When light displays its beauty,
it gracefully steals away the lover's heart.
As it disappears it lingers, but it will not last.
-- Shah Nimatullah Wali

By Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh
Translated by Terry Graham,
with the collaboration of Neil and Sima Johnston
ISBN 0-933546-53-X

• Inspirations, Revelations
• Lights, Charismatic Powers
• States and Stations
• Praise and Condemnation

The Sufis have introduces a vast number of terms into the lexicon of Islamic mysticism to describe their own interiorized vision and experience of the spiritual path to the Divine Being. Many of these terms concern exclusively nonrational levels of being and the manifestation of supranatural phenomenon. Although such terms are by no means the exclusive focus of the Sufi mystical experience, such terminology is important enough to merit a separate study, which is the purpose of the present volume.
The various hierarchical gradations of mystical states (ahwal) and spiritual stations (maqamat) experienced by the Sufis, as well as terms and poetic imagery relating to the idea of the ‘power of breath’ and the concept of the ‘Eternal Now’ (waqt) in the experience of ‘time’ constitute two large chapters (I, III) of the present work. Chapter II presents a comprehensive treasury of Sufi terminology relating to miracles, charismatic powers, and the ‘words of ecstasy’ (shathiyat) generated by the experience of the intervention of the supranatural into normative spiritual life. The final chapter provides a glossary of terms summarizing the Sufi conception of immanence and transcendence, and the Sufis' understanding of the meaning of ‘Praise’, ‘Thanksgiving’, ‘Eulogy’, and ‘Condemnation’.

Available in: | English | Farsi