Research Article

The Barzakh of Ecstacy

Volume: 1 Number: 2 December 14, 2022
TR EN

The Barzakh of Ecstacy

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which Syrian poet and artist Huda Naamani expresses the inexpressible of ecstasy. In a Sufi epic poem entitled Kitāb al-wajd wa al-tawājud (The Book of Ecstasy and its Indicators), she acknowledges the impossibility of recording the ecstatic experience in words on a page. The only medium open to such a semantic articulation is tawājud or the indicators, feeble linguistic signposts to the ineffable. Beyond tawājud is the wordlessness of the experience of the silence of God. Invoking the Qur’ānic term barzakh, a state in which two elements behave as one, she uses sound and color to draw the reader into an experience that cannot be described but only intuited and felt. In her modernist, mystical lyrics she creates the soundscape of dhikr rituals. The staccato repetitions and the arrangements of letters on the page compel the reader to recite and hear the sounds of the words beyond their lexical meanings. In so doing, the reader is invited to share in the creative act. Interspersed in the pages of this magical, confessional text are Huda’s cloud paintings that document her ecstatic experience from explosion into the barzakh of ecstasy to fanā’ or dissolution in the divine. Hers is an idiosyncratic imagining of the encounter with the divine.

Keywords

References

  1. Cited Works • Ruzbihan Baqli 1997 (Carl Ernst trans.) The Unveiling of Secrets: Diary of a Sufi Master Chapel Hill: Parvardigar Press
  2. • William C. Chittick 1989 The Sufi Path of Knowledge Albany: SUNY Press
  3. • miriam cooke 2014 Tribal Modern: Branding New Nations in the Arab Gulf Berkeley: University of California Press
  4. • Jacques Derrida 1993 Khora Paris: Galilee
  5. • Mansur al-Hallaj 2018 (Carl Ernst trans.) Poems of a Sufi Martyr Evanston: Northwestern UP
  6. • Toshihiko Izutsu 1983 Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts Berkeley: University of California Press
  7. • Fatemeh Keshavarz 1998 Reading Mystical Lyric: The Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi Columbia: University of South Carolina Press
  8. • Annemarie Schimmel 1975 Mystical Dimensions of Islam Chapel Hill: UNC Press

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

-

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Miriam Cooke *
United States

Publication Date

December 14, 2022

Submission Date

August 29, 2022

Acceptance Date

November 14, 2022

Published in Issue

Year 2022 Volume: 1 Number: 2

Chicago
Cooke, Miriam. 2022. “The Barzakh of Ecstacy”. Tasavvuf Araştırmaları Enstitüsü Dergisi 1 (2): 17-28. https://doi.org/10.32739/ustad.2022.2.27.