Table of Contents

Introduction -- 1 Life, Times and Works of 'Aziz Nasafi -- I. The Life and Times of 'Aziz Nasafi -- II. Nasafi's Works -- I. 'Aziz Nasafi's Six Ontological Faces -- 2 Ontology -- II. Nasafi and Imagination -- III. Nasafi and Neoplatonic Ontology -- I. Attaining Knowledge -- 3 Epistemology -- Epistemological Thought -- III. Mystical Knowledge -- II. The Sufi Path -- II. The Superiority of Friendship Over Prophecy -- I. The Spiritual Ascent -- IV. The Friends as Heirs of the Prophets -- 5 Visionary Experience and Unity with God -- IL The Vision of God -- III. The Superiority of Prophecy Over Friendship -- III. Spiritual Perfection and Creation -- I. Felicity, the Goal of Sufism -- 6 The Perfection of Man -- IL The Convergence of Hellenistic and Islamic -- I. Types of Vision and Mystical Experience -- V. Perfection and its Political Significance -- 4 The Sufi Journey -- Conclusion -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Koranic and Hadith Index -- Subject Index.

About the Author

Lloyd Ridgeon

Reviews

'There are many virtues in this book, in particular the determination of Ridgeon to avoid the easy platitudes of much work on Sufism. Quite compelling excludes neither the mutakallimun nor even the falasifa as thinkers who have useful and valid points of view. Ridgeon has produced and intelligent and scholarly book which no-one concerned with Sufism can afford to miss. In fact the book would serve quite well as a general guide to many of the leading ideas of Sufism itself.' - Oliver Leaman, The British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies