Love and Beauty in Sufism

ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK ON SUFISM Edited by Lloyd Ridgeon ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK ON SUFISM This is a chronological history of the Sufi tradition, divided into three sections, early, middle and modern periods. The book comprises 35 independent chapters with easily identifiable themes and/or geographical threads, all written by recognised experts in the field. The volume outlines the origins and early developments of Sufism by assessing the formative thinkers and practitioners and investigating specific pietistic themes. The middle period contains an examination of the emergence of the Sufi Orders and illustrates the diversity of the tradition. This middle period also analyses the fate of Sufism during the time of the Gunpowder Empires. Finally, the third period includes representative surveys of Sufism in several countries, both in the West and in traditional “Islamic” regions. This comprehensive and up-to-date collection of studies provides a guide to the Sufi tradition. The Handbook is a valuable resource for students and researchers with an interest in religion, Islamic Studies and Middle Eastern Studies. Lloyd Ridgeon is reader in Islamic Studies at Glasgow University. His main research interests include Persianate Sufism and also Iranian history and modern Iranian culture. He has published extensively on areas including javānmardī, and he is currently writing a book on how the ḥijāb has been understood by modern Iranian seminarians. CONTENTS List of illustrations List of contributors Transliteration Preface xi xiii xviii xix PART ONE The early period 1 1 The origins of Sufism Lloyd Ridgeon 3 2 al-Ḥārith al-Mu ḥā sibī and spiritual purification between asceticism and mysticism Gavin N. Picken 17 3 al-Junayd al-Baghd ād ī: Chief of the Sect Erik S. Ohlander 32 4 Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭām ī and discussions about intoxicated Sufism Annabel Keeler 46 5 Al-Ghaz ā l ī: in praise of Sufism Carole Hillenbrand 63 6 ‘Ayn al-Quḍāt’s Qur’anic vision: from black words to white parchment Mohammed Rustom 75 vii Contents 7 Ibn ‘Arabi and the Akbar ī tradition Jawad Anwar Qureshi 89 8 Jalā l al-Dīn Rū m ī and his place in the history of Sufism Ibrahim Gamard 103 9 Opposition to Sufis in the formative period Harith Ramli 120 10 Narrativizing early mystic and Sufi women: mechanisms of gendering in Sufi hagiographies Sara Abdel-Latif 132 11 Sufism and travelling Arin Salamah-Qudsi 146 12 Sufism and Qur’ānic ethics Atif Khalil 159 13 Love and beauty in Sufism Joseph E. B. Lumbard 172 14 Sufism in classical Persian poetry Ali-Asghar Seyed-Gohrab 187 PART TWO The middle period 201 15 Sufi orders in the medieval period Lloyd Ridgeon 203 16 The Bektaşiyya: the formative period, 1250–1516 Riza Yildirim 217 17 The Chishtiyya Scott Kugle 233 18 The Qalandariyya: from the mosque to the ruin in poetry, place, and practice Katherine Pratt Ewing and Ilona Gerbakher 252 19 The Shādhiliyya: foundational teachings and practices Lahouari Ramzi Taleb 269 viii Contents 20 Sufism, tombs and convents Thierry Zarcone 283 21 Clothing and investiture in medieval Sufism Eyad Abuali 316 22 Sufism and Christian mysticism: the neoplatonic factor Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh 330 23 The Jewish-Sufi encounter in the Middle Ages Elisha Russ-Fishbane 343 24 Sufism and the Hindu dharma Thomas Dähnhardt 358 25 Sufism and the Safavids in Iran: a further challenge to “Decline” Andrew J. Newman 370 26 The Mughals and Sufism Kashshaf Ghani 387 27 Sufism in the Ottoman Empire John J. Curry 399 28 The Qāḍīz ādelis and Sufism Mustapha Sheikh 418 PART THREE The modern period 433 29 Sufism in modern Turkey Kim Shively 435 30 Sufism in the UK Ron Geaves 449 31 Sufism and vernacular knowledge in Sindh Michel Boivin 461 32 A Sufism for our time: the Egyptian society for spiritual and cultural research 474 Valerie J. Hoffman 33 Sufism in modern Morocco Marta Dominguez Diaz 487 ix Contents 34 Sufism in Senegal John Glover 501 35 Sufism in North America Juliane Hammer 514 Index 531 x First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Lloyd Ridgeon; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Lloyd Ridgeon to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ridgeon, Lloyd V. J., editor. Title: Routledge handbook on Sufism / edited by Llyod Ridgeon. Description: New York: Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020010674 | ISBN 9781138040120 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315175348 (ebook) | ISBN 9781351706483 (adobe pdf ) | ISBN 9781351706476 (epub) | ISBN 9781351706469 (mobi) Subjects: LCSH: Sufism—History. | Mysticism—Islam—History. Classification: LCC BP188.5 .R68 2020 | DDC 297.4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020010674 ISBN: 978-1-138-04012-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-17534-8 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra 13 LOVE AND BEAUTY IN SUFISM Joseph E. B. Lumbard Love and beauty have been defining elements of Islam from its inception. The introduction to each sūrah of the Qu rʾān, Bismill āh al-ra ḥm ān al-ra ḥīm, repeats two Divine Names that convey God’s omnibenevolence. These names are usually rendered using the terms “Mercy” and “Compassion,” but as some have argued, “In the Name of God, The Ever-Loving, the All-Loving” better captures the meaning of this phrase. In the Qu rʾān God also states “My loving-mercy (ra ḥ ma) encompasses all things” (Q. 7:156; cf. Q. 40:7) and “He has ordained loving-mercy for Himself ” (Q. 6:12; cf. Q. 6:54). Q. 17:110 equates the Divine Name al-Raḥm ān, “The Ever-Loving,” with the supreme Divine Name, All āh: “Say, “Call upon God (Allāh), or call upon the Ever-Loving (al-Ra ḥ m ān). Whichever you call upon, to Him belong the most beautiful names.”” Beyond these verses that embed love, mercy, and compassion in the Divine Nature, God sends the Prophet Muhammad out of loving-mercy: “And We sent you not, save as a loving-mercy (ra ḥ ma) unto the worlds” (21:107). The Prophet, in turn, enjoins loving-mercy upon the believers: “Show loving-mercy to those on earth, and He Who is in heaven will show loving-mercy to you.”1 Love was also a prevalent theme in pre-Islamic Arabic literature. The three-part ode (qasīda), considered the highest form of art in pre-Islamic Arabia, would usually begin with an “amatory prelude” (nasīb), expressing the poet’s yearning for a departed beloved.2 Drawing upon this dual heritage, love came to be discussed in all fields of knowledge in the Muslim world, from belletristic literature to philosophy, theology, and even law. Through the poetry of Jalā l al-Dī n Rū m ī (d. 1273),3 Far īd al-Dī n ʿAṭṭār (d. 1220), Ḥā fi ẓ (d. 1389), and others, Sufi teachings regarding love have garnered more attention beyond the Islamic world than have expositions of love in other fields. While Sufism provides the most extensive discourse on love in the Islamic world, such discussions are but one dimension of an extensive love tradition. Many of the themes associated with the Sufi love tradition find direct