Vision in Islamic Mysticism
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It is reported in the Qur'an that when Moses requested to see his Lord more directly, two things occurred. First, he was told of the hopelessness of such immediate vision.
Second, he was told to gaze upon a mountain. When his Lord disclosed himself to that mountain and it crumbled, Moses fell in a swoon of bewilderment.
It is significant that the term 'self-disclosure' (al-tojalli), used by certain medieval Muslim mystics to describe God's all-pervasive manifestations throughout the cosmos, derives from this one Qur'anic passage.
After all, in the context of this verse (7:143), God's awesome manifestation takes place wholly on account of the longing of one of his very elect friends for direct vision.
Not only is this longing for vision one of the major preoccupations of mystics in the Islamic tradition, but vision's relationship to divine manifestations becomes an important theme in medieval Sufi texts.
More generally speaking, one can also argue that mystical experience concerns and cer¬ tainly affects perception above all else.
Yet among the less carefully considered dimensions of the Sufi tradition is the matter of mystical perception and the vision of beauty it entailed, a vision often proclaimed but, when approached from the outside, usually either misunderstood or described in far too general terms.
The relevance of beauty to the tradition, especially in the seventh/thirteenth century, when contemplative writings concerning this matter flourished, appears in many emphatic pronouncements that perceptive encounters with divine beauty in human forms can occasion ecstatic love in a manner unlike and unrivaled by anything else.
For this reason, what follows is a study of perception, beauty, and the applications of these two concepts according to the writings of medieval mystics in the Islamic tradition, especially two mystics who will concern us centrally.
For this reason and for this reason alone, I have used the word 'aesthetic" in this book’s title. The intention here is not to summon the various complex connotations this word has acquired.
Rather, Sufi theoretical literature explicidy proposes its own understanding of beauty discussed here with an emphasis on one object of beauty, the human form.
The word 'aesthetic,' then, aims solely to capture the observation that there existed among such mystics a distinctive mode of perception, one that resulted in an evaluation of beauty related both to the cosmos as well as to the individual human experience.
I argue that many writers, readers, speakers, and listeners have applied this evaluative system to poetry, whether in composing such poetry or in interpreting it.
It is reported in the Qur'an that when Moses requested to see his Lord more directly, two things occurred. First, he was told of the hopelessness of such immediate vision.
Second, he was told to gaze upon a mountain. When his Lord disclosed himself to that mountain and it crumbled, Moses fell in a swoon of bewilderment.
It is significant that the term 'self-disclosure' (al-tojalli), used by certain medieval Muslim mystics to describe God's all-pervasive manifestations throughout the cosmos, derives from this one Qur'anic passage.
After all, in the context of this verse (7:143), God's awesome manifestation takes place wholly on account of the longing of one of his very elect friends for direct vision.
Not only is this longing for vision one of the major preoccupations of mystics in the Islamic tradition, but vision's relationship to divine manifestations becomes an important theme in medieval Sufi texts.
More generally speaking, one can also argue that mystical experience concerns and cer¬ tainly affects perception above all else.
Yet among the less carefully considered dimensions of the Sufi tradition is the matter of mystical perception and the vision of beauty it entailed, a vision often proclaimed but, when approached from the outside, usually either misunderstood or described in far too general terms.
The relevance of beauty to the tradition, especially in the seventh/thirteenth century, when contemplative writings concerning this matter flourished, appears in many emphatic pronouncements that perceptive encounters with divine beauty in human forms can occasion ecstatic love in a manner unlike and unrivaled by anything else.
For this reason, what follows is a study of perception, beauty, and the applications of these two concepts according to the writings of medieval mystics in the Islamic tradition, especially two mystics who will concern us centrally.
For this reason and for this reason alone, I have used the word 'aesthetic" in this book’s title. The intention here is not to summon the various complex connotations this word has acquired.
Rather, Sufi theoretical literature explicidy proposes its own understanding of beauty discussed here with an emphasis on one object of beauty, the human form.
The word 'aesthetic,' then, aims solely to capture the observation that there existed among such mystics a distinctive mode of perception, one that resulted in an evaluation of beauty related both to the cosmos as well as to the individual human experience.
I argue that many writers, readers, speakers, and listeners have applied this evaluative system to poetry, whether in composing such poetry or in interpreting it.
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