Publisher description

Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History 4 (CMR 4) is a history of all the known works on Christian-Muslim relations in the period 1200-1350. It comprises introductory essays and detailed entries containing descriptions, assessments and compehensive bibliographical details of individual works.

Jalaloddin Rumi's Masnavi-ye Ma'navi, or 'Spiritual Couplets', composed in the 13th Century, is a monumental work of poetry in the Sufi tradition of Islamic mysticism. For centuries before his love poetry became a literary phenomenon in the West, Rumi's Masnavi had been revered in the Islamic world as its greatest mystical text. Drawing upon a vast array of characters, stories and fables, and deeply versed in spiritual teaching, it takes us on a profound and playful journey of discovery along the path of divine love, toward its ultimate goal of union with the source of all Truth. In Book Two of the Masnavi, the second of six volumes, we travel with Rumi toward an understanding of the deeper truth and reality, beyond the limits of the self. Alan Williams's authoritative new translation is rendered in highly readable blank verse and includes the original Persian text for reference. True to the spirit of Rumi's poem, this new translation establishes the Masnavi as one of the world's great literary achievements for a global readership. Translated with an introduction, notes and analysis by Alan Williams and including the Persian text edited by Mohammad Este'lami.

HEARKEN to the reed-flute, how it complains, Lamenting its banishment from its home: "Ever since they tore me from my osier bed, My plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears. I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs, And to express the pangs of my yearning for my home. He who abides far away from his home Is ever longing for the day he shall return. My wailing is heard in every throng, In concert with them that rejoice and them that weep. Each interprets my notes in harmony with his own feelings, But not one fathoms the secrets of my heart. My secrets are not alien from my plaintive notes, Yet they are not manifest to the sensual eye and ear. Body is not veiled from soul, neither soul from body, Yet no man hath ever seen a soul." This plaint of the flute is fire, not mere air. Let him who lacks this fire be accounted dead! 'Tis the fire of love that inspires the flute,l 'Tis the ferment of love that possesses the wine. The flute is the confidant of all unhappy lovers; Yea, its strains lay bare my inmost secrets. Who hath seen a poison and an antidote like the flute? Who hath seen a sympathetic consoler like the flute? The flute tells the tale of love's bloodstained path, It recounts the story of Majnun's love toils. None is privy to these feelings save one distracted, As ear inclines to the whispers of the tongue. Through grief my days are as labor and sorrow, My days move on, hand in hand with anguish. Yet,, though my days vanish thus, 'tis no matter, Do thou abide, O Incomparable Pure One! But all who are not fishes are soon tired of water; And they who lack daily bread find the day very long; So the "Raw" comprehend not the state of the "Ripe;" Therefore it behoves me to shorten my discourse. Arise, O son! burst thy bonds and be free! How long wilt thou be captive to silver and gold? Though thou pour the ocean into thy pitcher, It can hold no more than one day's store. The pitcher of the desire of the covetous never fills, The oyster-shell fills not with pearls till it is content; Only he whose garment is rent by the violence of love Is wholly pure from covetousness and sin. Hail to thee, then, O LOVE, sweet madness! Thou who healest all our infirmities! Who art the physician of our pride and self-conceit! Who art our Plato and our Galen! Love exalts our earthly bodies to heaven, And makes the very hills to dance with joy! O Iover, 'twas love that gave life to Mount Sinai, When "it quaked, and Moses fell down in a swoon." Did my Beloved only touch me with his lips, I too, like the flute, would burst out in melody. But he who is parted from them that speak his tongue, Though he possess a hundred voices, is perforce dumb. When the rose has faded and the garden is withered, The song of the nightingale is no longer to be heard.

Farid al-Din Attar (d. 1221) was the principal Muslim religious poet of the second half of the twelfth century. Best known for his masterpiece "Mantiq al-tayr", or "The Conference of Birds", his verse is still considered to be the finest example of Sufi love poetry in the Persian language after that of Rumi. Distinguished by their provocative and radical theology of love, many lines of Attar's epics and lyrics are cited independently of their poems as maxims in their own right. These pithy, paradoxical statements are still known by heart and sung by minstrels throughout Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and wherever Persian is spoken or understood, such as in the lands of the Indo-Pakistani Subcontinent. Designed to take its place alongside "The Ocean of the Soul", the classic study of Attar by Hellmut Ritter, this volume offers the most comprehensive survey of Attar's literary works to date, and situates his poetry and prose within the wider context of the Persian Sufi tradition. The essays in the volume are grouped in three sections, and feature contributions by sixteen scholars from North America, Europe and Iran, which illustrate, from a variety of critical prespectives, the full range of Attar's monumental achievement. They show how and why Attar's poetical work, as well as his mystical doctrines, came to wield such tremendous and formative influence over the whole of Persian Sufism.

In 1984, the Islamic Government of Pakistan ignored fundamental Islamic decorum by depriving Ahmadi Muslims many of their basic human rights including religious freedom. In an attempt to justify this action, the Government of Pakistan published a so-called White Paper under the title Qadiyaniyyat — Islam kay liyay Sangin Khatrah (Qadiyaniyyat—A Grave Threat to Islam). Although there was nothing new in this so-called White Paper—the objections in which had already been thoroughly refuted in Ahmadiyya Jama‘at literature—Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad Khalifatul-Masih IV((rh), the then Imam of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama‘at, replied to these allegations in a series of sermons. These sermons (in Urdu) were published by the London Mosque in 1985 and the English translation is now being published. Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad delivered this sermon on April 7, 1985 as the concluding speech of the Annual Conference of Jama‘at Ahmadiyya UK. It details the profound insight and conviction that the Promised Messiah(as) had in Khatm-e-Nubuwwat. By citing extensively from reputable sources throughout Islamic history, he demonstrates that the Ahmadiyya belief in Khatm-e-Nubuwwat is fully consistent with the consensus of the Companions(ra) of the Holy Prophet(sa) and the views held by respected Muslim scholars and authorities.

In Persian-speaking Sufi circles it is almost as famous as the Mathnawi itself. Surprisingly enough, it has never been published in the West. But now it is available to students of mysticism and the many lovers of Rumi's work.