| Date | Author | Title | Source | Quotation by Merton |
| 1960/03/18 | Louis Massignon | Akhbar al-Hallaj. Texte ancien relatif à la predication et au supplice du mystique musulman al-Hosayn B. Mansour al-Hallaj |
Jnl 3 ('52-'60) p. 380
| Reading [Al] Hallaj in Massignon's translation-about which I wrote him a letter today. Hallaj is right, and our piety is so safe as to be impious. What a difference between the Greeks and this Moslem. I mean the classical Greeks. But in Aeschylus there's the same kind of fire none the less! |
| 1960/03/18 | Louis Massignon | Akhbar al-Hallaj. Texte ancien relatif à la predication et au supplice du mystique musulman al-Hosayn B. Mansour al-Hallaj |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 276
| How can I begin to write you a letter about the amazing book of the prayers and exhortations of Hallaj [Akhbar al-Hallaj, third edition, in Arabic with Massignon's French translation]? I think it is tremendous. In many ways the rude paradoxes are striking in the same way as Zen. But there is the added depth and fire of knowledge of the one God. There is the inexorable force of sanctity. The sense of the Holy, that lays one low: as in Isaias. To read Hallaj makes one lament and beat his breast. Where has it gone, this sense of the sacred, this awareness of the Holy? What has happened to us? How true it is that in the light of such blinding sincerity, our ordinary prayers and protestations of faith are acts of impiety. |
| 1960/08/05 | Giulio Basetti-Sani | Mohammed et Saint-Francois |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 26
| A passionate and convinced book by a Franciscan [Giulio Basetti-Sani, Mohammed et Saint François, Ottawa, 1959] on Mohammed and St. Francis, so far a survey of the incapacity for dialogue between Christians and Moslems - and pointing to the need for it. |
| 1960/08/07 | | Koran |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 29
| "Parmi les lignes il y a les vaisseaux qui, sur la mer, sont comme dans le desert." ["Among the many vessels are boats that seem to be in the desert when they are on the open sea."] (Koran Sour. XLII-31) A line from a French translation of the Koran! It reads surprisingly like St.- John Perse. Loneliness, dependence, confidence, isolated journeys of the ships, held in God's hand, on the water, as camels in the desert. |
| 1960/08/10 | Giulio Basetti-Sani | Mohammed et Saint-Francois |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 30
| L. Massignon believes that the "nocturnal ascension" of Mohammed brought him to the threshold of mysticism but he would go no further, and that therefore mysticism was barred, under pain of death to all other Moslems. (Though some got away with it.) I think Fr. Giulio Basetti-Sani is a little romantic when he asserts that St. Francis, having offered himself for martyrdom at Damiette, became a substitute for Mohammed and went the whole way on Mount Alvernia. Isn't this a bit arbitrary? |
| 1960/09/04 | Giulio Basetti-Sani | Mohammed et Saint-Francois |
Ltrs: WtoF p. 279
| As you know, Herbert has been here. He was telling me that you were going to Moscow, etc., and I did not write to you. I hope your trip was not too wearisome, but very fruitful. I have read the fascinating book on St. Francis and Mohammed [by Fr. Giulio Bassetti-Sani, published in Montreal in French]. It is very clear, very original. We need books like this and I found some magnificent sentences from the Koran. |
| 1961/05/02 | Titus Burckhardt | An introduction to Sufi doctrine |
Jnl 4 ('60-'63) p. 115
| Abdul Aziz has sent some books on Islam, including first of all a powerful and concise little volume on Sufism by one Titus Burckhardt, of whom I had not yet heard. Certainly the very finest thing on the subject I have yet touched, marked with a hardness (solidity) and sureness one rarely finds in western studies of oriental mysticism. Also A. Aziz's own essay on Islam with two tremendous quotes at the end. This is for me only a first reading of the Burckhardt, which I will go over again more intently. Here a frankly intellectual mysticism-with real roots. The Truth Itself smashing vanity: and with no separation of knowledge and love. |
| 1963/10/04 | Frithjof Schuon | Comprendre l'Islam |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 22
| Two minds more different than those of Karl Barth and Frithjof Schuon would be hard to imagine, yet I am reading them both. Barth with his insistence on "God in the highest": completely unattainable by any human tradition and Schuon with his philosophia humanis [humanistic philosophy] (am reading his excellent book on Islam [Comprendre l'Islam, 1961]). True, Barth is a greater mind and there is an austere beauty in his Evangelical absolutism (closer to Islam than one would think!!) but there is another side to him-his love of St. Anselm and of Mozart. Schuon naturally oversimplifies his "contrast" between Islam and Christianity. One has to know what he's really doing! I wrote this morning to Marco Pallis (who sent the Schuon book) about his Way and the Mountain (the other night I dreamed about the way). |
| 1963/10/04 | Martin Lings | Moslem saint of the twentieth century : Shaikh Ahmad al-'Alawi : his spiritual heritage and legacy |
Ltrs: HGL p. 465-66
| And now above all, thank you for the superb book on Ahmad Al 'Alawi [by Martin Lings], superb because of its subject and because of the excerpts from his writings. I am immensely impressed by him, and by the purity of the Sufi tradition as represented in him. I am surprised Louis Massignon did not know him better or appreciate him more. I intend to reread the book meditatively; it is one of the richest things of its kind I have found lately. Surely the deepest expression of this kind of mysticism in our time. I have not yet got into Schuon's book on Islam, but will do so immediately. I do as a matter of fact know him and Guenon, though not well enough yet "¦ |
| 1963/10/08 | Frithjof Schuon | Comprendre l'Islam |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 24
| When Schuon writes about Mohammed, one wonders to what extent he is surreptitiously using ideas suggested by the dogma of the Incarnation. For instance this: "Mohammed c'est la forme humaine orientee vers l'Essence divin" (127). "C'est Mohammed qui incarne ‘actuellement' et ‘definitivement' la Revelation" (p. 131). ["Mohammed is the human form directed towards the divine Essence," Comprendre l'Islam, p. 127. "It is Mohammed who ‘actually' and ‘definitively' incarnates Revelation," p. 131.] |
| 1963/10/18 | Frithjof Schuon | Comprendre l'Islam |
Ltrs: HGL p. 55-56
| I have just finished reading the [Frithjof] Schuon book on Islam, in French. It strikes me as one of his best books. Its interest for me was a little uneven, and I wonder if he is not interpolating here and there a lot of his own gnostic ideas. It is so terribly difficult to do a really good job of combining the different traditions among themselves. I know the school of Schuon and [Rene] Guenon well, and read them with interest, but at times I do get the feeling that they are vanishing into the mist. Then they come clear again. I think they deserve all credit for their efforts to bring East and West together. I must say I enjoyed this book on Islam, especially some parts of the chapter on the Prophet and on the Way "¦ |
| 1963/10/18 | Martin Lings | Moslem saint of the twentieth century : Shaikh Ahmad al-'Alawi : his spiritual heritage and legacy |
Ltrs: HGL p. 55
| First of all, thank you for the remarkable book on Ahmad Al-'Alawi [Martin Lings, A Modern Saint of the Twentieth Century; Shaikh Ahmad Al-'Alawi, 1961]. I want to say how deeply moved and impressed I was with this book, from beginning to end. I had a chance to read it at leisure and thoughtfully in the hospital, and I am convinced that this is certainly one of the major religious figures of our time. I am very open to the vigorous clarity and the depth of his religious vision, and I must say that there is little in the book that I cannot heartily accept, I look forward to reading it again more slowly and meditatively. I am surprised that Louis Massignon made so few references to Ahmad Al-'Alawi. |
| 1963/10/18 | Martin Lings | Moslem saint of the twentieth century : Shaikh Ahmad al-'Alawi : his spiritual heritage and legacy |
Ltrs: HGL p. 363
| A Martin Lings has done what I think is a very fine study of a Moslem called Ahmad Al-'Alawi. I have an extra copy and can send it if you like. |
| 1963/10/30 | Robert Charles Zaehner | Hindu and Muslim Mysticism |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 30
| Finally getting into Zaehner's Hindu and Muslim Mysticism, a remarkable book. And convincing. |
| 1964/05/24 | Louis Massignon | Opera Minora |
Ltrs: CforT p. 45
