Scientia Sacra
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Scientia Sacra
In perennial philosophy, ''scientia sacra'' or sacred science is a form of sacred knowledge that lies at the heart of both divine revelations and traditional sciences. It recognizes sources of knowledge other than those recognized by modern epistemology, such as divine revelations and intellectual intuition, the latter of which is considered a supra-rational form of knowledge based on the human intellect. Scientia sacra embodies principles and doctrines derived from reason, revelation and intellectual intuition, with the conviction that these sources of knowledge can be reconciled without conflict in a hierarchical order and employed in the human quest to understand different orders of reality. It views the universe as a unified reality centered on God—the Ultimate Reality—whose knowledge is beyond the reach of sense perception and reason. This notion may be traced back to traditional cultures and civilizations, particularly Islamic tradition, which was primarily conceptu ...
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Perennial Philosophy
The perennial philosophy ( la, philosophia perennis), also referred to as perennialism and perennial wisdom, is a perspective in philosophy and spirituality that views all of the world's religious traditions as sharing a single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine has grown. Perennialism has its roots in the Renaissance interest in neo-Platonism and its Theory of Forms, idea of Neo-Platonism#The One, the One, from which all existence emerges. Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) sought to integrate ''Corpus Hermeticum, Hermeticism'' with Greek and Jewish-Christian thought, discerning a ''prisca theologia'' which could be found in all ages. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94) suggested that truth could be found in many, rather than just two, traditions. He proposed a harmony between the thought of Plato and Aristotle, and saw aspects of the ''prisca theologia'' in Averroes (Ibn Rushd), the Quran, the Kabbalah and other sources. Ag ...
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Knowledge And The Sacred
''Knowledge and the Sacred'' is a 1981 book by the Iranian philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr. It was originally presented as his Gifford Lectures, which he delivered in 1981. The book is an exposition of perennial philosophy and has been described as a ''summa'' of the traditional perspective. It reflects Nasr's desire to revive what he refers to as the sacred quality of knowledge as opposed to knowledge based on sense perception and reason. History Nasr was the first Muslim and the first non-Westerner to deliver the Gifford Lectures. He received his invitation to deliver the lectures immediately before the Iranian revolution of 1979. However, Nasr was forced into exile as a result of the revolution, and he lost both his prepared lecture notes and his library. He first feared he would have to cancel the event, but he chose to honor his commitment and in four months produced the substance of his lectures. Nasr eventually delivered the lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 1981 ...
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Gifford Lectures
The Gifford Lectures () are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford. Their purpose is to "promote and diffuse the study of natural theology in the widest sense of the term – in other words, the knowledge of God." A Gifford lectures appointment is one of the most prestigious honours in Scottish academia. The lectures are given at four Scottish universities: University of St Andrews, University of Glasgow, University of Aberdeen and University of Edinburgh. University calendars record that at the four Scottish universities, the Gifford Lectures are to be "public and popular, open not only to students of the university, but the whole community (for a tuition fee) without matriculation. Besides a general audience, the Lecturer may form a special class of students for the study of the subject, which will be conducted in the usual way, and tested by examination and thesis, written and oral". In 1889, those attending ...
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Nidhal Guessoum
Nidhal Guessoum (born September 6, 1960) is an Algerian astrophysicist. He is a professor at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. His research interests range from gamma-ray astrophysics, such as positron-electron annihilation, nuclear gamma-ray lines, and gamma-ray bursts, to Islamic astronomy, i.e. crescent visibility, Islamic calendar, and prayer times at high latitudes, problems that have yet to be fully resolved. He has published a number of technical works and lectured internationally at many renowned universities (Cambridge, Oxford, Cornell, Wisconsin, and others). In addition to his academic work, he writes about issues related to science, education, the Arab world, and Islam. Guessoum is also a columnist for ''Gulf News'' and ''The Huffington Post'', and has made notable contributions to Nature Middle East. He has also appeared many times on international media outlets, including Al-Jazeera, BBC, NPR, France 2, ''Le Monde'', and others. Educatio ...
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Bruno Guiderdoni
Bruno Abd al Haqq Guiderdoni (born September 30, 1958) is a French astrophysicist. He is a research director at the CNRS (''Centre national de la recherche scientifique''), and a member of the Centre de recherche astrophysique de Lyon (CRAL). He was director of the Observatoire de Lyon from 2005 to 2015. His research is primarily concerned with the origin and development of galaxies. He has also written extensively on Islamic theology and mysticism. Biography Guiderdoni was born on September 30, 1958 in France into a Christian family, although he was not raised as a Christian. He received his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Paris in 1986, and held a post-doctoral fellowship at the French Academy of Sciences for two years before joining the Paris Institute of Astrophysics as an astrophysicist in 1988, which is funded by the French National Center for Scientific Research. In 1992, he was named research director at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics. He served as an a ...
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Titus Burckhardt
Titus Burckhardt (24 October 1908 – 15 January 1984) was a Swiss writer and a leading member of the Perennialist or Traditionalist School. He was the author of numerous works on metaphysics, cosmology, anthropology, esoterism, alchemy, Sufism, symbolism and sacred art. Life Scion of a patrician family of Basel, Switzerland, Titus Burckhardt was the son of the sculptor Carl Burckhardt (1878–1923) and the grand-nephew of Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897), an art historian and Renaissance specialist. His genealogical tree also includes John Lewis Burckhardt (1784–1817), the explorer who discovered the Nabatean city of Petra and the Egyptian temples of Abu Simbel. He was born in Florence, Italy, on October 24, 1908. The following year his family settled in Basel. He attended the same primary school as Frithjof Schuon, who became a lifelong friend. In 1920, his family left Basel for Ligornetto in the Swiss canton of Ticino, where his father died three years later. Around 1927, ...
