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Category:
Sufism
Rumi Poems
£12.00
It is often said that Rumi (aka Jalal al-Din, 1207-73) is now the most popular poet in the United States. This conquest of the new world by a middle-eastern medieval writer who died before Chaucer was even born has been achieved with extraordinary speed in less than thirty years.The main key to Rumi's success is the spiritual appeal of his work. It combines lyrical beauty with philosophical profundity, a sense of rapture and an acute awareness of human suffering in ways which speak directly to contemporary audiences.
Like the metaphysical poets, Donne, Vaughan and Herbert, Rumi yokes together everyday images with complex ideas. He talks about divine love in vivid human terms. As a religious teacher of the Dervish order, he expounds the mystical doctrines of Sufism which focus on the notion of union with the Beloved to whom many of the poems are addressed.
Persian poetry of this period is not easy to translate. In order to give the greatest possible access to a wonderful poet this selection draws on avariety of translations from the early 20th century to the present, ranging from scholarly renderings to free interpretations.
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The Sun of Knowledge (Shams al Ma'arif) by al-Buni
£39.99
The Sun of Knowledge (Shams al-Ma‘arif) is one of the most revered historical grimoires of the Arabic corpus. Feared by some, hallowed by others, it is one of the most famous – or infamous – books in the Arabic-speaking and Islamicate world. Written in Egypt in the thirteenth century by a Sufi mystic and mage of Algerian origin, the Shams presents the fundamentals of Arabic-Islamic occult work – from spiritual cosmology and astrology (including various particularly lunar magics) to working with spirits and jinn, magical employment of letters and numbers, and the occult applications of the Qur’an – thereby comprising a veritable encyclopedia of Islamicate magical wisdom and formulae. Images and descriptions of amulets and talismans adorn it. Numerous beautiful manuscripts of the Sun of Knowledge have survived, various of which have been used as a basis for this present work.
Never before published in English, this selected translation includes sections of the Sun of Knowledge on the mysteries of the letters, astrological timings, lunar mansions, the ancient Arab beliefs surrounding the stars, planetary matters, astronomy, the angels for and workings pertaining to the four seasons, summoning the jinn, the employment of the names of God for many and varied purposes, the construction of the famed ring of Solomon, and a miscellany of tried-and-true talismans. This selected translation takes a general approach to a much vaster text, and features illustrations, original artwork, and commentary to assist those unfamiliar with Islamic magic and culture. This edition is also ideal for any student of magic or the occult, classical Arabic astrology and astronomy, Islamic esotericism, or Sufism.
De Radiis by Al-Kindi
out of stock - £38.99
2nd hardback edition.
Abū Yaʿqūb ibn Ishāq al-Kindī (c.800-870CE) De Radiis (On The Stellar Rays) proposes that all things emit rays that operate on all other things, producing an interplay of causes and effects from the stars down to material objects. The rays pouring down from the celestial harmony of the stars, constellations, and planets, he thought, accounted for the efficacy of astrology. Living beings, likewise, were the source and destination of rays, and humans out of all creatures were a “small world” or microcosm unto themselves, and therefore humans are able to cause things (whether themselves or others) to move and change. Sound “rays”, emitted through speech, song, and music could effect magical change by the same principle.
De Radiis provides a concise, comprehensive physical and magical theory using the philosophy of the Greeks, which Al-Kindi had a hand in translating into Arabic at the start of the Islamic Golden Age. This edition of De Radiis comes from a back translation into Latin from a lost Arabic original. Together with practical manuals of Arab magic, such as Picatrix, the theoretical treatise De Radiis had a profound impact on the Western esoteric tradition during the ensuing thousand years.
This new translation, by Scott Gosnell, translator of The Collected Works of Giordano Bruno and writer on the history and future of science and magic, rendered into clear, fresh language; it is an essential part of any complete esoteric library.
The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn Al-'Arabi's Cosmology by William C. Chittick
out of stock - £35.00
The Self-Disclosure of God continues the author's investigations of the world view of Ibn al-'Arabi, the greatest theoretician of Sufism and the "seal of the Muhammadan saints. The book is divided into three parts, dealing with the relation between God and the cosmos, the structure of the cosmos, and the nature of the human soul. A long introduction orients the reader and discusses a few of the difficulties faced by Ibn al-'Arabi's interpreters. Like Chittick's earlier work, The Sufi Path of Knowledge, this book is based primarily on Ibn al-'Arabi's monumental work, al-Futuhat al-makkiyya "The Meccan Openings. More than one hundred chapters and subsections are translated, not to mention shorter passages that help put the longer discussions in context. There are detailed indexes of sources, Koranic verses, and hadiths. The book's index of technical terminology will be an indispensable reference for all those wishing to delve more deeply into the use of language in Islamic thought in general and Sufism in particular.
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