The A to Z of Sufism pdf download

The A to Z of Sufism by John Renard

This dictionary, which contains over 3,000 entries and cross-references on the history, main figures, institutions, theory, and literary works associated with Islam’s mystical tradition, 

The A to Z of Sufism

Sufism, brings together extensive historical information in one volume, which helps put contemporary events into historical context. There are also the following features:

A history of all significant persons and events is included, as well as an introduction essay and a dictionary comprising 400 Arabic, Berber, Chinese, Persian, and Turkish terminology.

This book offer is for libraries, students, and religious researchers.

From the book

The individual elements of this volume include a map showing major cities and regions from Spain to Indonesia; a chronology spanning some 14 centuries of Islamic history;

 a historical introduction that provides a quick overview of approaches to the history of Sufism;

 the A to Z entries of the dictionary proper; a glossary of technical terms; 

an extensive bibliography organized thematically;

 and a collection of illustrations, including photos of pertinent works of art and architecture as well as a few scenes of Sufi activities. 

The Chronology 

An extensive chronological table offers a running list of major events and persons in the history of Sufism as well as some other key events in Islamic history and beyond for purposes of broader contextualization. 

It provides a device that can suggest diachronic relationships among figures geographically distant, a relationship not otherwise easily shown.

 Here I have biased the dating toward the non-Islamic solar years (since most readers will look first for those dates) but have kept the Islamic lunar Hijrl dates as well; for example, 622/1 . 

The Illustrations 

Photographs included here offer a blend of more contemporary “action” documentation, shots of relevant surviving medieval Sufi architecture, and representative works of art on Sufi themes in various media from the holdings of several American museums. 

The Dictionary 

A word about the structure and organization of the dictionary entries:

 My overall concern has been to balance the interests and needs of two genel groups of potential readers. 

On the one hand, the entries in the dictionary 

are biased toward English, the better to serve readers not necessarily familiar with technical terminology of Islamic studies and the history of Sufism. 

On the other, I have included in the dictionary most of the foreign terms listed in the glossary, cross-referencing them to relevant entries linked to equivalent English terms and general concepts. 

In general, I have maintained a bias toward Arabic terminology, since the vast majority of Sufi terms originated in Arabic. 

This overall bias has led to one unintended consequence resulting, in most cases, from 

morphological peculiarities of Arabic: 

I ask the reader’s indulgence with the occasional blocks of cross-referenced technical Arabic and other non-English terms