Although not widely known in the Western world, al-Hallaj is one of the great figures in the history of the Muslim religion. Martyred in 922 by the government for his teachings, al-Hallaj has lived on through the centuries in the legends and memories of Muslims the world over. The reader who meets al-Hallaj for the first time in this book will be impressed by the striking similarities he shares…
CALLING OSCAR WILDE'S philosophy of art his "most elusive legacy," Brown attempts to define Wilde's conception of what art is and what it is not, of what the experience of art means in the modern world, and of the contradictory relations between the work of art and the sphere of everyday ethics. She traces the experimental character of Wilde's thought from its resonance in his own life through …
Returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, St. Francis finds the order of humble friars, which he had founded, has grown so tremendously that now over 6,000 monks consider themselves "Franciscans." But St. Francis is appalled to find that with this apparent success came a total rejection of his original vision which this thriving community of friars regarded as outmoded and unsuited for the…