Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Notes

1. From the poem “Autumn” of M. Lings, one of the leading contemporary traditional writers who is also a poet, in his The Heralds and Other Poems, London, 1970, p. 26.

2. As one of the foremost of the contemporary traditional masters has asserted, the exposition of traditional doctrines in their totality is necessary today because “one irregularity deserves another.”

3. On the microcosmic level traditional eschatologies teach that at the moment of death the whole life of a human being is recapitulated in a nutshell before him. He is then judged accordingly and enters a posthumous state in accordance with his state of being and of course the Divine Mercy whose dimensions are imponderable. The same principle exists on the macrocosmic level and as it involves the life of humanity as such with of course all the differences which the shift from the individual to the collective level implies.

4. The earliest works of R. Guénon, one of the foremost expositors of the traditional perspective in the modern West, contain many passages on the meaning of tradition. See “What is Meant by Tradition,” in his Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines, trans. M. Pallis, London, 1945, pp. 87-89; and “De l’infaillibilité traditionnelle,” in id., Aperçus sur l’initiation, Paris, 1946, pp. 282-88. Likewise, A. K. Coomaraswamy and F. Schuon have written numerous pages and passages on the concept of tradition itself. See, for example, Coomaraswamy, The Bugbear of Literacy, esp. chaps. 4 and 5; and F.Schuon, Spiritual Perspectives and Human Farts, pt. 1; idem, Light on the Ancient Worlds, chaps. 1 and 2; idem, “Fatalité et progrès,” Etudes Traditionnelles, no. 261 (July-August 1947): 183-89; and idem, “L’Impossible convergence,” Etudes Traditionnelles, no. 402-3(September-October 1967): 145-49. See also E. Zolla, Ché cos’ è la tradizione?, esp. pt. 2, “La Tradizione Eterna,” which deals with tradition from a more literary point of view; and idem, “What is Tradition?,” in the volume dedicated to A. K. Coomaraswamy and edited by R.Fernando (in press). Tradition has also been used with a similar but more limited meaning than intended in this work by certain Catholic authors such as J.Pieper, Überlieferung-Begriff und Anspruch, Munich, 1970, while other Catholic figures to whom we shall turn later have embraced the traditional idea fully.

5. F. Schuon, Understanding Islam.

6. Sanatana dharmu cannot be translated exactly, although sophia perennis is perhaps the closest to it since sanatana means perennity (that is, perpetuity throughout a cycle of human existence and not eternity) and dharma, the principle of conservation of beings, each being having its own dharma to which it must conform and which is its law. But dharma also concerns a whole humanity in the sense of Manava-dharma and in that case is related to the sacred knowledge or Sophia which is at the heart of the law governing over a human cycle. In that sense sanatana dharma corresponds to sophia perennis esp. if the realized and not only the theoretical dimension of Sophia is taken into consideration. In its plenary meaning sanatana dharma is primordial tradition itself as it has subsisted and will continue to subsist throughout the present cycle of humanity. See R. Guénon, “Sanatana Dharma,” in his Études sur l’Hindouisme, Paris, 1968, pp. 105-6.

7. This is in fact the title of a well-known work by Ibn Miskawayh (Muskuyah) which contains metaphysical and ethical aphorisms and sayings by Islamic and pre-Islamic sages. See the A. Badawi edition al-Hikmat al-khalidah: Jawıdan khirad, Cairo, 1952. This work discusses the thought and writings of many sages and philosophers, including those from ancient Persia, India, and the Mediterranean world (Rum). On this work see the Introduction of M. Arkoun to T. M. Shushtarı’s Persian translation of Ibn Miskawayh, Javıdan khirad, Tehran, 1976, pp. 1-24.

