Prof Harold C Raley is
a bestselling author, professor, speaker and a linguist. Fluent in Spanish,
French, and German, his two famous books are José Ortega y Gasset: Philosopher of European unity and Spirit of Spain. His current research
activity is the Christian foundation of modern Spanish thought and
literature. Before joining the faculty at Houston Baptist University, he
taught at the University of Houston, where he was the recipient of a
teaching award.
HOME
My recent reading of the excellent book MURAQABA by Sufi master Khwaja Shamsuddin Azeemi and translated by Syed Shahzad Reaz brought to mind my earlier studies of Christian mysticism, especially the great Spanish mystics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Christian mysticism appears as early as Ignatius of Antioch (35-107) and Saint Polycarp (69-155) and continued unbroken throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Medieval Spain was a point of convergence for three strains of mysticism: Sufi, Christian, and the Jewish Kabbalists. Most objective scholars and historians are reasonably convinced that each was influenced to some degree by the others, but just how and how much remains an unanswered question. This confusion can be blamed in part on later Spanish writers, some of whom credited Moslem and Jewish cultures for everything worthwhile in Spain, while others denied them any major impact. Nevertheless it is known for sure that the Sufi orders were present and active in Moslem Spain for several centuries and that their teachings were well known in Christian lands. Many of the Sufi tales allude to Spain and what is now Portugal and describe life in the great cities of Cordoba, Granada, and Lisbon. For example, the works of master Ibn Al-Arabi, Shaykh al-Akbar , as he was known in the East, are read in the West under the name of Dr. Maximus, a loose Latin rendering of his name. Members of the Chistli Order which originated in remote Khorasan and whose influence extended to India in the eleventh century, were also active in Spain at the far western extreme of the great Islamic Imperium. In fact, as I demonstrated some years ago, the common Spanish word chiste (joke or humorous anecdote), the origin of which had always been a mystery to Western linguists, probably derives from the name of this Sufi order whose members gathered curious crowds by telling stories and playing music. Mysticism flourished in other parts of Europe as well. It is not generally known, for instance, that a late Medieval school of mystics flourished in England. Englishman Richard Rolle (1300-1349), its most prominent representative, was once well known for his book De Incendio Amoris (The Fire of Love). Walter Hilton (d. 1395) was another prominent English mystic. Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) and Saint Bonaventure (1217-1274) of Italy, Meister Eckhart 1260-1327) and Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) of Germany, and Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) of France, are but a few of the many names in the venerable mystical tradition of Medieval and Renaissance Europe. And Padre Pio of Italy and Saint Thérèse, or Teresa, of France remind us that Christian mysticism has continued into modern times. Protestant Christians in general disapproved of mysticism, yet Martin Luther himself (1483-1546) had mystical tendencies and Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), who wrote about his visions of heaven, still has a following.
It was in Spain, however, where Christian mysticism reached its highest development in Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1583) and Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591). The great Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset , himself perhaps the finest prose writer of Spanish in modern times, once grumbled that the problem with mysticism—of all kinds—is that the mystic leads us eagerly and expectantly to the climactic moment of the transcendental vision and then is unable to describe the experience in understandable language. Paradoxically, however, both Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross are credited with helping to shape the rough Castilian speech of their time (late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries) into the polished and powerful language it became in modern times. Saint Teresa’s Camino de perfección (The Way of Perfection) and Castillo de las siete moradas (The Interior Castle) as well as La noche oscura del alma (The Dark Night of the Soul) by Saint John of the Cross are part of the Spanish canon of literature and are read for their literary excellence by students who may have little or no inkling or appreciation of their mystical origin. The question of cross currents of East-West mysticism—and the general culture—in Spain and elsewhere in the West hints of many fascinating riddles that have yet to be understood.
© Sufiblog.com.
All
rights reserved by Sufiblog.com 2004 -
Harold Raley, Ph D, Linguist, Writer, and Speaker
HOME