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Subjectivity in ʿattār, Persian Sufism, and European Mysticism Subjectivity in ʿAṭṭār, Persian Sufism, and European Mysticism Comparative Cultural Studies Ari Ofengenden, Series Editor The Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies publishes single-authored and thematic collected volumes of new scholarship. Manuscripts are invited for publication in the series in fields of the study of culture, literature, the arts, media studies, communication studies, the history of ideas, etc., and related disciplines of the humanities and social sciences to the series editor via e-mail at <[email protected]>. Comparative cultural studies is a contextual approach in the study of culture in a global and intercultural context and work with a plurality of methods and approaches; the theoretical and methodological framework of comparative cultural studies is built on tenets borrowed from the disciplines of cultural studies and comparative literature and from a range of thought including literary and culture theory, (radical) constructivism, communication theories, and systems theories; in comparative cultural studies focus is on theory and method as well as application. For a detailed description of the aims and scope of the series including the style guide of the series link to <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweblibrary/seriespurdueccs>. Manuscripts sub- mitted to the series are peer reviewed followed by the usual standards of editing, copy editing, marketing, and distribution. The series is affiliated with CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture (ISSN 1481-4374), the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access quarterly published by Purdue University Press at <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb>. Volumes in the Purdue series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies include <http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/series/comparative-cultural-studies> Claudia Yaghoobi, Subjectivity in ʿAṭṭār, Persian Sufism, and European Mysticism Lorna Fitzsimmons, ed. Faust Adaptations from Marlowe to Aboudoma and Markland Regina R. Félix and Scott D. Juall, eds., Cultural Exchanges between Brazil and France James Patrick Wilper, Reconsidering the Emergence of the Gay Novel in English and German Li Guo, Women's Tanci Fiction in Late Imperial and Early Twentieth-Century China Arianna Dagnino, Transcultural Writers and Novels in the Age of Global Mobility Elke Sturm-Trigonakis, Comparative Cultural Studies and the New Weltliteratur Lauren Rule Maxwell, Romantic Revisions in Novels from the Americas Liisa Steinby, Kundera and Modernity Text and Image in Modern European Culture, ed. Natasha Grigorian, Thomas Baldwin, and Margaret Rigaud-Drayton Sheng-mei Ma, Asian Diaspora and East-West Modernity Irene Marques, Transnational Discourses on Class, Gender, and Cultural Identity Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies, ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and Louise O. Vasvári Hui Zou, A Jesuit Garden in Beijing and Early Modern Chinese Culture Yi Zheng, From Burke and Wordsworth to the Modern Sublime in Chinese Literature Agata Anna Lisiak, Urban Cultures in (Post)Colonial Central Europe Representing Humanity in an Age of Terror, ed. Sophia A. McClennen and Henry James Morello Michael Goddard, Gombrowicz, Polish Modernism, and the Subversion of Form Shakespeare in Hollywood, Asia, and Cyberspace, ed. Alexander C.Y. Huang and Charles S. Ross Gustav Shpet's Contribution to Philosophy and Cultural Theory, ed. Galin Tihanov Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies, ed. Louise O. Vasvári and Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek Marko Juvan, History and Poetics of Intertextuality Subjectivity in ʿAṭṭār, Persian Sufism, and European Mysticism Claudia Yaghoobi Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana Copyright 2017 by Purdue University. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file at the Library of Congress. Paper ISBN: 9781557537836 ePDF ISBN: 9781612495002 ePUB ISBN: 9781612495019 Cover image: The miniature “Sheikh Ṣanʿān and the Christian Maiden,” from ʿAṭṭār’s Conference of the Birds, inv. no. 34/2006. Photograph by Pernille Klemp. Courtesy of The David Collection, Copenhagen. To my parents Parkooei Nazari and Avak Yaghoobi, who always encourage me to venture out and go on adventures, especially this one بعد از این وادی عشق آید پدید غرق آتش شد کسی کانجا رسید کس درین وادی بجز آتش مباد وانک آتش نیست عیشش خوش مباد عاشق آن باشد که چون آتش بود گرم رو سوزنده و سرکش بود عاقبت اندیش نبود یک زمان در کشد خوش خوش بر آتش صد جهان —عطار، منطق الطیر"بیان وادی عشق" Love's valley is the next, and here desire Will plunge the pilgrim into seas of fire, Until his very being is enflamed And those whom fire rejects turn back ashamed. The lover is a man who flares and burns, Whose face is fevered, who in frenzy yearns, Who knows no prudence, who will gladly send A hundred worlds toward their blazing end . —ʿAṭṭār, Manṭiq al-ṭayr (Conference of the Birds), "The Valley of Love" Contents Acknowledgments ix Note on Transliteration, Dates, and Translation xi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Sufism, ʿAṭṭār, and His Works 15 Chapter 2 Modern Theory, Michel Foucault, and His