8. The primordial tradition is none other than what Islam refers to as al-dın alh.anıf to which the Quran refers in many different contexts but usually in relation to the Prophet Abraham who is usually referred to as hanıf ; for example, “Nay but, (we follow) the religion of Abraham, the upright (h.anıfan), and he was not of the idolators” (II; 135-Pickthall translation). See also verses 111; 67 and 95-VI; 79 and 161-XVI; 120-and XVII; 31.

9. See M. Eliade, “The Quest for the ‘Origins of Religion’,” History of Religions 4/1 (Summer 1964): 154-69.

10. The well-known work of A. Huxley, Perennial Philosophy, New York, 1945, is one of the works which has sought to demonstrate the existence and to present the content of this enduring and perennial wisdom through selections of sayings drawn from various traditions, but the work remains incomplete in many ways and its perspective is not traditional. The first work which carried out in full the suggestion of Coomaraswamy in assembling a vast compendium of traditional knowledge in order to show the remarkable perennity and universality of wisdom is the sadly neglected work of W. N. Perry, A Treasury of TraditionalWisdom, London and New York, 1971, which is a key work for the understanding of what traditional authors mean by perennial philosophy.

11. After stating in this letter that truth is more extensive than has been thought before and that its trace is found among the ancients he says, “et ce serait en effect perennis quaedam Philosophia.” C. J. Gerhardt (ed.), Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, Berlin, 1875-90, vol. 3, p. 625. Quoted also in C. Schmitt, “Perennial Philosophy: Steuco to Leibniz,” Journal of the History of Ideas 27 (1966): 506. This article (pp. 505-32 of the cited volume) traces the history of the usage of the term philosophia perennis with special attention paid to its Renaissance background in Ficino and other early Renaissance figures. See also J. Collins, “The Problem of a Perennial Philosophy,” in his Three Paths in Philosophy, Chicago, 1962, pp. 255-79.

12. The identification of the “perennial philosophy” with Thomism or Scholasticism in general is a twentieth-century phenomenon, while in the Renaissance the Scholastics in general opposed the theses of Steuco.

13. Specifically heir to Zoroaster, Hermes, Orpheus, Aglaophemus (the teacher of Pythagoras), and Pythagoras.

14. This term is found among both Islamic philosophers like al-Farabı and certain Sufis.

15. On the views of Ficino see the various works of R. Klibansky, E. Cassirer, and P. O. Kristeller on the Renaissance, esp. Kristeller’s Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters, Rome, 1956; and idem, Il pensiero filosofico di Marsilio Ficino, Florence, 1953.

16. This fact is shown dearly by Schmitt in his already cited article which demonstrates that although the term philosophia perennis is of Renaissance origin, the idea even in Western intellectual life is of a medieval and ultimately ancient Greek origin.

17. Referring to religio perennis Schuon writes, “These words recall the philosophia perennis of Steuchus Eugubin (sixteenth century) and of the neo-scholastics; but the word ‘philosophia’ suggests rightly or wrongly a mental elaboration rather than wisdom, and therefore does not convey exactly the intended sense.” Light on the Ancient Worlds, p. 143.

18. “‘Philosophia perennis’ is generally understood as referring to that metaphysical truth which has no beginning, and which remains the same in all expressions of wisdom. Perhaps it would here be better or more prudent to speak of a ‘Sophia perennis’.. .

“With Sophia perennis, it is a question of the following: there are truths innate in the human Spirit, which nevertheless in a sense lie buried in the depth of the ‘Heart’-in the pure Intellect-and are accessible only to the one who is spiritually contemplative; and these are the fundamental metaphysical truths. Access to them is possessed by the ‘gnostic’, ‘pneumatic’ or ‘theosopher’,-in the original and not the sectarian meaning of these terms,-and access to them was also possessed by the ‘philosophers’ in the real and still innocent sense of the word: for example, Pythagoras, Plato and to a large extent also Aristotle.” Schuon, “Sophia perennis”: Studies in Comparative Religion, trans. W. Stoddart, (in press). See also Schuon, Wissende, Verschwiegene. Ein geweihte Hinführung zur Esoterik, Herderbücherei Initiative 42, Munich, 1981, pp. 23-28; and idem, the introduction and first chapter, “Prémisses epistémologiques,” in his Sur les traces de la religion pérenne (in press).

