The Hermeneutics of Eroticism in the Poetry of Rumi

Michel Foucault writes that in societies that made use of ars erotica, secrecy served the purpose of amplifying the truth that is drawn from pleasure and the importance of a master in transmitting it in an esoteric manner.¹ He writes that the need for secrecy in sexuality was “not because of an element of infamy … but because of the need to hold it in the greatest reserve, since, according to tradition, it would lose its effectiveness and its virtue by being divulged.”² It is no surprise, then, that secretive traditions often find in eroticism an apt metaphor for the expression of their esoteric concepts.³ In the same vein as ars erotica, secrecy enhances the mystical enterprise and elevates it to the level of esotericism. It is imperative that something of the secret be revealed, because secrecy is not the same as concealment.⁴ A secret that is fully concealed might as well not exist. However, a total revelation would make the secret meaningless, just as in eroticism consummation equates with termination, for eroticism is the deferral of consummation. Thus the constitutive element of secrecy and eroticism is the communicative interplay of disclosure and concealment.

In many passages of the Masnavi, the great epic of the thirteenth-century Persian mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi (d. 1273), mystical knowledge is communicated in erotic terms.⁵ This article examines the dynamics of eroticism in the Masnavi in order to explore the range of Rumi’s esoteric intentions and symbolizing practices. When structured along the lines of erotic relationality, Rumi’s symbolizing practices are related to the embodied and gendered subjectivities that are inevitably signified in a particular cultural context. I examine the implications of Rumi’s sociocultural context for the sexed and gendered bodies that are utilized for his signifying purposes. In many passages of the Masnavi the production (communication) of mystical knowledge is contemplated as an embodied process through which certain bodies, or more precisely the function of a certain organ of the male body (the penis), are foregrounded or privileged while others are marginalized. The understanding of this process rests on interpreting the significance assigned to the embodied and gendered subjectivities by their cultural context in which they are situated. For the purpose of such an analysis, relevant features of modern theories of gender, semiotics, and psychoanalysis are used as strategic conceptual tools. This article thus supports the relevance of certain trends in psychoanalytical inquiry into subjectivity for new interpretations of mystical texts.⁶

The Erotic Significance of the Masnavi’s Imagery

There are many passages in the Masnavi that may be considered in their erotic significance. The symbolic encounters with the Divine, the scripture, or a mystical text are expressed in embodied and gendered terms that are projected onto sexualized or eroticized bodies. In one passage Rumi speaks of the mystic’s state of readiness to encounter the Divine as a state of “nonexistence,” in which individual attributes must be annulled (5:1960). He writes that for the Divine Pen to “ennoble” the individual soul, one must become like a paper that is not written on.⁷ He also uses imagery such as “planting a sapling” and “sowing a seed” to convey his message (5:1960–64). In this passage, the gender symbolism of the (Divine) Pen and the blank sheet of paper is self-evident.⁸

The gender significance of the Divine Pen was not lost on the Muslim mystics. For example, Ibn ‘Arabi uses sexual imagery in discussing the relationship between Pen and Tablet in terms of the marriage that pervades all atoms:

A supra-sensory intelligible marriage takes place between the Pen and the Tablet,
and a visible, sensory trace…. The Trace that was deposited in the Tablet was like
the sperm that is ejaculated and set within...