"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."

  An introduction to Shaykh Abd Al Wahid Yahya - René Guénon

  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 loss of metaphysiscal knowledge. 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 the positivistic sciences. His writings have inspired many engaged intellectuals 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) by following the teachings of Revelation and prophetic tradition (Sunnah).

  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 thinkers 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
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