19. We have dealt with this theme in many of our writings. See, for example, our An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, pp. 37ff.

20. Falsafah and hikmah can be translated as both philosophy and theosophy depending on how these terms are understood in English and in what context the Arabic terms are employed.

21. On the figure of Hermes in Islamic thought see L. Massignon, “Inventaire de la littérature hermétique arabe,” in A. Nock and A. J. Festugière, La Révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste, 1, Paris, 1949, app. 3; S. H. Nasr, “Hermes and Hermetic Writings in the IslamicWorld,” in Islamic Life and Thought, London, 1981, pp.102ff; F. Sezgin,

Geschichte der Arabischen Schrifttums, Leiden, 1970 on, with references to Hermes on many different pages, for example, vol. 3, 1970, pp.170-71, vol. 4, 1971, pp. 139-269; and the article “Hirmis“by M. Plesser in the New Encyclopaedia of Islam.

22. The emphasis upon pre-Islamic Persia as well as Greece as the home of the “perennial philosophy” is also found in Ibn Miskawayh and Abu’l Hasan al-‘ Amirı although not to the same extent as Suhrawardı who considered himself the resurrector of the wisdom of the ancient Persians. See Nasr, Three Muslim Sages, chap. 2; and H. Corbin, En Islam iranien, vol. 2.

23. Suhrawardı also refers to this wisdom as al-h. ikmat al-‘atıqah (the ancient wisdom) which is exactly the same as the Latin philosophia priscorum. Whether there is a historical link or simply the repetition of the same truth and even terminology in twelfth-century Persia and Renaissance Italy cannot be answered until more study is made of the dissemination of the teachings of Suhrawardı CHAPTER 2. WHAT IS TRADITION? 81 in the West. See S. H. Nasr, “The Spread of the Illuminationist School of Suhrawardı,” in La Persia nel Medioevo, Rome, 1971, pp. 255-65.

24. Sayyid Haydar Âmolî, Le texte des textes (Nas.s. al-Nos.ûs.), commentaire des “Fos.ûs.al-h. ikam” d’Ibn Arabî. Les prolégomènes, ed. by H. Corbin and O. Yahya, Tehran-Paris, 1975, §865. The author has provided elaborate diagrams which are like man.d.alas based on the vision of the intelligible world containing the names of various spiritual and intellectual figures, both Islamic and pre-Islamic. These diagrams have been analyzed by Corbin in his, “La paradoxe du monothéisme,” Eranos-Jahrbuch, 1976, pp. 77ff. Concerning the “extraordinary interest” of these diagrams depicting the sages in the spiritual firmament Corbin writes, “[Cet intérêt] est dans la correspondance instituée pour les deux diagrammes 21 et 22 entre la totalité mohammadienne groupé autour de la famille ou du temple des Imams immaculés (Ahl al-bayt) et la totalité des religions groupés autour des hommes dont la nature foncière originelle a été preservée (fit.ra salîma). La fitra salîma, c’est la nature humaine, l’Imago Dei, telle qu’elle est ‘sortie des mains’ du Créateur, sans avoir jamais été détruite.” Ibid., pp. 98-99.

25. The masterpiece of Sadr al-Dın Shırazı, al-H. ikmat al-muta‘aliyah fi‘l-asfar alarba‘ ah, is not only a summa of Islamic philosophy and theosophy but also a major source for the history of Islamic thought as well as the pre-Islamic ideas which Muslim philosophers and theologians encountered. In almost every discussion Mulla S.adra turns to ancient philosophies as well as Islamic ones and takes the point of view of the philosophia perennis for granted. The same point of view is to be seen in his other works such as H.uduth al-‘alam. See S. H.Nasr, S.adr al-Dın Shırazı and His Transcendent Theosophy, London, 1978; and idem, “Mulla Sadra as a Source for the History of Muslim Philosophy,” Islamic Studies 3/3 (Sept. 1964): 309-14.

