Beneath today's violent media stereotypes of an apocalyptic 'clash of
civilisations,' could we be witnessing instead the epochal and
challenging birth of new spiritual, ethical and cultural forms of
communion, of a nascent global civilisation that has not yet found
its name? Orientations begins with those intimately familiar
situations of disorientation, painful conflict and confusion-almost
inescapable in the contemporary world-whose most dramatic expressions
are daily so visible in emblematic images from each Jerusalem or
Sarajevo. But it introduces three classical Islamic thinkers-both
philosophers and spiritual teachers-whose seminal works together
provide the inspiration for positive, realistic, concrete and
lastingly constructive responses to those dramatic challenges, at
each level of our own lives and responsibilities. The purpose of this
study, through the far-reaching insights and guidance of these three
masters, is to turn our attention toward those universal elements of
Islamic thought and spirituality which are explicitly grounded in the
deepest common dimensions of human experience: dimensions that
can alone provide us with the indispensable foundations for true
communication, for genuine moral and spiritual communities rooted at
every level-from family to workplace and beyond-in our shared
responsibilities of spiritual insight, clarity, creativity and the
uniquely human processes of realisation and transformation. The focus
of Orientations is on those recurrent human tasks and challenges
which these three thinkers and their traditions can help illuminate,
even today.