Knowing the Spirit

Notes

Notes to the Translator’s Introduction 1. Following Ostad Elahi’s own explicit practice (and the scriptural sources and references shared by all the Abrahamic traditions), which intentionally highlights the universality, immortality, and divine origin of the life principle in question across all its outwardly different manifestations (see chapter 2 of Knowing the Spirit), I have consistently translated r¶h as “spirit” throughout this work. The much more ambiguous term “soul” has been reserved to translate the Arabic term nafs (“self,” as well as “soul”), which the author normally mentions here only when citing the language and arguments of various groups of Islamic philosophers who did not normally speak of the “spirit” (especially in chapters 2 and 8). Even in the restricted case of human beings, as specified in a key citation from Imam ‘Ali in the third modality section of chapter 7, the term nafs can normally refer to four different dimensions of the human self—including the vegetal, animal, and “human-animal” (bashar) composite souls, in addition to that particular “divine, angelic” (malak¶t¥) element that is the immortal spirit and the primary subject of this book. See also Ostad Elahi’s further development of this basic distinction, especially his unambiguously clear distinction of the angelic “truly human” (insån¥) spirit from the lower “human-animal” (bashar) and other lower “souls” (nafs) in point 13 of the fourth modality section of chapter 7. 2. I should also note that the author’s extremely detailed table of contents (given in full at the beginning of the translation of Knowing the Spirit) provides another useful means of following his overall argument and the place of particular discussions in relation to his guiding intentions. 3. In other words, connaissance not savoir: ma‘rifa is the standard technical term used for realized spiritual awareness in all the later traditions of Islamic spirituality and mysticism. Paradoxically, most of this work is literally formulated in the complex abstract terminology of the traditional forms of philosophical and religious learning (‘ilm, primarily in Arabic-language writings ) familiar to Ostad Elahi’s original scholarly audience, and it is the key 117 118 Notes to the Translator’s Introduction assumptions and procedures of those unfamiliar learned disciplines that are explained to modern readers in section 2 of the introduction. 4. Almost all writings and publications in recent decades now use the shorter honorific, Ostad Elahi. The most detailed biographical study to date, focusing primarily on Ostad Elahi’s accomplishments as a musician, is certainly Jean During’s recent L’Âme des sons: L’art unique d’Ostad Elahi (1895– 1974) (Gordes: Editions le Relié, 2001). In addition, one of my PhD students is now preparing a biographical study focusing on Ostad Elahi’s juridical career and related ethical and social teachings. A great deal of additional biographical information, including a wealth of photographs from all periods of Ostad Elahi’s life and accounts by people who had known him personally, was brought together in the volume entitled Unicity (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1995), prepared for the international UNESCOsponsored commemoration of the centenary of his birth in 1995. Especially important, from a biographical perspective, was the extensive collection of materials relating to his life (including his library, musical instruments, CDs of his music, videos, etc.) assembled for the commemorative exposition held at the Sorbonne in that year. Much of that exposition material is still accessible at the bilingual website established on that occasion (www.ostadelahi.com). Additional helpful biographical references—including ongoing lecture, concert, and seminar series on Ostad Elahi and his teachings—can be found on the following closely related websites (all with English-language versions): www.fondationostadelahi.org; www.nourfoundation.com; and www.saintjani.org. The latter site is devoted to his younger sister, Malek Jån (better known by her nickname “Jån¥”), 1906–1993, who became an influential and highly revered spiritual figure in her own right. 5. Those sayings and spiritual teachings were recorded by his students and eventually published in the two massive volumes entitled Athår al-Haqq (Traces of the Truth), ed. Bahram Elahi, volume I (Tåh¨r¥, 1978) and volume II (Jayh¨n, 1992). The sayings quoted later are all drawn from these two volumes ; the quotations cited here are mainly from the autobiographical chapter 24 of volume I, identified by their number in that volume. Two short collections of Ostad Elahi’s translated sayings excerpted from Athår al-Haqq in highly abridged form were published, in both English...