| I have also been reading the big volumes of Louis Massignon's Opera Minora, so much more "majora" than most other people's masterpieces. They are at times completely shattering. I hope to write something about him as I now have to give an account of recent material on Islam in the magazine of the Order. I also have to report on Buddhism and Hinduism from time to time. This seems like a lot and does imply a kind of scattering of forces, but I think it will do me good and with the grace of God I can handle it. I think that one of the most crucially important subjects to investigate today is the Buddhist metaphysic of the "person," which claims to be non-personal (anatta) but as a matter of fact might well be something completely unique and challenging. The anatta idea is simply a "no" to the Hindu Atman as a pseudo-object or thought. If once one can find that on this crucial point where Buddhism and Christianity are completely opposed, they are in fact perhaps united "¦ Today is the feast of the Holy Trinity, Person but not individual nature "¦ |
| 1964/06/28 | Louis Massignon | Opera Minora |
Ltrs: HGL p. 59
| You probably have received the wonderful new edition of Louis Massignon's Opera Minora. Excellent. I will see that you get them if you do not have them already. Please tell me. Meanwhile I think I will write at least a note of review about Dr. Lings's book on Ahmad Al-'Alawi which I want to reread. I am incidentally supposed to provide notes on Islamic mysticism from time to time for the magazine of our Order. This is a new step, and a promising one. |
| 1964/06/28 | Martin Lings | Moslem saint of the twentieth century : Shaikh Ahmad al-'Alawi : his spiritual heritage and legacy |
Ltrs: HGL p. 59
| You probably have received the wonderful new edition of Louis Massignon's Opera Minora. Excellent. I will see that you get them if you do not have them already. Please tell me. Meanwhile I think I will write at least a note of review about Dr. Lings's book on Ahmad Al-'Alawi which I want to reread. I am incidentally supposed to provide notes on Islamic mysticism from time to time for the magazine of our Order. This is a new step, and a promising one. |
| 1965/02/14 | Rene Brunel | monachisme errant dans Vlslam, Sîdi Heddi et les Heddâwa |
Ltrs: SofC p. 265-66
| It is good to know that the "chroniques" on Islam and so on will get printed, even though not monastic. I have Schuon on Islam and the book on Hallaj, both of which I have been waiting to read, not certain whether you would be expecting a "chroniqu" on them. Can we decide more or less definitely one way or the other whether I should produce another chronique on non-Christian spiritualities for this year? If so I will gladly go ahead with it, and I have some interesting material which is close to monasticism even though as the Koran or rather some Hadith asserts: "There is no monasticism in Islam." Actually I think Dom Leclercq has written on this subject. Do you by any chance have his essay? It was published I think at Toumliline. If you like I can write myself because I need another study on the same thing published in Morocco (Brunel, Le Monachisme Errant dans l'Islam, Institut des Hautes Etudes Marocaines, 1955). I could write for both at the same time unless you have them on hand. |
| 1965/04/24 | Frithjof Schuon | Comprendre l'Islam |
Ltrs: HGL p. 453
| Your new book reached me this morning, and I must say it looks extremely interesting. I am not perfectly sure the review of our Order will want me to review it, this will depend on how germane it is to monasticism. But I think they probably will. On the other hand I have not yet done my review of [Frithjof] Schuon's book on Islam. I have a small pile of books on Sufism etc. building up and will probably do them all at once later on. |
| 1965/04/24 | Martin Lings | Moslem saint of the twentieth century : Shaikh Ahmad al-'Alawi : his spiritual heritage and legacy |
Ltrs: HGL p. 454
| On the other hand I was able to give what I felt was a very enthusiastic review to your admirable book on Ahmad Al-'Alawi [A Moslem Saint of the Twentieth Century, 1961]. I am glad of this opportunity to express my thanks. The book was an inspiration to me and I often think of this great man with veneration. He was so perfectly right in his spirituality. Certainly a great saint and a man full of the Holy Spirit. May God be praised for having given us one such, in a time when we need many saints. I hope that in a few days I will have some offprints and will send you a couple. |
| 1965/11/07 | A.J. (Arthur John) Arberry | Koran interpreted |
Ltrs: HGL p. 61
