The Legacy of Henry Corbin: The Vision of Islam

"...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.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The Vision of Islam

Anyone looking for a clear, concise, reliable and accessible introduction to the spirituality of Islam from an avowed Sufi perspective can probably do no better than Murata & Chittick's The Vision of Islam. They developed this text for their introductory course in Islam at SUNY Stony Brook. I recommend it highly. (Available in different editions)

Photo: The speakers at the November 2009 New York symposium "Islam, Sufism and the Heart of Compassion": Sachiko Murata, William Chittick, Stephen Hirtenstein, Salman Bashier, Mohamed Haj Yousef.