Calendar

The Beshara Lecture 2016: Love Beyond Belief – Opening the eye of the heart in the mirror of religious truth

Jun 4, 2016 14:00
St Ethelburga's Centre, 78 Bishopsgate, London EC2N 4AG
The Beshara Trust


Image: the last of six full-page ovoid illuminations at the beginning of the Book VI of the Masnavi, folio 266A of Manuscript G, in the Mevlevi Musesi in Konya, dated 677 A.H., 1278 C.E.

Saturday, 4 June at 2pm
St Ethelburga's Centre
78 Bishopsgate
London EC2N 4AG

Ultimately, few things are perhaps more responsible for human misery and strife in the modern world than the embattled state of mistrust and mutual antipathy between three traditions that coexist in the Middle East and which each claim to be direct recipients of divine revelations from God.

By the same token, few things could be more important than bringing a reconciliation of mutual understanding and peace between these embattled ‘Abrahamic’ faiths. It can be argued that geo-political, diplomatic and economic solutions will have no lasting effect until old tribalistic rivalries and mutual exclusivities are abandoned and replaced by a realisation of the unity of the truths these traditions hold sacred.  

Rumi, Ibn 'Arabi and other great masters of Jewish and Christian mystical traditions, reconcile the outward differences between the faiths and speak of the unifying and creative power of love that lies deep within human nature. In this lecture an attempt is made to show how Rumi, of all spiritual teachers, gives perhaps the greatest emphasis to this teaching of the transformative and healing power of love as a divine 'incarnation' or self-revelation (tajalli) of God in the human heart. It is a message from a master of the heart to a world that suffers chronic spiritual heart disease.

Alan Williams is British Academy Research Professor and Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Religion at the University of Manchester. His publications include books and articles ranging from Zoroastrianism to Classical and Modern Persian literature, via Translation Studies and Comparative Literature. He is currently contracted to publish all six volumes of the Mathnavi with I.B. Tauris of London.

 

 

Tickets: £10 (£7 students/concessions) +reg. fee from besharalecture.eventbrite.co.uk
More info: london@beshara.org or tel. Michael Cohen on +44 (0)208 300 7928


Image: the last of six full-page ovoid illuminations at the beginning of the Book VI of the Masnavi, folio 266A of Manuscript G, in the Mevlevi Musesi in Konya, dated 677 A.H., 1278 C.E.

Saturday, 4 June at 2pm
St Ethelburga's Centre
78 Bishopsgate
London EC2N 4AG

Ultimately, few things are perhaps more responsible for human misery and strife in the modern world than the embattled state of mistrust and mutual antipathy between three traditions that coexist in the Middle East and which each claim to be direct recipients of divine revelations from God.

By the same token, few things could be more important than bringing a reconciliation of mutual understanding and peace between these embattled ‘Abrahamic’ faiths. It can be argued that geo-political, diplomatic and economic solutions will have no lasting effect until old tribalistic rivalries and mutual exclusivities are abandoned and replaced by a realisation of the unity of the truths these traditions hold sacred.  

Rumi, Ibn 'Arabi and other great masters of Jewish and Christian mystical traditions, reconcile the outward differences between the faiths and speak of the unifying and creative power of love that lies deep within human nature. In this lecture an attempt is made to show how Rumi, of all spiritual teachers, gives perhaps the greatest emphasis to this teaching of the transformative and healing power of love as a divine 'incarnation' or self-revelation (tajalli) of God in the human heart. It is a message from a master of the heart to a world that suffers chronic spiritual heart disease.

Alan Williams is British Academy Research Professor and Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Religion at the University of Manchester. His publications include books and articles ranging from Zoroastrianism to Classical and Modern Persian literature, via Translation Studies and Comparative Literature. He is currently contracted to publish all six volumes of the Mathnavi with I.B. Tauris of London.

 

 

Tickets: £10 (£7 students/concessions) +reg. fee from besharalecture.eventbrite.co.uk
More info: london@beshara.org or tel. Michael Cohen on +44 (0)208 300 7928

Go Back