Selected Letters: Imam Abd Allah Ibn Alawi Al-Haddad
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Translator
Mostafa al-Badawi
Description
About The Book
Imam ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlawī al-Ḥaddād, of Ḥaḍramawt in southern Yemen, is generally considered one of the great spiritual masters of Islam. In addition to the wealth of treatises and litanies (awrād) that he left for the benefit of posterity, the Imam wrote hundreds of letters to disciples, followers and fellow scholars, to local sultans and governors, and to other individuals both in his region and elsewhere in the Muslim world.
These letters provide unique insights into the Imam’s learning, wisdom, and personality. They reflect his relationships with family, friends, rulers and others, his life and times, and his reactions to current events. Also notable is his frequent use of verses to highlight points with extra force and eloquence; these are translated in full.
Selected Letters of Imam al-Ḥaddād presents a representative choice of this precious material, expertly translated together with an introduction, full annotations and a glossary of technical terms. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with the literature on the spiritual path and its masters in Islamic tradition.
About the Contributor(s)
About the author
Abdallah ibn Alawi al-Haddad: A scholar, Sufi master, and poet of the Hadramawt valley in Yemen, al-Haddad (1044–1132 AH / 1634–1720 CE) was born and lived his whole life in the town of Tarim, where his tomb is still visited. He descended from the Prophet through the Ba ʿAlawi sayyids of Hadramawt, followed the Shafiʿi school in law and the Ashʿari creed, and is widely regarded as the renewer (mujaddid) of the twelfth Islamic century. Though he lost his sight in childhood, he became one of the most influential teachers of the Ba ʿAlawi tradition, drawing on al-Ghazali and the earlier masters of Tarim. He wrote with a clarity that made deep matters accessible, and several of his books are still read daily. Landmark works include al-Nasaʾih al-Diniyya wa al-Wasaya al-Imaniyya (Counsels of Religion), al-Daʿwa al-Tamma wa al-Tadhkira al-ʿAmma (The Complete Summons and General Reminder), Risalat al-Muʿawana (The Book of Assistance), al-Fusul al-ʿIlmiyya, and a Diwan of mystical poetry, alongside his collected letters. His litanies, especially the Ratib al-Haddad and the Wird al-Latif, are recited across the Muslim world. His legacy endures in the living spiritual tradition of Tarim and in English translations that have carried his counsel to new readers.
About the translator
Mostafa al-Badawi: Mostafa al-Badawi (b. 1948 CE, Cairo) is one of the leading contemporary translators of classical Islamic texts from Arabic into English, and a scholar associated with the Ba ʿAlawi sayyids of Hadramawt in Yemen. He graduated from Cairo University Medical School in 1971 and completed his postgraduate training in the United Kingdom, where he has practiced as a consultant psychiatrist and is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Alongside his medical career he pursued a serious study of the Islamic sciences and of the spiritual path of the Ba ʿAlawi tradition. He is best known for his translations of the prose works of Imam ʿAbdallah ibn ʿAlawi al-Haddad, the great Hadrami sage and poet, including The Book of Assistance, Gifts for the Seeker, Counsels of Religion, and The Lives of Man. His translation work also extends to The Degrees of the Soul of Shaykh al-Shabrawi and Key to the Garden of Habib Ahmad Mashhur al-Haddad. As an author in his own right, he wrote Sufi Sage of Arabia, a full biography of Imam al-Haddad drawing on the life and teachings of seventeenth-century Yemen, and Man and the Universe, among other studies. He is regarded as a careful, faithful translator who has made the devotional and ethical literature of the Ba ʿAlawi masters accessible to a wide English readership.
About the editor
Muhammad Isa Waley: Muhammad Isa Waley is a British scholar of Islamic manuscripts and Sufi literature, best known for a long curatorial career at one of the world's great repositories of Islamic texts. For some forty-five years he served as Curator for Persian and Turkish, beginning at the British Museum and continuing at the British Library in London. He earned his doctorate on the poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi, and his scholarly interests center on two areas: the classical verse and prose literature of Islamic spirituality in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish, and the paleography, codicology, illumination, and cataloging of manuscripts in Arabic script. His published work reflects both strands. As editor he oversaw the English Tafsir al-Jalalayn and Imam al-Nawawi's Kitab al-Adhkar (The Book of Remembrances), and he contributed to Islamic Codicology: An Introduction to the Study of Manuscripts in Arabic Script. As translator he rendered Jami's forty-hadith collection Chihil Kalima and the Mawlid of Imam al-Barzanji into English. He has also lectured widely on the study and importance of Islamic manuscripts for research into Islamic literature and culture. His more recent A Treasury of Rumi gathers selections from the poet who has occupied him since his earliest research, bringing a lifetime of textual scholarship to a wider readership.
Specifications
EAN 13 / ISBN
9781939256072
Publisher
Ihya Publishing
Author
Abdallah ibn Alawi al-Haddad
Pages
320
Translator
Mostafa al-Badawi
Editor
Muhammad Isa Waley
Year Published
2023
Size
W- | H- | D-
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