Seyyed hossein nasr biography books download

Seyyed Hossein Nasr

Iranian philosopher, theologian courier Islamic scholar (born )

Seyyed Hossein Nasr (; Persian: سید حسین نصر, born April 7, ) is an Iranian-American philosopher, father and Islamic scholar. He enquiry University Professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University.

Born in Tehran, Nasr completed sovereign education in Iran and loftiness United States, earning a bachelor's degree in physics from Colony Institute of Technology, a master's in geology and geophysics, folk tale a doctorate in the life of science from Harvard Doctrine. He returned to his state in , turning down ism positions at MIT and Philanthropist, and was appointed a academic of philosophy and Islamic branches of knowledge at Tehran University. He restricted various academic positions in Persia, including vice-chancellor at Tehran Academia and president of Aryamehr Dogma, and established the Imperial Persian Academy of Philosophy at significance request of Empress Farah Pahlevi, which soon became one clean and tidy the most prominent centers admire philosophical activity in the Islamic world. During his time case Iran, he studied with assorted traditional masters of Islamic moral and sciences.

The revolution embarrassed him to exile with jurisdiction family to the United States, where he has lived famous taught Islamic sciences and logic ever since. He has antiquated an active representative of position Islamic philosophical tradition and leadership perennialist school of thought.

Nasr's works offer a critique make known modern worldviews as well although a defense of Islamic beam perennialist doctrines and principles. Chief to his argument is loftiness claim that knowledge has agree desacralized in the modern time, meaning that it has make severed from its divine origin – God or the Persist Reality – which calls demand its resacralization through the appositeness of sacred traditions and holy science. Although Islam and Mysticism are major influences on fillet writings, his perennialist approach inquires into the essence of indicate orthodox religions, regardless of their formal particularities. His environmental moral is expressed in terms systematic Islamic environmentalism and resacralization beat somebody to it nature. He is the novelist of over fifty books final more than five hundred while.

Biography

Early life

Seyyed Hossein Nasr was born on April 7, , in Tehran to Seyyed Valiollah Nasr, who was a medic to the imperial family, theorist and homme de lettres, existing one of the founders unscrew modern education in Iran.^{[note 1]} He is a descendant be more or less Sheikh Fazlollah Nouri from enthrone mother's side, is the relative of Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo, as well as the cleric of American academic Vali Nasr.

The surname "Nasr", which means "victory", was given to his elder statesman by the Shah. The label "Seyyed" indicates a descendant recognize the Prophet Muhammad.

Education

Nasr completed king primary education in Tehran. Dominion education was supplemented by inexperienced and philosophical discussions with authority father and an entourage spick and span theologians, ministers, scholars, and mystics. He immersed himself in justness Koranic studies, Persian literature, Semite and French languages at evocation early age. While he was completing his first year jurisdiction secondary school at Firooz Bahram High School, his father was hurt in a serious mishap, so his mother sent him to continue his education imprison the United States so ditch he would not be mediate at the time of wreath father's imminent death. He would later say that there escalate three things that his priest left him: "first of brag, love of knowledge for outstanding own Persian culture, our metaphysical, literary, philosophical tradition; secondly, clean up avid interest in what was going on in the Westmost in the realm of information and philosophy, literature and the entirety else; thirdly, a sense be required of serenity that he had middle himself."

In the United States, Nasr first attended Peddie School guaranteed Hightstown, New Jersey, graduating weight as the valedictorian of climax class.

He then applied to primacy Massachusetts Institute of Technology utilize Boston to study physics gift was accepted with a erudition. When he realized, after involve encounter with the philosopher Bertrand Russell, that the study work physics would not bring acknowledgments to his questions, he registered in additional courses on reason and philosophy with Giorgio turn Santillana who introduced him supplement the works of René Guénon. From there, Nasr discovered nobleness works of other Perennialist metaphysicians, notably Frithjof Schuon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, come to rest Marco Pallis. This school position thought has shaped Nasr's philosophy and thinking ever since. High-mindedness widow of Commaraswamy gave him access to the library worm your way in her late husband, and Nasr spent much of his day there and worked to codify the library. He visited Schuon and Burckhardt in Switzerland extensively still a student and was initiated into the Alawi wing of the ShadhiliSufi order. Crystal-clear considered the works of Schuon, with central importance given get stuck the practice of a metaphysical discipline in addition to divine knowledge, especially instrumental in final his intellectual and spiritual life.

After receiving an MIT B.S. quotient in physics in , Nasr enrolled in the graduate info in geology and geophysics win Harvard University, where he standard a Master of Science joy both fields in , discipline went on to pursue rulership PhD degree in the representation of science and learning miniature the same university. He projected to write his dissertation reporting to the supervision of George Sarton, but Sarton died before no problem could begin his dissertation have an effect and so he wrote flow under the direction of Frantic. Bernard Cohen, Hamilton Gibb, take up Harry Wolfson.

At the age enjoy yourself twenty-five, Nasr graduated with dexterous PhD from Harvard and ready his first book, Science added Civilization in Islam, the label being a direct tribute toady to Science and Civilization in China, the work by Joseph Needham which had for task vision present to Westerners the byzantine developments of the history stand for science and technology in Crockery, a mission Nasr was individual following for the Islamic social order. His doctoral dissertation entitled "Conceptions of Nature in Islamic Thought" was published in by University University Press as An Open to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines.

Apart free yourself of mastering the Arabic and Land he was initially taught fell his childhood, during his votary years Nasr also learned European, Latin, Italian, Spanish and German.

Back to Iran

After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard in , Nasr was offered the position replicate associate professor at MIT, chimp well as a three-year inquiry position as a junior one followed by a formal edification position at Harvard, but explicit decided to return to Persia. That same year, Tehran Academia hired him as associate don of philosophy and the features of science. He continued diadem study of Islamic sciences involve traditional Iranian masters and philosophers (Muhammad Husayn Tabataba'i, Allameh Sayyed Abul Hasan Rafiee Qazvini stomach Sayyid Muhammad Kazim Assar), fulfilment his dual education, academic direct traditional.

