The Legacy of Henry Corbin

"...the Imagination (or love, or sympathy, or any other sentiment) induces knowledge, and knowledge of an 'object' which is proper to it..."

Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was a scholar, philosopher and theologian. He was a champion of the transformative power of the Imagination and of the transcendent reality of the individual in a world threatened by totalitarianisms of all kinds. One of the 20th century’s most prolific scholars of Islamic mysticism, Corbin was Professor of Islam & Islamic Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the University of Teheran. He was a major figure at the Eranos Conferences in Switzerland. He introduced the concept of the mundus imaginalis into contemporary thought. His work has provided a foundation for archetypal psychology as developed by James Hillman and influenced countless poets and artists worldwide. But Corbin’s central project was to provide a framework for understanding the unity of the religions of the Book: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. His great work Alone with the Alone: Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi is a classic initiatory text of visionary spirituality that transcends the tragic divisions among the three great monotheisms. Corbin’s life was devoted to the struggle to free the religious imagination from fundamentalisms of every kind. His work marks a watershed in our understanding of the religions of the West and makes a profound contribution to the study of the place of the imagination in human life.

Friday, July 30, 2010

IV International Congress on Islamic Feminism

Gender Jihad for Islam’s future

Madrid, 22, 23 and 24 October 2010

The Fourth International Congress on Islamic Feminism will be focused on the analysis of the current status of this movement and its future prospects. Once launched the debate and main arguments, there remains the daunting task of making them known and achieve the greatest possible number of accessions. It is necessary to locate the main resistance to IF, both among non-Muslims and Muslims, and think ways to face them. What has the real potential to change the IF real situation of Muslim women in those contexts in which are discriminated? How to deal with the claims of authority (authoritarianism) of conservative religious structures?
• Related topics: Millennium Goals UN; Alliance of Civilizations; Islamic feminism in Europe; cultural diversity, secularism and human rights; Qur’anic hermeneutics; spirituality and feminism.
• The spiritual dimension. One of the main focus of the fourth edition will be exploring the relationships between spirituality, Sufism and feminism in Islam.

Details at the website here.

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