 'sufism' - in particular. Taken collectively, the chapters and appendices provide a very good introduction to both the Sufi path and Islam.

"Attention, Consciousness, and Self-Cultivation in Sufi-Philosophical Thought." Journal of the Institute for Sufi Studies 2, 2 (2023): 300-316.

The topic of attention and consciousness has been a constant subject of debate for scholars of various disciplines from neuroscience to Sufism. Islamic philosophical ideas concerning selfhood, consciousness, and attention, similar to those of other comparable traditions, have a direct bearing on a person's ethical and spiritual formation. This is because our freedom to engage in moral decision-making is contingent upon the fact that we are conscious beings having a self. However, it is based on the knowledge of the true nature of the self that we hope to attain happiness, fulfilment in life, and better relations with others. Drawing on theories and practices of attention and consciousness in Islamic philosophy and Sufism, this paper argues that attention is not an isolated mental phenomenon, and hence it must be understood in light of the basic structure of consciousness. Moreover, it is shown that consciousness (in its most primitive form) is the defining feature of human subjectivity, without which it would be impossible to account for any mental events. The study then deals with Sufi meditative practices and the transformation of consciousness by showing how meditation trains our attention, redirecting it toward subtle forms of awareness that are laden with tranquility and inner peace.

Seeing is Believing: Sufi Vision and the Formation of the Ethical Subject

Mysticism and Ethics in Islam B. Orfali, M. Rustom, A. Khalil eds

Islamic poetics has long recognized that the eyes do more than passively relay to the mind the images that fall upon them. This paper argues that pre-modern Sufism employed a widened sense of aesthetics and ‘beauty’, which entail dimensions of embodiment and the discipline of that body, all aiming at transforming the self. Sufism emphasized the cultivation of personal virtue, rather than transactional reward and punishment, all of which is reflected in Sufism’s deep and systematic reflection upon visual practice.

Interiority unbound: Sufi and modern articulations of the self. 'Culture and Religion' Special issue 18, 2017

This issue investigates the ways in which the Sufi repertoire of heuristic categories of intellectual and spiritual maturation (e.g. batin, spiritual growth, intuitional knowledge and inner awareness) may converge, intersect, and also diverge from modern epistemologies of the inner self. In doing so, the contributions touch upon two questions in particular. On the one hand, they discuss the relation between selfhood and the transcendent, describing not only how the self is built but also how it is somehow unbuilt in the relationship with the divine: rather than defined through its ‘inner’ boundaries, the self is seen as emerging continuously on the background of a wider horizon of existence, that is, the transcendent dimension of life. On the other hand, the authors highlight the overlaps between notions belonging to the Islamic tradition and modern discourses on interiority, tracing out the specific social and micro-political issues that lie behind this entanglement through key experiential notions such as dhawq, love, imagination, dreams and visions. In such a way, the papers tell about the strive of translating transcendence into new forms of sociality which may subvert, substitute or be alternative to institutionalised, established mundane and also religious forms of interaction and inter-subjectivity.

Falsafah and Tasawwuf in the Islamicate Civilization: Ghazali and Suhrawardi on the epistemological value of mystical experience

This thesis analyzes Abū H̩āmid Muh̩ammad b. Muh̩ammad b. Muh̩ammad al-Ghazālī (1058-1111) and Abū al-Futūh̩ Yah̩yā b. H̩abash b. Amīrāk al-Suhrawardī’s (1154-1191) ideas about the acquisition of knowledge through mystical practice and experience. Their practice of tas̩awwuf and their intellectual approach to it will be compared to their relation to philosophy, in the sense of the falsafah tradition of the Islamicate world, and how their being related to both traditions (falsafah and tas̩awwuf) informed their mysticism. Particular attention will be given to their ontology and epistemology. The main works that will be taken in consideration are Ghazālī’s Mishkāt al-Anwār, Kitāb Sharh̩ ʽAjāʼib al-Qalb and al-Munqidh min al-D̩alāl and Suhrawardī’s Kitāb H̩ikmat al-Ishrāq, Kalimat al-Tas̩awwuf and al-Alwāh̩ al-ʽImādiyyah. Finally, their mystical experiences and epistemology will be compared to three approaches to the study of mysticism (Traditionalism, the Unity Thesis and Constructionism) to see whether these approaches are suitable to the study of these authors. I argue that both Ghazālī and Suhrawardī consider the way of mysticism as superior to the way of reason in seeking the truth, even though they both value reason and do not reject it. Rather, the best way of seeking the truth is by joining mysticism and reason. I also argue that none of the three approaches to the study of mysticism mentioned (Traditionalism, Unity Thesis and Constructionism) suits our authors, so new approaches are needed.

Kernel of the kernel : concerning the wayfaring and spiritual journey of the people of intellect : Risāla-yi Lubb al-lubāb dar sayr wa sulūk-i ulu'l-albāb [sic]

2003

Nurullah KOLTAŞ THE POSSIBILITY OF TRAVERSING THE IMAGINAL KNOWLEDGE-REMARKS OF MUHAMMAD B. ABD AL-JABBĀR AL-NIFFARĪ ON VISION (RU'YAH) AND ABSENCE (GHAYBAH (original) (raw)

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