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Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture

The Poetics of Spiritual InstructionFarid al-Din ʿAttar and Persian Sufi Didacticism

By Austin O'Malley

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About this book

Examines ʿAttar's didactic sufi poetry in historical context from a rhetorical, recipient-centred perspective
  • Provides an accessible introduction to the didactic mode in Persian literature
  • Uncovers a poetics of didacticism that was never systemtised in the rhetorical or philosophical tradition
  • Traces the implications of the ‘medicinal metaphor’, in which speech is likened to medicine
  • Explores literary allegory's relationship to visionary experience
  • Investigates how didactic texts evoke oral discourse and how ʿAttar's frame-tale structures mediate between textuality and orality

Much Persian sufi literature is explicitly didactic, aiming to instruct its readers and motivate pious reform. Moving beyond a recapitulation of religious content, The Poetics of Spiritual Instruction investigates the performative function of didactic poetry for mystical audiences, focusing in particular on the verse of Farid al-Din ʿAttar, a central figure of the tradition best known for long narrative poems imbued with edifying sufi themes. Through a series of sensitive and creative readings, O’Malley shows how ʿAttar uses frame-tales, metapoetic commentary, and allegories to think through his relationship with his readers, imagine and guide their reactions to his work, and perform his instructive authority. By teasing out this implicit, recipient-centred poetics, O’Malley recovers sufi didacticism’s participatory, interactive character and shows how the act of reading was invested with ritual significance as a spiritual exercise aimed at the purification of the soul.

Reviews

The Poetics of Spiritual Instruction provides a new perspective on the didactic poetry of ‘Attar of Nishabur by looking at the textualisation of the ritualistic aspects of these poems. A welcome addition to the growing body of works on 'Attar.

Speech is medicine. Starting with this metaphor, The Poetics of Spiritual Instruction shows how ‘Attar’s poetry treated his readers’ spiritual malaise by putting contemporary Sufi teaching practices into textual form. Emphasizing the performative aspects of ‘Attar’s writing, Prof. O’Malley’s clearly written study makes a ground-breaking contribution not only to the study of the poet but to our understanding of the vast corpus of didactic poetry in Persian.

O’Malley’s monograph is a brilliant contribution to the intersecting fields of Persian literary studies and medieval Sufi traditions.
Austin O'Malley's work breathes new life into this 13th-century Persian poetry, of which 'Attar is one of the most illustrious representatives.
Table of contents

Acknowledgements Note on Transliteration and Style Introduction: A Guide for Everyone 1 Situating Wisdom 2 ʿAttar and Persian Literary Sufism 3 Talk Therapy: Poetry as Spiritual Medicine 4 The Hoopoe on the Pulpit 5 Making Texts Speak6 Allegory and Ascent 7 Anecdotal Disruptions Conclusion: Towards a Didactic Performativity Bibliography Index

About the author

Austin O'Malley

Austin O’Malley is the Roshan Institute Assistant Professor in Persian and Iranian Studies in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago, and his dissertation was cited as an honorable mention by the Foundation for Iranian Studies. His work has appeared in Iranian Studies, Journal of Persianate Studies, Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists and Encyclopaedia Iranica.

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