Unveiling of the Mysteries
Great Commentaries on the Holy Quran
Abridged Version
Volume VII
Rashid al-Din Maybudi, author of this Sufi commentary on the Quran, was a major twelfth-century scholar of Maybud, near Yazd in central Iran. This commentary, called Kashf al-asrar wauddat al-abriar [The Unveiling of the Mysteries and the Provision of the Pious], is one of the earliest and longest commentaries on the Quran in the Persian language, though a good portion of it is in Arabic. Maybudi explains select verses and their allusions (ishara); by this he means the manner in which the words and imagery can be understood as pointing to various dimensions of the soul’s relationship with God. Maybudi’s work also came to be known by the subtitle of the published Persian edition, Tafsir Khawaja Abdallah Ansari [Quran Commentary of Master Abdallah Ansari] because Maybudi wrote it after having studied the Quran commentary of Ansari (d. 1088), an influential scholar and Sufi saint from Herat.
“Chittick is arguably the best scholar and translator of Classical Islamic Mysticism (Sufism) the Western World has ever produced. His books are sheer gold. But this latest work is a masterwork studded with unique spiritual gems on love.”—H.R.H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, author of Love in the Holy Qur’an
“This masterpiece is the finest scholarly study of love in Islam ever produced. Chittick’s brilliant theo-philosophical analysis encompasses all the great Islamic thinkers and offers an urgent message not just for historians of religion, but for all Muslims and for those of every faith tradition.”—
“Rendering a vast Arabic and Persian repertoire into lucid English allows William Chittick to display how central love is in the Islamic tradition. Persian masters Maybudi and Sam’ânî open worlds of poetic theological reflection, detailing the origin of love, a life of love, and the goal of love.”—
“A profound addition to our understanding of Sufism. It will be yet another long-standing contribution in the magnificent career of William Chittick, and another confirmation of his status as one of the very leading scholars of Sufism today.”
“The classic Sufi poets of divine and human love—Rumi, Hafez, Attar and others—are by now familiar figures. William Chittick’s book beautifully introduces the earlier Persian (and Arabic) prose writers on love who provide the background for that love-poetry, and whose “theology of love” shaped the popular understanding of Islam through the centuries.”
