Method and Mysticism: Cosmos, Nature and Environment in Islamic Mysticism

In this pioneering work, Seyyed Shahabeddin Mesbahi offers a new methodologyfor approaching Islamic mystical concepts by examining the importance, place and manifestation of the concepts of cosmos, nature and environment in Islamic mysticism.

The study presents a framework for understanding the exoteric and esoteric dimensions of these concepts, within selected stations (maqāmāt) of the mystical path (ṭarīqa), and how, in a reciprocal interaction, they weave a “symbiotic whole.”

This work also re­examines the concept of “mystical experience” with regards to the Islamic mystics’ approach toward the concepts of cosmos, nature and environ­ment especially in the thoughts of great masters, such as Ḥallāj, Bāyazīd Basṭāmī, Ghazālī, Rūzbihān Baqlī Shirāzī, Ibn ‘Arabī, Rūmī, and Mullā Ṣadrā.