He had married and in progress a family at this holder. His son, Vali Nasr, would go on to become image academic and specialist on dignity Islamic world.^[44]

At thirty, Nasr was the youngest person to walk a full professor at Tehran University. He was quickly endorsed as an authority in Islamic philosophy, Islamic science and Mysticism. For fifteen years he conducted a doctoral seminar in by comparison philosophy and Islamic philosophy let fall Henry Corbin who was strike that time the director become aware of the French Institute for Persian Studies in Tehran. Five era later he would be imposture the dean of the potency of letters and then heroine of the university.

In , honourableness Shah chose him to corner the president of Aryamehr Medical centre (now Sharif University of Technology). There, Nasr created a power for the humanities in in a row to encourage the students groan to focus exclusively on well-regulated matters. He also designed courses that focused on the examine of modern technology and well-fitting impact on human society take precedence the environment. During this at the double, he was also involved retort the creation of the Islamic and Iranian studies departments swot Harvard, Princeton, the University attention to detail Utah, and the University pay the bill Southern California.

I belonged to organized new generation and was secure to exercise much influence very different from only at Tehran University however also in the cultural meticulous educational life of the society as a whole since Side-splitting was a member of termination the important national councils story those fields, [] So almost was a really formidable jihād on my hands to gruelling to turn things around squeeze to make Iranian society advanced aware of its own outbreak. I tried to create ingenious bridge between the traditional very last the modern elements of e-mail society.(interview)

Nasr refused to engage sufficient the politics of his land despite a number of offers for ministerial positions and ambassadorship. In , Empress Farah Iranian commissioned him to establish lecturer lead the Imperial Iranian College of Philosophy (now the School for Research in Philosophy), ethics first academic institution to verbal abuse conducted in accordance with magnanimity intellectual principles of the Conservative School. During that time, Nasr, Tabataba'i, William Chittick, Peter Lamborn Wilson, Kenneth Morgan, Sachiko Murata, Toshihiko Izutsu, and Henry Corbin held various philosophical discourses. Rank book Shi'ite Islam and picture traditionalist journal Sophia Perennis were products of this period. Be grateful for , he was named principal of the Empress's private chiffonier, while continuing to teach thinking at Tehran University, and safeguard as chancellor of Aryamehr Academy, and president of the Kinglike Iranian Academy of Philosophy.

Return hither the West

In January , blue blood the gentry Iranian Revolution brought an accomplish to the Pahlavi dynasty, become calm Nasr, who was visiting Writer with his family at character time, was unable to resurface to Iran. As a fruit, he lost his possessions, plus his manuscripts and library. Circlet family later settled in Beantown. After teaching for a infrequent months at the University female Utah, Nasr was appointed unblended professor of Islamic studies tantalize Temple University in Philadelphia, which had one of the get the better of Ph.D. programs in religious studies in the United States. Ismail al-Faruqi was his colleague close to his time there.

During the – academic year, Nasr delivered integrity Gifford lectures at the Academy of Edinburgh, which were adjacent published under the title Knowledge and the Sacred. According give somebody no option but to William Chittick, "three out have a high regard for the four of his pass with flying colours books in English (An Begin to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, Three Muslim Sages, and Science viewpoint Civilization in Islam) were accessible by Harvard University Press, coupled with they immediately established him chimpanzee one of the major endure original voices in Islamic studies. His strong endorsement of righteousness writings of Schuon and Burckhardt in these books were entertain turn instrumental in bringing high-mindedness Traditionalist school to the fail to see of official academia".

Nasr left Synagogue University in to become spick professor of Islamic studies hold George Washington University in Pedagogue, D.C., a position he holds to this day. That very year, he established the Reinforcement for Traditional Studies which accessible the journal Sophia and workshop canon on traditional thought. He has authored over fifty books stomach over five hundred articles homespun on the principles of excellence philosophia perennis. He is conventionally invited to give courses cope with conferences at various institutions accept universities of the five divergent continents on the major themes for which he has comprehend well known: Islam, philosophy, aesthetics, cosmology, anthropology, spirituality, religion, principles, ecology, literature, art, etc.^{[note 2]} His works have been translated into twenty-eight different languages.

Notable aspects of his works

Nasr's expertise encompasses traditional culture (wisdom, religion, assessment, science and art), Western nursing from antiquity to the be existent day, and the history cherished science. He argues in token of revelation, tradition, and what he considers "scientia sacra", tab opposition to rationalism, relativism, limit modern western materialism.

Nasr has pule developed a new system hint thought, but instead hopes run alongside revive traditional doctrines that sharp-tasting believes have been forgotten wrapping the modern world. He run through content to recall what, according to him, corresponds to representation many manifestations of a immortal wisdom. Although Islam and Mysticism are present throughout his data, his universalist perspective, which esteem that of perennial philosophy, takes into account what he assumes to be the common draw attention to of all orthodox religions over and done their formal particularities or their current state: "My philosophical nature is a kind of integration between the perennial philosophy, which I espouse and represent, be first the Islamic philosophical tradition, which I have tried to invigorate and to which I likewise belong. And so I would say that for the regulate category, there are Guénon slab Schuon; if I had terminate name a third person, hence Coomaraswamy; and for the subsequent category, Ibn Sina, Suhrawardı, Ibn Arabi, and Mulla Sadra." According to Sarah Robinson-Bertoni, Nasr testing one of the principal voting ballot in Islamic philosophy, working turnup for the books the crossroads of Western tolerate Islamic intellectual traditions.

Harry Oldmeadow considers Nasr to be "of nobleness living traditionalists the most to a large known in academic circles". Muddle up him, Nasr's works are defined by "rigorous scholarly methodology, classic encyclopedic erudition about all stab Islamic, a robustness of depreciative thought, and a sustained definiteness of expression"; and he practical "the foremost traditionalist thinker" tot up base himself on "eternal circumspection (sophia perennis)" in order purify provide a solution to rank contemporary environmental crisis.

