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by Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Author), Mohammad Faghfoory (Translator), Toshihiko Izutsu (Translator)
In 1974, the oldest extant copy of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching (6-4th century BCE) was unearthed at Xi' an along with the ceramic warriors guarding the tomb of the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang. By 1979, Professor Toshihiko Izutsu-- the Japanese Islamicist, philosopher and linguist-- collaborated in Tehran with Seyyed Hossein Nasr to translate this treasure into English. Dr. Nasr went on to put it into Persian adding a Sufi commentary which was recently published in Iran. This has now been translated into English with annotations by Mohammad H. Faghfoory. Imagine having a foundational world scripture like the Tao Te Ching explained by such a renowned Sufi scholar and internationally recognized spiritual authority as Dr. Syed H. Nasr. Passages whose subtleties are normally inaccessible to the Western mind become clear. Through Dr. Nasr's insightful use of verses from such Persian luminaries as Rumi, Hafiz, and Attar, the reader is introduced to the " world" behind this world. The scholar recognized as the " Father of World Religions", Huston Smith, refers to the Tao Te Ching as a " Testament to humanity's at-home-ness in the universe, [which] can be read in half an hour or a lifetime... .The Tao is the Way of Ultimate Reality... the ordering principle behind all life... the integrating principle of the whole - The Spirit, as it were, of the universe - instinct without contrivance, which flows with purpose." It also refers to the Way of human life. The " Sage", or True Man, is the Noble primordial nature within each of us. The dignified sage within rests content in wu-wei, the inner tranquility with no attachment to the transient, always aware of the Eternal Nature of others. The exquisite explication of the qualities of this sage within, is one of the extraordinary offerings of this work. The Tao brings all things to completion. Three civilizations come to bear! Just as the original English translation of the Tao Te Ching presented here was the fruit of a collaboration between a Japanese and Persian scholar, and through Nasr's translation and commentary into Persian, this book becomes the scene of an encounter between Islamic and Chinese religions and civilizations as well as Persian culture where Qur' anic verses, verses of the Tao Te Ching and Persian Sufi poetry and prose stand side by side. " A Sufi Commentary on the Tao Te Ching, penned by the greatest living Muslim philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr, enshrines nothing less than a fulfilment of the Prophetic command to " Seek knowledge, even in China." We see in this work a first-rate exposition of traditional Chinese ontology, cosmology, and ethics through the lens of the commentator's lifelong engagement with Sufi metaphysical prose and poetry and the traditions of the Far East. This book can also help reorient Islam's dialogue with other religions, which is most often limited to hackneyed comparisons between Islam and Christianity. As Nasr shows so well, Taoism shares an unparalleled affinity with Islam, from its conception of nature to its understanding of Ultimate Reality. Most importantly, at a time when the world calls us in unprecedented fashion to the dissolution of our human nature, A Sufi Commentary on the Tao Te Ching invites us to rediscover ourselves through the aid of timeless wisdom. For, " When there is a storm outside, the sage goes inside and tends to his own garden." -- Mohammed Rustom, Professor of Islamic Thought and editor of A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy, Carleton University
Author Biography
Jane Casewit holds a BA Honours degree from University of Durham (UK) and a Master's degree in education from Manchester University (UK) and Framingham University (Massachusetts). She studied in Paris and has extensive experience in translation with certificates in translation studies in French and Arabic. After teaching for many years in Morocco, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, she returned to Morocco and worked with the Ministry of Education promoting girls' education and youth employment training. She has published several articles on traditional views of femininity and currently works on translations and editing with Fons Vitae and World Wisdom. Mohammad H. Faghfoory is professor of Islamic Studies at the George Washington University and the director of the MA Program in Islamic Studies. In addition to advising graduate students' research and theses, he teaches courses on Qur'an and Hadith, Islamic Political Thought, Sufism, Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Shi' ite Islam, Islamic Art and Spirituality, Islam, and other related courses. He received his Master's degrees in history and Middle East studies from the University of Illinois, and a Master's degree and a PhD in political science and Middle East studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has taught at the University of Tehran and has been a visiting scholar at the University of California-Los Angeles, Islamic Manuscripts Specialist at Princeton University, and at the Library of Congress, and adjunct professor of Middle East History at Mary-Washington University in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Dr. Faghfoory has written, translated, and edited twelve books, numerous book chapters, articles, and book reviews (see Publications section for details). He has lectured extensively in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, and participated in interfaith dialogue organized by American media. Toshihiko Izutsu (1914 - 1993) was a Japanese scholar who specialized in Islamic studies and comparative religion. He took an interest in linguistics at a young age, and came to know more than thirty languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, Persian, Sanskrit, Pali, Hindustani, Russian, Greek, and Chinese. He is widely known for his translation of the Qur?an into Japanese. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, University Professor of Islamic Studies at the George Washington University, is an international authority on Islamic philosophy, mysticism, art, and science as well as comparative religion and religion and ecology. He is the author of dozens of books and hundreds of articles and the subject of a number of books, edited collections, and articles. A small sample of his recent publications include The Garden of Truth: The vision and Promise of Sufism (2007), Islam's Mystical Tradition (2007), Islam in the Modern World (2010), In Search of the Sacred (2010), and Metaphysical Penetrations (a translation of Mulla Sadra's Kitab al-Masha' ir. (2014). " The greatest honor the academic world grants to a living philosopher is the dedication of a volume of The Library of Living Philosophers to his work and thought; and the most prestigious recognition a thinker can receive in the field of natural theology is an invitation to deliver the annual Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh. In the years 2000, the twenty-eighth volume of The Library of Living Philosophers was devoted to the philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, placing him in the company of Einstein, Sartre, Russell, Whitehead, and other luminaries of twentieth-century intellectual life. Fourteen years previously, Nasr had delivered the Gifford Lectures, and the text of these lectures became his magnum opus, " Knowledge and the Sacred."
