Titus Burckhardt (24 October 1908 – 15 January 1984) was a Swiss writer and a leading member of the Perennialist or Traditionalist School. He was the author of numerous works on metaphysics, cosmology, anthropology, esoterism, alchemy, Sufism, symbolism and sacred art.
Life
Scion of a patrician family of Basel, Switzerland, Titus Burckhardt was the son of the sculptor Carl Burckhardt (1878–1923) and the grand-nephew of Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897), an art historian and Renaissance specialist. His genealogical tree also includes John Lewis Burckhardt (1784–1817), the explorer who discovered the Nabatean city of Petra and the Egyptian temples of Abu Simbel. He was born in Florence, Italy, on October 24, 1908. The following year his family settled in Basel. He attended the same primary school as Frithjof Schuon, who became a lifelong friend. In 1920, his family left Basel for Ligornetto in the Swiss canton of Ticino, where his father died three years later.
Around 1927, Burckhardt began studying painting, sculpture and art history in Munich and Paris. Drawn to a traditional lifestyle that the West could not offer him, he took advantage of a break in his studies to visit Morocco (1928 or 1929), where he dedicated himself to drawing and painting. He was captivated by this sojourn, which marked the beginning of his spiritual quest. On his return, he discovered the works of the French metaphysician René Guénon, in whom "he found the key to the world that had entranced him".
In early 1933, Burckhardt returned to Morocco in search of a spiritual master. He converted to Islam and learned Arabic, enabling him to assimilate the Sufi classics in their original language. After some disappointments, his search led him to Fez, where he met Sheikh Ali al-Darqawi, the grandson and spiritual successor of Muhammad al-Arabi al-Darqawi (†1823), the reformer of the Shadhili order. He was initiated by the Sheikh and received into the Tariqa Darqawiya. In a bid to meet his material needs, he acquired a flock of sheep and pastured them in the countryside of the Middle Atlas, but this did little to improve his precarious finances. Parallel with this, he took up an apprenticeship in zellij tile-making with a master craftsman from Fez, who urged him to memorize the Alfiyya of Ibn Malik, a didactic poem of a thousand verses which sets out all the rules of Arabic grammar; Burckhardt remained ever grateful to him for this.
In early 1935, he was visited in Fez by Frithjof Schuon, who was on his way back to Europe from the zawiya of the late Sheikh al-Alawi of Mostaganem. Schuon had received initiation from this Shadhili Sheikh in 1932. Burckhardt soon realized that his predestined guide was none other than his childhood friend. Burckhardt's complete integration into local life made him suspect in the eyes of the French authorities, who ordered him to leave the country. Thus in the spring of 1935, he returned to Basel. This marked the beginning of his correspondence with René Guénon, as well as his affiliation with Schuon's tariqa. Schuon, who was living in France at that time, charged Burckhardt with the spiritual direction of his disciples in Basel.
From 1936 to 1938 Burckhardt studied art history and Oriental languages at the University of Basel. 1937 marked the beginning of his collaboration with the Guénonian-inspired journal Études Traditionnelles, in which he published articles on traditional art (in particular Hindu, Christian and Muslim art), alchemy, traditional cosmology and astrology, folklore and various symbolisms. Many of these articles were later collected into two volumes. The journal also published his translations of Sufi treatises by Al-Ghazali, Ibn Arabi, Abd al-Karim al-Jili and al-Arabi al-Darqawî. In the view of the Pakistani professor Muhammed Suheyl Omar, Burckhardt is one of the few authors who has not only expounded, but also assimilated, Ibn Arabi's metaphysics, a view confirmed by the Iranian Islamologist Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who has also said that Burckhardt's opus has contributed to the West's interest in Ibn Arabi since the second half of the 20th century.