Jesse Hilson’s Reviews > Mystical Dimensions of Islam > Status Update

Within striking distance of the end of this most fascinating and frustrating book. Why frustrating? Because I don’t have enough comprehension of Turkish, Persian, or Arabic to get deeper. The mystical sides, under Schimmel’s explanation, are golden teasers.

Want to be done reading this soon. It’s fascinating, if a little repetitive. Maybe repetitive is the wrong word. It’s hard to convey mystical ideas from history in new ways, it seems. Also, I’m sure the mystical poetry has a better effect in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish than in translation here.

Just read the chapter on “theosophical Sufism.” A lot of talk about “wahdat al-wujud,” the Unity of Being. I don’t fully understand it. I take it that saying God is everything and everything, and everyone, is God, could get you into trouble with some true believers, whether Muslim or Christian or whatever. Still, mystical poets went crazy with this