Voices of Islam (223 page)

Worship: incompatibility with art, 50;

Islamic forms, 49

Writing(s): Arabic script, 15–16.
See also
Calligraphy; Islamic literature

Wujud
(ecstasy), 66

Yaqut, 131

Yunus Emre, 77

Yurts, 89–90

Yusuf, 125

Zamaklhshari, 125

Zam Zam, 89

Al-Zilsal
(Wattar), 127–28

Ziryab, 78

Zither (
qanun
), 68, 75, 78, 82 Zoomorphic art.
See
Animals Zoroastrians, 159

Zulaykha, 125

Zurkhaneh
(centers of martial training), 75

A
BOUT THE
E
DITOR AND
C
ONTRIBUTORS

•

VINCENT J. CORNELL is Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies at Emory University. From 2000 to 2006, he was Professor of History and Director of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas. From 1991 to 2000, he taught at Duke University. Dr. Cornell has published two major books,
The Way of Abu Madyan
(Cambridge, U.K.: The Islamic Texts Society, 1996) and
Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism
(Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1998), and over 30 articles. His interests cover the entire spectrum of Islamic thought from Sufi to theology and Islamic law. He has lived and worked in Morocco for nearly six years and has spent considerable time both teaching and doing research in Egypt, Tunisia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. He is currently working on projects on Islamic ethics and moral theology in conjunction with the Shalom Hartmann Institute and the Elijah Interfaith Institute in Jerusalem. For the past fi years (2002–2006), he has been a key participant in the Building Bridges Seminars hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

LALEH BAKHTIAR has a PhD in Educational Psychology and is a nationally certified counselor and licensed psychotherapist in the state of Illinois. She is the coauthor of
A Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture
(1973) with Nader Ardalan and is the author of
Sufi: Expressions of the Mystic Quest
(1976, reprinted in 2004). She has also published three volumes of the set
God’s Will Be Done:
Volume 1,
Traditional Psychoethics and Personality Paradigm;
Volume 2,
Moral Healer’s Handbook: The Psychol- ogy of Spiritual Chivalry;
and Volume 3,
Moral Healing Through the Most Beautiful Names
(1994). Dr. Bakhtiar’s other published works include
Muhammad’s Companions: Essays on Some Who Bore Witness to His Message
(1993),
Encyclopedia of Islamic Law
(1996), and
Sufi Women of America: Angels in the Making
(1996).

TITUS BURCKHARDT (1908–1984) was a leading member of the Traditionalist or Perennialist school of thought. In his early twenties he lived

192 About the Editor and Contributors

in Fez, Morocco, where he entered Islam as Sidi Ibrahim ‘Izz ad-Din, attended courses on the traditional sciences at al-Qarawiyyin University, and was received into Sufism by the spiritual master Mulay ‘Ali ibn al-Tayyib al-Darqawi. With his extensive knowledge of Arabic, Burckhardt prepared authoritative French translations of Sufi classics such as Ibn ‘Arabi’s
Fusus al-Hikam
(Bezels of Wisdom), ‘Abd al-Karim al-Jili’s
al-Insan al-Kamil
(The Universal Man), and Mulay al-‘Arabi al-Darqawi’s
Rasa’il
(Letters). From 1972 to 1977, Burckhardt served as UNESCO Special Advisor to the Moroccan government, with particular reference to the preservation of the unique architectural heritage in Fez, a city whose political, cultural, and spiritual history he recounted in his book
Fez: City of Islam
(First German Edition 1960, English Translation, The Islamic Texts Society, 1992). Burckhardt was a tireless defender of the traditional arts and crafts in the face of ever-encroaching mass production technology and presented several lectures at international conferences to defend this position. His major work in this field is the widely acclaimed
Art of Islam: Language and Meaning
(1976). Portions of this work are reproduced in the present volume. An international colloquium was held in Marrakech in 1999 to commemorate the exceptional achievements of his life’s work.

EMMA C. CLARK specializes in designing Islamic gardens both in the United Kingdom and in other countries. She has written many articles on Islamic art and architecture, in particular on the Islamic garden and garden carpet, and two children’s books on Muslim heroes. Her latest book,
The Art of the Islamic Garden,
was published in the winter of 2004. An earlier monograph,
Underneath Which Rivers Flow: Symbolism of the Islamic Garden,
was published in 1996 by the Prince of Wales’ Institute of Architecture. She is also a lecturer and tutor in the Visual Islamic and Traditional Arts Programme (VITA) at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in London, where she focuses on teaching the universal principles of sacred and traditional arts.

