William Chittick

[Salleyye]

Is William Chittick Muslim? are his books reliable?

[hassan roberto hrvat]

Is William Chittick Muslim? are his books reliable?

no brother [clip] ,without any traditional o spiritual qualification to speak about shaykh Ibn Arabi. he is even follower of "perennialist"school and try to picture Shaykh al Akbar as a believer in "trascendent unity of all religion's". He's book's are very deep and give many information's but you can respect him as an scholar but be carefull about some exposition's.It's not all good ,it's not all bad.take care

[Mod Edit:- Please refrain from takfeer without proof. This is your first warning.]

[celt islam]

asalaamualaykum, perennialist schools of thought are batil and not accepted by majority of the ummah , all religions are not one and the same as perrenialists believe, Islam does not believe in the trinity where as perrenialists do , its about time the ummah woke up to the fact that sufism is being hijacked by jesuit styled perrenialism , tasawuff is the sceince of the self and its model is rasullulah [ s.a.w ] and all the awliyah , the kufar will never stop from trying to destroy islam, ALLAH tells us in the quraan about what the kaffirs intend to do, they will never fully accept us unless we are like them , here is a wonderfull site where you can get a great teaching about tasawuff [ sufism ] and there is some wonderfull translations of ibn al arabi's works , wa salaam.

Aisha Bewley's Islamic Home Page :
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ABewley/

[hassan roberto hrvat]

thank you brother celt islam. in any case mr.wiliam chittick is not a muslim ,and this is a known fact.to interpret ibn Arabi you must have traditional qualification's.

[Omar HH]

Majdoba - we definetly need you on Maliki Fiqh Group. You have too much knowledge to share!! Ma Sha Allah. We have Imam Suhaib Webb and Shaykh `Abdus Sammad Clarke, Aftab Malik, And Khalid Williams.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MalikiFiqhGroup

[hassan roberto hrvat]

Al salam alakum and peace be upon the messenger

Dear brothers and sisters, plz be carful on talking about other people's Islam, for it's not a trivial thing.

As for william chittick, i onced had the pleasure of comunicating with him via email, and i must say he is a very polite and modest person indeed, and showed best manners in talking about ilm, for i asked him about an issue, and all his repply was literally 'ina Allah ala kulu shia gadir' (God is Most capable -my translation), and on another issue he asked me to go and speak to a 'qualified shaykh' a repply i must add that is very rare to hear, for everyone nowerdays is a self-proclaimed scholar. I personally hold the view that he is a muslim, and his manners are indeed of muslims, and i will hold this view until he himself procliams otherwise, and even if he does, it's non of my business thats his business with his Creator.

brother Hassan, you hold the view that he is not a muslim, did he say that to you personally or have proclaimed it publicly in his writings, or just your own personal opinion, if it's the last, then brother ask Allah for forgivness and He is Most forgiving, for if anyone claims someone is a kafir, then the word goes to the heavens and if that person is not a kafir the word is returned back to you, so be very carful.

As a very wise person once said, it's better to mistake 1000 kufar as muslims than to mistake one muslim as a kafir. (a tip in life -get yourself busy with finding out if you are 'munafiq' (hypocrate) or not, that will give you less time to ponder on other people's state of deen.

Majdoba

Salam aleikum ,dear sister ! we must respect this man even he is a non muslim. he is a very deep thinker and an intellectual erudite about sufism and Shaykh Ibn Arabi. I hear that he is a non muslim from people who follow's his work's and love him very much.they are "perennialist "muslim's ad give me his work's to read. they have some contact's in the u.s.a who have direct knowledge of this scholar. i asked them if he was muslim and they say the he was not ,but that his spiritual intuition was without doubt very rare and deep.this evening i phone this friend's and ask about his religion again and they reply he is a traditional perennialist very gifted ,but he is not muslim in the sense we intend to give to this term a meaning. they say this his case is the same as of the late Henry Corbine ,another scholar of the same group of people who gathered around seyyed hussein nasr in the seventy's in persia ,at the time of the sha.

[celt islam]

[QUOTE= "perennialist "muslim's .[/QUOTE]

????? what is a perrennialist muslim? , is not islam enough or what?

so now we have a new sect? hummm
perrenialism by definition is not islam.

[salman]

Salamu 'Alaykum

Ive taken a few courses with Professor Chittick including Islamic Philosophy and Introduction to Islam.

On the whole he's very positive about Islam. He also has a basic understanding of fiqh, the fuqaha, the sufis e.t.c.. What I mean is you will not find him condemning or disagreeing openly with aspects which people find odd in Islam such as Niqab or beards or other practices. He is quite aware as to why we believe such and the proofs.

In that sense he is very good, very polite, and a great Professor.

However, he is not someone you take your *din* from - as we all know - because he does have some perennialist beliefs.

Wasalam

[Abu Abdallah]

Assalamu 'Alaykum,

We should remember that we do not know if Mr. Chittick is Muslim or not. Either way, he has done a great service to Islam and Muslims. Hamzah Yusuf has used his and Sachiko Murata's "The Vision of Islam" in classes, and produced a commentary on it. If qualified scholars find merit in his work, shouldn't we? Even if we have certain theological differences.

By the way, I have never heard a Muslim who adheres to the Perennial Philosophy call him or her self a "perennialist Muslim," -Celt Islam. Yet there are strands of philosophy and gnosis that have developed in Islam that are true to the original teachings of the Quran and Sunnah: Akbari, Ishraqi, etc.

It is common for people to have these reactions when they do not understand the doctrines being presented.

Peace,
Abu Abdallah

[al-Hanbali]

We should know if he is muslim or not simply in order to apply the laws of Allah in this life. In the life of this world, Allah has obliged us to apply certain Ahkam that are particular to Muslims such as: eating their meat, marrying them, burying them in the Muslim graveyards, and giving them their other obligatory rights as Muslims.

Maybe im misunderstanding the context of this discussion, but one could also say: "We dont know if Hugo Chavez is Muslim or not."

The Fuqaha' mention that the general ruling on a person follows that of his or here dar (abode) unless there are other indicators to show otherwise. So, if you see a clean shaven man in the Muslim world, you assume him to be a muslim because he is in the land of the Muslims. That is unless he is displaying the outward signs of Kufr such as wearing a cross etc. The same applies for the west. Any man in the street is assumed to be a Kafir merely because they are in the west-the lands of the Kuffar. That is unless he is displaying the outward signs of Islam such as the salams, the beard and kufi etc.

It is important to know who is and isnt Muslim in order to obey Allah in this life. The real reality in the hereafter of the unknown person in the west is not our concern here, but the laws of distinction must be applied to properly worship and obey Allah.