Muslim Intellectuals and the Perennial Philosophy in the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This paper will examine how Muslim intellectuals, as a result of their attachment to the doctrine of Divine Unity (taw¤hīd), the Quran, Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad, and the doctrines and methods of Sufism, were largely responsible for the restating of the perennial philosophy in the West in the twentieth century. The article consists of four sections: an introduction to the term 'philosophia perennis'; the place of the perennial philosophy in the Qur'an and Sunnah; the perennial philosophy and the Islamic intellectual Tradition; the lives, writings, and intellectual contributions of the five most important Muslim perennialists of the twentieth century, namely, Guénon, Schuon, Burckhardt, Lings, and Nasr The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the inextricable link between Islam and the perennial philosophy in the twentieth century, while defending the role that orthodoxy and orthopraxy play in any authentic expression of the perennial philosophy