Polishing the Mirror of the Heart: Sufi Poetic Reflections as Interfaith Inspiration for Peace

Pemberton, Barbara

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-27121-2_15

Barbara Pemberton⁵

Part of the book series: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Mysticism ((INTERMYST))

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Abstract

For centuries, Sufi poets have sought to express the ineffable experience of encountering the Divine Reality using the highly symbolic ancient language of love. Islamic mystical poetry features three interlocking themes within the context of “seeking the Beloved.” These “themes of the Heart” are descriptive of the journey or path which, when followed, ushers the lover into the presence of the Beloved found in the Polished Mirror of his own Heart. This chapter offers the beautiful poetic language of Islamic mystical discourse as a fruitful topic in interfaith conversation, inspiring all people who long for an encounter of the Divine to seek righteousness and peace as it speaks heart-to-heart.

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Notes

1.
Abu’l-Majdud B. Adam Sana’i, quoted in Readings from the Mystics of Islam, trans. and ed. by Margaret Smith (London: Luzac & Co. Ltd., 1972), 74. Sana’i (1056–1141) was a Persian poet acclaimed by Rumi.
2.
Later development in this movement would edge toward pantheistic monism.
3.
The Prophet admired monastics and their pursuit of spirituality but did object to the institution of monasticism in light of what he believed to be God’s intended plan for families. See Q.57:27.
4.
The Mi‘raj, drawn from Sura 81:19–25 and 53: 1–12, relates the Prophet’s ascent to the divine throne.
5.
Andrea Brigaglia, “EU-RAP-IA: Rap, Sufism and the Arab Qasida in Europe,” in Global Sufism: Boundaries, Structures, and Politics, ed. Francesco Piraino and Mark Sedgwick (London: Hurst & Company: 2019), 95–6.
6.
Rabi‘a al-Adawiyya Al-Qaysiyya, Islamic Mystical Poetry: Sufi Verse from the Mystics to Rumi, ed. Jamal Mahmood, trans. by Martin Longs (London: Penguin Books: 2009), 5, 10. See Margaret Smith, Rabi‘a the Mystic & Her Fellow-Saints in Islam: Being the Life and Teachings of Rabi‘a al-Adawiyya Al-Qaysiyya of Basra Together With Some Account of the Place of the Women Saints in Islam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), 12. Most female mystics practiced an extreme asceticism including severe fasting to inhibit menstruation so as not to be prohibited from prayer. Sufism provided not only a spiritual avenue, but also an escape from the guardianship of and obedience to men.
7.
Ibid., 8. Rabi‘a al-Adawiyya Al-Qaysiyya, trans. Jamal.
8.
Hadith Qudsi quoted in Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition, ed. Omid Safi (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018), 21. trans. Safi.
9.
Ibid., 25.
10.
Abu Hashim, quoted in A Rosary of Islamic Readings: 7^th–20^th Century, ed. G. Allana (Karachi: National Publishing House Ltd., 1973), 78.
11.
Hazrat Inayat Khan, quoted in Safi, 46.
12.
Abu Yazid al-Bistami, quoted in Allana, 117.
13.
Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood, A Basic Dictionary of Islam (New Delhi: GoodWord Books, 2001), 78.
14.
Al-Ghazali, The Marvels of the Heart: The Revival of the Religious Sciences, trans. Walter James Skellie (Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2010), 77. The shaykh found the mirror a favorite analogy: obedience polishes the mirror of the heart so that it may reflect true reality. (Al-Ghazali, Forward by T.J. Winter, xxi–xxii.)
15.
Sahih Muslim 2655 (Book 46: The Book of Destiny) Hadith 29; Book 33, Hadith 6418.
16.
Al-Ghazali, 56, 132.
17.
Shams al-din Hafiz, quoted in Smith, Readings, 113–4.
18.
Rumi, quoted in The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi, ed. William C. Chittick (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), 37, 8.
19.
Najam al-Din Ridawi Uzlat, quoted in Allana, 332–3.
20.
Ibn al-Husayn al-Sulami, The Way of Sufi Chivalry, trans. Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi (Rochester, Vt.: Inner Tradition International, 1991), 42.
21.
Baba Bulleh Shah, quoted in Jamal, 310.
22.
Rumi, quoted in Safi, 79.
23.
Psalm 51:10, Holy Bible, King James Version.
24.
Sufism became a system of religious orders or organized brotherhoods in which the novice pledges unquestioning submission and receives rigorous discipline from the master. A legitimate master, or shaykh, should be able to trace his spiritual lineage through illustrious predecessors all the way back to the Prophet, thereby establishing both authority and the veracity and efficaciousness of all teachings and interpretations. However, since Sufism has no recognized authoritative body of doctrines, divergent tendencies have arisen. The traditional tariqa model is by no means the only legitimate Sufi path today. Piraino and Sedgwick, 138.
25.