26. “Religio is that which ‘binds’ (religat) man to Heaven and engages his whole being; as for the word ‘traditio’, it is related to a more outward and sometimes fragmentary reality, besides suggesting a retrospective outlook. At its birth a religion ‘binds’ men to Heaven from the moment of its first revelation, but it does not become a ‘tradition’, or admit more than one ‘tradition’, till two or three generations later.” Schuon, Light on the Ancient Worlds, p. 144.

27. The multiplicity of religious forms in the light of unitary and sacred knowledge shall be dealt with in chap. 9 of this work.

28. The book of R. Guénon, Le Roi du monde, Paris, 1927, has itself given rise to many such speculations by people of such tendencies.

29. Strictly speaking, only that which comes from the Origin can be original. That is precisely how the traditional perspective views originality in contrast to the antitraditional view for which originality is divorced from both the truth and sacred presence and therefore from all that comprises religion or tradition as such.

30. This distinction is so fundamental that even those sophists who try to disprove the reality of the real nevertheless live and act upon the basis of the intuition of the distinction between the real and the unreal.

31. It is this idea of the sacred as wholly other that was developed by R. Otto in his well-known work The Idea of the Holy, trans. J. Harvey, New York, 1958, pp. 12ff., and which has attracted so much attention among scholars of religion during recent decades.

32. For example, all sacred art is traditional art but not all traditional art is sacred art. The latter comprises that aspect of traditional art which deals directly with the symbols, images, rites, and objects dealing with the religion which lies at the heart of the tradition in question. We shall treat this question more fully in chap. 8 dealing with sacred art.

33. On these dimensions in Islam see S. H. Nasr, Ideals and Realities of Islam; as for exoterism and esoterism in general see F. Schuon, The Transcendent Unity of Religions, trans. P. Townsend, New York, 1975, chaps. 2 and 3.

34. “We have put forward the view that the process of dogmatic enunciation during the first centuries was one of successive Initiation, or in a word, that there existed an exoterism and an esoterism in the Christian religion. Historians may not like it, but one finds incontestable traces of the lex arcani at the origin of our religion.” P. Vuillaud, Études d’ésotérisme catholiaue, quoted in Schuon, Transcendent Unity, p. 142.

35. It is often forgotten that a ´Sankara who was the supreme jnîani in Hinduism composed hymns to ´Siva and that a Hafiz. or Rumı who spoke constantly of casting aside forms (s.urah) in favor of the essence (ma‘na-literally “meaning”) never missed their daily prayers. They transcended formfrom above not below and were therefore the first to recognize the necessity of exoteric forms for the preservation of the equilibrium of a human collectivity.

36. See S. H. Nasr, “Between the Rim and the Axis,” in Islam and the Plight of Modern Man, London, 1976, chap. 1.

37. On the meaning of esoterism see F. Schuon, Esoterism as Principle and as Way, trans. byWilliam Stoddart, London, 1981, Introduction; and L. Benoist, L’Esotérisme, Paris, 1963.

38. “. . Orthodoxy is the principle of formal homogeneity proper to any authentically spiritual perspective; it is therefore an indispensible aspect of all genuine intellectuality.” Schuon, Stations of Wisdom, trans. G. E. H. Palmer, London, 1961.

39. It is of much interest that the term orthodoxy is not found in Oriental languages and even in Arabic dominated by Islam which bears so many resemblances to Christianity. When one studies the Christian tradition, however, one realizes how essential this term is to describe various aspects of Islam itself and how misleading it is when orientalists call, let us say, Shı‘ism and Sufism unorthodox whereas they both belong to the totality of Islamic orthodoxy, and also orthopraxy. See Nasr, Ideals and Realities of Islam, chaps. 5 and 6.

