The palace hall overflowed with devotees, silence falling as the sage disclosed how the cosmos speaks in symbols and ritual brims with meaning--so attest medieval accounts of the Fatimid Assemblies of Wisdom. At the height of the Shi'i century, the Fatimids taught that every act of worship and every facet of the universe is a cipher, beckoning seekers to the world beyond.
Islam's Spiritual Pillars explores this legacy--a legacy that ignited a golden age of creative thought and shaped Islamic intellectual history, inspiring luminaries from Ibn al-'Arabi and Ghazali to Mulla Sadra and the Hurufis.
Central to this study is the first complete, richly annotated English translation of
The Face of Religion by Nasir-i Khusraw, one of Islam's most brilliant minds. A thousand years on, his words still captivate: Persian speakers quote his poetic aphorisms, literary connoisseurs treasure his
Book of Travels, and seekers of wisdom draw inspiration from his quest to unite the divine and human sciences. In his eloquent masterpiece of Fatimid
ta'wil--"the science of deciphering"--he challenges the faithful to ponder Islam's pillars, from prayer to pilgrimage, declaring that "none are more ignorant than those who do something without knowing why." Complementing the translation, Shafique N. Virani provides an extensive lexicon of Fatimid terminology, an indispensable resource for scholars and students of Shi'ism, Islamic philosophy, and mysticism.
Islam's Spiritual Pillars is an odyssey--alive with a gripping narrative, penetrating insights, vivid anecdotes, and elegant translations of prose and verse. It invites lovers of world classics and seekers of wisdom to encounter voices from a millennium ago--voices that speak with startling relevance today.