reflections in the secular literary traditions of the Muslim world,4 particularly ʿudhr ī ghazal poetry, where the beloved becomes the personification of the ideal and the lover is condemned to die in love.5 The secular literary tradition is filled with stories of the martyrs to love, such as Majnū n-Layla and Jam ī l-Buythayna.6 The Sufi tradition transformed these stories into a discussion of spiritual annihilation ( fan āʾ) in the Divine Beloved or in Love Itself. As ʿAyn al-Quḍāt Hamad ān ī (d. 1131) writes, when seeking God, “One must be of the quality of Majnū n (majn ūn ṣifat ī ), who, from hearing the name of Layla, could lose his soul!” 7 Sufi 172 Love and beauty in Sufism authors even appropriated the secular tradition of wine poetry (khamriyya), incorporating the language of intoxication into a spiritual discourse in which wine is understood as an allusion to the nourishment that the lover—the spiritual wayfarer—receives from the Divine Beloved while traveling the spiritual path. As A ḥ mad al-Ghaz ā l ī (d. 1126) writes, Of that wine which is not forbidden in our religion You’ll not find our lips dry till we return to non-existence.8 While Sufi love traditions have had many iterations throughout the lands of Islam up until today, the most sustained and influential has been that of the Persian Sufi love tradition,9 which coalesced into a “School of Love” in the early thirteenth century, spread throughout the Persianate lands and influenced developments in multiple languages, such as Pashto, Tamil, Gujarati, Hindi, Turkish, Urdu, and even Chinese. This “school” is not a direct succession of Sufi initiates marked by a spiritual genealogy like the Sufi orders (ṭar īqahs), rather it designates a major trend in which all aspects of creation and spiritual aspiration are presented as an unfolding of Divine Love. As Omid Safi observes, “The Path of Love may be described as a loosely affiliated group of Sufi mystics and poets who throughout the centuries have propagated a highly nuanced teaching focused on passionate love (ʿishq).”10 This chapter will trace the development love in early Sufi literature, then focus upon the Persianate Sufi love tradition, with occasional references to developments in other lands, particularly the school of Ibn ʿAr ābī (d. 1240) and the poetry of ʿUmar ibn al-Fārid (d. 1235). Beginning of the Sufi love tradition Rābiʿah al-ʿAdawiyya (d. 801–802) provides some of the first recorded expressions of love in the Sufi tradition,11 such as these oft-cited verses: O Beloved of hearts, I have none like unto Thee, Therefore have pity this day on the sinner Who comes to Thee. O my Hope and my Rest and my Delight, The heart can love none other than Thee.12 R ā bi ʿa’s belief that God alone is the goal of love echoes throughout the literature of early Sufism.13 An important feature of this attitude is that one should seek God, the Uncreated, rather than Paradise, which is created; as R ā bi ʿa expresses it, “First the neighbor, then the house” (al-j ār thumma al-d ār). B ā yaz īd Bis ṭā m ī (d. 875) expands upon this sentiment, saying, If the eight paradises were revealed to me in my hut, and the dominion of both the worlds and all their environs were given to me, I still would not wish them in place of a single sigh that rises at morning tide from the depth of my soul recalling my yearning for Him.14 Rābiʿa’s contemporary, Shaqīq Balkh ī (d. 810), was among the first to write of stages on the Sufi path in which love (ma ḥabba) for God was envisioned as the highest and noblest station of spiritual attainment, beyond that of mere longing for Paradise.15 This vision of love became a common feature of Sufi texts, such that Abū Bakr al-Shibl ī (d. 945)16 wrote of love as “a fire in the heart, consuming all save the will of the Beloved,”17 or as that which “erases all that is other than God from the heart,”18 thus framing love as a burning desire that directs all aspiration (himmah) toward God alone. 173 Joseph E. B. Lumbard From this early period forward, love came to be recognized as an advanced stage of spiritual wayfaring. Moreover all forms of love were understood as reflections of this highest ̣ wa l-shawq wa l-uns wa l-rid ạ̄ (The Book of Love, Longing, and Conlove. In Kit āb al-Mahabbah tentment) of the Revival, Abū Hā mid al-Ghaz ā l ī (d. 1111) outlines five different types of love: (1) love for oneself; (2) love for one who supports and completes oneself; (3) love for one who does good out of appreciation for the good he does; (4) love for all that is beautiful in its essence ( f ī dh ātihi); and (5) love for one with whom one has a hidden inner relationship. He then contends that each of these forms of love is in fact love of God and concludes that all stages of the path toward God derive from love and lead to love:19 Love for God is the ultimate aim among the stations and the highest summit among the degrees, for there is no station beyond the perception (idrāk) of love except that it is a fruit from among its fruits and a consequence of its effects, such as longing (shawq), intimacy (uns), contentment (riḍā), and their sisters. And there is no station before love, except that it is a prelude to it, such as repentance (tawba), forbearance (ṣabr), asceticism (zuhd), and the like.20 From Ḥūbb to ʿIshq The earliest discussions of love in Sufi texts usually employ the words ḥubb and ma ḥabba, both from the same root–ḥ-b-b–when referring to love, and reveal an ongoing debate regarding the use of the word “ʿishq,” which indicates more passionate modes of love and later came to predominate in the Persianate Sufi tradition.21 The first extended Sufi treatise on different theories of love, ʿAṭ f al-alif al-maʾl ūf li l-l ām al-maʿṭūf (The Inclination of the Intimate Alif al-Daylam ī (d. late fourth/tenth century), ̣ towards the L ām to which it Inclines) by Abu l-Hasan reveals that many Sufis had begun to regard ʿishq as a higher degree of love than ma ḥabba. Al-Daylam ī attributes this position to the greatest luminaries of the generation before ̣ ̣ āj b. Mansụ̄ r al-Hall him, Bayāzīd al-Bist ā m ī, Abu’l-Qā sim al-Junayd (d. 910), and Husayn (d. 922). Regarding his own understanding, he states that there are ten stations (maqām āt) on ̣ the Sufi path, concord (ulfa), intimacy (uns), affection (wadd or mawadda), love (mahabbah), comity (khilla), ardor (shaʾaf ), zeal (shaghaf ), devotion (istiht ār), infatuation (walah), and rapture (haym ān), which are completed by ʿishq.22 He concludes that ʿishq ̣ is the boiling of love (hubb) until it pours over its outer and inner extremities...As for its ̣ ̣ ̣ departs from everything except his beloved reality (maʿn ā), it is that one’s share (hazz) (maʿsh ūq) until he forgets his love (ʿishq) because of his beloved.23 This understanding of ʿishq stands in stark contrast to that of many dialectical theologians (mutakallim ūn), who did not oppose the use of the terms ḥubb and ma ḥabba to refer to the relationship between the Divine and the human, but understood ʿishq as passionate love or even physical lust that should be avoided.24 In light of such positions, the gradual move toward