Tribute to Shaykh Abd al-Wahid Pallavicini
Secretary-General Professor Michele Capasso paid tribute to the Italian Muslim master Abd-al-Wahid Pallavicini on the 75th anniversary of his conversion to Islam, following in the footsteps of René Guénon.
Seventy-five years after René Guénon's death, his work remains relevant even in the face of the upheavals that the world has undergone in recent decades.
René Guénon, Shaykh Abd al-Wahid Yahya, was a scholar who spent a lifetime of arduous intellectual struggle in the most diverse circles, aimed at dispelling the oblivion and corruption of spirituality that had taken root in the West, hoping for a rapprochement between East and West that would take place under the banner of common recognition of immutable and transcendent principles and on condition that the West took a step towards reorienting its perspective. From France, he moved permanently to Egypt where, without wanting to have disciples, he continued his work of intellectual renewal and appeal.
On 7 January seventy-five years ago, when René Guénon left this world, Shaykh Abd al-Wahid Pallavicini entered Islam. This Italian Muslim master honoured René Guénon's legacy by translating metaphysical principles, which many had forgotten, into traditional life practices, allowing those who had only read about them to live them. When there had been no Muslim community in Italy since the Middle Ages, he made it possible to draw on the spiritual source of the East, formed a community of disciples, and worked for the official recognition of Islam, also calling for the recognition of the common Abrahamic roots. In bearing witness to the Oneness of God, he reminded believers that they must help each other to recognise Him not as “one” in a numerical sense but as the only presence in the life of every community to which we are all called to return. This is the universal value of religions that Shaykh Abd al-Wahid transmitted.
As a summary of these 75 years, we are publishing a text by Shaykh Abd al-Wahid Pallavicini taken from his book “Islam Interiore. La ricerca della Verità nella religione islamica” (Inner Islam. The search for Truth in the Islamic religion), in which he clarifies the deeper meaning of the contribution that Islam can make to the renewal of the West.
- THE TEXT
- OSUM