Sayyed Hossein Nasr Quotes on God
Nasr's many books — Knowledge and the Sacred (1981), The Heart of Islam (2002), Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present (2006) — defend a traditionalist metaphysics rooted in the Islamic philosophical heritage of Avicenna, Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra and aligned with the perennial-philosophy school of Frithjof Schuon and René Guénon. The framework treats the divine reality as the principial source from which the sacred sciences, sacred art, and the orders of created being all proceed, and reads the modern desacralization of nature and the consequent ecological and spiritual crises as consequences of the West's abandonment of the metaphysical knowledge that traditional religious civilizations preserved. Nasr's work has been central to contemporary Islamic intellectual life and to the broader interreligious dialogue on metaphysics and the philosophy of religion.
Quotes
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Attributed to Sayyed Hossein Nasr:
“Modern man has forgotten that knowledge and the sacred were once one.”
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Attributed to Sayyed Hossein Nasr:
“The recovery of the sacred is the precondition of the recovery of nature.”
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Attributed to Sayyed Hossein Nasr:
“Every authentic civilization is the projection of a metaphysical principle into time.”
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“Knowledge and the Sacred , (1989) pp. 5-6”
Through the downward flow of the river of time and the multiple refractions and reflections of Reality upon the myriad mirrors of both macrocosmic and microcosmic manifestation, knowledge has become separated from being and the bliss or ecstasy which characterizes the union of knowledge and being. Knowledge has become nearly completely externalized and desacralized, especially among those segments -
“Consciousness is itself proof of the primacy of the Spirit or Divine Consciousness of which human consciousness is a reflection and echo.”
Knowledge and the Sacred , (1989) p. 8 -
“Knowledge and the Sacred , (1989) p. 8”
Consciousness is itself proof of the primacy of the Spirit or Divine Consciousness of which human consciousness is a reflection and echo. -
“Knowledge and the Sacred , (1989) pp. 8-9”
The reduction of the Intellect to reason and the limitation of intelligence to cunning and cleverness in the modern world not only caused sacred knowledge to become inaccessible and to some even meaningless, but it also destroyed that natural theology which in the Christian context represented at least a reflection of knowledge of a sacred order, of the wisdom or sapientia which was the central me -
“The testimony of the faith L¯a il¯aha illa’Ll¯ah (There is no divinity but the Divine) is a statement concerning knowledge, not sentiments or the will. It contains the quintessence of metaphysical knowledge concerning the Principle and its manifestation. The Prophet of Islam has said, “Say L¯a il¯aha illa’Ll¯ah and be delivered” referring directly to the sacramental quality of principial knowledge.”
Knowledge and the Sacred , (1989) p. 13 -
“Knowledge and the Sacred , (1989) p. 13”
The testimony of the faith L¯a il¯aha illa’Ll¯ah (There is no divinity but the Divine) is a statement concerning knowledge, not sentiments or the will. It contains the quintessence of metaphysical knowledge concerning the Principle and its manifestation. The Prophet of Islam has said, “Say L¯a il¯aha illa’Ll¯ah and be delivered” referring directly to the sacramental quality of principial knowledge