Behind today's media stereotypes of an apocalyptic 'clash of
civilisations, ' could we be witnessing the epochal birth of new
spiritual, ethical and cultural forms of communion, of a nascent global
civilisation? 'Orientations' begins with those intimately familiar
situations of disorientation, painful conflict and confusion-almost
inescapable in the contemporary world-whose most dramatic expressions
are daily so visible in emblematic images from each Jerusalem or
Sarajevo. It presents three Muslim thinkers-from the metaphysics of Ibn
Arabi, to notions of the 'virtuous city' of al-Farabi to the
contemporary thinker, Ostad Elahi-whose seminal works together provide
the inspiration for positive, realistic, and constructive responses to
those challenges. The purpose of this study is to turn our attention
toward those universal elements of Islamic thought and spirituality
which are explicitly grounded in the deepest common dimensions of human
experience: dimensions that can alone provide us with the indispensable
foundations for true communication, for genuine moral and spiritual
communities rooted in our shared responsibilities of spiritual insight,
creativity and the uniquely human processes of realisation and
transformation