A Return To The Spirit Questions And Answers

by Martin Lings

This insightful autobiographical account details one man’s relationship with a spiritual master and how it led to a deep spiritual understanding of human life. The 96-year-old author, a respected British scholar, recounts the lessons learned from the Sufi sage, including the answers to profound questions such as Do religions contradict one another? What is the spiritual significance of tears and laughter? How does the Divine play a part in such simple acts? Do civilizations embody spirituality? and How is the Quranic definition of the afterlife related to Sufism? An appendix in memory of Dr. Lings includes tributes from Huston Smith and Wendell Berry, photos from Doctor Ling's, and excerpts from major obituaries.

Genres: Islam, Religion, Philosophy, Spirituality, Nonfiction, Biography

Unknown Binding

First published September 28, 2005

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

[Lubna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the great Martin Lings last book - he finished writing it a mere 30 hours before he passed away. The book discusses some key issues, such as whether religions contradict one another, the spiritual significance of tears & laughter, etc. It starts out with Lings discussing how he came to Islam & he pays tribute to Rene Guenon, the French metaphysician, philosopher, and scholar of Islam, who brought him into Islam & whom he learned from his whole life. This book probably isn't the best book to pick up if you are just starting to learn about sufism, but is good for those already sort of familiar with it. The book ends with a lenghty 'In Memoriam' section with a great many touching tributes & rememberances of Dr. Lings. That part of the book really made me tear up. Overall, good book.

[Mark David Vinzens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ja’a mina’l-qalbi fadakhala ’l-qulub (It came from the Heart, and it has entered the Hearts)

“Every religion is concerned with the restoration of what was lost at the fall of man. For an ever increasing majority that cannot be achieved or even begun in this life. But there are bound to be a few who are capable of at least beginning the restoration now, and that is precisely why every religion possesses an inner aspect, the purpose of which is an immediate start of the task of regaining the direct consciousness of Transcendent Reality which the human soul lost at its fall. The Qur'an expresses this loss in the words: It is not the eyesights that are blind, but the hearts in the breasts that are blind (XXIV, 46); and like all other esoterisms Sufism is initially concerned with what is often termed the opening of the Eye of the Heart. (p. 73)”

— Martin Lings, A Return to the Spirit

The Return to Spirit is the final work of Martin Lings. He passed into the Greater Life thirty hours after completing it. May the infinite love, light and peace of the One embrace the soul of Dr Martin Lings (Sheikh Abu Bakr Sirajuddin), now and forever. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un, “To God we belong and to Him we shall return” (Qur'an 2:156) To behold beauty is to become oneself beautiful. Beholding His glory, we ourselves are transformed from glory unto glory...

Imam al-Ghazali’s deathbed poem, translated by Martin Lings:

Say unto my brethren when they see me dead,
And weep for me, lamenting me in sadness:
“Think ye I am this corpse ye are to bury?
I swear by God, this dead one is not I.
I in the Spirit am, and this my body
My dwelling was, my garment for a time.
I am a treasure: hidden I was beneath
This talisman of dust, wherein I suffered.
I am a pearl; a shell imprisoned me,
But leaving it, all trials I have left.
I am a bird, and this was once my cage;
But I have flown, leaving it as a token.
I praise God who hath set me free, and made
For me a dwelling in the heavenly heights.
Ere now I was a dead man in your midst,
But I have come to life, and doffed my shroud.”

(Sufi Poems: A Mediaeval Anthology)

[Quan Rjpt · Rating 5 out of 5]

An autobiography of one of God's Friends, a Wali. This book is amazing! I loved going through the chapter of how Shaykh Abu Bakr(RA) came to Islam. I recommend this book to whomever is interested in knowing about Islam in the West.

[Sagheer Afzal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read Martin Lings and Oxford educated Shakespearean scholar of Arabic and his account of how he converted to Islam and I have to say I'm disappointed with some of his insights. In the book he reproduces a speech in which he basically says we need to return to Islamic values of old. We need to basically concentrate on our dress so it helps us pray better, we need to pay attention to the beard and the turban because that is all an exoteric part of Islam and of course the esoteric part of Islam is the Sufism and he concludes by saying:

'Oh Arabs you are in the abode of Islam with after your independence you are free to do what you will and we look towards you from outside at abode and place our hopes in you do not disappoint us'

I felt like retorting: 'With all your Oxford degree intelligence, with all your linguistic capabilities is that all you got from Islam? That we should emulate the Arabs and the way to save ourselves from West corruption and materialism is to basically immerse ourself in the Bedouin Arab lifestyle

Doesn't this speech go against the very essence of sufism that Islam is in the heart of the believer not in a specific geographical location populated by long bearded men?

One thing in his book which he stated and which is true is that the paradise in the Quran is told in terms of earthly joys. Some Christians have called the Quranic description of paradise materialistic.

One element of Martin Lings philosophy that seems to be more of a derivative of his classical education is the idea that a Sufi is the type of ideal man as envisaged by Plato. Someone who is moved by a beautiful work of art or is moved to tears when he sees a beautiful painting or hears a beautiful piece of music. I can't say I have noticed such tendencies in the Sufi's that I know.

[Wael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Livre de synthèse de la pensée du grand martin lings avec des témoignages plus que touchants de la part des personnes l'ayant côtoyées