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Frithjof Schuon

The Essential Frithjof Schuon – Seyyed Hossein Nasr (editor) 2005)

For some reason I always have the idea that I read more about Schuon that of him. Yet I previously reviewed two of his books and I have referred to his writings for decades. Be that as it may, I got “The Essential”. At the same time I bought the recently reviewed “Ye Shall Know The Truth” which also contains texts of Schuon. Both books combined was a bit ‘Schuon overkill’.

Some authors, including the editor of the present title, are of the opinion that Schuon coming after René Guénon, not only follows the latter, but even completes him. Guénon was more of a rationalist, Schuon more of a ‘mystic’ which is the more ‘logical’ approach to Traditionalism.

Actually I find Schuon harder to read than Guénon. I suppose I am more ‘rationalist’ then. “The Essential” is -after a lengthy introduction’ divided in nine parts each contains a few texts. Some have been made available in English for the first time, others can be found at other places. You can read Schuon on subjects such as religion, certain religions, mysticism, metaphysics, spirituality and of course the modern world. I often find him hard to follow. Personally I do not find this compendium an invitation to dive deeper into things with Schuon.

Some of the texts are interesting, but overall, I think I prefer the writings of other Traditionalists.

2005 World Wisdom, isbn 0941532925

Prayer Fashions Man * Frithjof Schuon (2004)

When looking for another title to read of Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) I ran into this title subtitled “Frithjof Schuon on the spiritual life”.

“Prayer Fashions Man” is about prayer in a wide sense of the word. Schuon was Swiss who chose Sufism as his path, but as he saw a single Source for all religions, he could also use elements of other paths. With this state of mind, Schuon became a teacher for people from many different religions. The book is not really a book that the author wrote, but a compendium of texts. This happens a lot with Traditionalistic literature. The book is compiled by James Cutsinger who made more of such books.

Whereas most of these compendia contain essays, “Prayer Fasions Man” more starts as a collection of quotes, some no more than a few lines long. I find reading just quotes quite annoying so the book worked on my nerves a bit. Fortunately there are also longer quotes of upto a few pages. These quotes are about “the spiritual life” and show a completely different mind from most modern men. Schuon was religious to the core and some quotes give a peak into his hard and disciplined spiritual life while others show the reader how to incorporate spirituality in modern, daily life.

There sure are a few quotes to ponder about long and hard, but also many that I just read over. In totally I cannot say that this is a magnificent book. It is a nice read with a couple of peaks.

The cover is a painting of Schuon, by the way, he had a deep sympathy for American Indians.

2004 World Wisdom, isbn 0941532658

Understanding Islam * Frithjof Schuon (1976/2011)

This is the first ebook that I bought. I bought an ereader to read all those PDFs that I have on my computer, but when I noticed that there are also ebooks that I want to read and the prices are better than I thought and I was looking for a Traditionalist title anyway, I got myself this famous book by Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998). The book was initially written in French (“Comprendre l’Islam” 1976), has been published in English before, but in 2011 became available in a new English translation and was expanded with letters and other short writings of Schuon. I must say that I am relatively happy ‘reading e’. When there is a note, I can read it in a popup without having to page to the notes and even when a note is too long for the popup, the jumping to the note and back to where I was reading goes with one click. The ereader keeps track of where I am in which book as well, so I can read several books without having to finish each of them first and the dictionary function is great. I was afraid that reviewing an ebook would be a pain, because when reviewing a book, I am constantly flipping through it which is not ‘doable’ on the ereader, but the software that I need to put books on the device, also acts like a reader and on the computer navigation goes well enough. I guess that the choice between buying a physical book and a digital one will be the question if I want to put it in my library for referential purposes.
In any case, in his preface Schuon says that he did not want to write another book about what Muslims believe, but why. Perhaps this is why I am not really sure if I understand Islam better after reading this book. The book reads more like a Traditionalistic work (of course Schuon was a Traditionalist and Muslim) and a deeply religious one, making cross-references to other religions and speaking about Muslim concepts, but it is not like he sets out to explain these concepts. It is more like a long text in which those different concepts are touched upon in the light of the larger story. “Understanding Islam” certainly is a great book if you want to read a religious work of a Traditionalist, but perhaps there are better books to answer your questions about the religion of Islam. The remark: “A masterpiece of comparative religion” (Islamic Quarterly about the book) descries what I mean. Of course, since the book is about Islam afterall, you will learn about it, but just different from what I expected I guess.
2011 World Wisdom, isbn 0941532240