God and Man in Tehran by Hossein Kamaly

Author:Hossein Kamaly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Columbia University Press

SIX

Sufism Returns, and with a Vengeance

In June 1989 a hitherto unpublished poem by Ayatollah Khomeini was released to the press just a few days after he had died, and it started like this:

I fell for the beauty mark on your lip, O Beloved,

Your ravishing stare stirred my melancholy. (Seyed-Gohrab 2011)

The poem was readily received as an esoteric allegory on mystical yearning for God, one composed in the spirit of Muslim mystics, the Sufis. In the next line, the poet explicitly self-identifies with one of the most iconic Sufi figures in Muslim history—namely, the tenth-century Ḥusayn, son of Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj, who was put on trial and eventually executed on behest of the ʿolamā of his time:

Relinquishing awareness of who I am, I declared: “I am the Truth”

Bargaining to be crucified like [Ḥusayn, son of] Manṣūr.

On multiple levels, this short, soft, and unabashedly sensuous poem, called a ghazal, contrasted with larger-than-life portrayals of the leader of the Islamic Revolution, the stern imām, and the implacable warrior against the infidels—the Great Satan and the rest. Khomeini was not a Sufi but a jurist, a grand ayatollah—an authoritative source of imitation for the faithful. He had reached the acme of the ranks of the ʿolamā.

How could the revered source of emulation, the incorrigible commander in chief write soft poems instead of fulminating against ungodly tyrants? Where did all that sacred revolutionary wrath go? As shocking as the tone, wording, and imagery of the poem may sound to uninitiated detractors, most of Ayatollah Khomeini’s admirers had already heard about his intimacy with mysticism and Gnosticism or ʿerfān. They also knew that the key for deciphering this ghazal lay in madrasah philosophy, particularly in its more esoteric and Gnostic dimension, ʿerfān. In publishing this poem, the imām’s heirs and legatees—his personal descendants and the state—capitalized on his reputation of being an Islamic philosopher, especially a master of ʿerfān, to highlight a more humane and compassionate aspect of the revolutionary leader’s personality. Also, this was an understated acknowledgment of the ideas and ideals of Sufism in the Islamic Republic as well as a nod to their enduring presence in the nation’s collective psyche.

Sufism has deep roots in Iranian history (Čahārdehī 1981; Lewisohn 1992; Masum-Ali-Shah ca. 1900; Van den Bos 2002; Zarrīnkūb 1978, 1983). Although Sufism was disfavored during the first few decades of Qajar rule, it gained a footing in the capital as early as the 1840s and later became an integral element in spiritual and intellectual life of the public, especially on the eve of the Constitutional Revolution (Bayat 1982). Half a century after that, Sufism enjoyed another bout of revival during the 1960s and 1970s. Although the majority of the mainstream ʿolamā never took a shine to it, the Islamic Republic keenly drew on Sufism for public mobilization and in manufacturing consent, not least in valorizing warfare as a battle of good against evil, and glorifying military loss in terms of sacrificial oblation to the divine. In one guise or another, Sufism continues to inform perceived relations between God and man in Tehran to this day.

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