[Y]ou must have in every walk of your life a logical concept. This does not mean to wipe away faith, but the real principle of Islam is that faith is logical. Islam would not be what it is if it were not logical and this is something you must keep in mind. [B]ecause the very heart of Islam is logical. There ...
From that early division, a host of further distinctions grew up, but the question of rightful leadership remains central. In time, the Shia were also sub-divided over this question, so that today the Ismailis are the only Shia community who, throughout history, have been led by a living, hereditary Imam in direct descent from the Prophet. Imam Shah Karim al-Husayni Aga ...
"We are the House of Muhammad and as such are more entitled to the authority (walāyah) of this affair over you than these pretenders who claim what does not belong to them... By God there is no son of a Prophet other than me among you and among the peoples from East to West. Imām al-Ḥusayn ibn 'Alī The tenth day ...
Reports and pictures from first ever "Ismaili Studies Conference" at University of Chicago. Full program of presentation topics is available at the link above. It is recommended that the commentary below be read with the program. The handout from a presentation and the Ismaili Studies notebook Day 1: Thursday, October 16, 2014 Diary We have several Ismailis here from Canada and ...
North America's first Ismaili Studies Conference will take place on October 16 and 17 at the University of Chicago. Organized by University of Chicago Doctoral Candidates Shiraz Hajiani and Michael J. Bechtel, the Ismaili Studies Conference features Five Panels and a concluding Roundtable Discussion. The presenters on these Panels include the top names in Ismaili studies over the last decades including ...
Arguments for the Immateriality of the Human Mind or Consciousness: "Mechanists consider mind to be a part of the body, but this is a mistake. The brain is a part of the body, but mind and brain are not identical. The brain breathes mind like the lungs breathe air." - Huston Smith Certain people today hold to a belief that the ...
The Imam's word on the Faith is taken as an absolute rule. Every Ismaili is expected to accept it. Imam Shah Karim al-Husayni Aga Khan The greatest danger to every Muslim citizen - I have not the least hesitation in saying it - is alcohol. Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan Our belief is that the thing which separates man from ...
Great architecture, like great art, captures esoteric thought in physical form. Imam Shah Karim al-Husayni Aga Khan IV In May 2010, Imam Shah Karim al-Husayni Aga Khan IV, the 49th hereditary Imam of the Shī'ī Ismaili Muslims and the direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and Imam Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, presided over the foundation ceremony for the Aga Khan Museum, ...
According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muḥammad received the first revelations of the Holy Qur'ān on the Night of Power (laylat al-qadr) which is vividly described in the sūrahs below: Verily, We sent it down in the Night of Power And how can we tell you what is the Night of Power? The Night of Power is greater than a thousand ...
"In the early hours of July 11, the Aga's heart-beat weakened. Aly and Sadruddin were summoned to the Barakat but their dying father could no longer speak. Karim came and the Begum was still keeping up her vigil. Four doctors were in attendance and nurses left the sick-room only to change their clothes or take a bite. At midday, the Aga ...
It is important, therefore, for non-Muslims who are dealing with the Ummah to communicate with both Sunni and Shia voices. To be oblivious to this reality would be like ignoring over many centuries that there were differences between Catholics and Protestants, or trying to resolve the civil war in Northern Ireland without engaging both Christian communities. Imam Shāh Karīm al-Ḥusaynī Āgā ...
Abstract: According to traditional interpretations, the first verse of the Qur'ān (iqra bi-smi rabbika) merely commands the Prophet Muhammad to read aloud the verses of the Qur'ān. But based on early Muslim tradition and the rules of Arabic grammar, the Qur'an's earliest verses actually show that Muhammad was engaged in a form of mystical meditation, consisting of repeating and reciting a ...
"Whatever may or may not be the soul's future, there is one impregnable central fact in existence: that here and now, in this world, we have a soul which has a life of its own in its appreciation of truth, beauty, harmony and good against evil." - Imam Sultan Muḥammad Shah Aga Khan III "The structure of quantum theory opens the ...
I think that monotheistic religions, having a common reference to a single God, should and must dialogue. The three religions which Abraham inspired have many more common facets than those which divide them. Religion must be the means by which to affirm the ethical significance of existence, regardless of one's profession of faith. - Imām Shāh Karīm al-Ḥusaynī Āgā Khān IV, ...
Contemporary discussions about the Prophet Muḥammad's spiritual function, due to exoteric and literalist influences (such as Wahhabism or the Ahl al-Qur'ān school), have degenerated into a farce in which the Prophet is demoted to a mouthpiece or transmitter of the Qur'ān and nothing more. This conception reduces the august person of the Prophet Muḥammad to a 'fax-machine' and fails to appreciate ...
Harvard University is offering a university course called Ismaili History and Thought for the Spring 2014 semester beginning in January. The course is designed and taught by Professor Ali S. Asani(Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures) and is open to Harvard undergraduate and graduate students. The Ismā'īlī Muslims constitute the second largest branch of Shī'ī Islam and recognize the ...
[Education] must also stimulate students to consider a variety of perspectives on some of the fundamental questions posed by the human condition: "What is truth?" "What is reality?" and "What are my duties to my fellow man, to my country and to God?" Imam Shah Karim al-Husayni Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan Academies Vision Statement, 2003 Most people, when hearing ...
"God does not become bored that you should become bored." - Prophet Muḥammad "Never in my long life - I may say with complete honesty - have I for an instant been bored..." - Imām Sultān Muḥammad Shāh Āgā Khān III Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-'Arabī, the great Sufi mystic and theosopher, explains how getting "bored" is the symptom of the person ...