Predecessors 31 Chapter 3 Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya and Margery Kempe 45 Chapter 4 Maḥmūd and Ayāz, Sufi Homoeroticism, and European Same-Sex Relationships 71 Chapter 5 Majnūn and Lailā, and Lancelot and Guinevere 95 Chapter 6 Shaykh Ṣanʿān and the Christian Girl, and Abelard and Heloise 123 Conclusion Human Diversity and Inclusiveness 151 Works Cited 161 Author’s Profile 185 Index 187 Acknowledgments This book would not have been possible without the comments, feedback, guidance, and help of several individuals who in one way or another extended their valuable assistance in the preparation and completion of this study. First and foremost, I am heartily thankful to Dwight Reynolds for his breadth of knowledge and unfailing sup- port. His remarkable comments have no doubt led to a better text than I could have ever produced on my own. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Janet Afary, whose encouragement, guidance, and support from the initial to the final stages of this project enabled me to develop a thorough understanding of the subject in its histori- cal context. Thanks are also due to Aranye Fradenburg for her guidance and valuable insights. Without her suggestions on European literature and literary theory, this book would not have the nuanced aspects it embodies now. A special word of gratitude is due to Nasrin Rahimieh, whose suggestions and recommendations regarding literary analysis and Persian literature have been invaluable for the project. Special thanks should be given to Sara Lindheim, Susan Derwin, and Catherin Nesci, Mireille Miller- Young, Elisabeth Weber, Barbara Tomlinson, and Heather Blurton. I would also like to thank my colleagues and friends, Rolando Longoria, Morteza Lak, Maryam Moqa- ddam, Matthew Thomas Miller, and Amir Khadem, who carefully read chapters of my work and provided insight and expertise. I offer my regards to the Purdue University Press director, editorial board, external reviewers, and administrative staff. Finally, words alone cannot express the thanks I owe to my family for their never-ending en- couragement and moral support. This is how the project was born out of love. I would like to thank the University of North Carolina for the University Research Council Publication Grant, which covered copyediting, indexing, and copyright expenses for this book. My early research on this topic was funded by a Regents Internship-Fellowship for Research (2012) through the Comparative Litera- ture program at the University of California at Santa Barbara. My gratitude is due to the Iranian Studies Initiative at the University of California at Santa Barbara for a generous funding from a Mellichamp Research Fellowship in 2010. In this book, I read ʿAṭṭār's works, European literature, and modern theory alongside each other; that is, I undertake a contrapuntal reading of works that are modern and medieval, literature and theory, and Middle Eastern and European. In that ix x Acknowledgments sense, this book is based on an interdisciplinary approach to literature, and benefits from a comparative cross-cultural, cross-historical, and cross-disciplinary perspec- tive. Throughout, I illustrate the interdependence of literature and theory from differ- ent times and places in regard to our understanding of the concepts of transgression and the limit, and how crossing boundaries can lead to the construction of subjectivity. Earlier parts of this book have been published. Excerpts from the book titled, "Against the Current: Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār's Diverse Voices," have been published in Persian Literary Studies Journal and awarded The Jafar and Shokoh Farzaneh Paper Prize in Persian Literature and Culture. The same article, under the title, "Hamzisti dar Asar-e ʿAṭṭār" (Co-existence in 'Attar's Works), has also been translated into Persian in Rahavard Persian/English Journal of Iranian Studies. Excerpts from chapter 3 have also been published in Persian Literary Studies Journal under the title, "Sexual Trauma and Spiritual Experience: Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya and Margery Kempe." Excerpts from chapter 5 in the form of an article titled, "Subjectivity in ʿAṭṭār's Shaykh Ṣanʿān Story in The Conference of the Birds," have been published online on CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. Note on Transliteration, Dates, and Translation The International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) pronunciation-based Persian and Arabic transliteration system has been used. The following is a guide to the IJMES transliteration system. For Persian proper names and words which have been adopted in European languages, I have used the most commonly used transcription rather than the IJMES transliteration. Most Arabic and Persian names from the classical period have been transliterated, but contemporary ones have not. All citations are indicated in the text by the edited work followed by the translation into English. All translations, sum- maries, and paraphrases of the Persian secondary sources and ʿAṭṭār's Muṣībat-nāma are the author's. Dates are based on the Gregorian calendar. Book and article titles have been transliterated for consistency, but original titles are used in the bibliography.
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