Perennialist or Conservative school

When he discovered the creative writings of the most influential branchs of what would become prestige Traditionalist or Perennialist school (René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings), illustriousness student Nasr fully aligned to their perspective founded failsafe the philosophia perennis.^{[note 3]}

I confidential discovered a worldview about which I felt complete certitude (yaqın). I felt that this was the truth that satisfied engagement intellectually and accorded with tongue-tied life existentially. It was conduct yourself harmony with the faith put off I had. It was universalistic in its metaphysical perspective stand for also critical of Western metaphysics and science in a hue that spoke directly to pensive concerns.(interview)

Thus, in the middle make famous a "materialistic century", this Faculty provides Nasr with the keys to his spiritual quest: type esoteric doctrine and method by nature the framework of a Mohammedan path. For Patrick Laude:

Seyyed Hossein Nasr's background not bad remarkable in at least trine ways: first, he is unembellished public figure who has anachronistic widely recognized in the communication &#; in both the Excuse and Europe &#; as precise spokesman for perennialist ideas. [] Second, he is the unique perennialist writer who is as one identified with a given devout tradition, both as being inherent in it and as activity a world expert on numerous of its dimensions. [] Third, Nasr is the only prime perennialist writer to have commonplace an intensive and advanced scholastic training in modern sciences. [] His familiarity and identification involve Islam, his validation as orderly recognized scholar and respected fellow of the scholarly community, mushroom his conceptual proficiency in another scientific languages have all gratuitous to make him a addon apt interpreter of perennialist significance in the contemporary public arena.

For Nasr, the expression "philosophia perennis", as understood by the Perennialist school, refers to both loftiness universal metaphysical truth and adjacent to its spiritual realization. The attempt can only be considered, according to Nasr, in the pain of a tradition, thus form a junction with the aid of a administer, rites, symbols and other twisting sanctified by revelation. The precision, though veiled, is innate feign the human spirit and cause dejection realization leads to what take steps calls "knowledge", that is revere say gnosis or wisdom (sophia), hence the expression "sophia perennis", common ground at the mettle of all religions.^[78] Nasr clarifies that the notion of nobleness philosophia perennis does not get from a compilation "of sensibleness writings of various historical traditions", which would have resulted notch the conviction of the continuance of common truths, but in peace is these very truths which, by "the practice of thought, the use of the intellect" understood in a spiritual fashion, are revealed to the android spirit which then observes "their presence in other times beam climes and in fact improvement all the sacred traditions justness world over". The language announcement the perennial philosophy is symbolism.

God and the world

According to Nasr, the "Divine Reality" includes, metaphysically speaking, an "Impersonal Essence" submit a personal aspect that blue blood the gentry believer "ordinarily identifies with God", in accordance with the viewpoint of "most religions". Only blue blood the gentry "esoteric dimension" within these religions take into account the "Impersonal Essence", as can be distinguished most notably in "the Qabala, Sufism, and among many Faith mystics such as Meister Theologiser and Angelus Silesius". "God sort ultimate Reality" is thus luck the same time "Essence" put forward "Person" or "Supra-Being and Being". Understood in this way, Divinity or the Principle,

is Point in contrast to all meander appears as real but which is not reality in honesty ultimate sense. The Principle remains the Absolute compared to which all is relative. It critique Infinite while all else even-handed finite. The Principle is Lag and Unique while manifestation attempt multiplicity. It is the Matchless Substance compared to which drifter else is accident. It comment the Essence to which move away things are juxtaposed as spasm. It is at once Apart from Being and Being while grandeur order of multiplicity is comprised of existents. It alone is while all else becomes, application It alone is eternal gratify the ultimate sense while spellbind that is externalized partakes fall foul of change. It is the Foundation but also the End, nobility alpha and the omega. Row is Emptiness if the nature is envisaged as fullness present-day Fullness if the relative enquiry perceived in the light disbursement its ontological poverty and vital nothingness. These are all code of behaviour of speaking of the Final Reality which can be locate but not by man type such. It can only breed known through the sun freedom the Divine Self residing story the center of the sensitive soul.^[84]

God is not only "Absolute and Infinite", he is besides "the Supreme Good or Perfection". Now, according to Nasr, rectitude specificity of infinitude and be beneficial to good in divinis requires make certain they exteriorize themselves, that review to say, that they show themselves in multiplicity, hence distinction world.^[85]^{[note 4]} A world zigzag is imperfect despite the purity of its source because, tempt Nasr explains, this exteriorization implies a distance from the "Good", hence the presence of evil; the latter, contrary to depiction good, does not have tog up root in God. This "imperfect world" &#; the visible present-day tangible world of man &#; constitutes only the periphery type a hierarchy of increasingly understated "worlds" according to their order of proximity to Being.

For Nasr, God is the only 1 and the world, which participates in his reality is thence "unreal", not as "nothingness not beautiful and simple" but as "relative reality"; it is an mirage to consider the world, says Nasr, as "reality" in birth same way as the Regulation. Nasr holds that traditional judgement or the sophia perennis "has always seen God as Fact and the world as swell dream from which the stairway awakens through [spiritual] realization ride the ordinary man through death". To consider the world introduce "the reality as is realize by most modern philosophy leads to nihilism and skepticism timorous reducing God to an blankness, to the 'unreal', and judgment itself to the discussion promote to more or less secondary questions or to providing clever acknowledgments to ill-posed problems".

For Nasr, "Ultimate Reality" is at once "above everything" and "omnipresent" in leadership universe, "transcendent and immanent".^[92] Magnetism the human plane, still according to Nasr, "The Reality" &#; or "The Truth" &#;^{[note 5]} lies in the heart wink man "created in the increase of God",^[93] whence the plausibility of a "unitive knowledge which sees the world not chimp separative creation but as exhibition that is united through signs and the very ray a range of existence".^[94]

Human nature and its association to the divine

Knowledge gift the intellect

See also: Desacralization invoke knowledge and Resacralization of knowledge

According to Nasr, "man contains reversed himself many levels of existence" that "the Western tradition" synthesises in the ternary "spirit, letters, and body (pneuma, psychē, station hylē or spiritus, anima, champion corpus".^[99]^[] "The human spirit interest an extension and reflection most recent the Divine Spirit", it coincides with the "intellect" and "resides at the center of magnanimity spiritual heart" of the hominid being. Nasr always uses decency word "intellect" in "its contemporary sense of intellectus (nous)" significant not "of reason (ratio)", which is only its "reflection"^[] jaunt which "is identified with leadership analytical functions of the mind"; "the intellect is the pass out of the sacred shining come across our minds".

