Sacred Web 44
Editorial:
Political Correctness and Pluralism
By M. Ali Lakhani
‘Political correctness’ has become a much-used weapon in today’s ‘culture wars’, pitting conservatives against liberals – those who find in it the tribalizing excesses of identity politics and those who are critical of ‘establishment’ values and the pressure to conform. This Editorial examines the metaphysical roots of ‘identity’ and how the tensions between them can be reconciled through a deeper sense of human belonging linked to the cosmopolitan ethic of pluralism. Read more...
Sufism, Scripture and Scholarship:
From Graham to Guénon and Beyond
By Atif Khalil and Shiraz Sheikh
The article presents a brief historical overview of the academic study of Sufism in Western scholarship over the course of more than a century and a half, with a particular focus on conceptualizations of the relation between Sufism and the Quran. In the process, it highlights how nineteenth century European theories of race and religion, set against the background of medieval prejudice, played an instrumental role in preventing scholars from appreciating the scriptural foundations of Islamic mysticism, or, expressed differently, the unity of the sharia and the tariqa. The article ends with a comparative analysis of the anti-Orientalism of René Guénon and Edward Said. Read more...
The Heart and Meaning of Prayer in the Quran
By Siham Karami
A closer examination of prayer from the perspective of the Quran as Divine revelation, whose architectural details reveal how Islamic canonical prayer is literally “built” into the heart of the Quran. This study also reveals new insights, such as how the very letters of Allah’s Name profoundly express His nature as both Almighty and All-Merciful, and a graphic vision of how invoking His Name can be an essential transformative act of worship. Read more...
The Neoplatonic Eschatology of al-Fārābī and al-ʻĀmirī:
A Comparative Exploration with Reference to al-Madīna al-Fāḍila and Kitāb al-Amad wa ’l-Abad
By Ian Richard Netton
This essay analyses the journey of the soul in the Phaedo of Plato, al-Madīna al-Fāḍila of al-Fārābī and Kitāb al-Amad of al-ʽĀmirī. Plato and Plotinus stand behind al-Fārābī and al-ʻĀmirī but the thought of the latter two Arab thinkers by no means duplicates their predecessors. The two Arab philosophers exhibit a divergent view of the soul after the death of the body. In the theology of al-Fārābī the souls of the wicked will be annihilated. Al-ʻĀmirī in total contrast espouses the idea of a purified resurrected body. Read more...
Madness and Its Enigmatic Origins
By Samuel Bendeck Sotillos
The epidemic of mental illness has become a global crisis. According to the WHO, some 450 million people around the world are currently suffering from mental illness, and 1 in 4 will at some point in their lifetime suffer from a mental health issue. In an era that prizes empirically verifiable evidence-based treatments, it is puzzling that much of what constitutes psychopathology and its psychogenesis or etiology remains a mystery. Madness remains elusive for modern science. This essay focuses on examining modernistic and traditional notions of psychosis or extreme states of mind in order to better understand ‘madness’. Read more...
The Fish and the Flood
By Nigel Jackson
Explaining the image of the Fish (which, as the Matsya Avatara, is depicted on the cover of this volume of Sacred Web), the artist and metaphysician, Nigel Jackson, describes its sacred symbolism of salvific preservation in relation to the symbolism of the destroying and cleansing Flood. Read more...
Book Reviews
Psychology without Spirit: The Freudian Quandary
by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos
Reviewed by Charles Upton
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Louis Massignon au Levant: Écrits politiques (1907-1955)
by Gérard D. Khoury
Reviewed by Brian Welter
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Dante: Convivio: A Dual-Language Critical Edition,
Edited and Translated by Andrew Frisardi
Reviewed by M. Ali Lakhani
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Poetry
Three Poems by Brian Keeble
Adam’s Fall
Ex Nihilo
Of Logos as Inspiration
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Two Poems by Jerome Klotz
Have you Seen the Face of Beauty?
Ode to Wisdom
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Two Poems by M. Ali Lakhani
The Crushed Flower
The Gathering
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