Tales of God’s Friends

Over the past twenty four years, Professor Renard of Saint Louis University has published several valuable compilations of readings in aspects of Islamic spirituality and religious life, including Seven Doors to Islam: Spirituality and the Religious Life of Muslims; Windows on the House of Islam: Muslim Sources on Spirituality and Religious Life; and Friends of God: Islamic Images of Piety, Commitment and Servanthood, the immediate predecessor and companion volume to the work under review.

In Tales of God’s Friends, again, a whole domain of spirituality is opened up for readers of English. This time the selection of material is even more diverse, with twenty seven excerpts, translated from sources in seventeen different languages. Moreover, Renard states in his introduction that ‘the aim has been to represent as many of the major periods of Islamic history as possible’. In order to give prospective readers the clearest possible picture of the contents, it seems worth giving a complete list here.