Seyyed Hossein Nasr is an extraordinary scholar and thinker, the like of whom appears once in many generations. He has always been an educator, yet he has addressed in a powerful and systematic way a much broader audience than his students, teaching not only issues of religious and spiritual nature, but also the relationship between religion and science, the spiritual crisis of modern man, the environmental crisis, fallacies of modernism and fundamentalism and other political issues. No other scholar, Muslim or non-Muslim, has done so much to revive the intellectual dimensions of traditional civilizations, including Islam.

No other contemporary teacher's writings have been translated into so many different languages, nor have they found as many readers as Nasr's works have, in countries as diverse as Malaysia, Turkey, Australia, and Indonesia, in addition to European countries and the United States. In this book three generations of Professor Nasr's students have come together to pay tribute to a teacher who has been recognized as 'one of the major intellects of our time'. The diversity in age and background of these students, in a sense, reflects Dr. Nasr's profound impact on the international intellectual community that expands far beyond the boundaries of the Muslim world.

Book Review

BEACON OF KNOWLEDGE: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR. edited by Mohammad H. Faghfoory. With a Preface by Huston Smith. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2003. Pp. 638. ISBN 188775260 (PB).

Seyyed Hossein Nasr is one of the world's leading scholars on the Islamic sciences and spirituality. He has had a distinguished career in home country Iran as well as in the United States. He has written over fifty books and five hundred articles and many of them have been translated into several major Asian and European languages. He is a highly respected personality both in the Islamic world and the West. In this regard, Beacon of Light is a well-deserved festschrift ?†based on the papers presented at a conference in celebration of Nasr's life and works by three generations of his and by other leading academics.

The essays are arranged in ten broad subject areas that cover various aspects of Nasr's academic and personal interests from philosophy, science, spirituality and Sufism to history, politics, art and poetry. Altogether there are some thirty-five contributions of varied length and depth. Some are by eminent scholars liek David Cain, Luce Lopez-Baralt, Muhiaddin Mehsbahi, Jane I. Smith and John O. Voll, and others are by Nasr's former doctoral students. The book is edited by a former student, Mohammad H. Faghfoory, who was Professor of History at the University of Tehran and who is now attached to the George Washington University.

Some essays re just tributes to a great teacher. Others are personal relfections and memories of the time sent with Nasr. However, there are scholarly contributions on the topics about which Nasr has written, which merit due attention.

One such piece is John Voll's "Changing Western Approaches to Islamic Studies and Syyed Hossein Nasr's vision" in which he discusses the study of Islam in the West over the centuries and mentions that "one significant dimension of the scholarship involved in the development of the "Western canon" is the absence of the direct participation of Muslim scholars" (p. 77). as a result, what Western scholars based their study upon were primarily written texts. In contrast to this, when Muslims spread out of Arabia to Syria, Iraq and Egypt they acquired first-hand knowledge of local, social, cultural and religious norms and beliefs. Books published on comparative religions durin gthe ten and eleventh centuries bear testimony to the depth of knowledge acquired by Muslim scholars.

In voll's assessment, the real transformation of the Western study on Islam only happened during "the second half of the twentieth century" (p. 76). The great advance was made in area studies "as a methodological approach for the study of human society" (p. 79). But the limitation of such an approach was that Islam was identified with a particular area, the Middle East, despite the fact that Muslims live from Far East to North Africa. The coverage of Islam was primarily included in programmes of Middle Eastern studies (pp. 79 - 80).

In this context, Nasr's works assume significant importance. He was critical of these develpments and his critiques have resulted in significant changes in contemporary schlarship. Nasr asserted that religious faith is a primary and not a derivative factor in human life. During the 1960s, Nasr engaged in debates about the most effective ways to understand Islam and religion. While he worked actively to defend Islam "against the attacks of Orientalists" (p. 82), he also criticized the apologetic and moderneist approach to Islam adopted by some Muslims. At the same time he recognized that the 'ulama had little understanding of the modern world and were thus not capable of metting the challegen of Western modernity. For that he siad we need "a true intelligentsia at once traditional and fully conversant with the modern world" (p. 88).

The Islamic Revolution of 1979 transformed the study of Islam and led to the study of "Islamic resurgence," giving currency to the term "Islamic fundamentlism". In this era Nasr and other scholars like him concentrated upon portraying a realistic corrective of the mainstream of Muslim life.

Aonther noteworthy essay by Oliver Leaman deals with Islamic art and science in Nasr's thougt, which is an important dimension of his intellectual activity. His books Science and Civiliaztion and Three Muslim Sages present the whole of the Islamic intellectual tradition from within. His three volume Annotated Bibliography of Islamic Science with English and Persian annotations, which he compiled with the assistance of William Chittick is a monumental piece of scholarship. Leaman points out that Nasr suggested that "the symbol of Islamic civilization is not a flowing river, but the cube of Ka'bah, the stability of which symbolizes the permanent and immutable character of Islam" (p. 305). The Ka'bah also represents the oneness of Allah (tawhid). The arts and sciences in Islam are based on this fundamental concept, which is the heart of revelation. The sacred art of Islam is thus not pictorial but abstract. The use of regualr geometrical figures interlaced with one another is aesthetically most pleasing as it leaves so much to the imagination. Nasr believes that religion and spirituality are indeed important parts of cultural life; therefore it is quite appropriate that "Islamic art has to be different from non-Islamic art and Islamic science distinct from non-Islamic science" (p.315).

Jane Smith's "Seeyed Hossein Nasr and the Muslim-Christian Encounter" is insightful and fascinating. She describes Nasr as an ardent advocate of inter-faith dialogue who participated in the intellectual probing of Muslim-science and theology, who was also well grounded in Christian history and faith, Nasr was in a good position to talk together with other scholarly participants on an equal footing.

Smith singles out two important contributions by Nasr in this field. One is his paper at a 1990 conferenc on "Christian-Muslim Encounter", held at Hartford Seminary and the other is an aritcle in the Muslim World entitled "Islamic-Christian Dialogue: Problems and Obstacles to be Pondered and Overcome". Both demonstate the depth of his knowledge and commitment. There are divergent views among Muslims and christians as to whether or not it is appropriate for da'wah and evangelization to be part of the converstaion. Nasr believes that 'Da'wah / evangelism cannot but be an important and even positive part of the dialogue" (p. 409). However, He maintains that Western evangelist making use of all the power of Western civilization in pursuit of their missionary activities is detrimental to cordial relations. He asks:

How would devout Christians feel if Islam carried out missionary activity not from the position of worldly weakenss...but from the position of incomparable economic strength? How would they react if Muslims invited Christians to dialogue while promising anyone who emabraced Islam free oil for their cars, free hospital care, and access to an educational system that would guarantee them high positions in their countries, whose governments were so much under the influence ofIslamic world that they could not stop such types of aggressive missionary activity. (p. 410)

In Nasr's view until these realities are recognized and discussed by the Christians in the West then dialogue will remain at a very superficial level.

-Abdur Rashid Siddiqui

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