the use of the term ʿishq in the Persianate Sufi tradition may reflect an effort to disassociate Sufi teachings from those of the theologians and advocate for the superiority of the knowledge obtained through spiritual unveiling (kashf ) over that obtained through the processes of study and acquisition associated with the religious sciences. In his Treatise on Love (Ma ḥabbat N āma), Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Anṣār ī (d. 1089) encapsulates this understanding of ʿishq as a reality beyond the duality of lover and beloved that characterizes ma ḥabba: 174 Love and beauty in Sufism ʿIshq is both fire and water, both darkness and sun. It is not pain, but a bringer of pain, not affliction but a bringer of affliction. Just as it causes life, so too it causes death. Just ̣ as it is the substance of ease, so too it is the means of blights. Love (mahabbah) burns the lover, but not the beloved. ʿIshq burns both seeker and sought.25 The school of love Early Sufi texts exhibit extended discussions of love and many Sufis regarded love as the highest stage of the spiritual path, or even the first among the Divine Attributes, as in the case of al-Ḥ all āj. 26 In the early sixth/twelfth century a series of texts emerged in which ʿishq was presented as the Divine Essence beyond the duality of lover and beloved, the whole of creation was presented as an unfolding of love, and all stages of the Sufi path were spoken of as stages of love. At the forefront of this tradition was the Saw āni ḥ al-ʿushsh āq (Aspirations of the Lovers) of A ḥ mad al-Ghaz ā l ī, regarded by many as “the founding text of the School of Love in Sufism and the tradition of love poetry in Persian,” 27 the poetry ̣ b. Mans ụ̄ r al-Samʿā n ī ’s (d. 1140) Rawh ̣ al-arw āh ̣ f ī of San āʿī of Ghazna (d. 1131), Ahmad sharh ̣ asm āʾ al-malik al-fatt āh ̣ (The repose of spirits regarding the exposition of the Names of the Conquering King), Rash īd al-D ī n al-Maybud ī ’s (d. ca. 1126) Qu rʾā n commentary Kashf al-asr ār wa ʿuddat al-abrār (The unveiling of secrets and the provision of the pious), and ʿAyn al-Quḍāt Hamad ā n ī ’s Tam ḥid āt (Paving the path). 28 The view of love espoused in these works shaped the works of their successors, such as Rū zbih ā n Baql ī (d. 1209), 29 Fakhr al-D ī n al-ʿIr ā qī, Far īd al-D ī n ʿAṭṭā r (d. 1220), 30 Rū m ī, Ḥā fi ẓ, and generations of Muslims from the Subcontinent, Central Asia, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and other regions up to our own times. Texts that discuss the spiritual path in terms of love often caution the reader that love can never be expressed in words. As Rū m ī writes, Whatever I say of love by way of commentary and exposition, when I get to love, I am ashamed at that. Although the explanation with the tongue is clear, that love which is tongueless is yet clearer.31 As such the writings of the school of love do not offer systematic explanations of love as might be expected from philosophical or theological texts. Instead these texts provide a tapestry of metaphors and allusions woven for those who aspire to follow the Sufi path. As ʿAyn al-Quḍāt writes, “An explication of love cannot be given except through symbols and images.”32 Each author’s experience of love for the Divine is ever more variegated than the experience of love for other human beings that we all experience. Thus each writes from his or her unique experience of God. Many symbols and images, such as the cheek, the tress, and the lips, became common; yet they were each employed in different ways, leading to diverse forms of expression. As a result the technical vocabulary is not always interchangeable from one author to another and requires that each text be understood on its own terms. As Fakhr al-Dī n ʿIr āqī explains, There is no doubt that every lover gives a different sign of the beloved, every realizer provides a different explanation, and every verifier makes a different allusion. The declaration of each is: Our expressions are many and Your loveliness one, Each of us points to that single beauty.33 175 Joseph E. B. Lumbard In short, one must realize that the realities are primary and the terms employed to convey them are secondary. Thus when Ibn al-ʿArabī presents love as having four levels with ʿishq as the second stage below wudd and ḥubb, the latter being the highest level,34 this does not mean that he is contradicting Rū m ī or Ḥā fi ẓ for whom the term ʿishq is used to convey the all-encompassing reality of Love. Love’s descent The majority of treatises on love focus upon the path of ascent whereby the lover-wayfarer increases in love until being obliterated in the Divine Beloved as stated in some texts, or until both lover and beloved are obliterated in Love, as stated in others. This path is understood by many as a retracing of the path of descent whereby the human being came into existence and came to be separated from the Beloved. The whole of this journey is seen as being contained in the famous Qurʾānic phrase, He loves them, and they love Him (Q. 5:54). The first part indicates the descent of God’s love, and the second indicates the return to God through love. The ascent is prefigured in the descent. As A ḥ mad al-Ghaz ā l ī writes, “The root of was ̣ love grows from eternity. The dot under the letter bāʾ (b) in He loves them (yuhibbuhum) planted as a seed in the ground of they love Him. No, rather, that point was planted in them (hum), for they love Him to come forth.”35 From this perspective, Q. 5:54 alludes to an immortal bond of love between God and human beings, a bond that defines the human condition and renders the human being forever in search of the eternal beloved. As A ḥ mad al-Ghaz ā l ī puts it, “The special character of the human being is this: is it not enough that he is beloved before he is a lover? This is no small virtue.”36 This interpretation is affirmed by the fact that, while God loves all creation, the only creatures noted as the specific recipients of God’s love in the Qurʾān are human beings. Furthermore, since God’s attributes are eternal, this verse indicates that God’s love for human beings is eternal, with no beginning and no end. For the Sufis in the school of love, the covenant between God and humankind, established on what the Persianate tradition refers to as r ūz-i alast, “the Day of am I not [your Lord],” is an eternal covenant of love. The Qurʾānic reference is Q. 7:172: And [remember] when your Lord took from the Children of Adam—from their loins—their progeny, and made them bear witness concerning themselves: “Am I not your Lord?” They said, “Yea, we bear witness.” When God said to humankind, “Am I not your Lord,” this was the manifestation of His love for them. When humankind responded, “Yea” (balā), this was the manifestation of their love for God. Only through God’s making human beings beloved did they become lovers, and all of their love and striving for God originates from God’s pre-temporal love for them. As al-Ghaz ā l ī writes, “‘He loves them’ is before ‘they love Him’—no doubt. Bāyazīd [al-Bast ạ̄ m ī] said, ‘For a long time I imagined that I desired Him. He