Enduring Utterance: Collected Lectures (1993-2001)

Martin Lings

Paperback

9781908092090

A collection of lectures by renowned Sufi scholar Martin Lings. Delivered in London in the late nineties, they cover topics relating to metaphysics, comparative religion, Islamic doctrines, Sufism, mysticism and literature.

What is our ultimate destiny? How do we make sense of the diversity of religions? Why is there evil in the world? What is the value of beauty and art? Is Islam a tolerant faith? - The answers given in this volume to such urgent questions will not fail to challenge the reader to enter a vision of history, religion, culture and psychology which is demanding in a true alchemical sense: that is, they offer a path to self-transformation, from fallen lead to risen gold. These lectures, here in print for the first time, are an open invitation to the perennial world of traditional wisdom, offering first-hand accounts of the inner life of Sufism based upon the most profound 20th century traditionalist thought.

Martin Lings (1909-2005) read English at Oxford, where he was a pupil and later a friend of C.S. Lewis. As a lecturer at Cairo University he lived in Egypt for twelve years where he was closely associated with René Guénon. On returning to England, he worked at the British Museum, rising to the position of Keeper of Oriental Books and Manuscripts, 1970-73. His works on Sufism have been translated into a dozen languages and have been in print for decades in Europe and in the Islamic world at large. A profound Shakespeare scholar and a published poet, towards the end of his life he was hailed as a spiritual and scholarly authority.