The Lantern

The appearance in English of Shaikh Husain ibn Ali ibn Sadiq al-Bahrani's Al-Siraj: A Lantern on the Path to Allah Almighty will certainly be welcomed both by the scholar, as well as by the thoughtful non-specialist who wishes to deepen their understanding of what might well be described as the inner life of Shi'a Islam. It is a work of scholarly erudition and rare insight. But to read this marvelous book merely to "be informed" would be to miss its central point and to deprive oneself...
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The appearance in English of Shaikh Husain ibn Ali ibn Sadiq al-Bahrani's Al-Siraj: A Lantern on the Path to Allah Almighty will certainly be welcomed both by the scholar, as well as by the thoughtful non-specialist who wishes to deepen their understanding of what might well be described as the inner life of Shi'a Islam. It is a work of scholarly erudition and rare insight. But to read this marvelous book merely to "be informed" would be to miss its central point and to deprive oneself of the blessings enjoyed by anyone who takes its teaching seriously enough to allow it to change the way they think, decide, and act. In other words, while this work is the fruit of al-Bhahrani's hard and sustained thinking about the highest things, it is addressed ultimately to the heart, not only the head, of the reader. Indeed, in the very first chapter the author warns us of the dangers of an intellectual life that has severed itself from the fundamental longings of the human heart and the high demands which Allah Almighty has made upon the whole person: "Do not be misled into thinking that somehow a great deal of knowledge without correcting and cultivating one's conduct can be of any use. Never!".....Non-Muslim readers acquainted with the classical philosophical tradition of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and other teachers of the so-called philosophia perennis, will be delighted to find that the permanent questions of that tradition, "What is happiness?", "What is virtue?", "What is human nature?" are addressed herein. The author's claim, coming from the very heart of Islam, that God has created us for happiness will be a revelation especially to Catholics who might suppose that this is an axiom belonging exclusively to the Christian West. Yet such claims and their attendant explanations, beside their intrinsic merits, provide a hopeful starting point for the serious discussion of ultimate questions between Muslims and non-Muslims, which may allow interreligious dialogue finally to get beyond the often insipid talk of "tolerance," "sensitivity," and all the other pallid pseudo-virtues of the post-modern West. William Stevenson, Ph.D. University of St. Thomas