Poetics of the Sufi Carnival

The carnivalesque poetics of the “rogue lyrics” (qalandariyyāt) medieval Sufi poetry have excited interest varied audiences since premodern times. This attention is not surprising: these poems' purported celebration proscribed actions, antinomian figures, and even apostasy shocks readers demands interpretation. Many interpreters, followed by a substantial group contemporary scholars, read imagery such as an esoteric symbolic code that must be explicated through hermeneutic tradition. Other largely approaching poems from perspective history Sufism, sought to understand this poetry’s relationship with historical groups Islamic world. What has been lost in discussions, however, understanding qalandariyyāt’s its function within larger early Persian genre system. study focuses on elucidating “poetics carnival” exploration how qalandariyyāt constructs heterotopic parody ascetic-homiletic (zuhdiyyāt-mawʿiẓa) panegyric (madḥiyyāt) poetry. operates countergenre, but singular. Subsumed under broad generic umbrella are multiple subgenres—a point also illustrates considerable complexity specificity