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Frithjof Schuon
Frithjof Schuon (, , ; 18 June 1907 – 5 May 1998) was a Swiss metaphysician of German descent, belonging to the Perennialist or Traditionalist School of thought. He was the author of more than twenty works in French on metaphysics, spirituality, the religious phenomenon, anthropology and art, which have been translated into English and many other languages. He was also a painter and a poet. With René Guénon and Ananda Coomaraswamy, Schuon is recognized as one of the major 20th-century representatives of the ''philosophia perennis''. Like them, he affirmed the reality of an absolute Principle – God – from which the universe emanates, and maintained that all divine revelations, despite their differences, possess a common essence: one and the same Truth. He also shared with them the certitude that man is potentially capable of supra-rational knowledge, and undertook a sustained critique of the modern mentality severed from its traditional roots. Following Plato, P ...
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René Guénon
René Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon (15 November 1886 – 7 January 1951), also known as ''Abdalwâhid Yahiâ'' (; ''ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Yaḥiā'') was a French intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having written on topics ranging from esotericism, "sacred science" and "traditional studies" to symbolism and initiation. In his writings, he proposes "to expound directly some aspects of Eastern metaphysical doctrines" of "universal character", or "to adapt these same doctrines for Western readers while keeping strictly faithful to their spirit", following the Hindu pedagogy of "handing down" the doctrines while reiterating their "non-human character". Initiated into Islamic esotericism from as early as 1910 when he was 24, he mainly wrote and published in French, and his works have been translated into more than twenty languages; he also wrote in Arabic an article for the journal ''Al Marifah''. Biography René Guénon was born in 1886 in Blo ...
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Ma'rifa
Maʿrifa (Arabic: “interior knowledge”) is the mystical knowledge of God or the “higher realities” that is the ultimate goal of followers of Sufism. Sufi mystics came to maʿrifa by following a spiritual path that later Sufi thinkers categorized into a series of “stations” that were followed by another series of steps, the “states,” through which the Sufi would come to union with God. The acquisition of maʿrifa was not the result of learnedness but was a type of gnosis in which the mystic received illumination through the grace of God. The finest expressions of maʿrifa can be found in the poetry of the Sufis Jalāl al-Dīn al-Rūmī (1207–73) and Ibn al-ʿArabī (1165–1240). The term arif'', "gnostic" has been used to designate advanced mystics who have attained the spiritual station of ''ma'rifa''. ''Maqaam'' In one of the earliest accounts of the '' maqamat-l arba'in'' ("forty stations") in Sufism, Sufi master Abu Said ibn Abi'l-Khayr lists ''ma'rifa'' ...
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Ibn Arabi
Ibn ʿArabī ( ar, ابن عربي, ; full name: , ; 1165–1240), nicknamed al-Qushayrī (, ) and Sulṭān al-ʿĀrifīn (, , 'Sultan of the Knowers'), was an Arab Andalusian Muslim scholar, mystic, poet, and philosopher, extremely influential within Islamic thought. Out of the 850 works attributed to him, some 700 are authentic while over 400 are still extant. His cosmological teachings became the dominant worldview in many parts of the Muslim world. His traditional titular is ''Muḥyīddīn'' ( ar, محيي الدين; ''The Reviver of Religion''). After he passed away, among practitioners of sufism he is renowned by the honorific title ''Shaykh al-Akbar'' ( ar, الشيخ الأكبر) which the "Akbarian" school derives its name, and make him known as ''Doctor Maximus'' (The Greatest Teacher) in medieval Europe. Ibn ʿArabī was considered as a saint by some scholars and Muslim community. Al-Suyuti, Tanbih al-Ghabi fi Tanzih Ibn ‘Arabi (p. 17-21) Biography Ibn ʿAra ...
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Henry Corbin
Henry Corbin (14 April 1903 – 7 October 1978)Shayegan, DaryushHenry Corbin in Encyclopaedia Iranica. was a French philosopher, theologian, and Iranologist, professor of Islamic studies at the École pratique des hautes études. He was influential in extending the modern study of traditional Islamic philosophy from early ''falsafa'' to later and "mystical" figures such as Suhrawardi, Ibn Arabi, and Mulla Sadra Shirazi. Corbin was born in Paris in April 1903. Although Protestant by birth, he received a Catholic education, obtaining a certificate in Scholastic philosophy from the Catholic Institute of Paris at age 19. Three years later he took his "license de philosophie" under the Thomist Étienne Gilson. He also studied modern philosophy, including hermeneutics and phenomenology, becoming the first French translator of Martin Heidegger. In 1928, Louis Massignon (director of Islamic studies at the Sorbonne) introduced him to Suhrawardi, the 12th-century Persian Muslim th ...
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Knowledge By Presence
Knowledge by presence (Persian: علم حضوری) or consciousness is a degree and kind of primordial knowledge in the Illuminationist school of Islamic philosophy. This knowledge is also called the illuminative doctrine of knowledge by presence or al-ilm al-huduri al-ishraqi. This theory is attributed to Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi. According to this theory self knows himself directly through a kind of cognition. Concept Humans in their ordinary experience show themselves as the primary subject of knowledge. Humans communicated with non-humans with different methods such as mind, language and reason. In any kind of knowledge and before any knowledge, always there is a kind of knowledge called knowledge of oneself or consciousness. This consciousness is foremost and prior to any knowledge. According to Mehdi Haeri Yazdi, the knowledge by presence is a sort of knowledge which has all relations within its paradigm. In this kind of knowledge there is a self-object relation without t ...
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