In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

CHAPTER 4 Ibn ‘Arabi and Human Beauty The School of Passionate Love O ne of the most distinctive, fascinating, and certainly poetically prolific movements in classical Sufism is that known in Persian as the “School of Passionate Love” (madhhab-i ‘ishq). The word madhhab (school or way), often indicating a jurisprudential or theological allegiance within the various Islamic denominations, reveals the development of this identity for certain Sufis, an identity by which they considered themselves distinct from those outside of their tradition. In some cases, it might also imply a disdain for the overemphasis placed on a jurisprudential madhhab and a claim to have transcended the differences that separate them from each other. While love is arguably a common experience for the majority of practitioners of Islamic mysticism, the loose designation madhhab-i ‘ishq comprised those enamored by divine beauty, often in the sensory world. Moreover, a clear predilection for witnessing God in forms, as well as allusions to the supremacy of the human form, often surround references to the School of Passionate Love. This is so much the case that witnessing absolute beauty in the sensory and admiring the human form (whether poetically through imagery or practically through gazing) seem to serve as unofficial principles of this unofficial school, at least for some. Any such uniformity found in reference to this madhhab reflects a commonality different from chains of initiation through the distinctive Sufi cloak (khirqah), inculcation of divine names (talqin-i dhikr), or instructive fellowship (suhbah). Rather, such references convey a unity of sensibility, emphasis, and outlook among those who did not necessarily have any formally binding affiliation.1 Attesting to the relationship between reference to this “school” and the practice of contemplating visions of beauty, ‘Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadhani’s (d. 526/1131) description of the School of Passionate Love concerns gnostics enamored with God through direct witnessing.2 Also, this often undefined but implied relationship between the School of Love and witnessing in forms appears in the poetry of ‘Umar ibn ‘Ali ibn al-Farid (d. 632/1235). Ibn al-Farid seems to allude to the School of Love early on in his “Poem of the Way,” a poem that in many places, especially lines 239–64, could serve as a manifesto for witnessing the Real in forms and the poetic 64 Sufi Aesthetics supremacy of the human form.3 The Egyptian poet exclaims that “I was never confounded , until I chose your love as a madhhab,” a pronouncement that intimates witnessing in form insofar as the divine beloved has here—at least in terms of poetic language and imagery—assumed the form of a beautiful female.4 Similarly, Ibn alFarid declares that “from my madhhab of love there is no egress for me / and if I incline one day away from it, I have forsaken my religion completely.”5 Although madhhab is not an uncommon word in Arabic love poetry, the reference here to the School of Passionate Love was clear to the poem’s most famous commentator, Sa‘id al-Din al-Farghani (d. 699/1300), a student of Ibn ‘Arabi’s preeminent student Qunawi. As is usually the case, Farghani translates the Arabic hubb (love) into Persian as ‘ishq (passionate love), a translation that, in this instance, for the commentator ’s audience, mitigates the lexical discrepancy between Ibn al-Farid and Persian adherents to the School of Passionate Love.6 In another instance, Farghani’s commentary associates “the Denomination of Passionate Lovers” ( firqah-i ‘ashiqan) directly and unambiguously with “the Passionate Lovers of the Shahid” (‘ushshaq-i shahid).7 Arguments for the validity and superiority of this way of love can be found in Ruzbihan Baqli’s treatise ‘Abhar al-‘Ashiqin, where, again, the author refers to “the School of the People of Passionate Love [madhhab-i ahl-i ‘ishq].”8 One sees a similar phrase used by Awhad al-Din al-Kirmani, when he asserts that “until a man has lost his head to the sword of passionate love / he has not become purified in the School of the Passionate Lover [madhhab-i ‘ashiqi].”9 Many of the adherents of this school whom I will discuss correspond to that group which Jami describes in his Nafahat al-Uns: “A congregation among the chief figures such as Shaykh Ahmad Ghazali and Awhad al-Din Kirmani occupied themselves in contemplating the beauty of sensory loci in forms, and in those forms witnessed absolute beauty of the Real—may he be exalted—though they...

Share