Islamic Life and Thought by Seyyed Hossein NasrReview by: Annemarie SchimmelJournal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 103, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1983), pp. 809-810Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/602277 .

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BRIEF REVIEWS

Ibn al-'Arzf Mahdsin al-Majalis: The attractions of mystical sessions. Trans. by WILLIAM ELLIOT and ADNAN K. ABDALLA. Pp. 121, English trans. on facing pages, and photoreproduction of Arabic MS. Amersham. Bucks (U.K.): AVERBURY PUBLISHING Co. 1980.

This booklet contains a facsimile of the Berlin MS of Ibn al-'Arff's Mahasin al-majdlis, to which Asin Palacios drew the attention of scholars in 1931. The introduction is derived mainly from Asin's article, and sums up the radical theology of the mystical thinker of Almeria, who was the teacher of Ibn QasyT, whose mystical work Ibn Khaldtin attacked sharp- ly. In Ibn al-'Arif's short work, the religious experience that man can in reality do nothing since everything belongs to God, is expressed for the first time in its radical form; it was to continue in the Shadhiliyya and reached its climax in the letters of Ibn 'Abbad of Ronda.

It is not clear why the translators chose the Berlin text, dated 1454, since an Escorial MS of 1349 is available; two MSS in Alexandria are mentioned in passing. The translation is far from correct, and the beauty of the very dense, often rhyming sentences is lost. In fact, no stylistic problems are mentioned in the introduction, nor are there notes to explain the terminology or give cross references, not to mention a bibliography of relevant texts. One would accept the transla- tion of sidrat al-muntaha as "the highest goal" if it were annotated, but when the sentence auqafanT al-haqq baina yadaihi is translated as "Truth made me stop between the hands of God," or a few lines later where BAyezid Bistamli's complete submission to God li-annT and al-murad wa al- murzd anta appears as "because it is I who want, and you are what is wanted," one decides that one has to wait for a more reliable edition and translation of this important text.

ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Asad b. Masa: Kitab az-zuhd. New edition by RAIF GEORGES

KHOURY. Pp. 124, illustration. Wiesbaden: OTTO HARRAS-

SOWITZ. 1976.

This is a new edition of a text of very early hadlth. Its Berlin manuscript, at that time thought to be unique, was used in 1909 by R. Leszyinski for his dissertation "Moham- medanische Traditionen uber das lingste Gericht." Only recently, Khoury discovered a second manuscript of this

important text in the ZAhiriyya in Damascus; it is particular- ly valuable because of the great number of samd' notes which help to clarify the history of its transmission. In an extensive introduction, Khoury discusses the problems of the text, which constitutes one of the earliest hadlth collections, and then offers a careful edition of the Arabic text. The photographs of the Zahiriyya pages show that the manuscript was by no means easy to decipher. This new contribution to the early history of hadlth which contains i.a. a chapter on the Prophet's shafica, will be welcomed by all those who work in early Islamic religious history.

ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Islamic Life and Thought. By SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR. Pp. 232. Albany: STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS. 1981. $33.50, cloth; $10.95, paper.

This is a collection of articles concerning the various aspects of Islam as it unfolds itself in time and space. We agree with the author that Islam consists not only of Koran and hadlth but has developed, like a mighty tree, in every field of human experience, art, philosophy, science, etc. The central chapter, "Typological Study of Islamic Culture" is an excellent introduction into the manifold manifestations of Islam from West Africa to East Asia and should be studied by everyone interested in Islamic culture. In the first two chapters, Dr. Nasr fiercely attacks secularism as denying the eternal truth behind the changing manifestations, and tries to show that the sharl a is the eternal order which cannot be made subservient to the needs of changing times. Since the author himself is a historian of science, a number of interest- ing contributions-more for the specialist-deal with aspects of Islamic science; Islamic philosophy appears not in the sense used in most studies of this subject, as something imported from Greece and ending with Ibn Rushd; rather, it is, for Dr. Nasr, a "prophetic philosophy" which continues in the Iranian world and reaches its culmination, in a certain way, the works of Molla Sadra of Shiraz, who brought about "a harmonisation between philosophy, gnosis, and revelation." Two brief contributions deal with Sufism, "the interior life of Islam," and the last part of the book is devoted to some questions which are usually put to Muslim scholars, such as the role of women in Islam; his definition of the true "man" as comprising male and female manifesta-

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810 Journal of the American Oriental Society 103.4 (1983)

tions, is the same as that of classical Sufism, where mard, "man" is "the ideal human being," whether man or woman. Like all books by S. H. Nasr, this one reads well and will be useful for laymen and, in its scientific parts, also for spe- cialists.

ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Intellectual Modernism of Shibli Nucmani: An Exposition of His Religious and Political Ideas. By MEHR AFROZ

MURAD. Pp. xxxii + 135. Lahore: INSTITUTE OF ISLAMIC

CULTURE. 1976. Cloth, Rs. 15.

This revised M.A. thesis for McGill University is a remark- able piece of work. The author tries to give an account of the development of the religious thought of one of the great figures in Indo-Muslim revivalism, ShiblT NucmanT (d. 1914), who is mainly known as the author of important biographical works, among them the voluminous STrat an-nabT, and the Shicr al-'ajam. Although professor in Aligarh for a long time, Shibli is considered to have disagreed with Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's liberalism. Mrs. Murad shows, however, that Shibli was much more modern-minded than one usually thinks, and although his biographers, such as Sayyid Sulai- man Nadwi, make him "almost a saint," he was very open to modern ideas. However, in contrast to Sir Sayyid, he "had not lost his transcendental touch" and tended to the "mystical rationalism of the Sufis" (whatever that may be). This well- written book reveals many facets of Shibli's thought and makes one feel that his influence on Iqbal's ideas may have been greater than one usually thinks; Iqbal certainly was influenced by Shibli's Sawanih-i Mauland RamT. One hopes that Mrs. Murad will continue her critical but sympathetic and penetrating study of the leading personalities of Indo- Muslim modernism.

ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans: From the six- teenth to the nineteenth century. Trans. by R. G. RAVERTY. Pp. xxxii + 348. Calcutta, New Delhi: K. P. BAGCHI & COMPANY. Repr. 1981. Cloth, Rs. 75.

Raverty's translations of Pashto poetry appeared first in 1861 and have been loved ever since by those who are interested in the literature of Afghanistan and the North- western Frontier. Like many other Britishers, Raverty (1825-

1906) served in the British-Indian army and soon became an expert on Pashto; he published the first grammar of this language in 1855. It does not detract from its value as the first attempt in this field that the grammar, like some of Raverty's other works, was attacked by the German mis- sionary scholar Ernest Trumpp in various articles and in his own "Grammar of the Pashto Language." Raverty himself was also possessed, as the present editor states in his brief introduction, with "a trenchant pen."

The selections offered in this book are very useful. In an introduction to Sufi doctrines-as far as they were known in the mid-19th century-Raverty i.a. stresses the importance of the Koranic citation, Sura 7/171, alastu bi-rabbikum for Sufi poetry. (The word alast in Persian texts had puzzled even the leading European orientalist Silvestre de Sacy some years earlier, as is evident from his correspondence with the Austrian Islamicist Hammer-Purgstall.) Raverty devotes the first chapter to 'Abdur Rahman (we need not imitate his strange transliteration), better known as Rahmdn BAbd, the famous Chishti Sufi who is buried near Peshawar and whose verse belongs to the most beautiful examples of the "psalm- like" style of poetry which is so typical of the Pathans and sharply contrasts with the mellifluous, "pantheistic" poetic utterances of the Sufis in the plains of the Indus and its tributaries. Poem Nr. XXXVI, "In the name of that deity of mine . . ." expresses the Islamic feeling of awe and adoration most impressively. The more "mystical" poetry is represented by Mirza Khan Ansarf, a descendant of the founder of the Raushaniyya sect, Bayezid AnsarT (d. 1585), who had used Pashto for the first time in his writings as a literary language. Understandably, the greatest number of poems is written by Khushhal Khan Khattak (d. 1689), the true "father of Pashto poetry" (some of his 49 sons also wrote verse!). His colorful life as warrior, tribal leader, mystic, great lover, hunter, etc., is reflected in his large poetical output. His son 'Abdul Qadir uses more persianate forms. The noted warrior king Ahmad Shah DurranT is likewise represented in the anthology, as is 'Abdul Hamid.

In the past few decades, several new translations of Pashto poetry have appeared in English, such as the versions by Sir Olaf Caroe and Evelyn Howell and by N. Mackenzie of Khushhal's selected poems, as well as Enevoldsen's versified translation of parts of Rahman Baba's verse (published by Herning, Denmark). Nevertheless, Raverty's translations have a special charm to them, and I personally prefer them in their stately simplicity to the later versions. We are happy that the book has been reprinted.

ANNEMARIE SCHIMMEL

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

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