About The Book

The Secret Garden of Mahmud Shabistari contains all the principles of the science of tasawwufin a concise form. This is the first translation freed of the centuries-old baggage of Christian and orientalist vocabulary which has often obscured the teachings of Islam.

Thus, instead of the ‘mystic’ statements of a ‘Sufi Doctor’, we have Shaykh Mahmud Shabistari’s lucid exposition of the deen of Islam. He demonstrates in his analysis of the lower self how a man or woman can gain access to his or her reality: the step by step description of the method of purification leads to spirituality and light which issues from the normal actions of everyday life, in other words, a spirituality which is not ‘ascetic’ but rather the product of right living.