Wonderful introduction to the thought of the great Sufi poet.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #328990 in Books
• Published on: 1983-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 433 pages

Language Notes
Text: English, Persian (translation)

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Customer Reviews

A great and beautifully written book
I truly enjoyed reading this book. Mr. Chittic does an excellent job in explaining Sufi way of understanding Koran and Islam. The author has another fine and very readable book on the great sufi master Ibne Arabi " Sufi path of knowledge". I highly recommend this book. While reading the sufi path to knowledge, I made some interesting observations. Almost for every page of the book I could come up with a corresponding saying( Hadith) from the Shiie Imams from Shia hadith sources. This was interesting to me, since in many books there are discussions as to the background and sources of great masters such as Rumi and Arabi. By the time I was done reading the great book" sufi path to knowledge, I had related almost every theme of Ibne Arabi's discussion back to a saying from these earlier sources. My take of these great masters are that they unfolded these compressed teachings of Koran and Hadith from Prophet and Imams. Just as in science F=ma, tells us all that there is to know about the motion of bodies under the influence of gravity, these sayings also contain all there is to know about the Islamic understanding of God-Man-Universe. And just as it takes a great and experienced scientist to unfold the detail of F=ma, and land a person on the moon, it also takes a great master like Rumi and Arabi to unfold the teaching of these sources. I think to map Rumi and Arabi's teaching to these earlier sources would be very useful and enlightening and may answer many questions as to the background of the sufism. I don't think this mapping of ideas to its origin is a difficult task. I came up with some interesting results and yet all I had was a few shia hadith books and the books wirtten by Mr. Chittic.

A very well written translation
Apart from Nicholsons translation of the Mathnawi and the works of his students Iqbal (Life and works) and Arberry (who transltated the Fihi Ma Fihi as the 'Discorses of Rumi) All other so called 'translations' are pretty much worthless because 1. They are not translations at all but rather re-writes of Nicholson 2. They are just pandering to an ever growing market of supermarket spirituality. Chitticks translation however, is very different.

For a start, Chittick is a scholar in Persian and taught in Iran for several years and had first hand knowledge of not only the Persian Mathnawi but some of the major comentaries in Persian (which may explain why a previous reviewer found many parts of the book similar to Shia text he had read)

Chittick may be covering the same ground as Nicholson here but his translation is well put together not only applying modern English but also a knowledge of the original.

The book may not be of much use to everyone especially if you have already the Nicholson translation but if you are seeking a book that covers the fundamentals of the teachings of Rumi then there is no better place to start than this book.

Book of Intoxication and ecstacy
To be very precise this book is full of intoxication and ecstacy of GOD