INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 Nortfi Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9218972 The path of love: Sufism in the novels of Doris Lessing Galin, Muge N., Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1992 UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 THE PATH OF LOVE: SUFISM IN THE NOVELS OF BORIS LESSING DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Muge Galin, B.A., M.A. ****** The Ohio State University 1992 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Dr. Robert C. Jones Dr. Wallace Maurer Dr. James Phelan ■ai- Dr. Barbara H. Rigney Adviser Dr. Marilyn R. Waldman Deparment of English Copyright c 1992 by Müge Galin Ail rights reserved. What is to be done, 0 Moslems? I do not recognize myself. My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless; ’Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.^ to Robert Jones and Marilyn Waldman, two who think with their hearts 11 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When we have received so much from the best, say the Sufis, our debt is that much greater . Indeed, I am indebted to the very best of teachers and friends, Drs. Robert Jones, Wallace Maurer, James Phelan, Barbara Rigney, and Marilyn Waldman, without whose generous and compassionate guidance this project could not have come to fruition. This dissertation is my compromise with each of their tall orders in the last decade. I am especially grateful beyond words to Robert Jones and Marilyn Waldman for their return from the edge of time to the land of the living. They each demonstrated the kind of strength and will to be alive that is the Sufis' aim, though they should have spared me that particular lesson. My writing benefited much from the deliberate attention and care they apply to all their teaching, in their words and deeds. Finally, my loving thanks to SB, for hearing out my stories always, and for being there. VITA 1983 ............................ B.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1985 ............................ M.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1984-Present .................... G.T.A.; G.R.A.; lecturer, Departments of English, Judaic and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, and Comparative Studies, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English Restoration and Eighteenth Century. Professor Wallace Maurer Nineteenth-Century British Literature. Professor Richard Martin Twentieth-Century English Literature. Professor Barbara Rigney Studies in Islamic History. Professor Marilyn Waldman Studies in Turkish Literature. PUBLICATIONS Turkish Sampler: Writings For All Readers. Bloomington: Indiana University Turkish Series, 1989. Turkish Student Manual for Individualized Study. 3. Columbus: OSU Language Papers, 1992. Turkish Instructor's Manual for Individualized Study. 3. Columbus: OSU Language Papers, 1992. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION................................................... ii VITA ......................................................... iv CHAPTER PAGE I. The Unreal C i t y ................................ 1 II. Lessing’s "Sufism" .............................. 14 III. Lessing’s "Work" ................................ 35 IV. Sufi Allegories in Lessing’s Vision............ 47 V. Sufi Parables in Lessing........................ 95 VI. Lessing’s Place Between East and W e s t ........... 146 APPENDIX: The Sufi Way in Historical Context................. 183 NOTES ........................................................ 199 WORKS CITED OR CONSULTED...................................... 212 The Unreal City The Sufi Path (tasauwuf) is "The Path of Love." The Beloved referred to by Sufi mystics and poets is God— often depicted, incarnated, and cloaked in the language, form, and garb of a sexual lover. The poem below is a popularized translation of a Persian poem written by the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Mevlana Jalalu’ddin Rumi (d. 1273), Master of the Whirling Dervishes in Central Anatolia. I want to say words that flame as I say them, but I keep quiet and don’t try to make both worlds fit in one mouthful. I keep secret in myself an Egypt that doesn’t exist. [Mesr-e 'adamj Is that good or bad? I don’t know. For years I gave away sexual love with my eyes. Now I don’t. I’m not in any one place. I don’t have a name for what I give away. Whatever Shams gave, that you can have from me. (Rumi, trans. Barks)! More often, it is reworkings like this poem that circulate in the general populace in the West because they catch the readers’ attention (as this one did mine) with their mystery and romantic lure, while they have very little to do with the original poem. Such popularizations are faithful to the flavor and spirit of the Sufi poem, but they unwittingly reduce to a secularized fancy the intensity of spiritual -1- 2 passion and force of mystical insight that fueled the original poet’s imagination more than seven hundred years ago. Most translators do disservice to the Sufi tradition by drastically shifting the context of the poetry from the realm of God to the level of the mundane. The figurative lover who is really God in the Persian poem becomes a literal sexual lover in the translation that remains devoid of the smoldering spiritual core of the original. One wants Westerners to become interested in The Sufi Way and in Sufi literature; however, the only access for people who cannot read the original languages is through popularized versions of Sufi poetry such as the above, which is both a beautiful, touching poem powerful in its own right, but which lacks the many-layered meanings of the original. The dilemma of the present-day Sufis in the East and West Who have direct access to Sufi literature in Arabic, Turkish, or Persian is that they want to encourage Westerners to tap the wealth of Sufi material, while they cannot help but bemoan the loss in translation of what they feel to be the authentic message. The tendency on the part of those who have an inner understanding of tasawmif, or Sufi practice (way), often is to say "That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all" (Eliot, "Prufrock"), which is equally futile, since, at the least, translated versions fulfill the role of attracting people to The Sufi Way. Readers must beware, however, that these reworkings do not pretend to represent tasawwuf (The Sufi Way). The diverse literary and spiritual wealth of Islam, and in this case, of The Sufi Way (tasa»wuf), has provided numerous western poets, playwrights, and novelists, including Doris Lessing, with 3 material and ideas from which to spin off new works. However, more often than not, these resulting modern adaptations have reproduced a finely filtered version of the Sufi message. One of the things that is consistently filtered out in the transfer is the association between Sufi thought and Sufi practice. As a result of repeated filtering. The Sufi Way (tasawwuf) hets been reconstructed and reconceptualized into a system of beliefs in the West called "Sufism," which is a systematic reinterpretation of a tradition that essentially resists mechanical and literalistic treatment. Lessing has inherited the wealth of the long history of the Sufi tradition through this filtering process, which has allowed her to manipulate disembodied Sufi ideas as they unfold in the lives of her various characters. The filter exempts her from the obligation to practice The Sufi Way beyond an intellectual engagement with it as a school of thought comparable to other schools of thought like Marxism, Feminism, or Jungianism. Hence, ray discussion of Sufism in Chapter Two is labeled "Lessing’s ‘Sufism’," i.e., her version of a long, multi-faceted tradition, which is not to deny that this version, too, now constitutes a part of the history of The Sufi Way, and must be acknowledged as a legitimate stage of The Way. Contrasted to followers of other "isms," Sufis pursue spiritual experience by bodily discipline and a whole different way of life that is in accordance with their particular relationship with God. For them, The Sufi Way is an experience, not an ideology. Therefore, as we look at the works of Doris Lessing, it is essential to remember two things: 1) that the Sufi traces in her works are decontextualized renderings of a long-standing tradition that is more than a thousand 4 years old; and also 2) that there are other living Sufis today elsewhere in the world whose lives and practices are very unlike those of Lessing’s characters, and whose Way has a long history, integrity, and a power competitive with what Europeans have done with "Sufism." Coleman Barks, the translator of the above poem, acknowledges that his is a reworking of a more literally-faithful English translation done by the late orientalist A.