{"id":207,"date":"2018-05-27T08:19:22","date_gmt":"2018-05-27T08:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.asadullahyate.com\/wordpress\/?p=207"},"modified":"2018-05-27T08:19:22","modified_gmt":"2018-05-27T08:19:22","slug":"the-secret-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.asadullahyate.com\/wordpress\/?p=207","title":{"rendered":"The Secret Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Secret Garden<\/em> by Mahmud Shabistari, Cambridge Publications, 1435, Stralsund<\/p>\n

This work is essential for people of ihsaan for it contains all the principles of the science of tasawwuf in a concise form. Further it is the first translation freed of the centuries-old baggage of christian and orientalist vocabulary which has often obscured the teachings of Islam. Thus, instead of the \u2018mystic\u2019 statements of a \u2018Sufi Doctor\u2019, we have Shaykh Mahmud Shabistari\u2019s lucid exposition of the deen <\/em>of Islam. He demonstrates in his analysis of the lower self how a man or woman can gain access to his or her reality: the step by step description of the method of purification leads to a spirituality and light which issues from the normal actions of everyday life, in other words a spirituality which is not\u2018ascetic\u2019 but rather the product of right living. As the Shaykh himself comments within the text, his \u2018work is the fruit of experience \u2013 not mere information heard from others\u2019 and again \u2018an action that comes from the secret of one\u2019s spiritual states is much better than an action based on a knowledge one has heard, yet not experienced\u2019 and yet again \u2018realize\u2026 how actions proceed from different spiritual states and what the relationship is between informative and experiential knowledge\u2019. In the words of another great Sufi, Shaykh ad-Darqawi it is the science of how to live the spirituality of the really great, those \u2018whose candles do not go out when the wind starts to blow\u2019.<\/p>\n

Significant too is that Shaykh Mahmud Shabistari lived in the Mughal capital of Tabriz from where issued the great flowering of the last period of Islam in which the balanced shariat <\/em>\u2013 rather than the mongrel European law [applicable to the realm of \u2018real life\u2019 and trade] cum\u2018religious\u2019 additions regarding births and deaths, and family law] \u2013 was still the norm.<\/p>\n

Extensive use has been made of the commentary Mufaateeh al-A\u2019 jaaz fi Sharhi Gulshani Raz <\/em>of Shaykh Muhammad Lahiji in this work of translation from the Persian original.<\/p>\n

This work shall only be understood by those unversed in \u2018critical analysis\u2019 \u2013 for as the Shakyh says at the end of The Secret Garden<\/em>: \u2018Examine the knowledges arrived at by intellect and the knowledges of Islamic tradition<\/p>\n

\u2013 examine them in a clear order and with precision. Do not look with the eye of negation and criticism for then the flowers will turn to thorns before your eyes\u2019.<\/p>\n

N.B. Despite one popular encyclopaedic classification of Shabistari, al-Ghazali, al-Hallaj, Junayd, Attar, Jami, Ansari, Shibli, Abdalqadir al-Gilani, Sa\u2019di, Maruf Kharkhi, Rumi and Shams at-Tabrizi, for example, as \u2018Iranian sufis\u2019 they were in fact all Persian speaking and lived prior to the Safavid conversion of Iran to another religion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Secret Garden by Mahmud Shabistari, Cambridge Publications, 1435, Stralsund This work is essential for people of ihsaan for it contains all the principles of the science of tasawwuf in a concise form. Further it is the first translation freed of the centuries-old baggage of christian and orientalist vocabulary which has often obscured the teachings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.asadullahyate.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.asadullahyate.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.asadullahyate.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.asadullahyate.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.asadullahyate.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.asadullahyate.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208,"href":"http:\/\/www.asadullahyate.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions\/208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.asadullahyate.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.asadullahyate.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.asadullahyate.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}