555)Recommended Reading Lists On Various Subjects From The Institute Of Ismaili Studies, London, UK; Quotes From Blogpost Four Hundred.

"THE FIRST IS THE CENTRALITY of quality education as an element in the Islamic tradition. It is appropriate that I highlight this matter today, for Bangladesh is the first Muslim country in which we have laid a new Academy foundation stone...........World and faith are inseparable in Islam. Faith and learning are also profoundly interconnected. The Holy Qur’an sees the discovery of knowledge as a spiritual responsibility, enabling us to better understand and more ably serve God’s creation. Our traditional teachings remind us of our individual obligation to seek knowledge unto the ends of the earth - and of our social obligation to honor and nurture the full potential of every human life...........The beauty of Creation is a function of its variety. A fully homogenized world would be far less attractive and interesting."(Aga Khan IV, May 2oth 2008, Dhaka, Bangladesh)

"....AND SHOULD'NT IB SCIENCE STUDENTS not learn about Ibn al-Haytham, the Muslim scholar who developed modern optics, as well as his predecessors Euclid and Ptolemy, whose ideas he challenged.....The legacy which I am describing actually goes back more than a thousand years, to the time when our forefathers, the Fatimid Imam-Caliphs of Egypt, founded Al-Azhar University and the Academy of Knowledge in Cairo. For many centuries, a commitment to learning was a central element in far-flung Islamic cultures. That commitment has continued in my own Imamat through the founding of the Aga Khan University and the University of Central Asia and through the recent establishment of a new Aga Khan Academies Program."(Aga Khan IV, "The Peterson Lecture" on the International Baccalaureate, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 18 April 2008)

"The second great historical lesson to be learnt is that the Muslim world has always been wide open to every aspect of human existence. The sciences, society, art, the oceans, the environment and the cosmos have all contributed to the great moments in the history of Muslim civilisations. The Qur’an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God’s creation"(Closing Address by His Highness Aga Khan IV at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, Paris, France, October 17th 2007)

“Parts of the Ummah are concerned about the relationship between Muslims and the contemporary knowledge society, which is now principally rooted in the West. It is my deepest conviction, my deepest conviction, that we must make that knowledge society our own, in keeping with the Alid tradition towards the intellect, but always doing so within the ethics of our faith. Thus, I have sought from my Jamat your Nazrana of time and knowledge.”(Aga Khan IV, Paris, France, July 11th 2007)

http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html



These reading lists are always useful for those who wish to delve into various subjects more deeply:


Reading List: Muslim Contributions to Science

Burnett, C. Scientific Weather Forecasting in the Middle Ages: The Writings of Al-Kindi. London, 2000

Burnett, C., Hogendijk, J. P., Plofker, K., and Yano, M. (eds.), Studies in the History of the Exact Sciences in Honour of David Pingree. Leiden: Brill, 2004

Dallal, A. An Islamic Response to Greek Astronomy. Leiden: Brill, 1995

Dhanani, A. The Physical Theory of Kalam: Atoms, Space and Void in Basrian Mu’tazili Cosmology. Leiden: Brill, 1994

Freudenthal, G. Science in Medieval Hebrew and Arabic Traditions. Aldershot: Variorum, 2005

Hogendijk, J. P. Ibn al-Haytham's Completion of the Conics. New York - Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1985

Langermann, Y. T. Ibn al-Haytham's On the Configuration of the World. New York, 1990

Morrison, R. G. Islam and Science: The Intellectual Career of Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi. London – New York: Routledge, 2007

Nasr, S. H. An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1993

Ragep, J. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi’s Memoir on Astronomy, 2 vols. - Sources in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. New York - Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1993

Rashed, R. Les Mathématiques infinitésimales du IXe au XIe siècle, 5 vols. London: al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 1993-2006

Rashed, R. The Development of Arabic Mathematics: Between Arithmetic and Algebra - Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 156. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994.

Rashed, R. and Morelon, R. (eds.), Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, 3 vols. London-New York: Routledge, 1996, rep. 2000

Rashed, R. Omar Khayyam the Mathematician. New York: Bibliotheca Persica Press, 2000.

