Albion Andalus Books: 25 books

The Song of Songs (Shir HaShirm) is among the most beloved books of the Hebrew Bible, beloved both for the beauty of its language and for the mystical ideas it has inspired. However, many new readers may be surprised to learn that—while it is often understood as an allegory for the relationship...

Dogs have been with us humans since the cave days—but what about cats? They've been part of our world just since we've had mice—and THAT is just since we've been storing grain—and THAT is just since Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's dream and saved Egypt from starvation by building the first silos. So is it any wonder that ancient Egypt idolized the furry felines?

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1922, The Bowl of Saqi is a collection of 366 aphorisms lovingly culled from the talks and personal notebooks of Hazrat Inayat Khan and arranged according to the days of the year, each aphorism serving as a meditation theme for the day. This much beloved classic of Sufi wisdom is...

“Parents and loved ones of those with an eating disorder can find much information, hope and understanding in Ms. Foster’s book, but above all, they can find that they are not alone. Ms. Foster details her anguish through Jenna’s sudden sickness, her weight loss, her hospitalizations ... From...

The Garden of Mystic Love: The Origin and Formation of the Great Sufi Orders is Volume I of a history of Sufism from the time of the Prophet Muhammad to the beginning of the 20th-century, with an emphasis on the Turkish Sufi legacy and the path of the Halveti-Jerrahi Order. Written from a Sufi perspective,...

The Loooong Narrow Pharaoh is Rabbi Phyllis Berman and Rabbi Arthur Waskow's delightful retelling and reinterpretation of the Exodus story, in which two brave and wise midwives resist the murderous and despotic commands of Pharaoh, and help lead the ancient exodus of the Hebrew people from slavery into freedom.

The great 20th century Indian sage, Ramana Maharshi, has often been described as the very incarnation of non-dualism, or advaita, even though the Hindu philosophical school of Advaita Vedanta claims that no one has ever been born, lived or died. It is this paradox that the Advaitin philosopher John...

IN THE LATE 1950's, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, better known as 'Reb Zalman,' penned what was perhaps the first book on Jewish meditation and contemplative Judaism in English. It was called, The First Step: A Primer of a Jew's Spiritual Life, and was printed in a simple stapled booklet edition...

What can the few remaining survivors of the Holocaust teach us before they are gone? What is it that hasn’t yet been said? A high school teacher is given the opportunity to find out when one such survivor chooses her to preserve her final testament. In The Risk of Sorrow, Valerie Foster, an Irish-Catholic...

In The King's Messenger, Michael Kagan draws us into the world of the imagination and gives us an original parable about Judaism's long journey through the centuries that might have sprung from one of Judaism's classic storytellers of old. Although the parable itself is short, its message is profound...

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN was himself a poet and musician, uniquely qualified to talk about Sufi poetry from both an artistic and spiritual perspective. This slim book, simply entitled, Sufi Poetry, is a collection of talks by the master on the Persian Sufi poets and the mystical connection between poetry...

"Hasidism is the willingness to make ourselves transparent to God’s grace and will, to live in the authentic Presence of God—nokhah p’nai Ha’Shem—as if facing God in every moment, allowing this awareness to change our behavior, to make sacred acts out of potentially profane and purely secular...

Once, when Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi was still a young Hillel director, he took his students to meet the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994). To his embarrassment, one of his students asked the Rebbe, "What is a rebbe good for?" But the Rebbe was not offended...

In this wide-ranging essay, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi and Netanel Miles-Yépez explore the profound implications of the kabbalistic idea of Tzimtzum, the 'contraction' of God that allows for Creation, through different paradigms of Jewish belief over the centuries, and look at its function in Judaism and Jewish practice today.