Negotiating Gender in the Mysticism of Ibn Al-‘Arabī and Francis of Assisi
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TRANSCENDING THE FEMININE: NEGOTIATING GENDER IN THE MYSTICISM OF IBN AL-‘ARABĪ AND FRANCIS OF ASSISI A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By Norma J. DaCrema May 2015 Examining Committee Members: Prof. Khalid Blankinship, Advisory Chair, Department of Religion Prof. Rebecca Alpert, Department of Religion Prof. Lucy Bregman, Department of Religion Dr. Eli Goldblatt, External Member, Department of English ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ................................................................................................................................v Dedication .......................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgments............................................................................................................. vii List of Figures .................................................................................................................. viii Prologue ...............................................................................................................................x CHAPTER 1. MYSTICISM IN IBN AL-ʿARABĪ AND FRANCIS OF ASSISI: PREREQUISITES AND PROMISES ...............................................................1 Mysticism and Ibn al-ʿArabī .................................................................................... 4 Sharīʿah, Stations and States ..............................................................................7 Poverty .............................................................................................................16 The Perfect Man ...............................................................................................20 Creative Imagination and the Barzakh .............................................................23 The Mirror ........................................................................................................27 Franciscan Openings ..............................................................................................29 Stations and States in the Franciscan Mystical Ascent ....................................34 Hunger, Poverty and Renunciation ..................................................................36 Perfect(ed) Men ...............................................................................................38 Mirror of Perfection .........................................................................................42 iii 2. THE LANGUAGES OF MYSTICAL LOVE ...............................................................44 Franciscan “Texts” .................................................................................................45 An “Idiota” .......................................................................................................51 Holy Troubadour ..............................................................................................59 Tumblers, Jesters, Minstrels and Prayer ..........................................................64 And the Rest Is Silence ....................................................................................66 Ibn al-ʿArabī: Speaking Truth ................................................................................68 Mystical Properties of Poetry ..........................................................................70 3. MEN IN LOVE ..............................................................................................................74 Desiring Bodies: Erastes, Eromenos and the Agalmata .........................................76 Girl Trouble .....................................................................................................82 Desire, Taken Literally ....................................................................................85 All in the Family: Fathers and Mothers, Husbands and Wives .............................92 Desire, Taken Literally, Again .........................................................................93 Feminine Mystique ..........................................................................................95 Pure Imagination: Ibn al-ʿArab’s Invention of Love, Invention of Self ..............104 Follow That Girl… ........................................................................................109 Wedding Belles (-Lettres) .............................................................................114 Complementary, But Not Equal .....................................................................122 Lame Ants ......................................................................................................130 4. FRANCIS OF ASSISI: BODY OF EVIDENCE .........................................................134 The “Bynum Thesis”: Franciscan Proof...and Exceptionalism............................135 Mothers, Brothers and Other Complications .......................................................149 iv Father Knows Best ...............................................................................................155 Stigmata: The Meaning, the Message ..................................................................162 The Messenger .....................................................................................................176 Opposites Distract ................................................................................................185 5. THE TWO POLES: THE SAINT AND THE SHAYKH ............................................189 Francis: Resting in (Sporadic) Peace ...................................................................191 Meeting in Metaphor: Dante ................................................................................198 Meeting in the Metaphysical: Jacques Lacan and Luce Irigaray .........................200 Meeting in the Flesh.............................................................................................204 Meeting in Mercy .................................................................................................211 Grave Matters.......................................................................................................213 Complementary Coincidence ...............................................................................214 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................215 APPENDIX: CHRONOLOGIES, IMAGES AND TRANSLATIONS ..........................227 v ABSTRACT Explorations of how “the feminine” functions in the systematic mystical theology of Ibn al-ʿArabī (1165-1240) begin, in English, with Reynold Nicholson’s early 20th century analysis of Tarjumān al-Ashwāq and extend through the work of dozens of scholars since then, most notably Henry Corbin, Toshihiko Izutsu, William Chittick, Sachiko Murata and Sa'diyya Shaikh. (Of course, one could argue that such studies in Arabic reach back as far as his foremost disciple al-Qunawi, and his foremost critic, Ibn Tamiyya. St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) shares with the Shaykh a general historical context as well as a famously passionate devotion to mystical practice as a strategy for achieving proximity to God. He, too, has engendered scholarly interest in his attitude toward women and the feminine as intrinsic to making that ascent, and not just among his earliest hagiographers, but through hundreds of interpreters since, most recently André Vauchez and Jacques Dalarun. Yet, despite generations of scholarship on that point, a comparative study of these two mystics has yet to be published. “Transcending the Feminine: Negotiations of Gender in the Mysticism of Ibn al-ʿArabī and Francis of Assisi” endeavors to fill that gap, and in so doing to unpack the distinctive aspects of the saint’s and the Shaykh’s mystical approaches, demonstrating intersections as well as departure points. Instrumental to that task are the conclusions of feminist scholars focusing on either man, but also—because the question of the feminine is so intimately associated in mystical texts with physical and spiritual desire—such an endeavor is relevant to the psychoanalytical approach to medieval religious texts, one made possible by Sigmund Freud and particularly Jacques Lacan, and then expanded upon by Luce Irigaray and Amy Hollywood. The pathway linking Francis and Ibn al-ʿArabī traverses their mysticisms, their use of metaphorical language, their specific constructions of gender, theologically and poetically, and their surprisingly complementary strategies for underscoring how the physical body emerges as crucial to the mystical ascent. Accordingly, this dissertation navigates the intriguing space in between the two—that is, in Ibn al-ʿArabī’s phrasing, the barzakh where the ultimate priorities of one virtually touch those of the other, yet in a way that preserves their contradictions. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am beholden to a host of people for reaching this point, starting with my peerless advisor, Dr. Khalid Blankinship, a font of wisdom in whose commanding presence I remain in awe, but an awe tempered with enormous gratitude. I am extremely lucky that Dr. Rebecca Alpert, whom I admire beyond reason, and Dr. Lucy Bregman, whose efficiency and demand for clarity are legendary, agreed not merely to be on my panel, but to offer their guidance, criticism and wit as often as I needed, which was likely too often. To have received approbation from these three on this dissertation is an achievement of which