The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden This work is important in that it contains all the principles of the science of tasawwuf in a concise form. Furthermore it 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 Shabistaris 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 a 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. Mahmud Shabistari (1288 - 1340) Shaykh Mahmud Shabistari lived in the Mughal capital of Tabriz from where issued the great flowering of the last period of Islam in which the balanced shariat was still the norm rather than the mongrel child of European law - applicable to the realm of real life and trade - and religious law - applicable to births deaths and family law. Dr. Asadullah Yate Dr. Yate (Cantab.) has translated works from Arabic Persian German and French and in collaboration with others from Turkish. He teaches Arabic and Fiqh at the Weimar Institute is a Founding fellow of The Muslim Faculty of Advanced Studies and is active on the shariat board of the World Islamic Mint.