Ismaili Gnosis "The command to recite the Name of the Lord seems to refer to a certain act of devotion... The interpretation...according to which Ṣūratal-'Alaq urges the prophet to praise the Name of his Lord, was almost utterly forgotten." (Uri Rubin) "Al-Sijistāni holds that prophethood does not suddenly come into conjunction with just any prophet; rather, the prophet must experience significant ...
"The Day of all Days" By: Khayal 'Aly Originally Composed on Imamat Day, July 11, 2004 Inspired by: "Ya Ali Khub Majalas" Ya 'Aly, Ya Mazhar al-Ajaib,[i] we begin this munajat[ii] for our Sahib.[iii] We prostrate to Thee in recognition of Thy glory, having reflected upon the lesson in Hazrat Adam's story.[iv] Our Lord Shah Karim is himself the Heavenly Throne;[v] ...
By Mohib Ebrahim Editor's Note: On August 5th, 1923, a young 16 year old boy -- the youngest honorary missionary and member of the Bombay Recreation Club, now the Ismaili Tariqah and Religious Education Board (ITREB) -- delivered a two hour lecture to "prove the significance and the need of Imamat from the Holy Qur'an and the Hadith." That boy was ...
Ismā'īlī Gnosis presents Imām Sulṭān Muḥammad Shāh's teachings on the concept of God as found in his public speeches, interviews and writings. Imām Sulṭān Muḥammad Shāh Āgā Khān III (1877-1957) was the forty-eighth hereditary Imām of the Shi'ī Ismā'īlī Muslims and the predecessor of the present Imām Shāh Karīm al-Husayni Āgā Khān IV. Within the chain of hereditary Imāms in the ...
On Thursday, March 14, Khalil Andani (Master's Candidate, Harvard University) delivered a presentation on the concept of Knowledge ('ilm) according to Sayyidnā Nāṣir-i Khusraw. This presentation took place during the 17th annual NMCGSA Graduate Symposium held at the University of Toronto. Khalil's presentation explores the ideas of knowledge ('ilm), intellect ('aql), perception (andar yāftan; idrāk), recognition (ma'rifah) and inspiration (ta'yīd) in ...
"...the conditions of the dialogue between Christianity and Islam change completely as soon as the interlocutor represents not legalistic Islam but this spiritual Islam, whether it be that of Sufism or of Shi'ite gnosis." (Henry Corbin, Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, Prologue) Click Here to Readthe full article at The Matheson Trust: The Crucifixion in Shi'a Isma'ili Islam by Khalil Andani ...
"The Imām knows from which drop of sperm the Imām after him will come" "His sperm was kneaded along with his intellect." "And we come from the Light of God." (Imām Ḥasan 'alā dhikrihi al-salām) December 13 marks the 77th birthday of Mawlānā Shāh Karīm al-Ḥusaynī (Aga Khan IV), the HaḍirImām (Present Imām) of the Shī'ī Ismā'īlī Muslims. Imām Shāh Karīm ...
Imām 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib once proclaimed this soul-quaking utterance in his "Sermon of the Great Explanation": "I am the Sign of the All-Powerful. I am the Gnosis of the Mysteries. I am the Threshold of Thresholds. I am the companion of the radiance of the divine Majesty. I am the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden. I ...
Henry Corbin introduces and summarizes an Ismā'īlī Muslim response to a polemical work undertaken against the Ismā'īlīs by the famous theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111). Al-Ghazālī's work against the Isma'ilis was titled Kitab faḍā'iḥ al-bāṭiniyya wa faḍā'il al-mustaẓhiriyya ("The Shames of the Bāṭinites and the Excellence of the Supporters of al-Mustaẓhir") and the Ismā'īlī response by Da'ī 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ...
Shahru ramaḍāna alladhī unzila fīhi'l-qur'ānu hudan lilnasi wabayyinātin mina'l-hudā wa'l-furqāni fa-man shahida minkumu'l-shahra falyaṣumhu "The Month of Ramaḍān in which was sent down the Qur'ān a guidance for mankind, and manifest proofs of the guidance and the criterion (between truth and falsehood). So whomever among you witnesses the Month, let him fast it." (Holy Qur'ān 2:185) Fasting (ṣawm) is among the ...
Ali Asani PROFESSOR OF INDO-MUSLIM AND ISLAMIC RELIGION AND CULTURES, HARVARD UNIVERSITY Ali Asani is Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures, Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. He came to Harvard as an undergraduate in 1973 from his native Nairobi and has been there ever since. A concentrator in comparative religion, he later pursued his doctorate work ...
"God created my spirit and the spirit of 'Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib two thousand years before He created humankind. He sent 'Alī secretly with every prophet and openly with me." - Prophet Muhammad The Imāmat is the office of spiritual and religious leadership recognized in Shī'ī Islam according to which the Imām is the spiritual and religious successor (waṣī) of the ...
Gnosis - Arabic: ma'rifah, Persian: shinākht, Sanskrit: jnāna, Hebrew: hokmah Gnosis is that 'supreme knowledge' 'which unifies and sanctifies' the human being. (Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Knowledge and the Sacred, 41) Gnosis is not acquired by discursive learning, but it is innate to the human soul and intellect. Gnosis is 'the basis of the intellect ('aql)' and is 'unwavering in man'. Gnosis ...
