Everyone, Wherever You Are, Come One Step Closer

Navid Kermani is a writer and scholar who lives in Cologne, Germany. He has received numerous accolades for his literary and academic work, including the 2015 Peace Prize of the German Publishers’ Association, Germany’s most prestigious cultural award.

‘Navid Kermani’s Everyone, Wherever You Are, Come One Step Closer is a beautifully written meditation on the philosophical challenge all mortal beings must encounter. With the invariable passage of time, the particularities that inform each individual’s experience of and in the world – our feelings, dreams, hopes, disappointments, accomplishments and failures – are lost to the winds of change. We are surrounded by endlessness – that is, the sense of absolute nothingness that envelops our transient being. Capturing this existential challenge succinctly, the author writes, “Sooner or later each of us realizes with a chill that nothing of us will last. Then we begin to doubt: does life really go on somehow when a person dies, as our parents always said?” Kermani’s book is a timely and poetic reflection on how religion, in the end, addresses this question by establishing an intimate relationship with God, the infinite being that imparts enduring meaning to our finite existence. This is a work that is both deeply personal and fittingly universal.’Elliot R. Wolfson, University of California, Santa Barbara

• Dedication The Endlessness that Surrounds UsAnd in Our SelvesExtra Section on Spirit and Quantum Physics!End of the Extra Section on Spirit and Quantum Physics!Yes, I TestifyIn a RelationshipSomething Bigger than UsBlack LightShort and SweetExtra Section for Everyone Who Wants to Learn a Little Arabic!End of the Extra Section for Everyone Who Wants to Learn a Little Arabic!From Gods to GodTo God Belongs the Orient, to God Belongs the OccidentThe Tail WagsHe, It – or Maybe She After All?The Dark GodIf You Doubt, You ThinkExtra Advance Section on Tradition!Everyone Is a CaliphessJesus’ WisdomEnd of the Discussion of Sacrifice, for Now!Extra Section on the Difference between Christian and Islamic Architecture!End of the Extra Section on the Difference between Christian and Islamic Architecture!Will and KnowledgeBeginning of the Chapter Proper!Extra Afternoon Section on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe!Reblochon, Pecorino and AppenzellerSudden End of the Ingenious Ground-breaking Theory!The Centre of the UniverseA Brief Supplement about Equality!End of the Extra Section on Equality!Life ItselfThe Big MaybeEpilogueHow This Book Came to BeEnd User License Agreement