Beauty in Sufism

Kazuyo Murata

Description

According to Muhammad, "God is beautiful and He loves beauty." Yet, Islam is rarely associated with beauty, and today, a politicized Islam dominates many perceptions. This work tells a forgotten story of beauty in Islam through the writings of celebrated but little-studied Sufi scholar and saint Rūzbihān Baqlī (1128–1209). Rūzbihān argued that the pursuit of beauty in the world and in oneself was the goal of Muslim life. One should become beautiful in imitation of God and reclaim the innate human nature created in God's beautiful image. Rūzbihān's theory of beauty is little known, largely because of his convoluted style and eccentric terminology in both Persian and Arabic. In this book, Kazuyo Murata revives Rūzbihān's ideas for modern readers. She provides an overview of Muslim discourse on beauty before Rūzbihān's time; an analysis of key terms related to beauty in the Qur'ān, Ḥadīth, and in Rūzbihān's writings; a reconstruction of Rūzbihān's understanding of divine, cosmic, and human beauty; and a discussion of what he regards as the pinnacle of beauty in creation, the prophets, especially Adam, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Muhammad.
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
Introduction

1. Discourse on Beauty

2. The Language of Beauty

3. The Theology of Beauty

4. The Anthropology and Cosmology of Beauty

5. The Prophetology of Beauty

Notes
Selected Bibliography
General Index
Index of Qurʾānic Verses
Index of Ḥadīths and Sayings