Himself had first desired me.’”37 From this perspective, human love for God is the self-same love that God has for human beings. Although a human being’s love finds expression in the temporal order, such love is but a reflection or refraction of the eternal love that lies at the root of all creation; its origin is beginninglessness and its goal is endlessness. The path of ascent The return of the human being to God, the path of ascent, is understood through a science that envisions the human being as traveling through four inner realms or faculties: the soul (nafs), the heart (Ar. qalb/Per. dil), the secret (sirr), and the spirit (Ar. r ūḥ/Per. jān). As Maybud ī writes, “Inward migration is that you go from the soul to the heart, from the heart to the 176 Love and beauty in Sufism secret, from the secret to the spirit, and from the spirit to the Real.”38 Each of these realms will also have many stages. As Maybud ī says of those who migrate for the sake of God, the Real, They migrate inside the curtains of the soul until they reach the heart. They migrate inside the curtains of the heart until they reach the spirit, and they migrate inside the curtains of the spirit until they reach union with the Beloved.39 This journey of return to the Real is traveled within the heart, the faculty of love, which vacillates between pain and relief, sorrow and happiness, and expansion and contraction until the heart becomes completely aligned with the spirit, that latter of which, as ʿAyn al-Qu ḍā t observes, retains “the quality of beginninglessness,”40 and has never fully descended into the world of creation. In contrast to the spirit and the heart, the soul is by nature a recalcitrant beast that must be tamed. The majority of the discussion of the Sufi path thus focuses upon the heart because “the heart is the reality of the human being”41 and is where the journey occurs. From one perspective, Sufi wayfaring is the process of turning the heart away from the soul and toward the spirit, of transforming the heart from a hardened entity that slouches toward the soul and the world into a luminous entity that aspires to the spirit and the heavens as it gradually becomes aligned with them. The goal of the wayfarer is for the heart to be completely aligned with the spirit, or as some put it, to travel beyond the heart and dwell fully in the realm of the spirit. As Maybud ī writes, The heart is the road, and the Friend is the homeland. When one arrives at the homeland, one no longer walks on the road. At the beginning there is no escape from the heart, but at the end the heart is a veil. As long as someone stays with the heart he is the desirer. The one without a heart is desired. At first the heart is needed because one cannot traverse the road of the Shariah without the heart. Thus He said, “a reminder for one who has a heart” (Q. 50:37). At the end, remaining with the heart is duality, and duality is distance from the Real.42 Witnessing beauty The heart is transformed by perceiving and contemplating God’s Beauty, being drawn to God’s Beauty, and conforming to or manifesting God’s Beauty. When the heart has been fully transformed, it will realize that all beauty is in fact God’s Beauty. Such a realization is essential to fulfilling the covenant with God. As Rū zbihān Baql ī writes: In everything deemed beautiful, there is the effect of that Beauty (ḥusn), because every particle of engendered being has a spirit from the Real’s act, in which it is in direct contact with the quality of the attributes and the self-disclosure of the essence. In particular, things deemed beautiful have no eye except the eye of the Real. Whatever is closer to the quarry of beauty ( jam āl) is closer to the covenant of love.43 As seen above, all modes of love are understood as reflections of God’s Love and thus as a means by which the wayfarer can be drawn to the Divine Beloved. Sufi authors differed as to whether or not the love of one human being for another could play a positive role in this process. Some authors, such as A ḥ mad al-Ghaz ā l ī, maintained that since love for human beings (ʿishq-i khalq) is finite, it cannot penetrate to the depths of the heart. But 177 Joseph E. B. Lumbard other Sufis, such as Rū zbih ā n Baql ī and Aw ḥ ad al-D ī n al-Kirm ā n ī (d. 1238), had a more positive view of love between human beings, seeing it as “a bridge, across which every seeker necessarily must fare to reach the farther—divine—shore.”44 This understanding of love and beauty led to sh āhid b āz ī or “witness play,” which is most widely represented as the practice of gazing upon beardless young men, but has a broader meaning for Sufi authors.45 In sh āhid b āz ī the human form is understood as the fullest manifestation of beauty in the created world. As Rū zbih ā n Baql ī writes, God made human beings “the niche of His splendor’s light, the resplendence of His attributes, and the loci for the manifestation of the projection of His self-disclosure.”46 To contemplate beauty in the human beloved is thus to behold the manifestation or self-disclosure of Divine Beauty, because human forms are loci in which God displays His own form: Alas! “I saw my Lord on the Night of the Ascent in the most beautiful form.”47 This “most beautiful form” is imaginalization (tamaththul). If not, then what is it? “Truly God created Adam and his children upon the form of the Merciful” is another type of imaginalization (tamaththul). Oh! For His Names! One of them is mu ṣawwir, which is “The Form Giver” (Q. 59:24). But I say that He is mu ṣawwar, that is, “The Form Displayer.” Do you know in which market these forms are displayed and sold? In the market of the elite? Hear it from Muṣṭ afā, blessings be upon him, when he said, “In Paradise there is a market in which forms are sold.”48 “In the most beautiful form” is this.49 The forms one witnesses in this world are not only made by God, but they also display God. The most beautiful form is that which was given to Adam, since as another ḥadīth states, “God created Adam upon His form.”50 Human beauty is differentiated from other forms of created beauty because the human being has the potential to display the full radiance of all God’s Names and Qualities as some phrase it, or of the Divine Essence as others maintain,51 whereas other created forms only display some of God’s attributes. The self-disclosure of Divine Beauty in the human form is thus the most immediate manner in which to contemplate Divine Beauty. Some even maintain that it is necessary to contemplate the self-disclosure of Divine Beauty in the human form because very few can obtain direct access to God’s supreme beauty. As Rū zbihān Baql ī writes, The beginning of all lovers (ʿāshiqān) proceeds from the path of those who witness (shaw āhid), except for some of the elite among the People of recognizing Oneness, for whom witnessing the universal occurs in their spirit ( jān) without witnessing transient existents. This is among the rare occurrences from the unseen.52 From this perspective, spiritual attainment requires that one witness beauty as manifest in the form of individual existents as propaedeutic