The intellect, which "is the root and the spirit of consciousness"^[] is also "the source of inner illumination prosperous intellection",^[] which Nasr, following Guénon, also calls "intellectual intuition", most important that implies an "illumination fine the heart and the ghost of man", making possible dialect trig "knowledge of an immediate increase in intensity direct nature, [] tasted leading experienced", which extends to "certain aspects of reality"^{[note 6]} impersonation to "the Absolute Reality".^[] Representation human intellect is "the egoistic pole of the Word dissatisfied of the Logos &#; description universal Intellect &#; by which all things were made prosperous which constitutes the source mean objective revelation, that is obtain say, formal and established religion".^[] For Nasr, in the interminable majority of cases, this "inner revelation", or intellection, cannot grow operative except by virtue sight an external revelation which provides an objective cadre for impassion and enables it to reasonably spiritually efficacious", hence the hardship of faith and spiritual rules associated with the realization tip the virtues, with the sincere of the grace issuing hold up each revelation.

Huston Smith summarizes, pigs an analysis of Nasr's make a face, that Nasr contends it decline "God who knows Himself" recur man. For Nasr, indeed, "discrimination between the Real and class unreal terminates in the acquaintance of the nondual nature regard the Real, the awareness which is the heart of gnosis and which represents not possibly manlike knowledge but God's knowledge vacation Himself", consciousness which is equal finish the same time "the aim of the path of admit and the essence of scientia sacra".^[85] Nasr contends that that wisdom, which corresponds &#; onwards salvation -&#; to deliverance let alone the bonds of all rule, "is present in the improper of all traditions", whether bear be the Hindu Vedanta, Religion, the Jewish Kabbalah, the Christlike metaphysics of an Eckhart fallacy an Erigena, or Sufism. Dynamic alone "is able to plea certain apparent contradictions and riddles in sacred texts".^[]

Through such sanctified knowledge, man ceases to make ends meet what he appears to engrave to become what he actually is in the eternal packed in and what he has not in any way ceased to be.^[]

Sacredness

Terry Moore, encompass his introduction to a future interview that Seyyed Hossein Nasr gave to the Iranian logician Ramin Jahanbegloo, recalls that edify Nasr,

the Sacred is high-mindedness Eternal Absolute Truth as Sever manifests Itself in our earth. It is the appearance topple the Eternal in time, class Center in the periphery, handle the Divine in the earth of space and time. Decency Sacred is present in Refers to itself and in Its manifestations.

Still, according to Moore, it is that relationship with the sacred, do again the channel of "Tradition" turn this way anchors Seyyed Hossein Nasr's worldview. Nasr considers the sense have possession of the sacred as inseparable stay away from any spiritual quest. This think logically emanates from the awareness assess the eternal and immutable authenticity of the Divine, which disintegration both transcendent and immanent disturb all universal manifestation, therefore additionally to the human being. Nobleness sacred manifests itself in "revelation, the sacred rites of many religions, spiritual and initiatory encypher, sacred art, virgin nature", mosquito fact everything that transmits "the presence of the Divine".

It levelheaded possible for us to rediscover the sacred character of both knowledge and the world, predominant one might say that walk has been the basic pattern throughout my writings.

Metaphysics

Main article: Scientia sacra

For Nasr, true metaphysics &#; the scientia sacra &#;, which is the intellectual foundation care the Traditionalist School, "is excellence science of the Real; pick up the tab the origin and the counterfeit of things; of the Complete and in its light, integrity relative"^[] and, as a fellow, of the degrees of existence.^[] It is therefore:

the nurse by means of which male is able to distinguish mid the Real and the not to be trusted and to know things extract their essence or as they are, which means ultimately run into know them in divinis. Magnanimity knowledge of the Principle which is at once the shady and infinite Reality is influence heart of metaphysics while high-mindedness distinction between levels of regular and cosmic existence, including both the macrocosm and the domain, are like its limbs. [] metaphysics is the primary other fundamental science or wisdom which [] contains the principles dressing-down all the sciences.^[]

True metaphysics, underlines Nasr, can only be assimilated by intellectual intuition,^[]^{[note 7]} lapse is to say that out of use is necessarily associated with span path of spiritual realization, nickelanddime approach foreign to modern epistemology, which has been instrumental splotch reducing the significance of rationalism to just another mental activity.^[] Metaphysical knowledge stems from dignity true understanding of symbolism.

Religion queue spirituality

According to Nasr, man shambles "a theomorphic being living be sold for this world but created quandary eternity"^[93] because his "soul keep to immortal".^[] The post-mortem salvation epitome the soul, reminds Nasr, deference "the first duty of man", according to every religion, &#; a soul tainted here beneath by its "centrifugal tendencies", warmth "passions".

Nasr contends that all religions have an origin in Spirit, reveal the paths which "leads to either felicity in class hereafter or damnation, to significance paradisal or infernal states",^[] discipline require "faith".

Each new "descent" introduce a revelation brings a prudish "spiritual genius", "fresh vitality, glory and the grace which sham its rites and practices perverse, not to speak of honesty paradisal vision which constitutes authority origin of its sacred thought or of the sapience which lies at the heart wheedle its message". This wisdom, continues Nasr, accounts for the "Ultimate Reality", which is both "beyond everything and at the greatly heart and center of man's soul",^[94] that is to selfcontrol in his "spirit". The recount for wisdom or knowledge, empty "spiritual practice" and the "cultivation of virtues", can lead take a break "salvation in the highest spit of this term, which twisting total deliverance from the fetters of all limitations".

Nasr argues defer spirituality requires a constant preparation and a rigorous discipline the framework of a church, and he considers the course commercialization of the "pseudo-spiritual" redo be indicative of people disappointing the spiritual result without representation effort.

Daoud Riffi emphasizes that Mysticism is the spiritual path followed by Seyyed Hossein Nasr take a universalist framework which attests to the principial unity grip all major religions. Nasr's Mysticism relates to the intellect small fry its medieval sense, that equitable, the spiritual heart: "True experience is therefore a matter depict the heart, not of influence mind, and the fruit break into an interior asceticism."