Rashed, R. Geometry and Dioptrics in Classical Islam. London: al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2005

Sabra, A. I. (ed. trans.). The Optics of Ibn al-Haytham, 2 vols. London: Warburg Institute, 1989

Sabra, A. I. Optics, Astronomy and Logic: Studies in Arabic Science and Philosophy. Aldershot: Variorum, 1994

Sabra, A.I., and Hogendijk, J. P. (eds.), The enterprise of Science in Islam: New Perspectives. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003

Saliba, G. Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2007

Saliba, G. A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories During the Golden Age of Islam. New York: New York University Press, 1994

Savage-Smith, E. and Edson, E. Medieval Views of the Cosmos. Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2004

Savage-Smith, E. and Pormann, P. Medieval Islamic Medicine. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007

Sezgin, F. (ed.). Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, 12 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1967-2000

Syed, M. H. Islam and Science. New Delhi: Anmol Publications PVT. Ltd., 2005

Turner, H. R. Science in Medieval Islam. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995



Reading List: Intellectual Traditions in Islam


a) Islamic Philosophy and Theology

Ess, Josef van. The Flowering of Muslim Theology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Mutahhari, Murtada. Understanding Islamic Sciences, Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism. London: Islamic College for Advanced Studies Publications, 2002.

Nasr, Sayyid Hussein. Knowledge and the Sacred. New York: State University of New York Press, 1989.

____ . Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present. New York: State University of New York Press, 2006.

____ and Oliver Leaman. History of Islamic Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2001.

____ . An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. New York: State University of New York, 1993.

____ . Classification of Knowledge in Islam: A Study in Islamic Philosophy of Science. Oxford: Islamic Texts Society, 1999.

____ . Three Muslim Sages. Oxford: Caravan Books, 1964. Izutsu, Toshihiko. The Concept and Reality of Existence. Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, 1971.


b) Islamic Philosophy

Adamson, P. and R. C. Taylor, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

____ . Al-Kindi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Belo, C. Chance and Determinism in Avicenna and Averroes. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

de Callataÿ, G. Ikhwan al-Safa’: A Brotherhood of Idealists on the Fringe of Orthodox Islam. Oxford: Oneworld, 2005.

Druart, T.-A. Arabic Philosophy, East and West: Continuity and Interaction. Washington DC: Center for Contemporary Arabic Studies, 1988.

El-Bizri, Nader. The Phenomenological Quest between Avicenna and Heidegger. Binghamton, New York: Global Publications, SUNY at Binghamton, 2000.

Goodman, L. E. Islamic Humanism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

____ . Avicenna. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006.

Gutas, D. Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works. Leiden: Brill, 1988.

____ . Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1998; repr. 2002.

____ , ed. Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism in Medieval Islam. Aldershot: Variorum, 2005.

Kemal, S. The Philosophical Poetics of Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes: The Aristotelian Reception. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.

Khalidi, M. A., ed. Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Khalidi, T. Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Kennedy-Day, Kiki. Books on Definition in Islamic Philosophy. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.

Mahdi, M. Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Marmura, M. Probing in Islamic Philosophy: Studies in the Philosophies of Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali and Other Major Muslim Thinkers. Binghamton, New York: Global Publications, SUNY at Binghamton, 2005.

McGinnis, J. and Reisman, D. C., ed. Interpreting Avicenna: Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

Montgomery, J. E., ed. Arabic Theology, Arabic Philosophy from the Many to the One: Essays in Celebration of Richard M. Frank. Leuven: Peeters, 2006.

Moosa, Ebrahim. Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005.

Nasr, S. H. and O. Leaman, ed. History of Islamic Philosophy. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.

Netton, I. R. Allah Transcendent: Studies in the Structure and Semiotics of Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Cosmology. Richmond: Curzon Press, 1989; repr. 1994.

____ . Muslim Neoplatonists. An Introduction to the Thought of the Brethren of Purity. London and New York: Routledge, 2002.

Reisman, D. C. Making the Avicennan Tradition: The Transmission, Contexts, and Structures of Ibn Sina’s al-Mubahathat. The Discussions. Leiden: Brill, 2002.

Shehadi, F. Philosophies of Music in Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill, 1995.

Stone, G. B. Dante’s Pluralism and the Islamic Philosophy of Religion. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

van Ess, J. The Flowering of Muslim Theology, tr. J. M. Todd. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Wisnovsky, R. Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003.
Yazdi, M. H. The Principles of Epistemology in Islamic Philosophy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992.


c) Mysticism and the Esoteric Tradition

Abun-Nasr, Jamil M. Muslim Communities of Grace: The Sufi Brotherhoods in Islamic Religious Life. London: C. Hurst, 2007.