to witnessing Divine Beauty. As ʿAyn al-Quḍāt puts it, to be a sh āhid bāzī is to have attained to the higher levels of the spiritual path wherein one lives through God and dies through God: If you want to know more about life and spiritual death (mawt-i maʿnavī ) hear what Muṣṭafā said in his supplication, “O God! I live through You and I die through You.” Do you not have any knowledge of what dying through Him is and of what and living through Him is? Alas! This is a state that is known by those who are witness players (shāhid bāzān) and who know what it is to be alive with the witness and what death is without the witness. The witness and the witnessed reveal life and death to the true witness players (shāhid bāzān).53 178 Love and beauty in Sufism Love and beauty The relationship between the lover and the beloved is defined by beauty and love. Beauty draws one toward unity through attraction and love is attracted to beauty. The two become so interwoven that they are often indistinguishable, since receiving love is beauty’s raison ̣ ā n ī (d. 1798) writes, d’être. As Nū r ʿAl ī Shāh Isfah ̣ Beauty (husn) is the final cause of creation and love constitutes beauty’s foundation. Moreover, it is obvious to everyone who has an intellect that beauty is nothing other than love. Though they have two names, they are one in essence.54 Everything is intrinsically beautiful and recognizing beauty is seeing things as they truly are. As ʿIr āqī puts it, O friend, when you know that the meaning and reality of things is His Face, then you will say, “Show us things as they are,” until you see clearly that “In everything there is a sign Indicating that He is one.”55 While aspects of beauty can be perceived by any faculty of perception, the only thing in creation that is able to perceive beauty in all of its many manifestations is the human heart. The beloved is therefore dependent upon the lover’s heart in order to be fully realized—in order to be fully beloved. Beauty is an intrinsic and necessary reality of all that exists and is what draws the lover to the beloved. Ugliness, however, results from the failure of the eye to behold the true nature of a thing. To truly behold a thing is to see the manner in which it manifests God’s Beauty. In this regard Rū zbihān Baql ī writes, If God disclosed Himself through a thing to a thing, that thing would be beautiful (ḥasuna) through His self-disclosure in the eyes of all the recognizers and the witnessers. If He curtained Himself from a thing that thing would be ugly in the eyes of the viewers.56 But it is only when one has learned to see with what Rū zbihān refers to as “the eye of contentment” (ʿayn al-ri ḍā) that one can truly recognize beauty. From this perspective, the beloved is an intermediary through which beauty itself is observed. To witness beauty in and of itself is then to begin moving beyond the duality of lover and beloved. The lover’s longing for the beloved is therefore provisional and not yet the full realization of love. To overcome the duality between the lover and the beloved the lover must continue to endure the trials of flirting and coquetry that come from the beloved, or rather from the divine manifestations of the attributes of Love and the beloved within the lover’s heart.57 These glances, this flirting, and this coquetry are manifest as the states and stations of the spiritual path by which the heart matures until it is able to perceive the fullness of pure beauty that lies beyond the duality of lover and beloved. The path of love The process by which the wayfarer progresses in love can be conceptualized as four stages: (1) the wayfarer loves what is other than the beloved; (2) the wayfarer becomes attached to what pertains to the beloved; (3) the wayfarer loves only the beloved; and (4) the wayfarer transcends the duality of lover and beloved and is immersed in the ocean of Love. These stages are not exclusive of 179 Joseph E. B. Lumbard one-another; while traveling the path and maturing in love, the lover-wayfarer will vacillate between them. As discussed above, some do not consider the first stage, love for what is other than the beloved, to be part of spiritual wayfaring. Others, however, maintain that since all beauty is a manifestation of God, every attraction, no matter how faint, is a reflection or refraction of love and thus a part of the overall process by which one is drawn toward complete love. As ʿIrāqī writes, “Whatever they love after essential love…whether they love beauty (ḥusn) or doing what is beautiful (iḥsān)—these two could not be other than it.”58 From this perspective, the fact that God “made beautiful all that He created” (Q. 32:7) and that, as the Prophet Muhammad has said, “God is beautiful and He loves beauty,”59 indicates that recognizing beauty and being drawn toward beauty is both a recognition of God’s Beauty and a manifestation of God’s Love. Based upon this understanding, ʿAyn al-Quḍāt advises his readers, “Alas! If you do not have love for the Creator, at least cultivate love for the creatures so that the worth of these words are obtained by you.”60 Elsewhere, he writes that such love is a natural state: “One loves every existent thing, since every existent thing is His act and handiwork.”61 From this perspective, any form of love can serve as a means by which one begins the path toward complete love. Nonetheless, such love is only a first step. As ʿAyn al-Quḍāt clarifies, “Do not think that you and your likes have known love, apart from its trappings without reality. Love is only obtained by the one who obtains recognition (maʿrifa).”62 When the wayfarer embarks upon the path of love, “the lover wants the beloved for his own sake.” Such a person “is a lover of himself through the intermediary of the beloved, but does not know that he wants to use her on the path of his own will.”63 When the wayfarer travels beyond these early stages, an intricate interplay between lover and beloved continues to build, as the attributes of the beloved become more present in the lover. To love more fully the lover must boil away the delusions of self and reflect the attributes of the beloved. By negating the ego in spiritual poverty ( faqr), the lover realizes since one cannot be a lover without a beloved he is dependent upon the beloved. In the process of negation, the lover’s heart is then roasted (dilī biryān) until he moves beyond the illusion that he exists through his own self and loves through his own self and ceases to love the beloved for his own sake. As the lover matures, the heart is more roasted as the lover comes to realize that sacrifice is central to love and that upon the path, “suffering is what is essential in love and comfort is borrowed.”64 This occurs because the fullness of companionship is found in unification, and complete unification requires the obliteration of one’s self. For the lover and the beloved to be companions, they must in fact cease to be. The wayfarer will thus experience affliction, pain and oppression as “love subdues the lover, bringing him from his illusory self to his true self.”65 For this stage to be complete, “the sword of