An introduction to Shaykh Abd Al Wahid Yahya - René Guénon
by Omar K Neusser

He said:

"In any case, what Westeners call civilization, the others would call barbarity, because it is precisely lacking in the essential, that is to say a principle of a higher order."

RG, East And West, 1924

"When man is imprisoned like this in life and in the conceptions directly connected with it, he can know nothing about what escapes from change, about the transcendant and immutable order, which is that of the universal principles" RG EW90

1.) What is it that ”modern people” can benifit from René Guénon?

2.) What is it that Muslims can benifit from him?

NB: References to other traditions should not lead the casual reader to the conclusion that it does not matter which divine tradition to follow: far from it! The last authentic religion which leads to the Divine Presence is Islam.
This has been explained (among other texts) in the article:
On The Common Eternal Principles, And That Islam Reigns

“René Guénon's role (was to be the) reviver of Tradition for the Western world.”
Charles Upton < sacredweb.com >

“For Guenon, the malaise of the modern world is its relentless denial of the metaphysical realm, the metaphysical world being comprised of both philosophy and spirituality. Guenon sees everything in the world of creation as an application and manifestation of metaphysical principles that are contained in the perennial teachings of religions, and applies them to every single subject that he addresses in his works. Both the value of traditional sciences of nature and the misguided claims of modern secular science are judged in proportion to their proximity or distance from these principles. In this sense, Guenon is a metaphysician par excellence who has devoted his life to the diagnosis and correction of the metaphysical mistakes of the modern world.” Ibrahim Kalin < www.cis-ca.org >

“His function (was), in a world increasingly rife with heresy and pseudo religion, to remind twentieth century man of the need for orthodoxy which itself presupposes firstly a divine intervention, and secondly a tradition which hands down with fidelity from generation to generation what Heaven has revealed...”
Dr. Martin Lings, www.sophiajournal.com/Vol1Num1/Article02.html, x L 20120705

“Guénon undermined and then; with uncompromising intellectual rigor, demolished all the assumptions taken for granted by modern man, that is to say Western or westernized man. Many others had been critical of the direction taken by European civilization since the so-called 'Renaissance', but none had dared to be as radical as he was or to re-assert with such force the principles and values which Western culture had consigned to the rubbish tip of history. ...”

“The language of this Tradition [is] the language of symbolism, ... interpretation of this symbolism. Moreover he turned the idea of human progress upside down, replacing it with the belief almost universal before the modern age, that humanity declines in spiritual excellence with the passage of time and that we are now in the Dark Age which precedes the End, an age in which all the possibilities rejected by earlier cultures have been spewed out into the world, quantity replaces quality and decadence approaches its final limit. No one who read him and understood him could ever be quite the same again.” < Sh. Hassan Abdul Hakeem Gai Eaton >

“The writings of the great French thinker René Guénon - Shaykh `Abd Al Wahid Yahya (1886-1951) have by now achieved luminary status. His castigation of the modern world, grounded upon a pioneering reinstatement of the universal, first principles of the one true metaphysic abiding at the heart of the sacred traditions, has stood fast against the shifting sands of recent philosophies and can refurbish our powers of discrimination in face of the new millennium and the postmodern age.”  
www.seriousseekers.com, x L 20120705

Video with some of his quotes from Crisis of The Modern World

  His function was (and is still today) to warn people of religion, including Muslims, of the entanglements (fitna) of (post-) modernity, how it threatens to destroy the mentality even of some religious people as it did when modernity first emerged in the West, how it casts into doubt any absolute, metaphysical truth and how it influences the public at large.

  His works are primarily in French and in English. In Swedish there is an excellent book about Shaykh Abd Al Wahid Yahya: "I tjänst hos det Enda" ( In the service of The One), edited by Kurt Almqvist, a Swedish author writing on metaphysical questions. This is still the only disposition of RG's life and work in a Scandinavian language and it includes excerpts from some of his books, such as "Crisis of the Modern World" and "The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times."

  A European intellectual from the first half of the 20th century, he had witnessed the tragic and seemingly unavoidable events of his times, not the least both World Wars. He confronted the ruling myths of this civilization, such as 'human progress', 'technical development towards a brighter future' and he penetrated some of the most important philosophical and religious traditions - when towards the middle of his life - he embraced Islam and travelled to Egypt where he lived until the end of his life as a well-respected Muslim author.

  One of his main concerns was to produce an unsentimental analysis of Western ideological and religious development since the Renaissance, focusing on the degradation - as he saw it - of metaphysics, religion and philosophy and consequently of the mentality of the general populace.
  He explained why the civilization of the West was built on false foundations, like a house built on sand: its positivism, its denial of true tradition and in consequece its metaphysiscal blindness. He also showed the way to reform this situation by gaining access - through initiation - to the sacred and eternal treasure of timeless wisdom hidden beyond pseudo-sciences. His writings have inspired many engaged readers to search for truth and meaning in an otherwise meaningless world.

  Another of his main concerns was to clear from the pure concept of Ultimate Reality everything that IT is not and to teach its pure doctrine, because IT can only be described in negative terms ( of what IT is NOT ). His work is to remind us of the impossibility of having some rational concept of Ultimate Reality, except for the insight gained from intellectual intuition (the ma`rifa - intuitive knowledge of God) and the knowledge of revelation and prophetic tradition by following its teachings.

