An Inquiry into the Nature of the Female Mystic and the Divine Feminine in Sufi Experience

Milani Milad,Zahra Taheri

doi:10.3390/rel12080610

Abstract

This article is an inquiry into the nature of the female mystic and the divine feminine in Sufi experience. It considers this experience in the general sense with regard to the Sufi tradition, but in its analysis, the article primarily draws on examples from the classical period of Sufi history. Based on an analysis of the thought of key Sufi figures from that period, the assertion is made that the ground of the sacred is female and, as such, the basis of mystical experience is feminine.

Highlights

Overview and ApproachCitation: Milad, Milani, and ZahraTaheri. 2021
Works that concentrate on gender too have provided insight into the complexity of gender as both concept and lived experience within the Islamicate world.2. In this brief study, is to give due attention to two phenomena: the phenomenon of the female mystic and the phenomenon of the divine feminine, both as they are found in the history of Sufism
The divine feminine and the female mystic are on the one level representative of a consistent and coherent symbolism of the source of creation as manifest in mystical currents within Islamic history

Summary

Introduction

Works that concentrate on gender too have provided insight into the complexity of gender as both concept and lived experience within the Islamicate world.2 Our task, in this brief study, is to give due attention to two phenomena: the phenomenon of the female mystic and the phenomenon of the divine feminine, both as they are found in the history of Sufism. This tells us that Ibn Arabi took the contentious view that the essence of God is feminine, he simultaneously retained the view—so far as it is evident—that God, as He is, is masculine His triune conceptualisation of God in Islam is unique, and whilst Ibn Arabi’s thought on the matter maintains the significance and centrality of the divine feminine and the pre-eminence of the female mystic, his view allows for the predominant position that the relationality of both aspects of the masculine and feminine are functionally essential to understanding the mysteries and meanings in. Ibn Arabi’s is, the classical representative of the generally favourable androgynous defense, both metaphysically and ontologically

The Mystery-Cult and Mysticism among the Monotheisms

Part I

Part II

Part III

Conclusions