necessary for true spirituality. It is not difficult to see why some orthodox Muslims, especially Wahhabis and their sympathisers since the eighteenth century, have anathematised and persecuted Sufism. But in the period we are dealing with here, the missionary activity of travelling Sufis, (known also as dervishes) was important, probably crucial, in the conversion of new Muslims, both in the remoter rural parts like Tabarestan, where orthodox Islam had been slow to penetrate, but especially in newly-conquered territories like Anatolia, and among the Turks in their Central Asian homelands in the far north-east.
The first great theorist of Sufism was Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), another native of Tus in Khorasan (though there were many major Sufi figures much earlier, Junayd for example, who died around 910). The relationship between orthodox Sunnism and Sufism was not one of simple opposition, and Al-Ghazali was primarily an orthodox Sunni of the Shafi’i mazhhab, who wrote works attacking the Mu’tazilis, Avicenna and the introduction of ideas from Greek philosophy. But he also wrote an influential Sufi work called Kimiya-ye sa’adat – The Alchemy of Happiness , and in general he tried toremove the obstacles between orthodoxy and Sufism, presenting the latter as a legitimate aspect of the former. In the early centuries of Sufism, Shi‘a Muslims tended to be more hostile to the Sufi dervishes than the Sunnis. 32
Sana’i was the first great poet with a clear Sufi allegiance, and some have compared his literary style with that of Al-Ghazali. His long poem Hadiqat al-haqiqa ( The Garden of Truth —completed in 1131) is a classic of Sufi poetry, but he wrote a large body of poems beyond that, and in them it is easy to see the fusion of the traditions of love-poetry with the impulses of mysticism:
Since my heart was caught in the snare of love,
Since my soul became wine in the cup of love,
Ah, the pains I have known through loverhood
Since like a hawk I fell in the snare of love!
Trapped in time, I am turned to a drunken sot
By the exciting, dreg-draining cup of love.
Dreading the fierce affliction of loverhood,
I dare not utter the very name of love;
And the more amazing is this, since I see
Every creature on earth is at peace with love. 33
Here too, wine has become a metaphor for love, taking the imagery into another dimension of complexity. Where a conventional, orthodox Muslim might favour abstinence ( zohd ), in accordance with religious law, Sana’i says that in going beyond law into infidelity ( kofr ), leaving behind his venal, carnal soul ( nafs ), the Sufi can find another way to God. The point is that both love and wine can be ways in which a man may forget himself; they are familiar experiences in which the sense of self is changed or obliterated. Such an experience can give a taste of (and therefore provide a metaphor for) the loss of self experienced by the mystic in the face of God—the loss of self that is necessary for genuine religious experience, that is yearned for as the lover longs for the beloved.
The Seljuk period produced a profusion of poets, and it is not possible to do justice to them all, but Nizami Ganjavi, who composed his Khosraw va Shirin in 1180 and Layla va Majnoun in 1188, is too important to be overlooked. Both these long poems (he wrote many others) retold much older stories; the former a tale from the Sassanid court and the latter ofArab origin. Both are love stories that became hugely popular, but they have deeper resonances, reflecting Nizami’s religious beliefs. Layla and Majnoun fall in love, but then are separated, and Majnoun goes mad (‘Majnoun’ means ‘mad’) and wanders in the wilderness. He becomes a poet, and writes to Layla through a third party:
Oh my love, with your breasts like jasmine! Loving you, my life fades, my lips wither, my eyes are full of tears. You cannot imagine how much I am ‘Majnoun’. For you, I have lost myself. But that path can only
The first great theorist of Sufism was Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), another native of Tus in Khorasan (though there were many major Sufi figures much earlier, Junayd for example, who died around 910). The relationship between orthodox Sunnism and Sufism was not one of simple opposition, and Al-Ghazali was primarily an orthodox Sunni of the Shafi’i mazhhab, who wrote works attacking the Mu’tazilis, Avicenna and the introduction of ideas from Greek philosophy. But he also wrote an influential Sufi work called Kimiya-ye sa’adat – The Alchemy of Happiness , and in general he tried toremove the obstacles between orthodoxy and Sufism, presenting the latter as a legitimate aspect of the former. In the early centuries of Sufism, Shi‘a Muslims tended to be more hostile to the Sufi dervishes than the Sunnis. 32
Sana’i was the first great poet with a clear Sufi allegiance, and some have compared his literary style with that of Al-Ghazali. His long poem Hadiqat al-haqiqa ( The Garden of Truth —completed in 1131) is a classic of Sufi poetry, but he wrote a large body of poems beyond that, and in them it is easy to see the fusion of the traditions of love-poetry with the impulses of mysticism:
Since my heart was caught in the snare of love,
Since my soul became wine in the cup of love,
Ah, the pains I have known through loverhood
Since like a hawk I fell in the snare of love!
Trapped in time, I am turned to a drunken sot
By the exciting, dreg-draining cup of love.
Dreading the fierce affliction of loverhood,
I dare not utter the very name of love;
And the more amazing is this, since I see
Every creature on earth is at peace with love. 33
Here too, wine has become a metaphor for love, taking the imagery into another dimension of complexity. Where a conventional, orthodox Muslim might favour abstinence ( zohd ), in accordance with religious law, Sana’i says that in going beyond law into infidelity ( kofr ), leaving behind his venal, carnal soul ( nafs ), the Sufi can find another way to God. The point is that both love and wine can be ways in which a man may forget himself; they are familiar experiences in which the sense of self is changed or obliterated. Such an experience can give a taste of (and therefore provide a metaphor for) the loss of self experienced by the mystic in the face of God—the loss of self that is necessary for genuine religious experience, that is yearned for as the lover longs for the beloved.
The Seljuk period produced a profusion of poets, and it is not possible to do justice to them all, but Nizami Ganjavi, who composed his Khosraw va Shirin in 1180 and Layla va Majnoun in 1188, is too important to be overlooked. Both these long poems (he wrote many others) retold much older stories; the former a tale from the Sassanid court and the latter ofArab origin. Both are love stories that became hugely popular, but they have deeper resonances, reflecting Nizami’s religious beliefs. Layla and Majnoun fall in love, but then are separated, and Majnoun goes mad (‘Majnoun’ means ‘mad’) and wanders in the wilderness. He becomes a poet, and writes to Layla through a third party:
Oh my love, with your breasts like jasmine! Loving you, my life fades, my lips wither, my eyes are full of tears. You cannot imagine how much I am ‘Majnoun’. For you, I have lost myself. But that path can only
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