VIRGINIA GRAY HENRY-BLAKEMORE is the director of the inter- faith publishing houses Fons Vitae and Quinta Essentia. She is a writer and video producer under contract with the Book Foundation, U.S. director of photography and children’s book publisher Dar Nun, and cofounder and trustee of the Islamic Texts Society of Cambridge, England. She is an accom- plished lecturer in art history, world religions, and fi ing. She has taught at Fordham University, Cairo American College, and Cambridge University. She is also a founding member of the Thomas Merton Center Foundation. Virginia Gray Henry-Blakemore received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College, studied at the American University in Cairo and Al-Azhar University, earned her MA in Education from the University of Michigan, served as Research Fellow at Cambridge University from 1983

About the Editor and Contributors 193

to 1990, and is scheduled to receive her PhD from Canterbury, Kent, in 2008.

MARTIN LINGS (1909–2005), also known as Abu Bakr Siraj al-Din, was one of the twentieth century’s most influential writers on Islamic thought and spirituality. He was educated at Oxford University and his interest in Islam and the Arabic language took him to Egypt in 1939. In the following year he was given a lectureship at Cairo University. In 1952, he returned to England and completed a doctorate in Arabic at the University of London. From 1970 to 1974, he served as Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books at the British Library in London. He had previously been in charge of manuscripts of the Qur’an at the British Museum since 1955. Dr. Lings was the author of many important books, including the widely read biography of the Prophet,
Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources
(1983). His first book,
A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century: Shaikh Ahmad al-‘Alawi
(1961; latest edition Islamic Texts Society, 1993), is widely regarded as a classic monograph on Sufi and Sufi doctrine. His final work,
A Return to the Spirit,
was completed just before his death in May 2005 and will be published by Fons Vitae of Louisville, Kentucky.

JEAN-LOUIS MICHON is a French scholar who specializes in Islam in North Africa, Islamic art, and Sufism. Dr. Michon has spent years living and working in various Muslim cities and countries, including Damascus, Cairo, and throughout Morocco. He has translated, edited, and written many works on Sufi and art, including
Le Soufi marocain Ahmad ibn ‘Ajiba et son mi‘raj
(English translation:
The Autobiography
(Fahrasa)
of a Moroccan Sufi: Ahmad ibn ‘Ajiba, 1747-1809,
Fons Vitae, 1999),
Lights of Islam: Institutions, Cultures, Arts, and Spirituality in the Islamic City,
and
Sufism: Love and Wisdom.
Dr. Michon has translated the Qur’an into French for the World Wide Web and is preparing a print version as well. He has acted as a consultant on several UNESCO projects on Islamic art, particularly in Morocco, and has been an important contributor to the maintenance and restoration of traditional Islamic arts and crafts. Dr. Michon was associated with Frithjof Schuon, whose perspective Michon has incorporated into his own writings and works.

DANIEL ABDAL-HAYY MOORE is a widely regarded American Muslim poet. His fi book of poems,
Dawn Visions,
was published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books in San Francisco (1964). He became a Sufi Muslim in 1970, performed the Hajj in 1972, and lived and traveled in Morocco, Spain, Algeria, and Nigeria. Upon his return to California, he published
The Desert is the Only Way Out
in 1985 and
Chronicles of Akhira
in 1986. A resident of Philadelphia since 1990, he has published
The Ramadan Sonnets
(1996) and
The Blind Beekeeper
(2002). He has also been

194 About the Editor and Contributors

the major editor for a number of works, including
The Burda of Shaykh Busiri
(2003), translated by Hamza Yusuf, and
State of Siege
(2004), the poetry of the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, translated by Munir Akash.

FRITHJOF SCHUON (1907–1998) was known in the Muslim world as Shaykh ‘Isa Nur al-Din Ahmad al-‘Alawi al-Maryami. For most of his life, he was the leading exponent of the Traditionalist or Perennialist school of comparative religious thought. In his youth, he traveled to Algeria, where he embraced Islam and was initiated into Sufi by the celebrated Shaykh Ahmad al-‘Alawi (d. 1934). Schuon visited North Africa many times in subsequent years and later became the spiritual master of a branch of the Shadhiliyya–Darqawiyya–‘Alawiyya Sufi order. Schuon’s branch of the ‘Alawiyya, which was called the Maryamiyya, was known for its emphasis on the Islamic image of the Virgin Mary as a symbol of spirituality, its strong emphasis upon universality and essentiality, and its wide dissemination in the West. Schuon was the author of over 25 books on metaphysics, philosophy, comparative religion, art, and spirituality. His acknowledged masterpiece in the field of Islamic studies is
Understanding Islam,
which has been translated into 13 languages. This book has been referred to by Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University as ‘‘the best work in English on the meaning of Islam.’’

SHAWKAT M. TOORAWA is Associate Professor of Arabic Literature and Islamic Studies at Cornell University. His publications include a transla- tion of Adonis’
A Time Between Ashes and Roses
(2004) and the historical study,
Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur and Arabic Writerly Culture: A Ninth-Century Bookman in Baghdad
(2005). In 2006, Dr. Toorawa received a Mellon New Directions Fellowship to pursue his study of the Arabic literature of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century India.

V
OICES OF
I
SLAM

V
OICES OF
I
SLAM