Garden of Mystery: The Gulshani-i Raz of Shabistari (Classics of Sufi Poetry Series) - Softcover

Mahmud Shabistari

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1901383229 ISBN 13: 9781901383225

Publisher: Archetype, 2007

Synopsis

Garden of Mystery, the 'Gulshan-i Raz', holds a unique position in Persian Sufi literature. It is a compact and concise exploration of the doctrines of Sufism at the peak of their development that has remained a primary text of Sufism throughout the world from Turkey to India. It comprises a thousand lines of inspired poetry taking the form of answers to questions put by a fellow mystic. It provides a coherent literary bridge between the Persian 'school of love' poetry and the rapidly growing number of metaphysical and gnostic compositions from what had come to be known as the school of the 'Unity of Being'. Translated by Robert Darr who has for thirty-five years been a student of classical Islamic culture.

About this title

From the Author:

Mahmud Shabistari (d.1339), was born near Tabriz around 1288 in the golden age of Sufism. He was a follower of the teachings of Ibn Arabi and Attar (Rumi's literary and spiritual predecessor). He was a well known Sufi who lived in times of great turmoil following the Mongol invasions.

Robert Abdul Hayy Darr (b. 1951 in California) has, for nearly forty years, been a student of Islamic culture. He has studied Persian and Afghan literature and history, Afghan and north Indian music, and classical Afghan miniature painting. His translation of Mahmud Shabistari’s masterpiece, Gulshan-i raz, published by Archetype in 2007 as Garden of Mystery, has been acclaimed as a new classic.

About the Author:

Robert Abdul Hayy Darr has for thirty-five years been a student of classical Islamic culture. In the 1970s he studied North Indian classical music at The Ali Akbar Khan School of Music in California and by the early 1980s he was studying Persian poetry. In 1987 he met Afghanistan's poet laureate in exile, Ustad Khalilullah Khalili and this friendship led to Darr's English translation of the poet's quatrains in 1988. In 1989 he began the study of Persian miniature painting with Ustad Homayon Etemadi, Afghanistan's last court painter and royal librarian, who was also his tutor of Persian literature. For the last fifteen years, Darr has continued his studies of mystical poetry with the Afghan Sufi poet, Raz Mohammad Zaray.

About this edition

• Publisher: Archetype
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1901383229
• ISBN 13: 9781901383225
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208