This book presents a bilingual edition and study of a major Sufi work on the divine names by the North African mystic ʿAfīf al-Dīn al-Tilimsānī, a direct intellectual heir of Ibn al-ʿArabī. The author's travels across Sunni-ruled cities from Tlemcen to Konya to Cairo and Damascus formed a pan-Islamic Sufi nexus. Yousef Casewit's edition, translation, and commentary make this philosophically nuanced treatment of the Qur'anic divine names accessible to non-Arabic readers for the first time, situating it within Islamic metaphysics, Qur'anic hermeneutics, and Sufi theology.
In medieval Islamic civilization, poetry was the most intimate medium for conveying Sufism's hidden truths, as the spiritual journey toward God's unity defies ordinary prose. Persian poetry, with its metaphorical symbolism, puns, and paradoxes, emerged by the seventh/thirteenth century as an unparalleled vehicle for expressing mystical experience. The most dramatic expression is Farid al-Din `Attar's allegorical poem Mantiq al-Tair ("The Speech of the Birds"), which recounts birds' initiatory voyage through seven valleys to the palace of the mythical Simurgh, symbol of the Divine. The text reviews several English translations of this masterpiece, noting their fidelity and completeness.