Certo A Lui Torniamo

[From the Italian language press]:

L'addio a Gabriele Mandel, intellettuale sufi e artista. La preghiera nella moschea di via Padova. Esperto d'arte islamica, celebri le sue incisioni e ceramiche. Era nato a Bologna nel 1924.

Redazione Online, *L'addio a Gabriele Mandel, intellettuale sufi e artista* - Corriere della Sera - Milano, Italy - venerdì 2 luglio 2010
-- Marina Montanaro, Thursday, August 26, 2010

Farewell to Gabriele Mandel, Sufi intellectual and artist. The prayer in the mosque in Via Padova. Expert in Islamic art, celebrated his engravings and ceramics. He was born in Bologna in 1924.

Milan: The Sufi intellectual Gabriele Mandel died on July 1st in Milan after a long illness.

He was the head of the Italian branch of the Jerrahi-Halveti Brotherhood, one of the most widespread in Turkey. A Farewell Prayer was held by his dervishes in the Sufi Mosque of via Padova, in Milan, on Friday afternoon.

A multifaceted intellectual, university lecturer, writer, painter, psychologist, archaeologist and violinist, Professor Gabriele Mandel was born of Turkish-Afghan descent in Bologna, Italy.

Commander of the Republic for his merits in the field of culture and art, he was awarded the "Plaque of Gold" and "Golden Ambrogino" by the City of Milan. As a painter, engraver and ceramist Shaykh Gabriele Mandel has exhibited in numerous museums and public institutions worldwide.

He published nearly two hundred books about psychology, art and world religions, many of which about Sufism, setting a standard for the vocabulary of Sufism in the Italian language.

Shaykh Gabriele Mandel also edited the complete Mathnawi (in six volumes, ed. Bompiani) translated by his wife, Nûr Carla Cerati Mandel, and translated the Qur'an into Italian. His Qur'an [Il Corano, ed. UTET, 2006] is an outstanding translation (with extensive commentary) and the only edition of the Qur'an in Italian with the Arabic parallel text. It is available both as an illustrated edition and as a paperback.

The Qur'an translation is dedicated to the memory of Gabriele Mandel's own Shaykh, Si Hamza Boubakeur (d. 1995), Dean of the Islamic University and Imam of the Grande Mosquée (Great Mosque) of Paris, France.

A fatherly figure for all Italian sufis, Shaykh Gabriele Mandel was a great pacemaker with a strong and gentle presence in the media, and has been the guide of a very popular italian musician, singer and songwriter, Franco Battiato.

The funeral was privately held on Friday morning and his body rests in Milan, in the cemetery of Bruzzano.

***

The Editors of Sufi News and Sufism World Report offer their condolences and express their heartfelt sympathy to the family and to the dervishes of Prof. Dr. Shaykh Gabriele Mandel Khan.

إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ

Certo, siamo di Dio e, certo, a Lui torniamo. [Surely we belong to God and to Him we shall surely return.]
Qur'an 2:156.

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Il Corano, Introduzione di Khaled Fouad Allam, traduzione e apparati critici di Gabriele Mandel. Testo a fronte. Edizioni UTET.

Mathnawi. Il poema del misticismo universale. Edizioni Bompiani.

Picture: Shaykh Prof. Dr. Gabriele Mandel. Photo: Olycom.