The Sufi and the Transcendentalist: An Encounter of Dialogue, Love and Sublimity

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since time immemorial, Sufi saints in the Islamic tradition, and American transcendentalists of the Christian orthodoxy, have embraced love in their writings and prolific literary productions. They struggled so valiantly to ward off tension and conflict and bypass duality and binarism from their philosophies of life. Either folk believed in the potential of love to transform the very essence of individuals, for love per se is regarded – at least by them – as a fire and an emerald; it is the cause of creation and the source of all inspiration. By juxtaposing love with humaneness and by placing the two at the front of all religiosity, Sufis and the American transcendentalists sought to build for themselves an avenue for dialogue that accepts and never rejects different cultures and belief systems. This article, which is grounded in comparative literature, is an excavation for the numerous similitudes between Islamic Sufism and American transcendentalism. Rumi and Emerson, the two legendary poets, so popularized in the West and the East, are put forth in this enquiry to unpack their pivotal contribution to and leadership in the spirituality of love and unity.