The Eleventh Hour: The spiritual crisis of the modern world in the light of tradition and prophecy

by Martin Lings

Martin Lings gives us powerful reasons for believing that we have now reached a point in time from which 'the end' - whatever that may mean - is already in sight without being immediately imminent. The Eleventh Hour has its roots in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. The following questions run through the book: why did the latecomers receive the same wage as those who had laboured throughout the heat of the day? Why were they the first to be paid? And why, did Christ say 'And the last shall be first?' These questions are answered in the light of the concept of the Millennium, which is clearly the equivalent of the new Golden Age of the next cycle of time, and which is found in all three monotheistic religions, bringing them into line, in this respect, with Hinduism, Greco-Roman Antiquity and Buddhism.

Genres: Islam, Religion, Philosophy, History, Spirituality

148 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1987

About the author

Martin Lings was an English writer and scholar, a student and follower of Frithjof Schuon, and Shakespearean scholar. He is best known as the author of a very popular and positively reviewed biography, Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources, first published in 1983 and still in print.

Lings was born in Burnage, Manchester in 1909 to a Protestant family. The young Lings gained an introduction to travelling at a young age, spending significant time in the United States due to his father's employment.

Lings attended Clifton College and went on to Magdalen College, Oxford (BA (Oxon) English Language and Literature). At Magdalen he was a student of C. S. Lewis, who would become a close friend of his. After graduating from Oxford Lings went to Vytautas Magnus University, in Lithuania, where he taught Anglo-Saxon and Middle English.

For Lings himself, however, the most important event that occurred while he was at Oxford was his discovery of the writings of the René Guénon, a French metaphysician and Muslim convert and those of Frithjof Schuon, a German spiritual authority, metaphysician and Perennialist. In 1938 Lings went to Basle to make Schuon's acquaintance and he remained Frithjof Schuon's disciple and expositor for the rest of his life.

In 1939 Lings went to Cairo, Egypt in order to visit a friend of his who was an assistant of René Guénon. Not long after arriving in Cairo, his friend died and Lings began studying and learned Arabic.

Cairo became his home for over a decade; he became an English teacher at the University of Cairo and produced Shakespeare plays annually. Lings married Lesley Smalley in 1944 and lived with her in a village near the pyramids. Despite having settled comfortably in Egypt, Lings was forced to leave in 1952 after anti-British disturbances.

Upon returning to the United Kingdom he continued his education, earning a BA in Arabic and a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). His doctoral thesis became a well-received book on Algerian Sufi Ahmad al-Alawi (see Sufi studies). After completing his doctorate, Lings worked at the British Museum and later British Library, overseeing eastern manuscripts and other textual works, rising to the position of Keeper of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts 1970-73. He was also a frequent contributor to the journal, Studies in Comparative Religion.

A writer throughout this period, Lings' output increased in the last quarter of his life. While his thesis work on Ahmad al-Alawi had been well-regarded, his most famous work was a biography of Muhammad, written in 1983, which earned him acclaim in the Muslim world and prizes from the governments of Pakistan and Egypt. His work was hailed as the "best biography of the prophet in English" at the National Seerat Conference in Islamabad.[2] He also continued travelling extensively, although he made his home in Kent. He died in 2005.

In addition to his writings on Sufism, Lings was a Shakespeare scholar. His contribution to Shakespeare scholarship was to point out the deeper esoteric meanings found in Shakespeare's plays, and the spirituality of Shakespeare himself. More recent editions of Lings's books on Shakespeare include a Foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales. Just before his death he gave an interview on this topic, which was posthumously made into the film Shakespeare's Spirituality: A Perspective. An Interview With Dr. Martin Lings.

Reviews

[Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was lucky to hear Martin lecture in the lounge of a Retreat House in the South of England a year or two before he died. His talk was on the representation of the after-life in Islam. I picked up this book at that meeting and read it with great interest. Martin Lings was a scholar who knew C.S. Lewis well and took his degree from Oxford. He converted to Islam and was one of its most eloquent proponents (in its Sufi form) in the UK.
In the Eleventh Hour Martin looks at the possibility we are in 'the End times'. His conclusion, backed up with an impressive collection of predictions from various sources, given at the close of his book, is that we are. He was no fool nor given to empty prognostications. He was a man of deep faith. For those reaons this book is worthy of serious consideration.

[Mohammed Yusuf · Rating 3 out of 5]

هذا النص مفيد ، في التعبير عن الكاتب و جزئيا عن الكتاب ،

http://themathesontrust.org/library/m...

[Joody · Rating 2 out of 5]

الحديث عن الاستقراطية والثيوقراطية والأوتوقراطية كأنظمة حكم قابلة للتنفيذ في القرن الواحد والعشرين أصابني بالغثيان.
بعض فصوله نقد لا بأس به لتعالي الحضارة الغربية على كل ماهو ميتافيزيقي. ولكن معظمه غثاء أحوى.

[Julio López · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesante aproximación a la filosofía perenne. El milenarismo va a llegarh

[Bassa Traoré · Rating 5 out of 5]

A splendor and an emergency to read and appreciate in the era we are currently living for the understanding of a lot of forms and anti-forms of spiritualities and believes and reach us back to a reality we lost in the mall of the modern world, that emphasizes us in a superficial living instead of a deeper and main living based on acknowledge and happiness.