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In Search of the Sacred: a Conversation with Seyyed Hossein

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In Search of the Sacred: a Conversation with Seyyed Hossein Selected Works by Seyyed Hossein Nasr in English The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr (2007; ed. W. Chittick) The Garden of Truth (2008) The Heart of Islam (2004) Ideals and Realities of Islam (2001) An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (1993) Islam: Religion, History, and Civilization (2003) Islam and the Plight of Modern Man (2002) Islamic Art and Spirituality (1987) The Islamic Intellectual Tradition in Persia (1996) Islamic Life and Thought (2001) Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present (2006) Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study (1995) Islam, Science, Muslims, and Technology (2007) Knowledge and the Sacred (1989) Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man (1997) Muhammad: Man of God (1988) The Need for Sacred Science (1993) The Pilgrimage of Life and the Wisdom of Rumi (2007) Poems of the Way (1999) Religion and the Order of Nature (1996) S: adr al-Dın Shırazı (1997) Science and Civilization in Islam (1997) Sufi Essays (1991) Three Muslim Sages (1986) Traditional Islam in the Modern World (1990) A Young Muslim’s Guide to the Modern World (1993) In Search of the Sacred A Conversation with Seyyed Hossein Nasr on His Life and Thought Seyyed Hossein Nasr with Ramin Jahanbegloo Introduction by Terry Moore Copyright 2010 by Seyyed Hossein Nasr All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. In search of the sacred : a conversation with Seyyed Hossein Nasr on his life and thought / Seyyed Hossein Nasr with Ramin Jahanbegloo ; introduction by Terry Moore. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-313-38324-3 (hard copy : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-313-38325-0 (ebook) 1. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein—Interviews. 2. Muslim philosophers—Interviews. 3. Muslim phi- losophers—Biography. 4. Islamic philosophy. I. Jahanbegloo, Ramin. II. Title. B5074.N374A3 2010 1810.5—dc22 2010002983 ISBN: 978-0-313-38324-3 EISBN: 978-0-313-38325-0 14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. Praeger An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America Contents Introduction xi Part One 1 Childhood 1 Ancestors 1 Early Memories 2 Nasr’s Father 4 A Pneumatic Child 5 Traditional and Modern Education: A Synthesis 6 Leaving Iran 7 Nasr’s Mother and Her Family 8 Nasr Family Friends and Connections 10 The Debate between Modernity and Tradition 11 Religious Practices 11 Relationship with God 13 Muslim Practices 13 Memories of Tehran 14 Primary Schools 16 New Technology 18 Cars 19 Movies 20 Heroes 20 Reza Shah 21 Gandhi 24 Invasion of Allied Forces 24 vi CONTENTS Part Two 27 Going to America 27 Cairo 29 Aboard the Gripsholm 30 New York 30 The Peddie School Years 31 Loss of and Reacquaintance with Persian Culture 32 Athletics 33 Intellectual Development 34 Isolation 34 Contacts with Christianity 35 The M.I.T. Years 36 Intellectual Crisis: Physics or Metaphysics? 38 Georgio De Santillana 39 Bertrand Russell 40 Soul-Searching 41 ReneGuenon 41 Leaving Physics 42 Discovering the Traditionalists (Coomaraswamy and Schuon) 43 Courses at Harvard 44 The Harvard Years 44 Islamic Studies 46 Languages 47 Thesis 47 Harvard’s Widener Library 48 Influences and Encounters at Harvard 49 Professors 49 Paul Tillich 51 Authors 52 Greek Philosophers 53 Medieval Western Philosophy 55 Renaissance Philosophers 55 Modern Western Philosophers 56 Heidegger 58 Greatest Influences 59 Part Three 61 Return to Iran 61 Architecture and Sacred Space 63 Tehran University 66 Famous Students 69 CONTENTS vii Teaching 74 Theory of Education 75 Studies with Traditional Masters 80 ‘As: s:ar 80 ‘Allamah T: abat:aba’ı82 Qazwını89 Other Teachers 90 Henry Corbin 91 Teaching with Corbin 93 Projects with Corbin 95 Corbin and MullaS: adra97 Corbin and Religion 98 Corbin and Islamic Philosophy 99 Corbin and Heidegger 102 Corbin Discovers Islamic Philosophy in Persia 103 Corbin and Imamology 104 T: abat:aba’ı and Corbin 106 Revival of the Islamic Intellectual Tradition 108 The Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy 111 Aryamehr University: Reconciling Modern Technology and Persian Culture 115 Building the Isfahan Campus 118 Political Problems 120 The Question of the Use of Force 122 Vocational Decisions 126 Mounting Political Tensions in Iran 128 The Death of ‘Allamah T: abat:aba’ı 131 Part Four 133 Leaving Iran 133 Moving to the United States 135 Temple University 136 The George Washington University 138 Travels in the Islamic World 138 Travels in the Western World 139 Self-Identity: Muslim, Persian or Global? 140 Nostalgia for Iran 142 What Is Persian Culture? 