{"collection":"Texts of Islam","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_isl_isl27_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_isl_isl_isl27_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_isl_isl_isl27_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/isl/isl27.htm","summary":"This is an anthology chapter or scholarly survey presenting Persian and Arabic Sufi poetry from the eleventh through fifteenth centuries, situated within the tradition of Islamic mystical literature. It profiles six major poets \u2014 al-An\u1e61\u0101r\u012b, 'A\u1e6d\u1e6d\u0101r, Ibn al-F\u0101ri\u1e0d, R\u016bm\u012b, and J\u0101m\u012b \u2014 providing biographical context, translated verse excerpts, and brief critical assessments of each. The overarching argument is that Sufism flourished precisely during the catastrophic Mongol and Timurid invasions, offering spiritual consolation and visionary beauty when the Islamic world was at its most devastated. A recurring and distinctive claim is the tension between pantheism and orthodoxy in these poets: their imagery of divine beauty manifested through earthly forms, and their blurring of lover and Beloved, raised questions of conviction versus poetic license that contemporaries deliberately left unresolved. The text is notable for its comparative gestures \u2014 likening Ibn al-F\u0101ri\u1e0d's odes to those of St. John of the Cross and even to Keats \u2014 and for the breadth it covers, from al-An\u1e61\u0101r\u012b's spare devotional prayers to R\u016bm\u012b's vast allegorical Mathnav\u012b and J\u0101m\u012b's Neoplatonic verse on divine beauty. Readers interested in primary texts of Islamic mysticism with scholarly framing, or in how poetry functioned as theology and consolation in a period of historical trauma, will find this directly useful.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Islam: Chapter Four: \u1e60\u016bfism: The Interior Religion of the Community: 4. The Poets","tradition":"Texts of Islam","translated_text":null,"word_count":1888}