World Wisdom Books

Understanding Islam

Frithjof Schuon

World Wisdom Books Paperback New Edition 204 pp. $14.95

Islam has been more misunderstood than any other religion. In this book, long regarded as a classic, Frithjof Schuon explains the basis of Islamic belief "from within." He takes as his point of departure the theme that Islam is "the meeting between God and Man" and expounds the Islamic view of life, the role of the Prophet and the Qur’an, and the nature of Sufism and the path of spiritual ascent. The author, described by T. S. Eliot as the most impressive writer in the field of comparative religion that he had encountered, studied Arabic and Arabic calligraphy and then explored for himself Islam and Buddhism in North Africa, India and Turkey. This new edition contains an introduction by Annemarie Schimmel, Harvard University.

CONTENTS

• Foreword
• Islam
• The Quran
• Remarks on the Sunna
• The Prophet
• The Path
  Index
  

"Islam is the meeting between God as such and man as such.... Islam confronts what is immutable in God with what is permanent in man."

These are the opening words of what has become a classic work on Islam, perhaps the most misunderstood of the great Revelations. And yet the purpose of this book "is not so much to give a description of Islam as to explain . . . why Moslems believe in it." Both Westerners unfamiliar with Islam and Moslems seeking a deeper understanding of the basis of faith will be struck by Schuon's masterful elucidation of the spiritual world of Islam.

Schuon's foundation is always the intrinsic nature of things rather than any confessional point of view. This perspective opens up new avenues of approach and surprising insights into the "five pillars" of faith, the Quran, the Sunna, the Prophet and the esoteric dimension which is the kernel of Moslem spirituality. A hallmark of the author's perspective is an intellectual universality, which in examining a given religious framework readily draws upon parallels and concepts from other traditions, especially that of the Vedanta. For "what is needed in our time, and indeed in every age remote from the origins of Revelation, is . . . to rediscover the truths written in an eternal script in the very substance of man's spirit."

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