Medieval BLM: Black Face in Persian Sufi Poetry

Abstract

Introduction. The black-faced are mentioned in different Muslim texts — from the Quran to Sufi poems. One can trace not just diverse but rather opposite interpretations, and researchers have to face certain problems when it comes to analyze some related images. Goals. The study attempts an insight into functioning and semantic features inherent to images of the black-faced in Sufi poetry. Materials and methods. The work analyzes a number of classical Persian and Arabic writings, such as The Walled Garden of Truth by Sanai, and others. The employed research methods include those of textual reconstruction, contextual analysis, and descriptive poetics. Results. The paper shows in medieval Islamic culture the black-skinned were often treated not just as second-class individuals, they were sometimes not even viewed as humans. In the Quran, a black face symbolizes disgrace and infidelity. The blacks in Islamic culture were discriminated twice: by skin color and on religious grounds, since most of them were pagans that actively resisted Islamization. This circumstance served a legal rationale for their enslavement. Thus, for many Arab writers a black was a slave, an uncivilized ungodly pagan. These characteristics one can find both in Arabic and Persian literatures. But in Persian Sufism the image of the black-skinned gets revisited. Their outward blackness is the trace of the black light of the divine selfness rather than just an ugly imperfection. The Divine selfness is dark for it cannot be conceived, and is above all human ideas about it. However, the Divine selfness is the being itself, so every existent thing had received being from this Divine source. In this context, Sanai writes that a black-faced is singed by the black light (or fire) of the Divine selfness, and is thus involved with this being. Besides, Sufis tended to view the low social status of the black as a means of liberation from worldly attachments and social connections, each black-skinned individual be thus believed to have united with the One Divine selfness to annihilate his own self (fana). Conclusions. So, the image of the black-faced performs functions similar to those characteristic of a wide layer of characters from other religions in Sufi literature: just like images of infidels, pagans, Zoroastrians, and Christians — this was reinterpreted by Sufi authors in a positive manner.

Keywords

• arabs
• islam
• tasawwuf
• persian poetry
• negro
• black-faced
• slave
• beggar
• selfness
• fana