the beloved’s jealousy” must fall and cut the lover off from all that is other than the beloved. Until the lover has surrendered completely, he remains a hypocrite. For the full reality of love to be realized the lover must allow himself to be completely consumed by the beloved, such that he loves none but the beloved. When this occurs there is longer talk of a separate lover, for to speak of a “lover” is to posit a separate “I” outside of God, the Supreme “I.” To insist that one is a lover is to insist upon one’s own agency, and thus upon one’s own “I” and to thus remain trapped within the confines of one’s own ego. ʿAyn al-Quḍāt refers to this stage as being what is other than the Beloved: “Alas! What will you hear?! For us, death is this: one must be dead to all that is other than the Beloved until he finds life from the Beloved, and becomes living through the Beloved.”66 To die in the Beloved is thus the only way to find true life: Whoever does not have this death does not find life. I mean, what you know to be “death” is not that real death, which is annihilation. Do you know what I am saying? I 180 Love and beauty in Sufism am saying that when you are yourself and are with your self, you are not. But when you are not with yourself, you are all yourself.67 All of these stages of the path are modalities of complete love that are bestowed upon the wayfarer until one is fit to wear “the robe of love.”68 The wayfarer who has reached this stage has moved beyond the delimitations of separation and union and thus beyond the need to experience love’s attributes via the beloved. There is therefore no longer a need for the interplay between lover and beloved. As ʿAyn al-Quḍāt writes, In in-between love, a difference can be found between the witness and witnessed. As for the end of love, it is when a difference cannot be made between them. When the lover at the end of the path becomes love and when the love of the witness and the Witnessed become one, the witness is the Witnessed and the Witnessed the witness.69 At this point one is able to see all aspects of creation with the eye of contentment (ʿayn al-ri ḍā) and to recognize everything as a self-disclosure of Love. The heart has been brought into conformity with the spirit and the spirit reflects nothing but the Real. This stage lies beyond knowledge and no report can convey its reality to those who have not experienced it. As A ḥ mad al-Ghaz ā l ī writes, Not everyone reaches this place, for its beginnings are above all endings. How could its end be contained in the realm of knowledge, and how could it enter the wilderness of imagination? This reality is a pearl in a shell, and the shell is in the depths of the ocean. Knowledge can reach no more than the shore. How could it reach here?70 The prophets Those who have reached the highest degree of perfection are those who love God most ardently and whom God loves most. These are the prophets in whom God manifests His Beauty, and through whom God displays His Beauty to others. As Baql ī writes, “Beauty is inherited from them by the people of beauty in this world and the next, and they are the center of God’s beauty in the world.” 71 As the Prophet Muhammad is considered to be the most exalted of the prophets in whom the fullness of prophethood is realized, he is also the most beautiful and the most beloved of creation. For members of the School of Love, Q. 3:31, Say, “If you love God follow me; God will love you,” alludes to the centrality of the Prophet in this path. As William Chittick observes, for those who follow this path, “The clear meaning is, ‘If you love God, then you must follow me, the supreme example of a perfect lover of God and a perfect beloved of God.’” 72 The one who is most beautiful among creation is also the one who is most able to witness the beauty of God in God and as manifest in all things. As Baql ī writes, The Real did not open up any heart other than Muhammad’s heart to the God-given knowledge, the unknown knowledge, and the realities of recognition, taw ḥīd, unveiling, witnessing secrets, and lights, because his heart was the oceans of [divine] self-disclosure and approach.73 God is most perfectly revealed and manifest in the heart of His most perfect creation, the Prophet Muhammad, and his heart is where God most fully witnesses His Own Beauty and Perfection 181 Joseph E. B. Lumbard in its “delimited” form. Since witnessing His Own Beauty and Perfection in delimited forms is the purpose of creation itself, the prophets are the lynchpin by which all of creation is sustained. God’s gaze is fixed upon His creatures only because it is fixed upon Himself qua manifestation, and the center of that gaze is upon the most perfect manifestation, the Prophet Muhammad, the chosen, al-Muṣṭafā, through whom God most fully loves His Own self-disclosure: Alas! O listener of these words! By the spirit of Muṣṭ afā, people have imagined that God’s grace and love for creation is for their sake. It is not for the sake of creation! Rather, it is for Himself: when a lover gives a gift to his beloved, and is kind to her, he does not actually show this kindness to the beloved as much as he shows it out of love for himself. Alas! From these words you imagine that God’s love for Muṣṭ afā is for Muṣṭ afā. But this love for him is for Himself!74 Conclusion As love pertains to the realm of eternity and lies beyond the realm of form and matter, it is an expression of the eternal relationship between the Divine and the human and thus extends beyond any one religion. To borrow from the introduction to Rū m ī’s Mathnaw ī, love “is the roots of the roots of the roots of religion.” 75 To realize the fullness of love is in fact the reason for which every prophet has been sent and for which religions are established. The religion of love is thus at the heart of every religion. As Hā fi ẓ expresses it, Whether we are drunk or sober, each of us is making For the street of the Friend. The temple, the synagogue, The church and the mosque are all houses of love.76 Although all religions express love and help one find love, the lover seeks a direct relationship with God that cannot be contained within a creed and thus follows a path that transcends the bounds of religion. In this vein Bulleh Shah (d. 1757) exclaims, When I studied the lesson of love, my heart became afraid of the mosque. I went to enter the temple of the lord, Where a thousand conches are blown.77 In this vein, ʿAyn al-Quḍāt writes, O friend! The religion and creed of the lovers is love—their love is the beauty of the Beloved…Whoever is a lover of God, his religion is the beauty of the encounter with God, and for him the lovely face is God.78 This immediate relationship with God cannot but transcend the categories to which we are accustomed. As Sanāʿī writes: For the one who has taken love as his guide, Faith and infidelity are but the curtains at his door. Universal and particular, all that’s in existence, Is for the way of love but the arches of the bridge. Love is beyond both intellect and soul, It’s the “I have a time with God” 79 of [spiritual] men.80 This does not mean that one must abandon Islam to embrace the path of love; all of the authors cited here remained Muslim and many served functions pertaining to the religious 182 Love and beauty in Sufism sciences. Rather this understanding indicates that to love God and move closer to Him one must realize the relativity of the categories and conceptions of God that creeds provide. As ʿAyn Quḍāt writes, When one reaches the quest’s end, there is no religion (madhhab) other than the religion of the Sought Itself. Ḥusayn Manṣū r [al-Ḥallāj] was asked, “Which religion do you follow?” He said, “I follow the religion of my Lord.” For the great ones of the Path, their Master is God. Thus, they follow God’s religion, and are sincere, not insincere. Insincerity is halting and sincerity is ascending.81 Notes 1 Sunan al-Tirmidh ī, Kit āb al-Birr wa’l-silah, 2049. 