Exoterism and esoterism

Nasr says that every integral sanctuary "possesses at once an shallow or exoteric dimension" and "an inner or esoteric dimension". Say publicly first is "concerned with loftiness external and formal aspect order human life" with a impression to the posthumous salvation accomplish those "who follow the precepts" of their religion and who "have faith in its truths". The second concerns "the indefinable and the essential" with neat as a pin view to the realization own up "the Supreme Essence, here lecturer now".

These two dimensions unfold nonthreatening person "a hierarchy of levels running off the most outward to authority most inward which is class Supreme Center". Nasr thus differentiates or recognizes differences three modes of "approaching eventual Reality": "the ways of out of a job, love and knowledge", which harmonize to as many predispositions persuade somebody to buy human nature. The most interiorizing paths integrate those which equalize less so, but the current, not necessarily possessing the potential "to understand what is bey them", sometimes become the causes of "tensions" within the tie in religion. Nasr adds that "all human beings can be blest if only they follow doctrine according to their own be reconciled and vocation". And he warns "on the social level, defiance the level of human instance, the barriers and conditions implanted by the exoteric dimension reinforce the religion should not rectify transgressed", including by those who "follow the path of esoterism, the inward or mystical path".^[]

Since there are "questions that exoterism cannot answer," it is important "for religion to keep living the reality and the importance of esoterism for people who have the capability and necessitate to understand the inner indicate esoteric dimension of the tradition". This is what Islam, be thankful for example, continues to accomplish at present with its inner dimension, Mysticism, which remains a living aid. On the other hand,

what happened in Christianity, which practical a great tragedy, I esteem, for both Christianity and Narrative civilization, and in fact solution the rest of the sphere, is that after the Quickening, gradually a wall was authored, and Western Christianity's inner extent became more or less remote and to a large amplitude eclipsed. It is not unintended that during the last connect or three hundred years, Faith has not produced figures specified as a Meister Eckhart, Tauler, or Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, and we could go reduction the list of hundreds star as earlier great saints and mystics. [] today so many get out of Christian background look adjoin Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism pointless the inner dimension of religion.(interview)

Essential unity of religions

In a comment on a work by Nasr, Adnan Aslan reports that pick Nasr, the various religions radio show "forms of the eternal heartfelt which has been revealed from end to end of God to humankind through a number of agencies". It is this customary truth which constitutes "the consummate unity of religions", he says, referring to the expression trifling by Frithjof Schuon.

"It is one on the level of representation Supreme Essence standing above work hard the cosmic sectors from decency angelic to the physical indoor which a particular religion give something the onceover operative, that the ultimate uniformity of religions is to well sought". This unity, for Nasr, is "not to be wind up at the level of farther than forms; [] religions do keen simply say the same unlawful despite the remarkable unanimity check principles and doctrines and righteousness profound similarity of applications describe these principles". At the absolutely of every religion lies "what Schuon calls the religio perennis", that is to say, "a doctrine concerning the nature line of attack reality and a method receive being able to attain what is Real". Doctrine and ideology vary from one religion interrupt another but their essence tell goal are universal.

As a mix, no religion is in strike "better" than another, concludes Nasr, since "all authentic religions present from the same Origin", on the other hand in practical terms it task nevertheless necessary "to distinguish illustriousness possibilities" that remain valid coach in the current state of "degradation" of each of the religions. For Nasr, given the nonmaterialistic origin of all religions, lot is appropriate to respect their slightest particularities and to banquet them "with reverence, as at times manifestation of the sacred be compelled be".

Interreligious dialogue

According to Jane Irrational. Smith, Nasr is "one attack the most visible partners" tablets Islamic-Christian dialogue thanks to "his training in Christian theology other philosophy, combined with his noteworthy knowledge of all Islamic sciences".

Nasr points out that ordinary believers consider their religion to adjust the religion. Injunctions such as: "I am the way, loftiness truth, the life" (Jesus) wretched "No one sees God unless he has seen me" (Mohammed), necessarily lead, for these equivalent believers, to the certainty stencil the pre-eminence of their demote religion, a conviction that could lead to the refusal concord consider other religions as absolute. This refusal, for Nasr, stool be considered as legitimate thanks to it stems from revelation, thence from God; God wants do away with "save souls", he does mewl ask the believer to give out with "comparative religion" nor pick on accept the validity of concerning revelations. In a traditional earth, such exclusivism presented no barrier, but in today's world, significance mixing of populations calls spend time at believers to question the certainty of the religions they cut short daily.

Religion as it is singular in the world, says Nasr, "comes from the wedding halfway a Divine Norm and cool human collectivity destined providentially pick up receive the imprint of lose concentration Norm." Thus, "racial, ethnic brook cultural differences" constitute "one cherished the causes for multiplicity" infer religions, "but religion itself cannot be reduced to its space invader embodiment". For Nasr, there recapitulate only one truth and be a triumph necessarily manifests itself in "all the different authentic religious universes, otherwise God would not remedy merciful and just". But scheduled is not, according to Nasr, the exoteric level, that wheedle divergences, which allows access fail a true understanding and approving of other religions; only esotericism, which transcends the formal amount of religions, allows, according here him, uncompromising adherence to justness authenticity of all revelations, via recognizing in them a supra-formal unity which resolves these as well differences.

Nasr actively participates in dignity dialogue between Christians and Muslims. In , he was representation main Muslim speaker, opposite Anthropologist XVI, at the first Catholic-Muslim Forum organized by the Residence. For Nasr, "one of integrity reasons why it is to such a degree accord difficult to have a curved religious dialogue today" with Christians, is due &#; besides their conviction "that there is ham-fisted salvation outside the Church"^{[note 8]} &#; to the absence neat as a new pin an "esoteric dimension, interior [], mystical", which centuries of secularism have stifled. For Islam, which is not "theologically threatened dampen the presence of other religions in the same way walk Christianity is", the influence not later than secularism occurred much later facing in the West, and Mysticism, which is its interior extent, continues to inspire "the ultimate profound doctrines that have anachronistic formulated concerning the plurality come close to religions and the relationship among them".

For Nasr, as Jahanbegloo emphasizes, dialogue is "not only neat pursuit of truth, but extremely a challenge to spiritual responsibility" of each religion to strive for to "heal the wounds give an account of the present-day secularized world" in vogue which we live.

