Tim’s Reviews > Understanding Islam > Status Update

Moreover, truths are profound, not because they are difficult to express for him who understands them, but because they are difficult to understand for him who does not know them; hence the disproportion between the simplicity of the symbol and the possible complexity of the mental operations.

The Sufi, following the example of the Prophet, wants neither "to be God" nor "to be other than God"; and this is not unconnected with all that has been said above and with the distinction between "extinction" (fana) and "permanence" (baqa). There is no extinction in God without universal charity and there is no permanence in Him without that supreme poverty which is submission to the origin.

Not an introduction to Islam. The author states that he assumes some doctrinal basics, and the book thus far is an attempt to integrate Islam within a higher metaphysical symbolism as it relates to the ONE, and also to compare it to other traditions incorporating the Perennialist school/philosophy.

"Like the world, the Qur'an is at the same time one and multiple. The world is a multiplicity which disperses and divides; the Qur'an is a multiplicity which draws together and leads to Unity."