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Poetics And Aesthetics In The Persian Sufi Literary
Tradition
By Hossein
M. Elahi Ghomshei
A Victorian traveler once remarked that Persia
is a country where people walk on silk carpets and speak the
language of poetry. In the same romantic vein, Iran has been
called ‘ the land of the rose and nightingale’, those symbols,
of course, of the archetypes of the “Beloved and Lover”, or
‘Beauty and Love’ or, one might say, of ‘Aesthetics and
poetics’ …if we interpret the symbol of the rose in Persian
literature as referring to the Aesthetics and the nightingale
to Poetics. AS if following the passion of the nightingale for
the Rose, the Persian Sufi poets [professed themselves to be
lovers of beauty, and all their poems to be but songs and
hymns in praise of that Transcendent Beloved, As Hafiz put it:
Not I alone it is who surrenders the beauties of
rose-cheeked ladies. All around there are a thousand
nightingales that intone the same hymn. (Hafiz 1983,
ghazal 190, v, 6)
The opening lines of another ghazal
by Hafiz convey the Persian poet’s eternal message—the
perpetual call of beauty to rapture, communicating the
nightingale’s constant romance with the rose, as well as the
mystical, poet’s ongoing aesthetic project to view all
temporal beauty as a ray of divine splendor: Red roses have
blossomed; Nightingales are all drunk. Everywhere, the hue and
cry of ecstasy: Of Sufi, devotee of the Eternal Now!
(Hafiz 1983, p. 396, ghazal 20 v.
1)
In this article, rather than
entering into elaborate and complicated scholarly theories
about Aesthetics and Poetics, I will take Hafiz’s lead and
play the Saki, a Cupbearer who purveys a goblet of that wine
of beauty which so intoxicated the nightingales of Persia that
they never regained sobriety. It is the same wine to which
Shabistari’s verse refers, inciting the lover of this Beauty
to—Drink down the wine whose cup is the Beloved’s
countenance; imbibe a brew whose beaker is her wine flushed,
drunken eyes. (Shabistari 1986 p. 101, v. 811)
Persian Sufi poetry is animated by
a vision of divine beauty—that beauty which is in the words of
Keats, “a joy forever.” This beauty is also, in the
theological vocabulary of the Koran, the “Light of the Heavens
and the Earth.” The Truth underlying Appearance, the Absolute
Being, the One who is ‘like unto none’.
All round the world my heart has gone but like unto
Him found no one” There is none like Him, none like Him,
none!
The potential tale of this
Beauty—who is one with Truth and Goodness—is also reflected in
the art of Persian storytelling. Traditionally all stories are
prefaced with this opening line drawn from the archetypal
Islamic ‘creation myth’: “There was one and there was none.”
Although thus statement bears a superficial resemblance to
similar phrases in other literature (such as our “Once upon a
time” in English, or “Il etait une fois” in French, for
instance), the Persian expression conveys a profound
philosophical message as well. All Persian stories are
prefaced with this phrase simply because it as recognized that
all stories occur after this story. From a philosophical point
of view, the phrase emphasizes the basic metaphysical premise
that ‘ the being of the One precedes the being of the Many’,
that the existence of ‘Multiplicity’. This premise is well
expressed in Maghribi’s verses: Ah, as if your face brim
filled with sun is laid to plain view within both worlds every
atom manifests. From the shadow downcast by the sun of your
face arose all existent things. Your visage, a sun itself,
cast a shadow; form that penumbra all phenomena appeared,
every atom is existent through a sun; from every atom a sun is
subsistent. (Maghribi 1993, p. 19, VI: 1-4)
Just as in the Islamic metaphysical
thought, one speaker of the ‘One’ Being who precedes all other
beings in Persian Sufi aesthetics one also refers to that
Eternal Beauty which precedes all temporal beauty. The
analogical relationship between metaphysical thinking and
aesthetic thought in Persian Sufism is evoked by Jami in the
