Charles Le Gai Eaton

This selection of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad was made by the internationally respected British Muslim scholar, Charles le Gai Eaton. The Book of Hadith captures not only the practical and profound wisdom of the Prophet, but his human side as well. Contains Arabic text as well.

Islam and the Destiny of Man is a wide-ranging study of the Muslim religion from a unique point of view. The author, a former member of the British Diplomatic Service, was brought up as an agnostic and embraced Islam at an early age after writing a book (commissioned by T.S. Eliot) on Eastern religions and their influence upon Western thinkers. As a Muslim he has retained his adherence to the perennial philosophy which, he maintains, underlies the teachings of all the great religions.The aim of this book is to explore what it means to be a Muslim, a member of a community which embraces a quarter of the world's population and to describe the forces which have shaped the hearts and the minds of Islamic people. After considering the historic confrontation between Islam and Christendom and analysing the difference between the three monotheistic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), the author describes the two poles of Muslim belief in terms of 'Truth' and 'Mercy'--the unitarian truth which is the basis of the Muslim's faith and the mercy inherent in this truth. In the second part of the book he explains the significance of the Qur'an and tells the dramatic story of Muhammad's life and of the early Caliphate. Lastly, the author considers the Muslim view of man's destiny, the social structure of Islam, the role of art and mysticism and the inner meaning of Islamic teaching concerning the hereafter.Throughout this book the author is concerned not with the religion of Islam in isolation, but with the very nature of religious faith, its spiritual and intellectual foundations, and the light it casts upon the mysteries and paradoxes of the human condition.

Written by the best-selling author of Islam and the Destiny of Man, Remembering Reflections on Islam is a profound analysis of the most urgent concerns and questions facing us at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Contrasting modern, secular society with religion and tradition in general and with Islam in particular, Gai Eaton clarifies the essential need for spirituality, religion and values based on eternal principles. The main ideas behind Remembering God are that religion is not an isolated part of human life which can be disregarded at will and without consequences; that a total rejection of the past cannot be the basis for the future and that a true link with Heaven modifies all the decisions and actions of society. The continuity and harmony of the religious perspective contrasted with the dislocation and alienation of modern society is the theme that runs throughout the book, touching on religion in metaphysics, knowledge of the div! ine and of oneself, supplication, the necessity for purifying the ego; and on the application of religion to politics, architecture, the environment and gender relations, Charles Le Gai Eaton illustrates the subtle harmony of a religious perspective and its abiity to transform both the individual and society.

This book examines closely many of the unquestioned assumptions by which we live our lives, comparing them with the beliefs that have shaped and guided human life in the past. It begins with a consideration of how secular societies attempt to possess their citizens, body and soul and how, as a consequence, the necessity of redefining human responsibility becomes an ever more urgent imperative. The book continues with a presentation of the traditional view of man as 'God's Viceroy on Earth', with an eye to its practical implications in a world that has all but forgotten, under the pressure of mass social persuasion, that man must always be free to choose his own ultimate destiny. The author's thesis is a passionate yet incisive plea for the restoration of the sacred norms of religion, as against the debilitating and falsifying aims of a profane world-view based on no more than recent scientific and technological achievements.

From 1978 to 1996, the late Gai Eaton gave a series of talks on BBC Radio about Islam and its role in contemporary society and this account features 86 of these talks—variously titled “Reflections,” “Words of Faith,” and “Pause for Thought.” Providing a beautifully clear and accessible introduction to Islam’s central tenets, principles, and practices, this book utilizes wisdom, humanity, and humor to teach those interested in a spiritual approach to life.

Now in his 80s, Gai Eaton describes how, after a strange childhood completely isolated from other children, followed by a Cambridge education and life as an actor and later as a diplomat, circumstances led him at the age of 30 to Islam.Fascinated by the vagaries of human behavior and the strangeness of human destinies, he has observed the human scene with a novelist's eye and traced the profound changes in attitudes and tastes which have taken place in a single lifetime. He recounts his youthful adventures with the clear-sight and understanding only possible for someone whom age has freed from the passions which once possessed him. What makes this work unique is the juxtaposition of hindsight with diary entries made at the time, which gives a quality of immediacy to a true story that includes reminiscences of the diplomatic life and an outline of the Sufi path.

