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Mysticism without Love1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

R. C. Zaehner
Affiliation:
Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics, Oxford University

Extract

‘Mysticism means to isolate the eternal from the originated.’ This is not my definition of the word ‘mysticism’ but that of the founder of the ‘orthodox’ school of Muslim mysticism, Al-Junayd of Baghdad who flourished in the ninth century a.d. In actual fact it is not a definition of mysticism at all but of the Arabic word tawḥīd which means primarily ‘the affirmation of unity’; and that surely is an essential ingredient of any form of mysticism: it is the affirmation through personal experience of unity either absolutely or in some qualified sense.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

1 A lecture delivered in Pusey House, Oxford, on 11th March 1974