Texts of Islam

Oriental Mysticism: Appendix

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*Oriental Mysticism* (1867) by E.H. Palmer is a scholarly glossary of Sufi mystical terminology, presenting Arabic and Persian terms alongside their literal meanings and their specialized allegorical meanings within Sufi thought. The central interpretive key running through all entries is that the Sufi tradition systematically reinterprets sensuous and mundane imagery — wine, taverns, lovers, beauty, body parts — as coded references to the Divine: "wine" means divine love, a "tavern" is the stage of immersion in divine mysteries, a "mistress" is God appearing as truth. Many entries map stages of a spiritual journey (asfár) in which the mystic progresses from ordinary existence through successive states of attraction, intoxication, and self-annihilation (faná) toward total absorption in God. A distinctive feature is how terms ordinarily carrying negative connotations — "unbeliever," "heretic," "idol-worshipper," "pagan" — are redefined positively as descriptions of the mystic who has transcended conventional religion for direct experience of God. The glossary also reflects Palmer's comparativist impulse, noting cross-cultural parallels (Brahminical threads, Magians, a reference to the Delphic oracle) and citing prior scholarship such as Tholuck's *Sufismus* (1821). As a Victorian-era reference work, it serves readers seeking to decode the erotic and transgressive surface imagery of classical Persian and Arabic mystical poetry.

Oriental Mysticism: Appendix

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