| On the other hand I am quite sure that at least one letter of mine must have gone astray. I am certain that I wrote acknowledging the gift of Arberry's translation of the Koran which I find excellent, and I even gave an explanation of why I thought it would not be right for me to chant the Koran daily, as I do not know how this ought to be done properly, and I would not want to simply go in for improvisation in so serious a matter. It seems to me that here again, my task is rather to chant the sacred books of my own tradition, the Psalms, the Prophets, etc., since I know the proper way of doing this. But on the other hand I read the Koran with deep attention and reverence. |
| 1966/03/21 | Abu al-Qasim Junayd ibn Muhammad | life, personality and writings of al-Junayd : a study of a third-ninth century mystic / Abu al-Qasim Junayd ibn Muhammad ; with an ed. and transl. of his writings by Ali Hassan Abdel-Kader |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 31
| Began the book on [Abu'l Q sim] Junayd which Abdul Aziz sent - perhaps will take this to the hospital, but don't know how much I will be able to read. |
| 1966/09/20 | Jacques Maritain | mimeographed conference in December 1964 |
Jnl 6 ('66-'67) p. 137
| In the pile of things I have lying around waiting to be read, I picked out today the mimeographed conference of Jacques Maritain (in December 1964) to the Little Brothers of Jesus on their vocation. The best thing I have seen on the "apostolate of contemplatives.".... He speaks of the Little Brother "present" in a Moslem city being a good enough reason why a Moslem lives and dies in Christ without ceasing to be a Moslem. But would it ever be the other way around too? A strange question: but a very real one to me!) So important: this presence is not a "pre-apostolat" simply "softening up" the unbelievers for the coming of the missionary! "La mouise confessionnelle des vocations religieuses - la mouise rêvee aux manies et aux particularites du monde catholique." ["The confessional poverty of religious vocations - the dreamed of misery with the obsessions and peculiarities of the Catholic world."] Freely Catholic = without Catholic provincialism (which is of course un-Catholic. The official and forced universalism and centralism of Post Trent Catholicism has made the Church provincial). etc.. |
| 1968/04/13 | Henry Corbin | Histoire de la philosophie islamique. Des origines jusqu'à la mort d'Averroës (595-1198) / In collaboration with Seyyed Hosseîn Nasr et Osman Yahya |
Ltrs: SofC p. 376
| Getting back to my own active life: one thing I can do for your ecumenical section is at least to review more books. It would be important to review the Histoire de la Philosophie Islamique by Nasr and Corbin (Gallimard, 1964). I have another book of Nasr I can review. If you would have someone keep a lookout for Buddhist, Islamic and other books in French and get them for me I'll do a bulletin. As to monasteries"”I am not in contact with any. But what I could do is this: possibly I may be sent to the AIM meeting in Bangkok. Dom Leclercq is most anxious for me to go. If you write to Dom Flavian and urge him to send me, and also suggest that I visit some monasteries of Buddhists, etc., to write a chronique for Collectanea, that might provide something interesting. However, all this is very uncertain "¦ |
| 1968/09/05 | Robert Charles Zaehner | At Sundry Times |
Jnl 7 ('67-'68) p. 164
| I am trying to finish reading of important books I can't take with me. Absorbed by Chogyam Trungpa's Born in Tibet [Note 6 Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was the eleventh Trungpa tulku. The story of his youth and escape from Tibet after the Chinese Communist incursion "as told to" Esme Cramer Roberts, Born in Tibet, was published by Harcourt Brace in 1968.] I question Zaehner's At Sundry Times. I think he is off target. |
| 1968/10/02 | Martin Lings | Moslem saint of the twentieth century : Shaikh Ahmad al-'Alawi : his spiritual heritage and legacy |
Jnl 5 ('63-'65) p. 20-21
| Yesterday afternoon I finished a remarkable book [Martin Lings, A Moslem Saint of the Twentieth Century, 1961] - the biography of Shaikh Ahmad al'Alawi, who died in Algeria in 1934. One of the greatest religious figures of this century, a perfect example of the Sufi tradition in all its fullness and energy. This is one book that I want to read again. The excerpts from his writings are most impressive and I know I have not begun to appreciate their content. |