Sultan Bahu, quoted in Jamal, 291. trans. Jamal. Individuals may be members of any number of orders simultaneously.
26.
Safi, xxxii.
27.
Ibn Sina, quoted in Smith, Readings, 48–9.
28.
‘Abdullah Yusuf ‘Ali, The Meaning of the Holy Qur’an, Eleventh Edition (Beltsville, Maryland: Amana Publications, 1989), 998.
29.
Ibid., 62.
30.
Shaykh Farid al-Din Ganj-i-Shakar, quoted in Allana, 261–2.
31.
Khaki Khurasani, quoted in Allana, 321–2.
32.
Daniel J. Sahas, “The Art and Non-Art of Byzantine Polemics: Patterns of refutation in Byzantine Anti-Islamic Literature,” in Conversion and Continuity: Indigenous Christian Communities in Islamic Lands Eighth to Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Michael Gervers and Ramzi Jibran Bikhazi (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990), 66–7. Hesychasm within the Eastern Orthodox tradition of Christianity is the “science of prayer.” Hesychasts claim their practice of the prayer of the heart dates back to Jesus as an uninterrupted oral tradition that was formalized between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries by Symeon the New Theologian. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “The Prayer of the Heart in Hesychasm and Sufism,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 31(1986): 196.
33.
John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 108.
34.
Ibid. Dhikr is unique in that it may be practiced anywhere and at any time without ritual purification.
35.
Hazrat Inayat Khan, quoted in Safi, 220 (trans. Safi).
36.
Jamal, xxiv.
37.
Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, quoted in Jamal, 319 (trans. Elsa Kazi).
38.
Abdur-Rahman Jami, quoted in Jamal (trans. E. G. Browne), 280–81.
39.
Abu‘ l-Qasim B. M. al-Junayd, quoted in Smith, Readings, 34–6. Al-Junayd, one of the most famous Sufi teachers and leader of the Iraqi school of mysticism, wrote several books, including the Book of Annihilation.
40.
Al-Ghazali, quoted in Smith, Readings, 61.
41.
Jamal, 35.
42.
Abu Said Ibn Abil-Khair, quoted in Jamal, 37 (trans. Dr. H. Ethé).
43.
Safi, 28 The mystical life is founded on this statement from the traditions.
44.
Jamal. 13.
45.
Michael A. Sells, ed. Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Qur’an, Mi‘raj, Poetic and Theological Writings (New York: Paulist Press, 1996), 110. Louis Massignon, noted expert on Hallaj, disagrees with the charges of pantheistic “existential monism” raised against Hallaj, suggesting rather a “testimonial monism.” See Lois Massignon, Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr: Abridged edition, trans. and ed. Herbert Mason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), xix, xxi.
46.
Rumi quoted in Safi (trans. Omid Safi), 132.
47.
Ibn al-Farid, quoted in Jamal (trans. Jamal), 90.
48.
Rabi‘a quoted in Safi (trans. Safi), 144.
49.
Rumi, quoted in Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love, 263.
50.
Paul Smith, Ibn ‘Arabi: Selected Poems (Victoria, Australia: New Humanity Books, 2012), 23.
51.
Baba Bulleh Shah, quoted in Jamal (trans. Jamal), 304.
52.
Rumi, quoted in Safi (trans. Safi), 112.
53.
Psalm 30: 11–12, Holy Bible.
54.
The ulama of “canonical Islam” took issue quite early with the notion of an infallible gnostic intuition. They also feared spiritual anarchy or antinomianism and the exploitation of naïve people latent in experiential religious expression. See Stephen Schwartz, The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony (New York: Doubleday, 2008), 111–140.
55.
Brigaglia, 104 (French), 261 (English).
56.
“GROUND ZERO Lyrics.” Lyrics.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2020. Web.24 Oct. 2020. http://www.lyrics.com/lyric/27996426/Abd+Al+Malik.
57.
Rumi, On the Heart, 111, 4391.
58.
Maryam Mafi and Azima Melita Kolin, Rumi’s Little Book of the Heart (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Publishing Company: 2016), 39.
59.
Abu’l-Majdud ibn Adam Sana’i, quoted in Smith, Readings, 76. Sana’i’s most famous work is The Walled Garden of Truth.

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Department of Missions, Ouachita Baptist University, Arkadelphia, AR, USA
Barbara Pemberton

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Hickey Center and IIIT Chair, Nazareth College, Rochester, NY, USA
Muhammad Shafiq
Religious Studies Department, Nazareth College, Rochester, NY, USA
Thomas Donlin-Smith

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Pemberton, B. (2023). Polishing the Mirror of the Heart: Sufi Poetic Reflections as Interfaith Inspiration for Peace. In: Shafiq, M., Donlin-Smith, T. (eds) Mystical Traditions. Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Mysticism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27121-2_15

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27121-2_15
Published: 17 May 2023
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-27120-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-27121-2
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