From the Encyclopaedia Iranica: German scholar of Islamic studies, and particularly of Persian literature and mysticism. His magnum opus: Das Meer der Seele: Mensch, Welt und Gott in den Geschichten des Farīduddīn ʿAṭṭār (Leiden 1955) is an encyclopedic manual which guides the reader through the psychology of Islamic mysticism. The book is the best introduction to date into Sufi thought.
Ritter's great essay "Muslim Mystics Strife With God" ends with this magnificent paragraph:
It is the task of a science which deals with man, with his religious feelings and philosophical ideas, to listen to people far off in space and time, and to try to understand their ideas. We study these subjects in order to get out of the narrowness of our own world, in order to see how men [and women] of other countries and ages have struggled for the solution of problems and endeavored to overcome the troubles, conflicts and afflictions which mankind has to face and will have to face in every place and at every time.
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