• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Influential Muslim Teachers and Imams

E

EshetChayil

Member
As-salamu alaykum. :)

A coworker of mine mentioned the other day that he wished there was a Rumi-type spiritual leader around nowadays; a modern Muslim thinker that would give a peaceful, universal image to Islam. I told him that there are, and that there are many, but we just don't hear about them. The media wants to portray an image of Islam that is violent, when it is my understanding that it is a tradition of pluralism and peace.

Because I'm not well versed in the religion, though, I could only think of one modern author whose works shed light for us westerners, and whose perspective on Islam seems to be true and accurate. That is Seyyed Hossein Nasr, author of The Heart of Islam, The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, and others.

Are there any well-known Muslim teachers and imams who promote the peaceful message of essential Islam? Where can we find them and/or their works? Do imams have the same status/are they as revered within the community as, say, priests or rabbis are in their communities?
 
TashaN

TashaN

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Walikum Alsalam. Welcome to Islam DIR. :)


There are many but those comes to mind right now:

Habib Ali AlJifri
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf
Dr. Jeffery Lang
Professor Tariq Ramadan

Many others can be found at the Youtube channel below. Feel free to explore all the speakers there then search more about them in YouTube and other websites.

rismultimedia - YouTube

I'm sure the other Muslim members here can give you some more names to explore.

If you have any more questions let us know.


Peace be upon you. :)
 
Matemkar

Matemkar

Active Member
Wa alaikum salam wa rahmatullah.

Well said. You are right about it. Extremist words are the loudest. And media with agenda only show them. So, Muslim spiritual leaders are not known much to the western world. And even spiritual sides of Muslim political leaders are not known either. I don't think, for instance, a western non-Muslim heard about "the Wine of Love" by Imam Khomeini (r.a.).

In any case, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, as you said, is a great author and speaker. I suggest him. Also, I don't know all tha names which brother Tashan suggested, I just know about Habib Ali Al-Jifri and Tariq Ramadan and I love their interviews and sermons. And I trust brother Tashan about the other two that I don't know yet.

And I am sorry I won't be able to help much because the authors of the school of Irfan (Muslim Mysticism) who I know, write their books in Persian, Arabic and Azeri, etc. But I know one arif (mystic) author who publishes books in English (I am sure there are more but I just know him); Dr. Mohammad Ali Shomali. He has great books on Spiritual Message of Islam which you can check on his website. Also he writes papers for the Quarterly Islamic Magazine; Message of Thaqalayn. And here I listed my favourite PDF articles from that magazine: PDF Articles on Islamic Spirituality You might like to check them when you have time.

Also here are some lecturers you might like to listen in addition to what brother Tashan suggested:

Hajj Khalil Jaffer

Dr. Farrokh Sekaleshfar

Hassanain Rajabali

As for your questions on how leaders are revered, well, according to sunni brethren, Imams are regarded in alike status of how other Abrahamic faiths regard pastors and rabbis. Though there are some well-known figures who are regarded as more influential. In sufi Islam, there are different tariqa/orders each of which has well known regional figures and they are influential also. In shia Islam, we have influential figures who are known as Marja' , maybe you already heard about them as Ayatollahs. I hope it helps.

And please be slow yet steady in your journey of exploring mysticism. ma salam :)
 
Last edited:
TashaN

TashaN

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I would like to add also that just because there are no English content for some scholars, that doesn't mean they don't exist. Many great scholars can speak in English and many others don't. The world didn't know that much about Rumi when he was alive, but then people started to have interest in his writing and thus, worked hard to translate his works into English and many other languages. I hope you got my point. :)
 
E

EshetChayil

Member
TashaN said:
I would like to add also that just because there are no English content for some scholars, that doesn't mean they don't exist. Many great scholars can speak in English and many others don't. The world didn't know that much about Rumi when he was alive, but then people started to have interest in his writing and thus, worked hard to translate his works into English and many other languages. I hope you got my point. :)
Click to expand...

Absolutely! That was kind of my point when I was talking to my coworker. Just because we haven't heard of these teachers and scholars doesn't mean they don't exist.

Matemkar said:
Extremist words are the loudest.
Click to expand...

Perfectly said. This goes for extremists of all religions and political causes, I think.

Thank you all so much for these resources. I'm going to be reading up on them tonight and I look forward to sharing them at work. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top