Cosmopolitanism: a Journey of Suffering and Forgiveness

Abstract

In this paper, cosmopolitanism is examined and then approached with a Sufi ontology and epistemology, particularly drawing on the history of thought at the time of Al-Andalus. Using the concepts of hilm and ilm as a dyad of thought and action, cosmopolitanism is reimagined to become cosmopassion and cosmocharis, the dual reality of universal suffering and a call for universal grace and forgiveness. Through an autobiographical exploration of the enactment of cosmopolitanism as a lived curriculum, the complexities of this reimagining are brought to bear on the current moment we inhabit in history.