Customer Reviews

Christianity/Islam: Essays on Esoteric Ecumenicism (The Library of Traditional Wisdom)

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Frithjof Schuon was perhaps the most prominent metaphysician of the twentieth century. He wrote extensively on the inner significance of religion, and religions, from Christianity to Lakota spirituality, but it is probably fair to say that he had more to say about Islam than any other system of belief. This book is a collection of essays, grouped into three sections - "Christianity", "Intermediary Problems", and "Islam".

In a sense the most interesting ones are the ones on Christianity, since Schuon seldom deals with the Christian perspective on its own, without relevance to other religions. The essays there deal with various things, such as the use of liturgical languages, Francis of Assisi, and the Evangelical (i.e., Lutheran) tradition.

The essays on Islam are a bit more obscure to the general reader, and require some familiarity with early Islamic history and the divergences between Sunni and Shiite doctrine. Indeed, the essay entitled "The Problems of Scholasticism" - Islamic Scholasticism, that is - is abstruse indeed and requires a level of familiarity with Islamic theology that borders on the specialist. The Islamic essays also tend to be more broad brush in topic than the ones on Christianity, but nonetheless they are rewarding reading for a better understanding of Islam and its demands on the believer. The "Intermediary Problems" are attempts to correlate Christian and Islamic thought, and consequently raise issues that are very close to Schuon's heart; he is certainly at his best in this section.

Note that the book is a collection of essays, and at best the relationship between them is thematic. Bearing this in mind, if you find Schuon's writings rewarding in general you will be happy with this book.

Schuon's approach to both Christianity and Islam takes the reader to new and unexpected levels of understanding, where their outward differences are seen not as irreconcilable alternatives but as necessarily different crystallizations of a unique sacred Reality which itself is above all forms. Schuon writes with a certitude--and without the usual scholarly references--that readers often find either shocking or, just the opposite, absolutely refreshing and clear. His erudition verges on the encyclopedic, but even more important is his insight into the "inward intention" of so many traditional beliefs and practices that, while perhaps challenging the conventional mentality of the modern world, are meant to deliver a kind of "spiritual shock" which opens the soul to what transcends its limitations. The following excerpts from reviews show that Schuon certainly deserves the attention of serious readers.