*ISTAC Special Lecture No. 5/2010* The International Institute of Islamic Thought & Civilization (ISTAC), IIUM KL Campus has the pleasure of inviting you to attend a Special Lecture by *Dr. Arthur F. Buehler **Senior Lecturer at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand *On *Translation Issues in Ahmad Sirhindi’s Collected Letters: Why Shari’a is More Than “Shari’a Law.*
* * *The detail is as follows:* *Speaker: Dr. Arthur F. Buehler* * Senior Lecturer at **Victoria** ** University**,* * **Wellington**, **New Zealand**.* Title: *Translation Issues in Ahmad Sirhindi’s Collected Letters:* * Why Shari’a is More Than “Shari’a Law.* Date & Time: *Wednesday 7th July 2010**/ (**10:00am** – 12:00noon)* Venue: *Training Room, LG Floor,* * ISTAC, IIUM KL Campus,* * 24 Persiaran Duta, **Taman** Duta,* * 50480 **Kuala Lumpur* * * Thank you. *Wassalam*. *ADMINSTRATION OFFICE* *________________________________________________________________________* *ABSTRACT* This article introduces general issues involved in translating particularly difficult sufi texts like Ahmad Sirhindi’s (d. 1624 Sirhind, India) *Collected Letters*, founder of the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi lineage. In this discussion, the focus is on the specific difficulty of simply translating the word * “shari‘a”* as *“Islamic law”.* On the micro-level, translation issues involve, punctuation, spiritual politeness formulae, linguistic particularities of Indo-Persian, and Shaykh Sirhindi’s own technical vocabulary. On the macro-level, it is difficult for a translator, having been culturally programmed with a modern worldview, to meaningfully read a text written by someone who perceives the world with a radically different set of presuppositions. In addition, much of what Sirhindi is discussing in his letters concerns a formless, ineffable realm that is beyond space-time and rational discourse. This is the context in which we consider shari‘a. In the context of Sirhindi’s *Collected Letters*,* shari‘a*, has a range of multivalent meanings, which is why it is not appropriate to translate it as “canonical Islamic Law,” its consensus-reality dictionary meaning. In an everyday context, shari‘a involves articles of faith (*i‘tiqadat*) and guidelines for proper ritual and worldly behavior (*‘amal*) that a consensus of jurists has formulated. In Sirhindi’s juridic sufism, the domain of the shari‘a expands to include the inner work involving the sufi path (*tariqat*) and reality (*haqiqat*). Conventionally, shari‘a, the sufi path, and reality are considered three different domains but for Sirhindi they are one. Sirhindi’s juridic sufism has only one domain: the shari‘a, which is equal to the sum of submitting to God (*islam*), faith (*iman*)*,* and behaving in a beautiful manner (*i**hsan*). This is how Gabriel’s hadith* *specified * din* (usually translated as religion). The shari‘a is the organizing principle for all of Islamic life. Nothing is outside of the shari‘a. Sirhindi expanded shari‘a to include contemplative practice as he grounded contemplative practice in everyday life, a juristic sufism synthesizing the best of both worlds. Rationally, it does not appear that there is any relationship between subjective inner development, the result of contemplative practice, and shari‘a, which apparently deals with outer personal ritual behavior and outer interpersonal behavior. Baqibillah (d. 1603 Delhi), Shaykh Sirhindi’s Naqshbandi shaykh, provides a clue, saying that shari‘a injunctions are not a rational matter. He states, “the mind (* ‘aql*) has difficulty with shari‘a obligations.” From sufi reports, including *Collected Letters*, the Mujaddidi path has been formulated to use the shari‘a as a way to break down and tame the ego-self. This article will continue to discuss the further implications of this expanded conception of shari‘a. *BRIEF PROFILE OF ARTHUR F. BUEHLER*** [email protected] *EDUCATION: * PhD, 1993: (Religion). Harvard University *TEACHING AND WORK **EXPE**RIENCE:* *Senior Lecturer at **Victoria** **University**, **Wellington** * Responsibilities include teaching the following classes: “Introduction to Islam,” “Islam in the Contemporary World,” “Methods in the Study of Religion,” “Sufism,” “Transpersonal Psychology,” “Contemporary Spirituality,” “Mysticism and Spiritual Maps,” and supervising graduate students. He has also previously taught at Louisiana State University, Colgate University, and Harvard University. *Senior Editor*, *Journal of the History of Sufism* (*Tasavvuf Tarihi Araştırmarları* *Dergisi*) Paris/Istanbul (1998- ). *BOOKS:* - Sufi Heirs of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Sufi Shaykh with a Foreword by Annemarie Schimmel (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1998). - Analytical Indexes for the Collected Letters of Ahmad Sirhindi [in Persian] (Lahore: Iqbal Academy, 2001). - Sirhindi, in the Classics of Western Spirituality Series, Paulist Press, forthcoming 2011 *RECENT ARTICLES:* - “Tales of Renewal: Establishing Ahmad Sirhindi as the Reformer of the Second Millennium,” in Jack Renard, *Tales of God's Friends: Islamic Hagiography in Translation* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 234-248. - “Modes of Sufi Transmission to New Zealand,” in *New Zealand** Journal of Asian Studies* 8/2 (December 2006), 98-110. - “Ahmad Sirhindi’s Indian Mujaddidi Sufism,” in *Journal of the History of Sufism* 4 (2005), 209-228. - “South Asian Islamic Renewal Goes Transnational: Amad Sirhindī and his *Collected Letters,*” in Soren Lassen and Hugh van Skyhawk, eds., *Sufi Traditions and New Departures on the Subcontinent* (Islamabad: Taxila Institute, 2008), 25-39. - “Sufism,” in Andrew Rippin, ed., *The Islamic World* (New York: Routledge, 2008), 212-223. - “Ghulam Ali Shah and Maulana Khalid,” *Journal of the History of Sufism * 5 (2007), 199-213. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Kantakji Group" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group لفك الاشتراك من المجموعة أرسل للعنوان التالي رسالة فارغة, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/kantakjigroup?hl=en سياسة النشر في المجموعة: - ترك ما عارض أهل السنة والجماعة. - الاكتفاء بأمور ذات علاقة بالاقتصاد الإسلامي وعلومه ولو بالشيء البسيط. ويستثنى من هذا مايتعلق بالشأن العام على مستوى الأمة كحدث غزة مثلا. - عدم ذكر ما يتعلق بشخص طبيعي أو اعتباري بعينه. باستثناء الأمر العام الذي يهم عامة المسلمين. - تمرير بعض الأشياء الخفيفة المسلية ضمن قواعد الأدب وخاصة منها التي تأتي من أعضاء لا يشاركون عادة، والقصد من ذلك تشجيعهم على التفاعل الإيجابي. - ترك المديح الشخصي.
