René Guénon

René Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon, also known by his Islamic name Abdalwahid Yahia, was a French-Egyptian intellectual who lived from 1886 to 1951 and wrote on esotericism, what he called sacred science and traditional studies, symbolism and initiation. He proposed to transmit eastern metaphysics and traditions, which he held to be of universal character, to western readers while remaining strictly faithful to their spirit. Initiated into Islamic esotericism from 1910, when he was twenty four, Guénon wrote and published mainly in French, and his works have since been translated into more than twenty languages; he also wrote an article in Arabic for the journal Al Marifah.