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Who was René Guénon - Shaykh `Abd Al Wahid Yahya? |
"When man is imprisoned like this in life and in the conceptions directly connected with it, he can know nothing about what escapes from change, about the transcendant and immutable order, which is that of the universal principles" RG EW90 |
"His function (was), in a world
increasingly rife with heresy and pseudo religion, to remind twentieth
century man of the need for orthodoxy which itself presupposes firstly a
divine int 16316o1413q ervention, and secondly a tradition which hands down with fidelity
from generation to generation what Heaven has revealed..." "The writings of the great French thinker René Guénon - Shaykh `Abd Al Wahid Yahya (1886-1951) have by now achieved luminary status. His castigation of the modern world, grounded upon a pioneering reinstatement of the universal, first principles of the one true metaphysic abiding at the heart of the sacred traditions, has stood fast against the shifting sands of recent philosophies and can refurbish our powers of discrimination in face of the new millennium and the postmodern age." An introduction to Shaykh Abd Al Wahid Yahya - René Guénon His works are primarily in French and in English. In Swedish there is an excellent book about Shaykh Abd Al Wahid Yahya: "I tjänst hos det Enda" ( In the service of The One), edited by Kurt Almqvist, a Swedish author writing on metaphysical questions. This is still the only disposition of RG's life and work in a Scandinavian language and it includes excerpts from some of his books, such as "Crisis of the Modern World" and "The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times." A European intellectual from the first half of the 20th century, he had witnessed the tragic and seemingly unavoidable events of his times, not the least both World Wars. He confronted the ruling myths of this civilization, such as 'human progress', 'technical development towards a brighter future' and he penetrated some of the most important philosophical and religious traditions - when towards the middle of his life - he embraced Islam and travelled to Egypt where he lived until the end of his life as a well-respected Muslim author. One of his main concerns was to produce an
unsentimental analysis of Western ideological and religious development since
the Renaissance, focusing on the degradation - as he saw it - of metaphysics,
religion and philosophy and consequently of the mentality of the general
populace. Another of his main concerns was to clear from the pure concept of Ultimate Reality everything that IT is not and to teach its pure doctrine, because IT can only be described in negative terms ( of what IT is NOT ). His work is to remind us of the impossibility of having some rational concept of Ultimate Reality, except for the insight gained from intellectual intuition (the ma`rifa - intuitive knowledge of God) and the knowledge of revelation and prophetic tradition by following its teachings. This introduction is not an adequate overview over this outstanding writer's work, who wrote no less than 26 books and conducted a numereous correspondance with many intellectuals of his time. Some of his main areas of focus are: . A definition of tradition versus anti-tradition and
sentimentalized religion |
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