عنوان

Seeing God with both eyes: Asceticism, ascension and poetry in the Makhzan al-asrar of Nizami Ganjavi (d. 1209)

Number

TL49147

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Seeing God with both eyes: Asceticism, ascension and poetry in the Makhzan al-asrar of Nizami Ganjavi (d. 1209)

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Matthew R. Hotham

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Ernst, Carl W.

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2016

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

327

Text of Note

Committee members: Flatt, Emma; Hammer, Juliane; Losensky, Paul; Safi, Omid

Text of Note

Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-369-46747-5

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Discipline of degree

Religious Studies

Body granting the degree

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Text preceding or following the note

2016

Text of Note

This dissertation investigates the role of the body in medieval Sufism through an analysis of the portrayals of human, animal and prophetic bodies in the first of Nizami Ganjavi's Masnavi poems, the Makhzan al-asrar. Though the nature of Nizami as poet, mystic, ethicist, and scientist has been a topic of debate for several decades, barely discussed in this ongoing conversation is the first poem in his Quintet, the Treasury of Mysteries. A mystico-ethical text, it was emulated in both meter and structure by a vast number of Persian poets after him. In spite of its immense popularity and importance, this poem, especially its long introductory sections, are often overlooked in contemporary scholarship. This is in part because they challenge long-held but problematic definitions of Sufism as an antinomian tendency within Islam that is primarily interested in human love as a metaphor for divine proximity. This dissertation argues that these texts can, as Scott Kugle and Shahzad Bashir have pointed out, become sources for learning about medieval Sufi habitus-as sedimented sources of religious mores, bodily comportments, social relations, history, science, and meaning. As such, this dissertation will challenge previous characterizations of medieval Sufism by investigating the importance of bodily practice in a significant medieval poem.

Medieval literature; Religion; Islamic Studies; Ethics; Interpersonal relationships; Persian language; Poetry; Learning; Metaphor; Conversation

Subject Term

Language, literature and linguistics;Philosophy, religion and theology;Social sciences;Ganjavi, Nizami;Makhzan al-asrar;Medieval Sufi habitus;Sufism;Treasury of Mysteries

Harris, Mariam

Ernst, Carl W.

Subdivision

Religious Studies

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Call Number

1855945458; 10245879

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y