"Bu harikulade kitap, Batı'yı ve İslam Dünyası'nı birbirinden ayıran sınırların ve duvarların ötesindeki okuyucuların kalplerine ulaşmak için yapılmış bir gönül çağrısıdır. İmanın sıcaklığı ve bilgeliğin hafifliği ile vücut bulan bu eser, şüphecilik, izafilik ve inançsızlık ilkelerinin hakim olduğu bir çağda yaşamış bir inananın kaleminden çıkmıştır. O yüzden de, modern Batı ile İslam Dünyası arasında kurulmuş nadide ve eşsiz bir köprüye benzemektedir ve her iki dünyaya, imanla beslenmiş bir güven, hikmete dayanan bir düşünce berraklığı ve diğer dinlerin yanı sıra, hem modern dünyayı hem de geleneksel İslam Dünyası'nı kuşatan bir hayat tecrübesinin gerektirdiği bir isabetle seslenebilmektedir." (Seyyid Hüseyin Nasr)

“This book offers an unusually penetrating critique of our modern civilization in terms of both symptoms and causes. By way of illustrating his subject, the author gives us a number of vividly delineated pen-portraits of certain contemporary writers, each of whom had attempted a similar analysis. He has a wide-ranging historical sense, coupled with strong human sympathies unsullied by tendentious undertones, whether of a sentimental or a cynical kind. Behind all this he allows one to recognize a metaphysical flair of uncommon sureness." — Marco Pallis, Studies in Comparative Religion"A remarkably lucid short guide to the Wisdom of the East." — New English Weekly"A book of unusual interest for Western readers. Eaton attempts with considerable success to present a clear summary of what has come to be called the Wisdom of the East, which he finds enshrined in the Upanishads, the Vedanta, Taoism, and Buddhism. His discussion of these various doctrines is a useful corrective of the vague generalizations which usually do duty for the average reader's ideas of Eastern tradition and philosophy." — New English Review"I remember—many years ago now—picking up a copy of Eaton's first book in a Tokyo bookshop. It was called "The Richest Vein," and I was not a little moved and impressed by it. Gai Eaton has trodden a long path since that first essay into what is, for him, the only subject of his writing, and he came to conjoin, to intuition and longing, an inner knowledge and experience that has enabled him to produce subsequently such widely-acclaimed books as King of the Castle, and Islam and the Destiny of Man." — Peter Hobson, Studies in Comparative Religion

Rare Book

Catisma ve duyarsizlik; Islam dunyasi ile Hristiyanlik dunyasi arasindaki iliskiyi belirleyen en kalici ozellik oldu. Bu duyarsizligin gerisine saklanan cehalet ve ofke Bati'nin Islam dunyasini anlayamamasinin en buyuk sebeplerinden biri. Gai Eaton, Batida dogmus, o kulturu olusturan atmosferi teneffus ederek yetismis ve musluman olmus bir aydin olarak Batili soydaslarina Islam adina anlatacak cok seyi olduguna inaniyor. Zira cagdas musluman aydinlarin Islam'i Batiya tanitmada en buyuk eksiklikleri; bu uygarligi olusturan mantaliteyi ve simgeleri cozecek entellektuel donanim ve yaklasim eksikligi oldugunu vurguluyor. Sahasi, bu kitabin Islam dunyasinda sayilari gittikce artan batililasmis aydinlara da soyleyecegi cok sey Teokratik degil, teosentrik bir duzen kuran Islam uygarligi bireyin ozgurluk alanini gittikce daraltan modern zamanlarin dini dislayan hayat bicimlerine karsin insana yeni alanlar acmaktadir.Baski 1992 Insan Yayinlari