Great Books of Islamic Tradition

Forseeing the magnitude of my professional commitment (which is ironically tangential to my intellectual indulgings) in next few months, I intend to blog about things which are comparatively less demanding for my (e/o)ver-occupied cranium.

Great books are not just about inducing intellectual pleasures, setting trends or moving large masses of readers in a particular direction. Not that books which seek to do all of the above are underachievers in some capacity, its just that these are not meant to be remembered as nonpareil in the history of text.

Whether a text circumscribes a tradition or transcribes it is a question that would keep inviting people to ponder till eternity. A far easier proposition is that a text when embodies a tradition becomes a paragon. It does not remain a mere text anymore but starts to breathe and lives through those who access it with purpose. Interacting with such texts is not just a modest experience we call reading but an intention to embody it in some capacity, to understand those who embodied it and embodied the tradition as well.

I intend to start a never ending series on such great texts of Islamic tradition. The primary motivation was Great Books of Islamic Civilisation which though lacking in some ways is an excellent reference putting up a cross-section of all the important areas of knowledge in which Muslims indulged themselves.

Filed In: Books, Tradition