2 For a brief discussion of the place of the nasīb in the Qasīda, see Abdulah El Tayib, “Pre-Islamic Poetry,” in Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period, ed. A. Beeston, T. Johnstone, R. Serjeant, and G. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 27–109. 3 The clearest exposition of which is William Chittick’s, The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983). 4 For a discussion of love in early Arab literature, see Lois Anita Giffen, Theory of Profane Love among the Arabs: The Development of the Genre (New York: New York University Press, 1972). 5 For a brief history of the development of the ʿUdhr ī ghazal see Andras Hamori, “Love Poetry (Ghazal),” in ʿAbb āsid Belles-Lettres, ed. Julia Ashtiany, T. M. Johnstone, J. D. Latham, G. Rex Smith, and R. B. Serjeant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 202–217. 6 For an analysis of the extensive literature regarding the Majnū n legend in the literary traditions of Muslim lands, see Michael W. Dols and Diana E. Immisch. Majn ūn: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2011). For a study focused upon the manner in which the legend has been treated in Sufsim, see Ali Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, Layl ī and Majn ūn: Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Niz ạ̄ m ī’s Epic Romance (Leiden: Brill, 2003). 7 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt Hamad ā n ī, Tamh īd āt, ed. ʿAf ī f ʿUsayr ā n (Reprint: Tehran: Intishā r āt-i Manūchihr ī, 1994), 97–98. 8 A ḥ mad al-Ghaz ā l ī, Saw āniḥ, ed. Nasrollah Pourjavady (Tehran: Intish ā r āt-i Bunyād-i Farhang-i Iran, 1980), 3. 9 For a discussion of the manner in which Persian Sufi poetry remained a central component of multiple Muslim cultures for over 500 years, see Shahab Ahmed, What Is Islam?: The Importance of Being Islamic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017). 10 Omid Safi, “The Sufi Path of Love in Iran and India,” in A Pearl in Wine: Essays on the Life, Music and Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan, ed. Zia Inayat-Khan (New Lebanon: Omega Publications, 2001), 224. 11 Margaret Smith, R ābi ʿa the Mystic and Her Fellow Saints in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928; reprint, Cambridge: Oneworld, 1994); Annemarrie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press, 1975), 55. For the most up to date analysis of R ābi‘a’s place within the Sufi tradition, see Rkia Cornell, Rabi‘a: From Narrative to Myth (London: Oneworld, 2019). 12 Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 55. 13 Far īd al-D ī n ‘Att ā r, Tadhkirat al-awliyā’, ed. R. A. Nicholson (London: Luzac & Co.: 1905; rprt. Tehran; Dunyā -yi Kit āb, n.d. 2 vols), 1:159. 14 Abū Ḥā mid al-Ghaz ā l ī, I ḥyāʾ ʿul ūm al-d īn (Beirut: Dā r al-Fikr, n.d., rprt of Cairo 1933 edition, 4 vols), 4:313. 15 Shaqīq Balkh ī, Adab al-ʿib ād āt, ed. P. Nwyia in Trois oeuvres inedités de mystiques muslumans (Beirut: Dā r al-Mashriq, 1982), 17–22. 16 For a list of Shibl ī’s sayings on love, see Richard Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder des Sufitums (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 1995), 1:654–665. ̣ (Beirut: Dā r al- Khayr, 17 Abu l-Qā sim al-Qushayr ī, al-Risālah al-Qushayriyyah f ī ‘ilm al-tasawwuf 1413/1993), 324. 18 Ibid., 321. 183 Joseph E. B. Lumbard 19 For al-Ghaz ā l ī’s explanation of how each mode of love is love for God, see Joseph Lumbard, A ḥmad al-Ghazālī, Remembrance, and the Metaphysics of Love (Albany: SUNY Press, 2016), 140–148. 20 Abū Ḥā mid al-Ghaz ā l ī, I ḥyāʾ ʿul ūm al-d īn, 4:257. 21 This process is detailed in Joseph Lumbard, “From ḥubb to ʿishq: The Development of Love in Early Sufism,” Oxford Journal of Islamic Studies, 18 (2007), 345–185. ̣ ̣ ʿAl ī b. Muhammad al-Daylam ī, ʿAt f̣ al-alif al-maʾl ūf ʿal ā ‘l-l ām al-maʿt ụ̄ f: Livre de l’ 22 Abū ‘l-Hasan inclinasion de l’alif uni sur le l ām inlcliné, ed. J. C. Vadet (Cairo: L’Institute Francais d’Archeologie Orentale, 1962), 24. English translation by Joseph Norment Bell and Hasan Mahmoud Abul Latif al Shafie, A Treatise on Mystical Oneness (Edinbugh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005). To maintain terminological consistency, I have used my own translations for this chapter. 23 al-Daylam ī, ʿAt f̣ al-alif al-maʾl ūf ʿal ā ‘l-l ām al-maʿt ụ̄ f, 24. 24 For a discussion of conceptions of ʿishq among various classes of Cūlam āʾ, see Lois Anita Giffen, Section 3, Chapter 2. N āma, in Majm ūʿa-ye rasāʾil-i fars ị̄ -ye Khw ājah ʿAbd All āh Ans ạ̄ r ī, ed. ̣ 25 ʿAbdallā h Ans ạ̄ r ī, Mahabbat ̣ Muhammad Sarwar Mawl āʾī (Tehran: Intishā r āt-i Tụ̄ s, 1998), 356–357. 26 Regarding al-Ḥallāj’s understanding of love, al-Daylam ī writes, ̣ ̣ [al-Hallāj] ̣ Al-Husayn b. Mansūr is separate from the rest of the Shaykhs in this claim. He is separate in that he indicated that love is an attribute among the attributes of the Essence in all respects and wherever it is manifest. As for Shaykhs other than him, they have indicated the ̣ of the lover and the Beloved in a state where love attains to the annihilaunification (ittihād) tion of the whole of the lover in the Beloved, without claiming that the Divine nature lāhūt [is incarnated in] the human nature nāsūt. (al-Daylamī, 28) 27 Leonard Lewisohn, introduction to Hafiz and the Religion of Love in Classical Persian Poetry, ed. Leonard Lewisohn (London: I.B. Taurus, 2010), xxii. In her article in this same volume, “The Radiance of Epiphany: The Vision of Beauty and Love in H ạ̄ fiz’ṣ Poem of Pre-Eternity,” Leili Anvar writes that the Saw ānih is “justly considered as the founding text of the School of Love in Sufism and the tradition of love poetry in Persian,” 124. 28 For analysis of ʿAyn al-Quḍāt’s teachings, see Mohammed Rustom, Inrushes of the Spirit: The Mystical Theology of ʿAyn al-Qu ḍāt (Albany: SUNY Press, in press). 29 For a comprehensive analysis of Baql ī’s theory of love and beauty, see Kazuyo Murata, Beauty in Sufism: The Teachings of R ūzbih ān Baqlī (Albany: SUNY Press, 2017). 30 For ʿAṭṭā r’s teachings on love, see Cyrus Zargar, Religion of Love: Far īd al-D īn ʿAṭṭār and the Sufi Tradition (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, forthcoming). 