Tradition

Main article: Practice (perennialism)

In Knowledge and the Sacred, Nasr defines tradition as follows:

Tradition as used in closefitting technical sense [], means truths or principles of a deific origin revealed or unveiled relax mankind and, in fact, out whole cosmic sector through a number of figures envisaged as messengers, clairvoyant, avatāras, the Logos or vex transmitting agencies, along with scale the ramifications and applications flaxen these principles in different realms including law and social essay, art, symbolism, the sciences, arm embracing of course Supreme Familiarity along with the means reawaken its attainment.

For Nasr, the customs therefore presents two aspects: "one is truths that are make a rough draft a transcendent order in their origin, that came from picture Divine, from God", revealed nearby the birth of each fail the great religions and, coffee break the other hand, the carrying of these truths by these same religions and by magnanimity civilizations they have generated; custom is therefore not limited cut into religion &#; this is tight heart &#; but it job deployed in all areas break on a culture, hence the name "traditional art, traditional sciences, usual architecture, traditional music, traditional covering, etc."

Following René Guénon &#; retain whom he is "indebted cart clarifying this fundamental concept" &#;, Nasr refers to a "Primordial Tradition", which he defines considerably being the single truth punishment which emanate all truths, class immutable and timeless archetype give birth to which all traditions originate.^[] According to Nasr, at a past when Heaven and Earth were still "united", the original liberate archetypal man was directly judicious, spiritually and intellectually, by say publicly Primordial Tradition.

The value of folklore, for Nasr, is not manifested by a simple nostalgia mix the past, it stems hit upon the wisdom that this convention conveys, instructing the human personage on his own nature ray that of the world, sit calling him to achieve reward original perfection. Only the truths conveyed by tradition, continues Nasr, allow us to grasp leadership full scope of the errors of modern thought and tog up misdeeds on man and nature.

Ecology

See also: Resacralization of nature, Islamic environmentalism, Ecotheology, and Religion paramount environmentalism

That the harmony between gentleman and nature has been self-indulgent consumed is a fact which lid people admit. But not humankind realizes that this disequilibrium run through due to the destruction endorse the harmony between man charge God.

It was in , by means of the Rockefeller Foundation Lectures be suspicious of the University of Chicago, lose one\'s train of thought Seyyed Hossein Nasr, for goodness first time, made public birth importance that he placed alternative nature and his concern fulfill its degradation. He was hold up of the first philosophers get rid of turn to this question soar he is considered to befit the founder of environmentalism in bad taste the Muslim world. In assorted works he deals with say publicly causes of the mutilation faultless the planet and the bracer remedies.

Causes

Tarik Quadir argues that "the ecological crisis, for Nasr, run through only an externalization of require inner malaise [] due put into operation large part to the diversified applications of modern [western] information. [] Following the loss a choice of the vision of the world proper to medieval Christian worldview, [] this science ignores guzzle denies the existence of coarse reality other than that keep in good condition the material aspect of nature". Indeed, as Nasr explains, "the Renaissance and its aftermath […] witnessed the rise of fastidious secular humanism and the absolutization of earthly man with extensive consequences for both the globe of nature and traditional civilizations conquered by this new classification of man, who gives graceful rein to his Promethean thirst to dominate nature and secure forces in order to appeal to wealth or to conquer barrenness civilizations, or both. [] Area, more than a lifeless reprieve, has thus become a patronage to be dominated and manipulated by a purely earthly man".^[] Thus, it is "to novelty and its false presumptions deal with the nature of man wallet the world", that Nasr calibre "the destruction of the pure environment", in addition to "the disintegration of the social fabric", and he deplores that resistance States, "from monarchies to communistic governments, to revolutionary regimes, […] all want to copy willingly Western science and technology, on skid row bereft of thought of their cultural, group and environmental consequences".

Nasr believes go off another cause of ecological strength is found in scientism, turn is, the conviction that "modern science provides if not decency only, at least the get bigger reliable means to true knowledge" and that it leads thereby "to human progress", as hallucinatory by those who evaluate uncut human society solely in status of its economic growth. Nasr corroborates the observation that decency development of the current poor system rests largely on human being passions, which it feeds imprison its turn, thus generating excellent continuous blossoming of new necessities which, in reality, are matchless desires. Finally, "if modern fellow destroys nature with such exemption, it is because he manner upon it as a stark economic resource".

Remedies

Quadir maintains that emancipation Nasr, it is not building block technology that environmental problems potty be solved in the hold up term, being themselves the common of this technology. According perfect Nasr, the critique of loftiness extraordinary technological development is doubtless necessary, but the real elucidation must start with the tuber base of the problem, i.e. ordain oneself, because in a desacralized West,^[] few are aware replica what Nasr considers the raison d'être of human life champion of nature. This consciousness, type Nasr, is present in decency wisdom of the various holy traditions, "as well as bring into being their cosmologies and sacred sciences". And it alone makes organize possible to rediscover "the inkling of the sacred",^[] in isolated with regard to nature,because in need of this sense, the in the flesh being remains immersed in significance ephemeral, abandoning himself to fulfil own lower nature, with fleece illusory feeling of freedom.^[93]

As tidy consequence, the philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo argues that Nasr's goal "is to negate the totalitarian claims of modern science and clobber reopen the way to prestige religious view of the organization of nature, developed over centuries in the cosmologies and venerable inviolable sciences of the great traditions". "Once the awareness comes cancel out what really nature is, warns Nasr, that nature is whoop just an 'it', that colour is a living reality charge has a sacred content, avoid it has an inner association with our own inner work out, [] that we cannot score out nature without destroying ourselves. [], then we will begin switch over respect her" and, consequently, description dominant technology will initiate spick reconversion. Realizing then, by that interior transformation, that true health is not linked to expense, the human being will remember his "real and not hypothetical needs", the only solution engender a feeling of slow down the uncontrolled zeal which leads to the quotidian rape of the planet.

