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A number of readers, both of this blog and of “Islam from inside” have requested information on the availability of “Existence and the Fall” by Hamid Parsania - snippets from the book appear scattered through many of the “Islam from inside” articles. The full book title is: Existence and the Fall: Spiritual anthropology of Islam”. It may be purchased here. Here is an excerpt from the preface, by the book’s translator Shuja Mirza:

“If modern man no longer asks himself, other than in a scientific way, about his origin, his present situation, and his future destination – as a countless number of his predecessors did – he stands in danger of misunderstanding the human situation and even, in a manner, forfeits an essential part of his humanity.  To be truly human  requires him to think, apply his intellect, and understand his own self in an essential, substantive manner.  Understanding himself fully means apprehending his origin, life and destination – or to say the same thing – to come to know the true reality of his existence.  A lack of understanding then, results in a loosening of his grip over reality and, in its extreme form, this ignorance ushers him into a world which is relative…and ultimately meaningless.  He finds himself disoriented, alienated…and in an ambivalence with regards to reality.  This ambivalence begins with obliviousness of essential aspects of the self and ends in profound delusion and nihilism.  Hence in our time, more than in any previous age, the Socratic imperative “Know thyself”, itself the echo of the perennial message of all religions, becomes indispensable as an antidote and as the beginning of a cure.

This present work takes as its point of departure the substantive origin of man and traces, in a “historical” fashion, his movement away from that origin.  It concludes with the arrival of man on the material plane of existence and his accelerating descent into the modern world.

The original Persian title of this book, “Hastī wa Hubūt”, might also have been rendered as “Being and Descent”. I chose “Existence and the Fall” for two reasons. The concept of the Fall is a universal concept found in all true religions and orthodoxies. As a universal idea eternally existing, it is a single concept, but one that is expressed in different ways depending on the context and people for whom it is meant. Hence, though in certain traditions the emphasis might be on specific facets of the idea, this does not, at least in principle, exclude the other aspects. – In the Christian tradition – the one which is usually more familiar to English readers – the emphasis falls more on the moral dimension of the Fall than on the metaphysical or ontological dimension. This means that the word “Fall” or “fall of man” is usually accompanied by such expressions as “fall from grace”, “loss of innocence” and “original sin”.  In the Islamic tradition, on the other hand, …the fall is seen either as… a departure from heaven or as a descent from the divine realm to this mundane one.  Where the moral dimension is mentioned, …it is always with reference to and as a consequence of the greater ontological or wujūdī picture of reality.  It was my feeling that the English reader would find it easier to understand the word “Fall”, while keeping in mind its different nuance and usage in Islamic literature

The word “existence” comes from the Latin existere or exsistere, which is itself composed of the prefix ex meaning “out of” and the verb sistere or stare meaning “to cause to stand, to stand”. Hence exsistere literally means to “to stand out, emerge”….

As man “stands out”, seeking independence, he actually falls…away from his origin and principle – distancing himself and becoming more relative and limited. Hence existence includes and prefigures the idea of the fall. Man’s return is to…go towards his origin, root, and aspect of being qua being. This inward or esoteric tendency is to know, in a direct fashion, the reality of man and the world; to envision with the “eye of the heart” the created nature of things; to see that any thing is nothing in itself and that it is something only by virtue of its bond and connection with its origin; and finally, to see in created things the infinite faces, names and attributes of the Creator.”