prologue to his mystic- romantic poem “Yusuf and Zulaykha”:
The heart ravishing beautiful bride was in the bridal chamber;
a lovely mistress in her blissful solitude, playing the game
of love with none but herself, and drinking alone the wine of
her own beauty. None knew aught of her. Even the mirror had
not yet reflected her countenance. But beauty cannot stand
being conceited for long. Comeliness cannot hear concealment:
if you close the door, she will show her face through the
window. So she pitched her tent outside the sacred precincts,
showing herself within the soul and throughout creation. In
every mirror her theophanic features appeared; so that
everywhere her tale was told. From that effulgence a flash
struck the rose and the rose cast passion into the
nightingales heart. (Jami n.d. p. 592)
The Persian Sufi poets did not have
mere romantic entertainment in mind in the usage of erotic
imagery in passages such as these. Rather, they wished to
makes a metaphysical point about creation, to allude to that
Primordial Beauty who had unveiled herself on “Roof of
Contingency’ so that as a result of the theology, thousands of
words came into being. A beam of this Eternal Beauty struck
the Rose, and the Rose reflected that Beauty to the
Nightingale, filling the distraught bird with melody, frenzy,
and ecstasy. This myth of aesthetic genesis…if one many so cal
it—is expressed by Hafiz a renowned verse: By grace of the
rose the nightingale learnt the art of song; Else, within its
splendor bill there could never be sung such lovely rhymes and
tunes (Hafiz 1983, ghazal 272, v.4) In another verse—one of
the most sublime expressions of the myth of genesis in all of
Persian Literature—Hafiz provides a more explicitly
metaphysical formulation do this doctrine: In pre-eternity, a
ray of your beauty was shown through its thephany. Love
appeared and set the world afire. (Ibid, ghazal 148, v .1)
Both the above verses have one basic message: to show how
beauty gave birth to love and how love generated existence.
As Jami in the passage cited above pointed out, this is also
the central tale of artistic creation. The artist first
witnesses beauty. This vision arouses love and consequently, a
longing to express the beauty witnessed—through Love—in
artistic creation. The Greek myth of the creation of Venus’s
son Cupid chronicles this same erotic-metaphysical and
aesthetic event, and in the same context Shakespeare’s words
(in Romeo and Juliet), “it’s Cupid who rules us all”, should
be taken. The metaphysical allusions of this
aesthetic-metaphysical creation-myth of beauty, which then
created the ‘world of romance’ through her splendor, are many
and deserve our consideration. We have seen hoe
beauty—symbolized by Zulaykha as the hidden god –had deserted
her solitude and pitched her tent in the realm of Appearance.
How should this be understood? Four or five different
interpretations exist in Persian Sufi writings of the realm of
appearance, which many are summarized as follows:
According to the first
interpretation “ the realm of appearance” is seen as alluding
to the world of multiplicity and temporal phenomena,
symbolized in Sufi poetry by the ‘tresses of the Beloved’,
which despite their many ness guide the seeker to the One
Beloved—to whom each and every strand of hair
alludes.
The second interoperation regards
appearance as a reflection of God in the mirror of non-
existence. This view is illustrated by the following verse
from Shabastari’s Garden of mystery: Non- existence is
a mirror, the world its reflection: and man is as the
reflected eye of the unseen person. ( Shabastari 1986, p 72,
v.139)
A third interoperation follows the
platonic conception, which considers the realm of appearance
to but a shadow cast by the radiance of the divine Being. Iv.
A fourth and final interoperation regards appearance neither
as veil nor shadow, but rather, as God Himself. In the words
of Rumi: He is the rose, meadow, the garden and spring.
There is none other than Him in the entire worlds garden.
