Schuon Frithjof. Understanding Islam: A New Translation with Selected Letters

World Wisdom, 2011. — 272 p.This renowned book, which has been translated into over a dozen languages, has attracted much attention over the years. Prof. Seyyed Hossein Nasr says that it is Schuon’s “most important work on Islam and [from] among the books written by a Westerner on Islam, [this is] the one most universally accepted by Muslims.” Islamic Quarterly has called Understanding Islam a “masterpiece of comparative religion,” and one of the most respected writers on Sufism, the late Professor Annemarie Schimmel of Harvard University, wrote that this book “shows the essence of Islam.… One often finds passages [in it] which touch the heart.” In its four chapters, “Islam,” The Quran,” “The Prophet,” and “The Way,” Schuon surveys the major dimensions of the Islamic tradition, from its most outward forms to its most inward spiritual path, Sufism. One of the book’s major goals is to answer many of the questions Christians have concerning Islam, a goal which is even more important today than when Understanding Islam was first written. This new edition features a new translation, an extensive appendix of previously unpublished materials, and detailed editor’s notes by Patrick Laude to aid readers.