Against the Current: Farid al-Din ‘Attar’s Diverse Voices

author

  • Claudia Yaghoobi Comparative Literature PhD Candidate University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Abstract:

Love and its transformative power have long been at the center of Islamic Sufism. For Sufi writers profane love, perceived as the love of worldly beloved, was the first step on the path toward the union with the divine. Farid al-Din ‘Attar (1145-1221) was one of the most significant authors to espouse and articulate profane love as a representation of both earthly and heavenly love. 'Attar’s use of the theme of transgressive love and his inclusion of marginalized members of society such as social pariahs and transgressors as earthly manifestations of the divine is particularly noteworthy. The present article traces the intersections of transgression, law, inclusion and exclusion, self and Other in ‘Attar’s treatment of class, gender, sexuality, and religion. In creating an understanding of human diversity and 'Attar’s inclusiveness, this article refers to the concepts of law and justice in its modern sense as well as acknowledging the medieval understanding of these notions. In pursuing this argument, a few theoretical notions concerning transgression and law are used. Although applying modern theories to medieval society might appear anachronistic, it is essential to inquire whether modern insights and theories can help us to better understand medieval works, or whether they are exclusive to early modern and modern scholarship. Without such an analysis, we are left with an inadequate understanding of medieval culture and literature. This article fills this gap by exploring the reasons for ‘Attar’s inclusion of transgressors and peripheral characters in his works from a modern theoretical perspective.

Upgrade to premium to download articles

Sign up to access the full text

Already have an account?login

similar resources

against the current: farid al-din ‘attar’s diverse voices

love and its transformative power have long been at the center of islamic sufism. for sufi writers profane love, perceived as the love of worldly beloved, was the first step on the path toward the union with the divine. farid al-din ‘attar (1145-1221) was one of the most significant authors to espouse and articulate profane love as a representation of both earthly and heavenly love. 'attar’s us...

full text

Din din! The (Semantic) Turkey is served!

From its first introduction in this same conference, the original prototype of the Semantic Bookmarking tool Semantic Turkey has undergone a deep and extensive revision process, breaking the boundaries of its original intents and going more and more towards an extensible platform for Knowledge Management and Acquisition based on Semantic Web technologies. Following its recent official release, ...

full text

Hany Farid and Eero

We describe a novel formulation of the range recovery problem, based on computation of the di erential variation in image intensities with respect to changes in camera position. The method uses a single stationary camera and a pair of calibrated optical attenuation masks to directly measure this di erential quantity. The subsequent computation of the range image is simple and should be suitable...

full text

حلول عطار و عطار‌های حلولی بررسی منشأ پیدایش فریدالدین عطارهای غیر واقعی

After Farid al-Din Attār of Nishāpur, as this study assumes, there were some other persons who claimed to be Attār. Claiming that they have written Attār’s works, these fake Attārs attribute their own products to the poet of Mantiq al-Tayr. When reading the introduction of these fake works, the readers may assume that their poets have been born before the real Attār. Examining this unusual phen...

full text

imad ad-din al-isfahani

muhammad ibn hamed isfahani more popularly known as imad ad-din al-isfahani was a persian historian, scholar, and rhetorician. he left a valuable anthology of arabic poetry to accompany his many historical works. and worked as a man of letters during the zengid and ayyubid period. he was born in isfahan in the year 1125, and studied at the nizamiyya school in baghdad. he graduated into the bure...

full text

My Resources

Save resource for easier access later

Save to my library Already added to my library

{@ msg_add @}


Journal title

volume 1  issue 1

pages  87- 109

publication date 2013-03-21

By following a journal you will be notified via email when a new issue of this journal is published.

Hosted on Doprax cloud platform doprax.com

copyright © 2015-2023