Publish Date: 26 May 2008 - 17:00

TEHRAN, May 26 (MNA) -- The Iranian Society of Cultural Works and Luminaries plans to pay homage to the U.S. Islamologist William Chittick during a ceremony on June 14.

The commemoration is held to appreciate 40 years of Professor Chittick’s efforts on the study of Islam and Iranian culture, the society announced in a press release on Monday.

 

Chittick, 65, is currently Professor of religious studies at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.

 

He is a leading translator and interpreter of classical Islamic philosophical and mystical texts. He is best known for his revolutionary study on the Persian poet and mystic Jalal ad-Din Rumi and Arab Sufi mystic and philosopher Ibn Arabi, and has written extensively on the school of Ibn Arabi, Islamic philosophy, Shiism, and Islamic cosmology.

 

He has spent 12 years in Iran earning a Ph.D. in the Persian literature from the University of Tehran and also conducting an in-dept comparative study of religions before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

 

He is author of over 20 books on Islam, philosophy, and Persian literature.

 

MMS

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MNA