40. In Sunni Islam the ummah itself is the protector of the purity and continuity of the tradition; hence the principle of ijma‘ or consensus which has been interpreted as the consensus of the religious scholars (‘ulama’) as well as the community as a whole. In Shı‘ite Islam the function of preserving the tradition is performed by the Imam himself. See ‘Allamah Tabat.aba’ı, Shı’ite Islam, trans. S. H. Nasr, London and Albany (N. Y.), 1975, pp. 173ff.

41. In Judaism and Islam the law is an integral part of the religion and derives directly from the revelation. It is therefore traditional by definition. But even in Christianity which did not reveal a law, the law which was adopted by the Christian civilization of the Middle Ages from Roman and common law was still traditional, although because of the less direct relation of this law to the source of the Christian revelation, it became easier to reject the social aspects of Christian civilization at the time of the revolt against the Christian tradition than would have been possible in Islam or Judaism.

42. See R. Guénon, Autorité spirituelk et pouvoir temporel, Paris, 1929; A. K. Coomaraswamy, Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power in the Indian Theory of Government, New Haven, 1942; S. H. Nasr, “Spiritual and Temporal Authority in Islam,” in Islamic Studies, Beirut, 1967, pp. 6-13.

43. There are several notable works on tradition in its social aspect in European languages such as G. Eaton, The King of the Castle: Choke and Responsibility in the Modern World, London, 1977; M. Pallis, “The Active Life,” in his The Way and the Mountain, London, 1960, pp. 36-61; A. K. Coomaraswamy, The Religious Basis of the Forms of Indian Society, New York, 1946; R. Guénon, Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines, Pt. 3, chaps. 5 and 6; and F. Schuon, Castes and Race, trans. Marco Pallis and Macleod Matheson, London, 1981.

44. For a discussion of these intellectual perspectives in Islam see Nasr, Islamic Life and Thought.

45. In later centuries “theosophy” associated with Boehme and his school in a sense replaced the earlier metaphysics of the Christian sages. The term “theosophy,” although of Greek origin, did not become common in Christian intellectual life until the Renaissance.

46. “Il est impossible de nier que les plus illustres soufis, tout en étant ‘gnostiques’ par définition, furent en même temps un peu théologiens et un peu philosophes, ou que les grands theologiens furent à la fois un peu philosophes et un peu gnostiques, ce dernier mot devenant s’entendu dans son sense propre et non sectaire.” Schuon, Le Soufisme, voile et quintessence, Paris, 1980, p. 105.

47. There is some difference in the way philosophy has been criticized by the traditional authors, the criticism of Schuon being more graded and shaded than that of Guénon who in order to clear the ground for the presentation of traditional doctrines opposed philosophy categorically (except for Hermeticism) identifying all philosophy with profane thought. See Guénon, Introduction, pt. 2, chap. 8. Schuon’s more positive appreciation of philosophy in which he distinguishes between traditional philosophy and modern rationalism is found in many of his later writings esp. “Sur les traces de la notion de la philosophic,” in his Le Soufisme, pp. 97-107.

48. See A. K. Coomaraswamy, “On the Pertinence of Philosophy,” in Contemporary Indian Philosophy, ed. S. Radhakrishnan, London, 1936, pp. 113-44; as far as the Islamic tradition is concerned see S. H. Nasr, “The Meaning and Role of ‘Philosophy’ in Islam,” Studia Islamica 36 (1973): 57-80.

49. On the meaning of theosophy see “Theosophie” by A. Faivre, in Encyclopedia universalis.

50. “When we sound the archetype, the ultimate origin of the form, then we find that it is anchored in the highest, not the lowest.. . He who marvels that a formal symbol can remain alive not only for millennia, but that, as we shall yet learn, can spring to life again after an interval of thousands of years, should remind himself that the power from the spiritual world, which forms one part of the symbol, is everlasting.” From W. Andrae, Die Ionische Säule; Bauform oder Symbol?, Berlin, 1933, pp. 65-66, quoted in A. K. Coomaraswamy, The Vedas: Essays in Translation and Exegesis, London, 1976, p. 146.

