Religion: “I Saw My God”

Abstract

The chapter explores the role that Muslim mysticism, Sufism, plays in modern Arabic poetry. Early mystic Arabic poetry arose along with the development of Ṣūfī theory at the beginning of the ninth century ad and flourished during the next several centuries. Its origins were rooted in the spontaneous utterances of early Ṣūfī mystics, who poetically expressed their love of God and, at the same time, rejected worldly pleasures. The birth of modern Arabic secular poetry in the second half of the nineteenth century paved the way for the appearance of mystic dimensions in non-religious poetry, especially after the First World War, when poets started to emphasize personal experiences and feelings, the desire to be absorbed by nature, and pantheistic revelations and mythological elements. Following the Second World War, which undermined belief that technology and science would be able to bring about human salvation, one senses a strong tendency to return to the early pure values of Muslim mysticism. Contemporary secular Arab poets have closed a circle originally opened by the first Ṣūfī poets more than twelve centuries ago.