143 Promethean Man and Pontifical Man 146 Persian Joy and Sorrow 148 Sacralization of Daily Life 152 viii CONTENTS Architecture and the Modernization of Iranian Cities 153 Sacred Architecture in the Modern World 156 Persian and Western Poetry 159 Sufi Poetry in the West 163 Living the Spiritual Life 166 Practicing Sufism 167 What Is Spirituality? 168 Part Five 171 Spirituality: Esoteric and Exoteric 171 Eso- and Exoterism in Christianity 172 Eso- and Exoterism in Islam and Judaism 172 Exoteric Barriers and Esoterism 173 Religion’s Response to Modernism 175 Tradition 180 What Is Tradition? 181 Modernism 182 Tradition’s Answer to Historicism 182 Descartes’ Break from Tradition 184 The Waning of the Western Tradition (Preparing the Ground for Descartes) 185 Western Philosophy’s Dependence on Astronomy 186 The Primacy of Philosophy over Economics and Politics 187 The Disruption of the Political Hierarchy 188 Harmony and Dichotomy between Spiritual and Temporal Authority 190 Muslim and Renaissance Interpretations of Greek Political Philosophy 192 The Value of Tradition and the Critique of Modernism 194 Alternative Paradigm 195 Psychology 196 Philosophy of Nature 196 Controlling Technology 197 The Environmental Crisis 198 The Sacred 202 What Is the Sacred? 203 Tradition and the Sacred 204 Nature as Sacred 205 Science and the Sacred 205 Knowledge and the Sacred 206 The Multiplicity of Religions 207 CONTENTS ix Part Six 209 What Is Modernism? 209 Authentic Religions’ Opposition to Modernism 210 Critiques of Modernism 211 Modern Western Critical Thought 214 Modernism’s Effect on Muslims 216 Globilization and Diversity 220 Muslims Throughout the World 223 Western Images of Islam 226 The Arab Conquest 226 John the Damascene 227 The Middle Ages 227 The Renaissance 228 The Colonial Period 229 The Romantic Era 230 Modern Times 231 Part Seven 235 Art 235 Traditional Art 236 What Is Traditional Art? 238 Naturalism 239 After Naturalism 241 Form 242 Utility 243 Beauty 243 Religious Art and Sacred Art 247 The Sacred in the Modern World 254 The Meaning of Islamic Art 262 Understanding the Sacred Art of Other Religions 265 Art and Education 266 Traditional Islamic Art 268 Master and Apprentice 269 Representations of God 271 Persian Art 272 Unity in Diverse Schools of Islamic Art 273 Part Eight 275 Sufism 275 Sufism in the Safavid Period 276 Shi‘ism and Sufism 279 xCONTENTS Sufism and Pacifism 280 Sufism and Sunnism 283 The Imams 284 The Source of Sufism 285 Interreligious Dialogue 289 Sufism and Interreligious Dialogue 289 Christianity Confronts Other Religions 291 Islam in the West 296 Islam and Other Religions 297 Part Nine 301 Modernism and Its Effect on Christianity 301 Naturalism, Rationalism, and Nominalism 302 Other Factors in the Secularization of the West 303 Protestantism’s Secularizing Influence 305 Secular and Sacred Law 306 Church and State in America and in the Islamic World 309 The Resistance of Islamic Governments to Secularization 314 Notes 317 Index 353 Introduction THE SPIRITUAL AND INTELLECTUAL JOURNEY OF SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR G. K. Chesterton wrote: ‘‘There are two main moral necessities for the work of a great man: the first is that he should believe in the truth of his message; the second is that he should believe in the acceptability of his message.’’ Seyyed Hossein Nasr has both. An Islamic philosopher of rare exemplarity, he has also been all through his life a man of dia- logue with different faiths and diverse cultures. Not only has Nasr her- alded a renaissance of Islamic sciences, but he has also been the agent and mediator through whom, in our day, the perennial philosophy has found a second birth. An unrelenting opponent of religious fundamen- talism in all its forms throughout his career, Nasr presents his critique of modernity as a vision rooted in a traditional Muslim understanding of the world that respects both nature and human dignity. For Nasr, the traditional world was based on an overwhelming sense of the Sacred and the Absolute, whereas the invention of modernity involved precisely the dissolution of that awareness, resulting in what Max Weber would call the ‘‘disenchantment of the world.’’ Nasr’s critique of modernity, while being a severe condemnation of secularism, is not a call for regression. Like his inspirers of the Perennialist School—ReneGuenon, Amanda K. Coomaraswamy, and Frithjof Schuon—Seyyed Hossein Nasr provides his reader with a rigorous defi- nition of what he understands by the term tradition. Nasr considers tradi- tion as the principal milestone for spiritual authenticity and an infinite xii INTRODUCTION source of grace. Tradition, as described by Nasr, is the whole structure of thought that articulates the concepts embodied in the world of myth and symbols.
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