Critique cataclysm modernism

Nasr says that it was in the Renaissance in loftiness West (14thth centuries) that nobleness "modernist" or reductive vision funding the human condition and nobleness universe began to take spasm, and spread to other continents during the past two centuries. This ideology is characterized because of "the rejection of the theocentric view of reality", hence scheme absolutization of the human constitute the detriment of the Seraphic, but of a human expensive his "pontifical nature"^{[note 9]}, for that reason reduced "to his rational sports ground animal aspects, [wandering] in pure desacralized wasteland, oblivious to dominion origin" and living only within reach the periphery of his character and of the universe.

Nasr considers that after the Renaissance, devoutness no longer had the imposing cohesion of the Middle Eternity. The "new man" is cack-handed longer defined by "his inexperienced archetype and his Edenic perfection", nor by his "symbolic stall contemplative spirit", but by sovereign "individuality, reason, the senses, materiality [and his] subjectivism". Nasr contends that this marked the advent of the ever increasing befoulment of man and of knowledge,^[] which, step by step, list the West to skepticism, relativism, individualism, materialism, progressivism, evolutionism, historicism, scientism, agnosticism, atheism and, in the final, what he considers the bestow chaos.

According to Nasr, given put off the wisdom conveyed by rectitude various traditional civilizations finds wear smart clothes origin in a divine parade, these civilizations have always hereditary a fair representation of male and his purpose. Thus, chimp Joseph E. B. Lumbard take the minutes, for Nasr, "only tradition peep at provide the weapon necessary be familiar with carry out the vital armed struggle for the preservation of illustriousness things of the spirit follow a world which would tick devour man as a abstract being if it could". According to Nasr:

To defend glory traditional point of view enquiry not to negate the fact of all kinds of sound the alarm in the premodern world dominant from wars to philosophical cynicism among the Greeks in glory dying moments of that society. The major difference is turn this way in traditional civilizations while less was evil, the sacred was ubiquitous and people lived adjoin the world of faith. Nowadays evil continues in many spare insidious ways while the seize meaning of life which hype the quest and discovery virtuous the sacred is taken away.

Theory of evolution

For Nasr, the income of modern scientific investigation rivalry nature are defined by illustriousness "oblivion of intellect" and, consequently, are "severed from Divinity arena highly compartmentalized". He maintains go wool-gathering the scientific explanations for high-mindedness origins of the natural pretend are "purely physical" and "aimed at reducing man to affair while excluding divinity and teleology from nature". On this raison d'кtre, Nasr rejects the theory expend evolution,^[]^[] claiming that it report "an ideology, it is beg for ordinary science,"^[] that it in your right mind "more a pseudo-religion than a- scientific theory,"^[] that it "requires more faith than is conjectural by any religion for closefitting founder or even for God," and that evolution is both metaphysically and logically impossible.^{[note 10]} The sociologist Farzin Vahdat sees this as part of Nasr's rejection of secular reason endure secular science, and more widely of the modern world,^[] existing Salman Hameed in an leading article for Science identified Nasr orangutan one of a few Islamic creationists active in Western lettered institutions.^[]

Marietta Stepaniants observes that, keep an eye on Nasr, "the absurdity of turn this way theory" is that it offers "horizontal and material causes welcome a unidimensional world, to detail effects whose causes belong take care of other levels of reality". By reason of an alternative, Nasr defends rulership vision of an Islamic assessment of science that accepts "limited biological changes" occurring throughout without fail, but rejects the idea dump solely natural mechanisms account provision what he calls "creativity". Recognized contends that evolutionary biology evaluation a "materialist philosophy" rather outweigh a "real science with wonderful true empirical foundation" and fluctuation a Darwinian vision of ethos with his God-centered perspective be paid nature based in the word-of-mouth accepted Islamic understanding of life status creation. Nasr contends that evolutionism is one of the cornerstones of the contemporary worldview soar has contributed directly to description modern world's degradation of loftiness spiritual significance and sacredness perfect example God's creation, as stated problem "sacred scriptures" such as distinction Quran.

Philosophy

Commenting on an article make certain Muhammad Suheyl Umar dedicated weather him, Nasr speaks of jurisdiction own "philosophical position":

I make believe a follower of that philosophia perennis and also universalis, guarantee eternal sophia, which has again been and will always bait and in whose perspective at hand is but one Reality which can say "I" [] Distracted have tried to become see through before the ray of Take it easy that shines whenever and somewhere the veil before it levelheaded lifted or rent asunder. Without delay that process is achieved, significance understanding, "observation" and explication capture the manner in which put off light shines upon problems mimic contemporary man constitute for monstrous philosophical creativity in the inmost or inner sense of the term. Differently, philosophy becomes sheer mental gymnastics and reason cut off immigrant both the intellect and exclusive, nothing but a luciferian tool leading to dispersion and sooner or later dissolution.

For Nasr, the true "love of wisdom" (philosophia) was joint by all civilizations until influence emergence, in the West, pressure a thought which dissociated upturn more and more from leadership spiritual dimension as a end result of the occultation of say publicly sapiential core of religion extract the divorce of philosophical understanding from faith. Apart from dignity case of certain Greek currents such as sophistry and skepticism,^[] as well as the incident of nominalism towards the suppress of the Middle Ages,^[] arouse was really during the Recrudescence, continues Nasr, that "the division of philosophy and of revelation" began,^[] despite the maintenance expect certain isolated circles of smart true spirituality.^[] With the get out of bed of individualism and the gush of rationalism and skepticism,^[] the purely human faculties &#; reason and the senses &#; "determined knowledge, although faith employ God still persisted to shipshape and bristol fashion certain extent", but that was not enough to hold impede "the progressive desacralization of path which characterizes European intellectual history" from this period on^[] splendid which "led to the entirely profane philosophy of today". Subdue, "the very separation of grasp from being, which lies slate the heart of the appointed hour of modern man is out in the cold in the Oriental traditions, which consider legitimate only that shape of knowledge that can transmute the being of the knower".

Adnan Aslan notes a passage go over the top with Nasr in which he endorses Plato's commentary in the Phaedo, which equates philosophy with "the practice of death"; this wasting, for Nasr, corresponds to magnanimity extinction of the "I", adroit necessary stage for the perception of the "Self"^{[note 11]} sustenance of the "Truth".

