University of Bucharest Review. Literary and Cultural Studies Series (Jun 2015)
The Other’s Poetry: Sufi Thought in Paul Sutherland’s Collections
Abstract
The influence of the Islamic culture on British literature has had its own tradition and representatives. By drawing on recent sociological, psychological and historical research about conversion to Islam in the West and on studies related to Sufi principles and aesthetics in literature, this paper explores and comments on some of the conditions which can nowadays lead to religious conversions, with a focus on the conversion from Christianity to Islam and on the poetic language of conversion. It argues that certain features of individual identity and an interest in therapeutic solutions to life’s problems can favour such once-in-a-lifetime decisions, as Paul Sutherland’s transcultural poetry exceptionally illustrates. David Westerlund (2004) writes that “Sufism has always been a multiplex phenomenon” (17), hence its universality and flexibility in its relationship with other cultures and religions. Born in Canada in 1947 in a family of British ancestry, Paul Sutherland arrived in the United Kingdom in 1973. The founder and editor of the international literary journal Dream Catcher from 1996 to 2012, he converted to Islam in 2004, when he became a follower of Shaykh Nazim Al-Haqqani and was given the name Abdul Wadud. He has published several poetry collections inspired by Sufi philosophy, such as Seven Earth Odes (2004), Spires and Minarets (2010), Journeying (2012), Poems on the Life of Prophet Muhammad (2014) or A Sufi Novice in Shaykh Effendi’s Realm (2014), fragments of which are briefly discussed below, in the light of a journey from Canadian Christianity to European type of Sufi Islam.