  This introduction is not an adequate overview over this outstanding writer's work, who wrote no less than 26 books and conducted a numereous correspondance with many intellectuals of his time. Some of his main areas of focus are:

• A definition of tradition versus anti-tradition and sentimentalized religion
• a distinction between metaphysics versus philosophy and religion
• an exposition of metaphysics and the hierarchy of stages of being
• a clear doctrine of the Ultimate Reality, Allah, Almighty God
• a thorough examination of Western thought and mentality:
   - individualism, modernism, rationalism, quantification; slackening of doctrine
• a rigorous distinction between Intellect and reason
• an explanation of esoterism and its function in religion, of initiation
• an explanation of the science of symbolism

There follow four groups of links:
(1.) Text-Excerpts & Notes On Works By René Guénon,
- in: English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Arab
(2.) Other Authors On René Guénon
(3.) Other Documents And Links
(4.) Texts On Tradition And Traditionalism



 (1.) Text-Excerpts & Notes On Works By René Guénon, [•  = external links]

   english 

•   A List of Texts On Metaphysics, Tradition, Modernism, as elucidated by René Guénon a o

   français 

•   Citations RG sur la métaphysique (en construction)
•   Citations RG en génerale (du dictionnaire) (en projèt)
•   La Métaphysique Orientale
•   La crise du monde moderne, extraits
•   Que faut il entendre par tradition ?
•   l'Unité - Et-Tawhid

   deutsch 

•   Das Heilige und das Profane
•   Das Unendliche Und Die Möglichkeit
•   Das Zeitalter der Quantität
•   Orientalische Metaphysik
•   Symbole der heiligen Wissenschaft
•   Über Geistigkeit oder Spiritualität

   español 

•   Via Shâdhilita de René Guénon

   svenska 

•   Den Mörka Tidsåldern
•   Det Heliga och det profana
•   Individualismens roll för filosofin; fr. Crisis Of The Modern World
•   Västerlandets särutveckling sedan Medeltiden av Kurt Almqvist
•   Intervju med Seyyed Hossein Nasr om René Guénon av Jay Kinney
•   Några av traditionens definitioner och teser ed. Omar K N
•   Vad är normal och vad normalitet? Hasan G Eaton
•   René Guénon om Traditionen och traditionell undervisning
•   René Guénons betydelse idag för muslimer och andra Omar K N
•   Modernismen och den mörka tidsåldern enl. R. Guénon Introduktion - cafeexpose

   arabiya 

•

L'oeuvre De Guénon En Orient* *Regardez dans les notes de cette page: Al-Faylasûf al-muslim René Guénon aw Abd al-Wâhid Yahyâ; publ. Dr. Abdel Halîm Mahmûd, Professeur à Ulûm ad-Din de l'Université Al-Azhar (Cairo) & Al-Madrasa ash-Shâdhiliyya al-hadîtha wa imâmuhâ Abû-l-Hasan ash-Shâdhilî, (Cairo, 1968), chapter: Al-'Arif bi-Llâh (Le Connaissant par Allah) ash-Shaykh 'Abd al-Wâhid Yahyâ from www.reneguenon.net

 

 (2.) Other Authors On René Guénon

•   Seyyed H Nasr om René Guénon
•   A Presentation of René Guénon By Mircea A. Tamas
•   Några av traditionens definitioner och teser av Kurt Almqvist
•   René Guénon by Martin Lings
•   www.seriousseekers.com - René Guénon Biography, x L 20120705 at seriousseekers.com
•   www.soufisme.org - Lire Guénon entre les lignes, x L 20120705 entretien avec Marie-Hélène Dassa
•   How Rene Guenon Discovered Islam Muhammad Haneef Shahid
•   Western Sufism and Traditionalism Mark Sedgwick

 

 (3.) Other Documents And Links

•   Rene Guénon (Abd al-Wahid Yahya) (1886-1951) An introduction
•   REGNABIT  Images and texts
•   L'oeuvre De Guénon En Orient  Michel Vâlsan
•   Sheikh Abdel Wahid Yahia, el hombre de la Tradición  por Omar Abu Bilal Ribas
•   La crise du monde moderne  Avec extraits significatifs
•   Interprétations  Roger Du Pasquier découvrit l'oeuvre de Guénon
•   René Guénon with a bookreview of "Reign of Quantity and Signs of the Times"
•   René Guénon, Biography
•   Institute René Guénon Of Traditional Studies
•   Complete list of René Guénon's books (www.seriousseekers.com), some of them:

- The Crisis of the Modern World
- East and West
- The Multiple States of Being
- The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times
- The Symbolism of the Cross
- Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power
- The Spiritist Fallacy
- Theosophy
order at: comments /at/ seriousseekers.com

•   On The Common Eternal Principles, And That Islam Reigns
      incl. René Guénon's role for sacred Tradition in general and Islam

 

 (4.) Texts On Tradition And Traditionalism

•   Texts On Tradition And Traditionalism -- an excerpt (The Reign of Quantity)
•   René Guénons betydelse idag, Omar K N

•   Traditionalism: René Guénon's legacy today - From An Interview with Mark Sedgwick
•   Islamic Tradition Not Equal “Fundamentalism” (from 'Islam In The Modern World,' S. H. Nasr)

•   What Is Tradition And What Is Traditional About Islam? (short)
•   Antitradition And Countertradition

•   Några av traditionens definitioner och teser, av Kurt Almqvist

 

 (5.) Related Texts

•   On The Supreme Principle;  The Source, The Sustaining Force, The Final Goal
•   Metaphysical Foundations ed. Omar K N
•   Oriental Metaphysics Explanations, And Traditional Definitions
•   What Is Traditional Islam ed. from ”Islam In The Modern World”, S. H. Nasr

 

 (6.) List With Quotes

•   A List of Texts On Metaphysics, Tradition, Modernism, as elucidated by René Guénon a o