Addas, Claude and David Streight. Ibn ‘Arabi: The Voyage of No Return. Islamic Texts Society, 2000.

Afifi, Abu al-‘Ala. The Mystical Philosophy of Ibn Arabi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939.

Amuli, Sayyid Haydar. Inner Secrets of the Path, tr. from Arabic by Asadullah al-Dhaakir Yate. Zahra publications, 1989.

Arberry, Arthur J. The Doctrine of the Sufis: Kitab al-Ta’arruf li-madhab ahl al-tasawwuf, translated from the Arabic of Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935.

____. The Book of Truthfulness. Kitab al-sidq, by Abu Sa’id al-Kharraz, ed. and tr. from the Istanbul unicum. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937.

____. The Mawaqif and Mukhatabat of Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd‘l-Jabbar al-Niffari. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979.

____, tr. Muslim Saints and Mystics: Episodes from the ‘Tadhkirat al-Auliya’ (Memorial of the Saints) by Farid al-Din Attar.

Baldic, Julian. Mystical Islam: An Introduction to Sufism, London: I.B.Tauris, 1989.

Chittick, William. Sufism: A Beginner’s Guide. One World Publications, 2007.

Corbin, Henry and Ralph Manheim. Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi. Bollingen Series, 1998.

____ . Temple and Contemplation, tr. Philip Sherard. London: Kegan Paul, 1986.

____. The Man Of Light In Iranian Sufism. Omega Publications, 1994.

Ernst, Carl W. Teachings of Sufism. Boston MA: Shambala, 1999.

Ernst, Carl W. The Shambhala Guide to Sufism. Boston: Shambhala, 1997.

Fakhry, Majid. A Short Introduction to Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism. Oneworld Publications, 1977.

Ibn Arabi, Muhiyddin. Meccan Revelations, tr. Cyrille Chodkiewicz, Denis Gril and David Streight, ed. Michel Chodkiewicz.

Izutsu, Toshihiko. Creation and the Timeless Order: Essays in Islamic Mystical Philosophy. White Cloud Press, 1994.

Knysh, Alexander D. Islamic Mysticism: A Short History. Leiden: Brill, 2000.

Meier, Fritz. Essays on Islamic Piety and Mysticism, tr. John O’Kane, ed. Bernd Radtke. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

Morewedge, Parviz. Essays in Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Mysticism. Global Scholarly Publications, 2003.

Nasr, Sayyid Hossein. Living Sufism. Mandala Publishers, 1980.

____. The Pilgrimage of Life and the Wisdom of Rumi. Foundation for Traditional Studies, 2007.

Nicholson, R. A. Studies in Islamic Mysticism. London: Routledge, 2001.

____. ‘Kitab al-Luma’ fi al-tasawwuf’ by Abu Nas al-Sarraj, with critical notes and abstracts. Kessinger Publishing, 2007.

Papan-Matin, Firoozeh and Michael Fishbein. The Unveiling of Secrets. Kashf Al-Asrar: The Visionary Autobiography of Ruzbihan al-Baqli, 1128-1209 AD. Leiden: Brill, 2005.

al-Qushayri, Abu’l-Qasim. Epistle on Sufism: al-Risala al­qushayriyya fi ‘ilm al-tasawwuf, tr. Alexander Knysh and Mohammad Isa. Great Books of Islamic Civilization. Reading: Garnet Publishing Limited, 2007.

Radtke, Bernd and John O’Kane. The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism: Two Works by al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi. London: Routledge, 1996.

Ritter, Hellmut and John O’Kane: The Ocean of the Soul: Men, the World and God in the Stories of Farid Al-Din ‘Attar. Handbook of Oriental Studies: Section 1, the Near and Middle East. 2003.

Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimension of Islam, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1975.

Sells, Michael A. Early Islamic Mysticism. Classics of Western Spirituality, Paulist Press, 1995.

al-Sulami, al-Hussayn. The Way of Sufi Chivalry, tr. Toscun Bayrak al-Jerrahi. Inner Traditions, 1991.


For these and other lists see under August 2009:

Reading lists on the Approaches to the Study of Islam , General Works on Islam and Muslims , History , Modern Period , Shi'i Islam , Intellectual Traditions in Islam , Qur'an and its Interpretation , Law in Muslim Context , Muslim Rituals and Practices , Arts and Architecture in the Muslim World , Muslim Contributions to Science and Civil Society in a Muslim Context .

http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=109162&l=en



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http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html

In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)