31 Jalā l al-D ī n Rū m ī, Mathnaw ī-yi maʿnaw ī, ed., trans., and ann. R. A. Nicholson as The Mathnaw ī of Jal āl’udd īn R ūm ī (London: Luzac 1925–40), 1:112–113. 32 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt Hamad ā n ī, Tamh īd āt, 125. 33 Fakhr al-D ī n ʿIr āqī, Lamaʿāt, ed. Mu ḥ ammad Khwājaw ī (Tehran: Intishā r āt-i Mawlā, 1992), 63. 34 For an analysis of the stages of love in Ibn ʿArabī’s Futu ḥāt al-Makkiyya, see Hany T. A. Ibrahim, “Ibn ʿArabī’s Metaphysics of Love,” Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, 63 (2018), 49–70. 35 Saw āniḥ, 44. 36 Ibid., 13. 37 Ibid., 21–22. 38 Rash īd al-D ī n al-Maybud ī, Kashf al-asrār wa ʿuddat al-abrār, ed. ʿAl ī Asghar Ḥ imkat (Tehran: Dā nishg ā h, 1952–1960, 10 vols.), 1:581. Translated by Chittick, Divine Love, 163. 39 Ibid., 2:663. Translated by Chittick, Divine Love, 164. Those who discuss the path sometimes differ in their use of technical terminology and place the secret above the spirit, while others only discuss three inner realms, the soul, the heart, and the spirit. This chapter discusses the path in terms of the soul, the heart, and the spirit, as these terms in this order are the most frequently employed. 40 Tamh īd āt, 150. 41 Abū Ḥā mid al-Ghaz ā l ī, I ḥyāʾ ʿul ūm al-d īn ( Jedda: Dā r al-Minhāj, 2013), V:14. 42 Maybud ī, Kashf al-asrār, 4:36–37. Translated by Chittick, Divine Love, 189. 43 Rū zbihā n Baql ī, ʿAbhar al-ʿĀshiqīn, ed. Henri Corbin and Mu ḥ ammad Muʿī n, Les jasmine des fidèlese ́ franco-iranien, d’amour; Kit āb-e ʿabhar al-ʿāshiqīn (Tehran: Département d’iranologie de l Institut 1958), 41. Translation by Murata, Beauty in Sufism, 126. 184 Love and beauty in Sufism 44 Leonard Lewisohn, “Sufism’s Religion of Love, from R ābiʿa to Ibn al-ʿArabī,” in The Cambridge Companion to Sufism, ed. Lloyd Ridgeon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 167. 45 The most comprehensive examination of sh āhid b āzī can be found in Cyrus Ali Sargar, Sufi Aesthetics: Beauty, Love, and the Human Form in the Writings of Ibn ʿArabi and ʿIraqi (Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2011), especially Chapter 5. Awḥ ad al-D ī n Kirm ā n ī’s association with sh āhid b āzī is discussed in Lloyd Ridgeon, “The Controversy of Shaykh Awḥ ad al-D ī n Kirm ā n ī and Handsome, Moon-Faces Youths: A Case Study of Sh āhid-B āzī in Medieval Sufism,” Journal of Sufi Studies 1 (2012), 3–30. Leonard Lewisohn also contributes an excellent study that touches upon sh āhid b āzī in the works of Ḥā fi ẓ in “Ḥā fi ẓ in the Socio-historical, Literary and Mystical Milieu of Medieval Persia,” in Ḥāfi ẓ and the Religion of Love (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015), 3–73. 46 Rū zbihā n Baql ī, ʿAbhar al-ʿĀshiqīn, 3. My translation. 47 This is a well-known ḥ ad īth frequently cited in Sufi texts. Musnad al-D ārim ī, 2204. 48 This phrase is part of a ḥ ad īth: “Verily in Paradise there is a market in which there is no buying or selling, except for forms of men and women. So whenever a man desires a form, he enters it” (Sunan al-Tirmidh ī, Kit āb ṣiffat al-janna: Hadith 2747). 49 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, Tamh īd āt, 296. My translation. 50 Ṣa ḥīḥ Muslim, Kit āb al-birr, 2841. 51 Baql ī ʿAbhar al-ʿĀshiqīn, 35. My translation. 52 Ibid., 17. My translation. 53 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, Tamh īd āt, 320. My translation. ̣ ā n ī, Majm ūʿa-i āth ār-i N ūr ʿAl ī Sh āh Is fah ̣ ān ī, ed. Javad Nurbakhsh (Tehran: 54 Nū r ʿAl ī Shā h Isfah Intishā r āt-i Khā niqā h-i Niʻmat Allā h ī-i, 1971), 2. 55 ʿIr āqī, Lamaʿāt, 134. This last line is a verse of poetry by the ascetic poet Abu ‘l-ʿAt ạ̄ hiyya (d. 825 or 826) that is often cited in Sufi texts: Ism āʿī l b. Qā sim Abu ‘l-ʿAt ạ̄ hiyya, D īw ān Abi ‘l-ʿAt ạ̄ hiyya (Beirut: Dā r al-Ṣādr, 1964), 122. 56 Rū zbihā n Baql ī, Kit āb mashrab arw āḥ wa huwa’l-mashh ūr bi hazār u yak maqām, ed. Na ṣrid ī n Nazif M. Hoca, (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakültesi Matbaasi, 1974), 73. Translated by Murata, Beauty in Sufism, 41. 57 Joseph E. B. Lumbard, A ḥmad Al-Ghazālī, Remembrance, and the Metaphysics of Love (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2016), 173. 58 ʿIr āqī, Lamaʿāt, 69. 59 Ṣa ḥīḥ Muslim, 131. 60 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, Tamh īd āt, 96. See also Tamh īd āt, 107. Translated Mohammed Rustom, “ʿAyn alQuḍāt and the Fire of Love.” In Mysticism and Ethics in Islam, edited by Bilal Orfali, Atif Khalil, and Mohammed Rustom (Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, forthcoming. 61 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, Tamh īd āt, 140. Translated Mohammed Rustom, “ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, and the Fire of Love.” In Mysticism and Ethics in Islam, eds. Bilal Orfali, Atif Khalil, and Mohammed Rustom (Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, forthcoming). 62 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, N āmah ā, ed. ʿAf ī f ʿUsayr ā n (Tehran: Intishar āt-i Ā sāṭī r, 1998), 2:153. Translated by Rustom, “ʿAyn al-Quḍāt and the Fire of Love.” 63 Saw āniḥ, 29. 64 Ibid., 39. 65 Lumbard, A ḥmad al-Ghazālī, 177. 66 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, Tamh īd āt, 288. Translated by Rustom, “ʿAyn al-Quḍāt and the Fire of Love*.” 67 Ibid., 287. Translated by Rustom, “ʿAyn al-Quḍāt and the Fire of Love*.” 68 Saw āniḥ, 52. 69 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, Tamh īd āt, 115. Translated Mohammed Rustom, Inrushes of the Spirit: The Mystical Theology of ‘Ayn al-Qudat (Albany: SUNY Press, Forthcoming). 70 Saw āniḥ, 8–9. 71 Baql ī, Mashrab, 133. Translated by Murata, Beauty in Sufism, 101. 72 William Chittick, Divine Love: Islamic Literature and the Path to God (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 35. 73 Rū zbihā n Baql ī, Kit āb al-Igh āna, 109. Translated by Murata, Beauty in Sufism, 122. 74 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, Tamh īd āt, 217. Translated Mohammed Rustom, Inrushes of the Spirit. 75 Jalā l al-D ī n Rū m ī, Masnaw ī Maʿnaw ī (Tehran: Wiz ā r āt-i farhang wa irshād-i islā m ī, 2000), 33. 76 D īw ān-i Ḥāfi ẓ, Khā nlar ī, Ghazal 78:3. Trans. Robert Bly and Leonard Lewisohn, The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door (London: Harper perennial, 2009). 185 Joseph E. B. Lumbard 77 Bullhe Shā h. Kull īyāt-i Bullhe Sh āh, ed. Faqī r Mu ḥ ammad Faqī r (Lahore: Al-Faiṣal Panjābī Adabī Academy, 1960), 19. 78 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, Tamh īd āt, 286. Translated Mohammed Rustom, Inrushes of the Spirit. 79 Allusion to a famous ḥ ad īth often cited in Sufi texts. ̣ ̣ īqat al-Haq ̣ īqah wa Shar īʿat al-Tar ̣ īqah, ed. Mohammad-Taqi ̣ Majdūd ibn Ādam. Kitāb Had 80 Sanāʾī, Hakim ̣ Mudarris Ridawi (Tehran: Intishārāt-i Dānishgāh-i Tihrān, 1970), 327. Translated by Nicholas Boylston, “Writing the Kaleidoscope of Reality: The Significance of Diversity in the 6th/12th century Persian Metaphysical Literature of Sanāʿī, ʿAyn al-Quḍāt and ʿAṭṭār.” (PhD Dissertation, Georgetown University, 2017), 84. 81 ʿAyn al-Quḍāt, Tamh īd āt, 22. Translated Mohammed Rustom, Inrushes of the Spirit 186