The essays in this paperback were presented at a conference held at the University of South Carolina in October 2002. Nearly 300 people listened to Sufis, Eastern Orthodox clergy, and other religious scholars present their ideas on the path of the heart as a mystical meeting point between these two traditions. Among those heard at the conference were Kallistos Ware, Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies at Oxford University; Gray Henry, director of Fons Vitae Press; Seyyed Hossein Nasr, University Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University; William C. Chittick, a professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at the State University of New York, Stony Brook; and Huston Smith, author of the classic study The World's Religions, and others.
Whereas those speaking about the Sufi way were open to the beauty and the profundity of the Hesychast experience, a few of those espousing the Eastern Orthodox tradition were quick to fault Islam for its refusal to accept the Trinitarian dogma. In the introduction, editor James S. Cunsinger, Professor of Theology and Religious Thought at the University of South Carolina, points out that the path of the heart is an important point of contact between Islam and Christianity: "Each of the great traditions has a third 'dimension,' a spiritual heart, in which the deeper meaning of those beliefs and practices comes alive, and where the spiritual pilgrim may discover, beyond the level of seemingly contradictory forms, an inner commonality with those who follow other paths." Hopefully, we will be hearing more about this common ground in future multifaith conferences.
