A Sufi Commentary on the Tao Te Ching: The Way and Its Virtue

In 1974, the oldest extant copy of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching (6-4th century BCE) was unearthed at Xi' an along with the ceramic warriors guarding the tomb of the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang. By 1979, Professor Toshihiko Izutsu-- the Japanese Islamicist, philosopher and linguist-- collaborated in Tehran with Seyyed Hossein Nasr to translate this treasure into English. Dr. Nasr went on to put it into Persian adding a Sufi commentary which was recently published in Iran. This has now been translated into English with annotations by Mohammad H. Faghfoory. Imagine having a foundational world scripture like the Tao Te Ching explained by such a renowned Sufi scholar and internationally recognized spiritual authority as Dr. Syed H. Nasr. Passages whose subtleties are normally inaccessible to the Western mind become clear. Through Dr. Nasr's insightful use of verses from such Persian luminaries as Rumi, Hafiz, and Attar, the reader is introduced to the " world" behind this world. The scholar recognized as the " Father of World Religions", Huston Smith, refers to the Tao Te Ching as a " Testament to humanity's at-home-ness in the universe, [which] can be read in half an hour or a lifetime... .The Tao is the Way of Ultimate Reality... the ordering principle behind all life... the integrating principle of the whole - The Spirit, as it were, of the universe - instinct without contrivance, which flows with purpose." It also refers to the Way of human life. The " Sage", or True Man, is the Noble primordial nature within each of us. The dignified sage within rests content in wu-wei, the inner tranquility with no attachment to the transient, always aware of the Eternal Nature of others. The exquisite explication of the qualities of this sage within, is one of the extraordinary offerings of this work. The Tao brings all things to completion. Three civilizations come to bear! Just as the original English translation of the Tao Te Ching presented here was the fruit of a collaboration between a Japanese and Persian scholar, and through Nasr's translation and commentary into Persian, this book becomes the scene of an encounter between Islamic and Chinese religions and civilizations as well as Persian culture where Qur' anic verses, verses of the Tao Te Ching and Persian Sufi poetry and prose stand side by side. " A Sufi Commentary on the Tao Te Ching, penned by the greatest living Muslim philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr, enshrines nothing less than a fulfilment of the Proph