Announcement by Taimoor Khan Mumtaz

Baytunur registered as a trust in the year 2006 to promote the understanding of the spiritual branch of Islam known as ‘tasawwuf’ or “Sufism”. Managed and supported by six trustees, its academic activity is overseen by a board that includes three trustees and three scholars. It also has an academic advisory council.

 The Islam Seminars:  are a series of seminars and/or colloquiums that are held in spring and/or summer each year where different scholars are invited to speak in an interactive environment on a certain topic. The topics are usually set on public demand. The inaugural seminars were held in collaboration with Iqbal Academy Pakistan in Lahore, Pakistan and Teachers’ Development Centre, Karachi in 2007. To date a total of six Islam Seminars have been conducted. (more…)

Last year, I came across a Charles Homer Haskins lecture that Dr Annemarie Schimmel delivered in 1993. Aside from the amazing events and milestones of her life, what struck me was her immersion in an infinite ‘learning’ cycle. I am reproducing some lines from the lecture and a dazzling poem of hers below. Dr Schimmel left this world in 2003 for another voyage. As an extra-ordinary scholar (over 150 publications to her credit), a Rumi disciple and an odd Sufi herself, the world is not the same place without her.

However, her erudite and passionate writings will continue to warm our hearts. Sang-i-Meel Publishers (http://www.sang-e-meel.com/) in Pakistan have done a huge favour by re-printing selected titles for the Pakistani audience. (more…)