Sujets

• Theology
• History of religions
• Islam

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 05 avril 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781438462806
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Beauty in Sufism
Beauty in Sufism
The Teachings of Rūzbihān Baqlī
Kazuyo Murata
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2017 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production, Diane Ganeles
Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Murata, Kazuyo (Lecturer in Islamic studies), author.
Title: Beauty in Sufism : the teachings of Ruzbihan Baqli / Kazuyo Murata.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016007681 (print) | LCCN 2016008781 (ebook) | ISBN 978-1-4384-6279-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 978-1-4384-6280-6 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Aesthetics--Religious aspects--Islam. | Sufism. | Baqlī, Rūzbihān ibn Abī al-Na ṣ r, -1209 or 1210.
Classification: LCC BL65.A4 M875 2016 (print) | LCC BL65.A4 (ebook) | DDC 297.4--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016007681
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
اى آفتاب حسن برون آ دمى ز ابر
كان چهره مشعشع تابانم آرزوست
O Sun of Beauty! Come out for a moment from the clouds, For that beaming, resplendent countenance is my wish.
—Mawlānā Jalāl al-Dīn Mu ḥ ammad Balkhī Rūmī
CONTENTS
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
Introduction
1. Discourse on Beauty
2. The Language of Beauty
3. The Theology of Beauty
4. The Anthropology and Cosmology of Beauty
5. The Prophetology of Beauty
Notes
Selected Bibliography
General Index
Index of Qur ʾ ānic Verses
Index of Ḥ adīths and Sayings
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 2.1 An ontological scheme of beauty and ugliness
Figure 3.1 A Venn diagram showing the interrelationship among jamāl, jalāl, and ḥ usnā/a ḥ san
Figure 4.1 A diagram showing human constitution with corresponding Qur ʾ ānic verses
Figure 4.2 A chart showing the two inner eyes and the corresponding objects of their perception
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
M y deep gratitude goes to Professor Gerhard Böwering of Yale University for his generous support and insightful advice that sustained the doctoral research that became the basis of this book. He has been my Doktorvater in the truest sense, and I cannot thank him enough for all he has done over the years. My sincere thanks also go to Professor Denys Turner and Professor William Chittick for sharing the scholarly acumen that helped improve my work. Part of the research for this book was conducted in Tehran during my yearlong academic residence at the Institute of Philosophy ( Anjuman-i Ḥ ikmat wa Falsafa-yi Īrān ) thanks to Yale’s McMillan Center International Dissertation Fellowship. I am truly thankful to all the individuals who helped make my research year in Tehran so fruitful, in particular Dr. Gholamreza Aavani, Dr. Pari Riyahi, Ms. Mahin Riyahi, Dr. Fereshteh Kazempour, Dr. Shahram Pazouki, Dr. Saeed Anvari, Dr. Mehdi Mohaghegh, and Dr. Noushafarin Ansari. I am grateful to Prof. Ghasem Kakaei of Shiraz University for giving me a precious opportunity to present my work in Rūzbihān’s hometown, Shiraz, and to see Mount Bamū, where Rūzbihān had spent some years. I would also like to express my thanks to Mojtaba Shahsavari for generously sharing his unpublished critical edition of Rūzbihān’s Man ṭ iq al-asrār . I am thankful to Dr. Leonard Lewisohn for sharing his vast knowledge of existing literature both modern and premodern. I am also indebted to Matthew Melvin-Koushki for his comments on an earlier version of this book. My deep gratitude goes to Prof. Sachiko Murata for all her academic and moral support over the years. I remain forever grateful to my family, Seiya Murata, Junko Murata, and Rie Murata, without whose trust and support I could not have completed this work. I am also grateful to the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King’s College London, in particular Prof. Paul Joyce and Dr. Carool Kersten, for their support while I completed this book. Finally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the late Nancy Ellegate of SUNY Press, who gave me indispensable support and advice throughout the pre-production process but left us before this book saw the light of day.
NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
F or transliterating Arabic and Persian words, the International Journal of Middle East Studies system has been employed with the following exception—no distinction is made in transcribing the identical letters appearing in Arabic and Persian texts, i.e.:
ث is transliterated as th throughout, not as s in Persian texts
ذ is transliterated as dh , not z
ض is transliterated as ḍ , not ż
و is transliterated as w , not v or u
ة is transliterated as a or at (in the i ḍ āfa construction), not ih
Introduction
A s Rūzbihān entered the ʿ Atīq mosque through the bazaar, he overheard the following conversation between a woman and her daughter:
“My dear! I am giving you some advice. Cover your face and don’t show it to everyone from the window of beauty—lest someone should fall into temptation because of your beauty! You hear my words—won’t you take my advice?”
When Rūzbihān heard this conversation, he wanted to tell that woman: “Even if you advise her and try to prevent her from showing herself, she won’t listen to you or take your advice, because she has beauty, and she won’t be at rest with [her] beauty until it is joined by passionate love.” 1
Muhammad famously proclaimed, “God is beautiful and He loves beauty.” In a world, however, where politicized, militant Islam dominates the news, it has become almost counterintuitive to associate beauty with Islam. Some may even wonder if there is any room for it in the religion. Edward Farley, a scholar of Christian theology, argues that this is in fact a common postmodern situation:
Beauty (the aesthetic) is not among the primary values or deep symbols of postmodern societies…. Certain features of postmodern society…tend to diminish beauty both as an important value and as an interpretive concept. Contributing to the postmodern effacement of beauty is a hermeneutic legacy, a tradition of interpretation, governed by dichotomies between the ethical and the aesthetic, religion (faith) and the aesthetic, and religion (faith) and pleasure. Accordingly, a contemporary aesthetic (or theological aesthetic) that seeks to restore beauty as important to human experience of religious faith faces the deconstructive task of exposing and breaking down these dichotomies. The displacement of the aesthetic by aesthetics (philosophy of the arts) in recent times has contributed to the suppression of beauty in hermeneutics, philosophy and criticism. A contemporary theological aesthetic also works in the setting of a centuries-long marginalization—in some cases suppression—of the aesthetic by Hebraic and Christian iconoclasm, asceticism and legalism. 2
It is not only theologians who bemoan the banishing of beauty from modern human life. For instance, the British poet and writer Kathleen Raine expresses this sentiment by way of quoting the poignant words of the Irish poet George William Russell (d. 1935): “One of the very first symptoms of the loss of the soul is the loss of the sense of beauty.” 3 A contemporary scholar of aesthetics, Elaine Scarry, published On Beauty and Being Just (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999) as a manifesto for protecting beauty from various postmodern attacks and reviving it in contemporary discourse. A more recent attempt at “recovering beauty” can be found in Corinne Saunders et al., The Recovery of Beauty: Arts, Culture, and Medicine (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 4
It is not the purpose of the present study to reinstate “beauty” at the forefront of Islam, as Farley tries to do for Christianity. It aims, rather, to draw people’s attention to a neglected dimension of Islamic thought, a dimension that was current especially among premodern Muslim intellectuals and literary figures. In their way of seeing things, beauty had a central place in the universe and human life. They saw God as beautiful in Himself and as creator of an inherently beautiful world, and they regarded the pursuit of beauty at all levels (e.g., material, ethical, spiritual, and divine) as part and parcel of the life of a good Muslim. My aim is to investigate the significance of beauty in Muslim conception of God, the world, and the human being taking as a case study the works of one prominent and prolific Sufi thinker, Rūzbihān Baqlī (1128–1209), who presented some of the most fully developed discussions on the idea of beauty to be found in Muslim literature.
The questions to be addressed in this study include the following: Why did Rūzbihān talk so much about beauty? What is the significance of beauty for his understanding of God, the world, and the human being? How can God’s beauty be contrasted with beauty in His creation—including that of humans, angels, and animals? What role does beauty have in the process of God’s creation of the world and human beings? Does beauty have any soteriological significance? What determines the degree of beauty found in a thing or perceived by an individual? Does beauty have any role in the ideal way of life? Does the pursuit of beauty have any practical implications for the daily lives of Muslims? What exactly is the connection between love and beauty? Is there any Qur ʾ ānic foundation for Rūzbihān’s discussions of beauty ( jamāl, ḥ usn, i ḥ sān, etc.)? What key symbols and imagery does he employ in speaking about beauty? Overall, wh