So where Shakespeare says: “ O mistress mine, where are you
roaming?” The Sufis would reply that this “ mistress” is in
fact, the Pre-eternal Beloved, forever roaming alone, for
beside of existence. This same philosophy of beauty in which
the moral exemplar appears as the celestial original is
featured in the following lines form Shakespeare’s immortal
sonnet: What’s is substance, whereof are you made, that
millions of strange shadows on you tend? Since every one hath,
every one, one shade. And you, but one, can every shadow lend;
describe Adonis and the counterfeit is poorly imitated after
you:
on Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set, And you in
Grecian times are painted new: speak of the spring and foison
of the year, The one doth the shadow of your beauty show, the
other as your beauty doth appear; and you in every blessed
shape we know: in all external grace you have some part But
you like none. None you, for constant heart. (Shakespeare
1985, p. 123)
Perhaps the best way to illustrate
the diversity yet continuity between all these various
interoperations of the eternal traffic between the two realms
of Unity and multiplicity, or beauty and appearance is by
means of a diagram. According to the Sufis, the cycle of
creation is divided into two halves of a circle. The upper
half represents the spiritual realm. In the upper semicircle
one finds a series of Ideas pointing to transcendence and the
divine: ‘God, Heaven, Light, Eternity (that is, transcendence
of time), Beauty, Peace and the Beloveds face. The lower half
of the circle represents the Realm of multiplicity or many
nesses. This in turn, is indicated by a variety of symbols,
images, and concepts, which reveal its inferior nature. Hell,
separation, Time, War, and the Beloveds Tresses. However,
before exploring other dimensions of the Sufi aesthetic-poetic
vision, it will be helpful to summarize the salient points of
our discussion above. First, we have seen that the central
them of Persian Sufi poetry is, in fact, the relationship
between the rose and the nightingale, two poetic symbols which
encode truths penetrating to all art in general. The symbol of
the rose conveys allusions to concepts such as beauty, love,
divine Unity, poetry, music and beloved ness, while the
nightingale symbolizes multiplicity and diversity. Artistic
creation contains in miniature form the entire story of
Creation. The rose plays the part of absolute Existence in
this story and the nightingale-with its songs, infinity
diverse in their tonality and pitch, hymning the praise of the
beauty of this divine Exsistence-cum-Rose-ezpress possible
Being. Incessantly, Beauty- the rose of the beloved—Brings
into existence myriads of lovers (nightingales); every moment
she contemplates herself through the eyes of these lovers,
hearing them sing praises. Instant by instant, the One Beauty
assumes shape after shape, harkening to a perpetual chant of
panegyric intoned upon a thousand tongues. It is this Beloved,
this Unique One Being, and this multiciplicty, to which Jami’s
lines refer: Through all beautiful faces you have revealed
your beauty; so, in the lover’s eye You may contemplate
yourself. Through a beloved you’re decked out in a lover’s
garb; and then your own display unto yourself you can clicit
from yourself! In this context, the above diagram of Unity
and multiplicity—with the various characteristics of each half
of the circle—not only tarnishes us with a basis for a general
theory of aesthetics and poetics in Islamic mysticism, but
also expresses the basic principles of Islamic Theography.
Theology and Ethics. Thus, we see, for
instance, how ‘Satan’ who belongs to the nature of
‘Multiplicity’, and; multiplicity itself’ are the substance of
all ‘ war’ and ‘hell’, In the same way, ‘hell’ is locus of
sorrow, ignorance and separation: those qualities which
pertain to multiplicity. Thus ever so-called ‘evil’ in the end
may also be subsumes under the category of ‘multiplicity’.
‘Ugliness’, for instance, is also ‘ multiplicity’ and
?identify?, just as ?despair? and ?injustice? are also
attributes of ?multiplicity?. On the other hand, ?Unity?
(that is to say God), encompasses and absorbs the qualities
of the lower circle by its own comprehensive qualities.
Unity?s most salient attribute and manifestation is found in
?love?. Love is described by the Sufis as the remedy of all
ills and the alchemy if existence. Love transforms poverty
into riches, pauper into rinse, war into peace, ignorance
into knowledge and hell into heaven. Finally it should be
pointed out that poetry, the inspiration for which hails
from the higher world of love and Unity, functions as a
motive and cause of Unity. The therapeutic value of
poetry?as well as its metaphysical motivation and aesthetic
significance in Sufism arises from the spiritual quality.
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