51. On this question see Guénon, The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of Times, trans. Lord Northbourne, Baltimore, 1973.

52. If half a century ago one had to read T. S. Eliot to become aware of the pathetic character of the spiritual condition of modern man, today there are numerous students of human society who have become aware that there is something deeply wrong with the premises upon which modernism is based and who have sought to study modern society from this point of view. See, for example, the well-known works of P. Berger such as The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness, New York, 1973; and those of I. Illich, Celebration of Awareness, New York, 1970; idem, Energy and Equity, London, 1974; idem, Tools for Conviviality, New York, 1973; and idem, Tradition and Revolution, New York, 1971.

There are numerous other criticisms of technology, science, the social order, etc., by other well-known figures such as L. Mumford, J. Ellul, and Th. Roszak. Roszak has in fact recorded many of these criticisms of various aspects of the modern world in his Where the Wasteland Ends, The Unfinished Animal, and Person/Planet, New York, 1980.

Despite the appearance of such works, however, it is amazing that those proponents of modernism who dominate a world which prides itself on being critical are so much lacking in a critical spirit when it comes to the examination of those premises and suppositions upon which the modernistic world view is based. “The past, out of which the tradition comes, is relativized [by the modernist relativizers] in terms of this or that socio-historical analysis. The present, however, remains strangely immune from relativization. In other words, the New Testament writers are seen as afflicted with a false consciousness rooted in their times, but the contemporary analyst takes the consciousness of his time as an unmixed intellectual blessing. The electricity-and radio-users are placed intellectually above the Apostle Paul.” P. Berger, A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural, New York, 1969, p. 51.

53. On traditional criticisms of the modern world see R. Guénon, The Crisis of the Modern World, trans. M. Pallis and R. Nicholson, London, 1975; and A. K. Coomaraswamy, “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?” in his The Bugbear of Literacy.

54. Referring to his encounter with traditional authors, J.Needleman writes, “These were out for the kill. For them, the study of spiritual traditions was a sword with which to destroy the illusions of contemporary man.” Needleman (ed.), The Sword of Gnosis, Baltimore, 1974, p. 9.

55. “When we look at human bodies, what we normally notice is their surface features, which of course differ markedly. Meanwhile on the inside the spines that support these motley physiognomies are structurally very much alike. It is the same with human outlooks. Outwardly they differ, but inwardly it is as if an ‘invisible geometry’ has everywhere been working to shape them to a single Truth. “The sole notable exception is ourselves: our contemporary Western outlook differs in its very soul from what might otherwise be called ‘the human unanimity’. . If we succeed in correcting it [the misreading of modern science] we can rejoin the human race.” H. Smith, Forgotten Truth, New York, 1976, pp. ix-x.

56. The well-known “Light Verse” is as follows: “Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass. The glass is as it were a shining star. (This lamp is) kindled from a blessed tree, an olive neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself) though no fire touched it. Light upon light, Allah guideth unto His light whom He will. And Allah speaketh to mankind in allegories, for Allah is Knower of all things.” Quran XXIV; 35-Pickthall translation.

Goethe who read the Quran when he was twenty-three years old wrote (in his Aus dem Nachlass):

So der Westen wie der Osten

Gehen Reines die zu kosten

Lass die Grillen, lass die Schale

Seize dich zum grossen Mahle.

57. You’ve managed to get to a note that doesn’t exist.

58. As pointed out already the spread of modernism into the geographical Orient has destroyed to some extent the traditional civilizations of various parts of that world, but this does not mean that the sapiential dimension of the Oriental traditions in both their doctrinal and operative aspects which are of special concern to this study have been destroyed.