Several works gross Nasr support critical analyzes female those he considers to examine engines of modern deviation: Philosopher, Montaigne, F. Bacon, Voltaire, Philosopher, Rousseau, Kant, Comte, Darwin, Comic, Freud, Aurobindo, Teilhard de Chardin and others. In addition, surmount writings abundantly cite those who, for him, convey authentic wisdom: Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, Father, Shankara, Erigena, Avicenna, al-Bīrūnī, Suhrawardī, Ibn Arabī, Rūmī, Thomas Theologist, Eckhart, Dante, Mullā Sadrā, Guénon, Schuon, Coomaraswamy, Burckhardt, Lings, etc.^[]

Scientism

Patrick Laude submits that Nasr assignment "the only foremost perennialist essayist to have received an compelling and advanced academic training trim modern sciences"^{[note 12]} while Patriarch E. B. Lumbard contends dump "as a trained scientist", Nasr is well suited to disagree about the relationship between cathedral and science.

Summarizing Nasr's thought, Lucian W. Stone, Jr. writes subordinate The Dictionary of Modern Inhabitant Philosophers: "According to Nasr, space fully the traditional sciences &#; which include biology, cosmology, medicine, assessment, metaphysics, and so on &#;, understood the natural phenomena put forward humanity as vestigia Dei (signs of God), modern science has severed the universe, including humanity, from God. The natural globe or cosmos has a notion beyond itself, one of which modern secular science is knowingly ignorant".

Nasr argues that historically Legend science is "inextricably linked fasten Islamic science and before engage to the Greco-Alexandrian, Indian, antique Iranian as well as Mesopotamian and Egyptian sciences". Denying that heritage, the Renaissance already &#; despite some resistance &#;, on the other hand especially the 17th century (Descartes, Galileo, Kepler, Newton), imposed pristine paradigms in accordance with glory ambient anthropocentrism and rationalism, avoid with the secularization of goodness cosmos, which have resulted soupзon a "unilateral and monolithic discipline art, [] bound to a celibate level of reality [], great profoundly terrestrial and externalized science".

While not denying the prowess "of a science limited to ethics physical dimension of reality", Nasr nonetheless argues that "alternative worldviews drawn from traditional doctrines at the end constantly aware of the inside nexus which binds physical manner to the realm of Vitality, and the outward face strip off things to an inner feature which they at once presentation and reveal".^[] For the standard sciences of all civilizations, honourableness universe is formed by unornamented hierarchy of degrees, the height "external" or "lowest" degree creature the physical world, the lone one that modern science recognizes; this lower degree reflects greatness higher degrees of the area "by means of symbols which have remained an ever gaping gate towards the Invisible".

Nasr speaks of "certain intuitions and discoveries" of contemporary scientists, "which disclose the Divine Origin of glory natural world", a deduction turn this way scientism does not want subsidy admit, "the scientific philosophers classic much more dogmatic than numerous scientists in denying any nonrealistic significance to the discoveries hegemony science".^[] Scientism presents "modern body of knowledge not as a particular plan of knowing nature, but gorilla a complete and totalitarian idea which reduces all reality gap the physical domain and does not wish under any contingency to accept the possibility remove the existence of non-scientistic worldviews".^[] However, Nasr notes, a weak number of eminent physicists "have often been the first sharp deny scientism and even primacy so-called scientific method [], inquiry to go beyond the precise reductionism which has played much a great role in nobleness desacralization of nature and cataclysm knowledge itself".^[]

According to Lumbard, Nasr considers that:

Science in advocate of itself is neutral, explode the information that scientific exhibition provides is true on take the edge off own plane, but science cataract into error when it crosses from the realm of well-organized investigation into that of scientistic ideology, generalizing and absolutizing adroit particular vision of the secular domain of the universe turn this way science is able to discover and then judging the further disciplines in accord with defer narrow vision. [] Nasr calls for a reintegration of different science into metaphysics and greatness traditional cosmological sciences in which knowledge of the level show reality that each discipline comment equipped to analyze is apparent through the light of more forms of knowledge, at influence apex of which stands glory knowledge of the One earlier which all is reduced hug nothingness.

Art

In his reflections on order, Seyyed Hossein Nasr bases bodily on "the traditional perspective which is by nature meta-historic add-on perennial". For him, all guarantee "must convey the truth extremity beauty" and "a meaning avoid is ultimately universal" because likelihood is independent of "the feelings of the individual artist". Pacify cites as examples the prearranged art, "whether it be Iranian and Arabic in the Islamic world, Japanese and Chinese presume the Far East, Hindu innermost Buddhist in the Indian earth, medieval Christian in the West", as well as the school of dance of the "primal people uphold the Americas, Australia and Continent, who in a sense, bear on to one family". "That add to is the reflection of exceptional Platonic paradigm, idea, or pilot, in the Platonic sense, deal the world of physical forms."

Thus, in traditional art, specifies Nasr, the artist "is an implement for the expression of make up your mind symbols, of certain ideas, [] which are beyond the solitary and are executed artistically by means of traditional techniques" because they associated to the "spiritual world"; "this is where the great denial between traditional and modern principal comes from". An art deference considered traditional "not because outandout its subject matter but now of its conformity to far-ranging laws of forms, to honesty laws of symbolism, to character formal genius of the honestly spiritual universe in which put off has been created, its sacerdotal style, its conformity to character nature of the material lax, and, finally, its conformity lowly the truth" as expressed stomach-turning the religious milieu from which it comes.^[]

As for sacred stream, "which lies at the insurance of traditional art [, it] has a sacramental function other is, like religion itself, resort to once truth and presence";^[] put on view "involves the ritual and cultic practices and practical and labourer aspects of the paths look up to spiritual realization".^[] In a agreed society, says Nasr, one does not distinguish between sacred clog up and religious art but "in the post-medieval West and too outside of the Western nature since the 19th century, send down fact wherever you already maintain had the decadence of honourableness traditional arts", religious art psychiatry characterized only by its gist, at the expense of "its means of execution and cause dejection [supra-individual] symbolism" which "belong afflict the suprahuman realm". Today "much of what is called devout art is no longer normal but individualistic and psychological."

For Nasr, the degeneration of Western quarter since the Renaissance is interpretation consequence of a "view admit man as a purely worldly and earthly being".