Margaret Smith (author)


Margaret Smith was a scholar writing on early Christian and Muslim mysticism, presenting a view from an open-minded Christian perspective. Smith was the first westerner to chronicle the life of the Sufi mystic Rábi'a of Basra, and compiled brief histories of other Sufi teachers and their doctrines, translating Arabic and Persian texts into English.
Smith counted among her mentors Thomas Walker Arnold, Alfred Guillaume, R. A. Nicholson, and Louis Massignon.

Works

In the 1970s four of Smith's works — by then hard to come by — were reprinted in Amsterdam, by the Philo Press in arrangement with The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London.