Chapter 8 Numinosity, Humanity, and the Landscape of Desire: Re-Scoping the Sacred in Late 17th-Century Damascus

In: Numinous Fields: Perceiving the Sacred in Nature, Landscape, and Art
Author:
Samer Akkach
Search for other papers by Samer Akkach in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close

Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):

$40.00

Abstract

Modern understanding of the ‘sacred’ and ‘sacred space’ has been profoundly influenced by the works of two eminent scholars: the German theologian Rudolf Otto (d. 1937), and the Romanian historian of religion Mercia Eliade (d. 1986). Both contributed significantly to establishing the irreconcilable polarities of the religious vs the secular, the sacred vs the profane, and to restricting human apprehension of the ‘sacred’ to the feeling that usually emerges in a ‘religious’ experience. This study critically examines the assumptions underlying this modern understanding of the sacred with reference to the ideas and socio-spatial practices of the Damascene Sufi scholar, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1731). Al-Nābulusī, whose prolific life spanned 92 years and 300 works, led an unusual lifestyle that combined spirituality with leisure, material wealth with mystical poverty, innovative individuality with tradition. During a midlife crisis, he attempted to theorise his unique approach through a rethinking of the presence of numinosity in human life. Using landscape and architectural metaphors, he retrospectively structured his rich poetic output into a four-part anthology that captures the complexity of the human experience in a new way. His approach presents a fresh understanding of the anthropocentric essence of the sacred, highlighting, on the one hand, humanity’s spiritual, moral, and corporeal dimensions, and, on the other, human approaches to divinity through the multiplicity of worldly engagements. The Chapter pays special attention to the fourth part of his anthology, The Wine of Babylon, which is devoted to amatory poetry and recreational outings at the gardens of Damascus.

  • Collapse
  • Expand
  • Akkach, Samer. 2015. Yawmiyyāt shāmiyya: Qirāʾa fī al-tārīkh al-thaqāfī li-Dimashq al-ʿUthmāniyya fī -l-qarn al-thāmin ʿashar. Beirut: Bissan.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Akkach, Samer. 2012. Intimate Invocations: Al-Ghazzī’s Biography of ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (1641–1731). Leiden: Brill.

  • Akkach, Samer. 2007. ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi: Islam and the Enlightenment. Oxford: Oneworld.

  • Akkach, Samer. 2005. Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam: An Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas. New York: SUNY.

  • Al-Andalusī, Ibn Saʿīd. 1984. Al-Muqtaṭaf min azāhir al-ṭuraf. Cairo: al-Hayʾa al-Miṣriyya al-ʿĀmma li-l-kitāb.

  • Al-Badrī, Taqī al-Dīn. 2006, Nuzhat al-anām fī maḥāsin al-Shām. Damascus: Dār al-Bashāʾir.

  • Al-Bukhārī. 2000. Al-Adab al-mufrad al-jāmiʿ li-l-ādāb al-nabawiyya. Jubayl: Dār al-Ṣiddīq.

  • Burns, Ross. 2019. Damascus: A History. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

  • Degeorge, Gérard. 2004. Damascus. Paris: Flammarion.

  • Al-Dimashqī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. 2006. Ḥadāʾiq al-inʿām fi faḍāʾil al-Shām. Damascus: Dār al-Maktabī.

  • Gharipour, Mohammad. 2013. Persian Gardens and Pavilions: Reflections in History, Poetry and the Arts. London: I.B. Tauris.

  • Al-Jurjānī, ʿAlī b. Muhammad. 1985. Al-Taʿrīfāt. Edited by Ibrahim al-Abyari. Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-ʿArabī.

  • Ibn ʿArabī, Muḥyī al-Dīn. 1968. Dhakhāʾir al-aʿlāq sharḥ tarjumān al-ashwāq. Edited by Muhammad al-Kurdi. Cairo: n.p.

  • Ibn Jubayr, Muhammad. n.d. Riḥlat Ibn Jubayr. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir.

  • Ibn Manẓūr, Muhammad. n.d. Lisān al-ʿArab al-Muḥīṭ. Beirut: Dār Lisān al-ʿArab.

  • Al-Nābulusī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. 2015. Al-Ṣulḥ bayn al-ikhwān fī ḥukm ibāḥat al-dukhān. Edited by Muhammad Adib al-Jadir. Damascus: Dār Nīnawā.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Al-Nābulusī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. 2009. Al-ʿUqūd al-luʾluʾiyya fī ṭarīq al-sāda al-mawlawiyya. Edited by Bakri Aladin. Damascus: Dār Nīnawā.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Al-Nābulusī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. 2007. Ghāyat al-maṭlūb fī maḥbat al-maḥbūb. Edited by Bakri Aladin and Shirin Daqquri. Damascus: Dār Shahrazād.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Al-Nābulusī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. 1999a. Nafḥat al-qabūl fī madḥ al-rasūl. Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-ʿArabī.

  • Al-Nābulusī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. 1999b. Risālat al-tawḥid. Kamrat al-ḥān wa-rannat al-alḥān sharḥ risālat al-shaykh Arslān. Edited by Muhmmad Shikhani. Damascus: Dār Qutayba.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Al-Nābulusī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. 1996. Takmīl al-nuʿūt fī luzūm al-buyūt. Edited by Majdi al-Shuri. Cairo: Maktabat al-Qāhira.

  • Al-Nābulusī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. 1988. Burj Bābil wa shadū al-balābil. Edited by Ahmad al-Jundi. Damascus: Dār al-Maʿrifa.

  • Al-Nābulusī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. 1986. Dīwān al-ḥaqāʾiq wa majmūʿ al-raqāʿiq. Beirut: Dār al-Jīl.

  • Al-Nābulusī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī. 1981. Īḍāḥ al-dalālāt fī samāʿ al-ālāt. Edited by Ahmad Hammoush. Damascus: Dār al-Fikr.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Otto, Rudolf. 1952. The Idea of the Holy. An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational. Translated by John Harvey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Rabbat, Nasser. 2019. ‘The Complex Image of the Islamic Garden’. In Despoina Zavraka (ed.), Islamic Gardens: Multi-Meanings of Paradise Kavala: MOHA Publications, 2152.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Al-Ṣāliḥī, Ibn Kannān. 1992. Al-Mawākib al-Islāmiyya fī al-mamālik wa-l-maḥāsin al-Shāmiyya, 2 vols. Damascus: Wizārat al-Thaqāfa.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Ṭāshkubrīzāda. 2002. Miftāḥ al-saʿāda wa miṣbāḥ al-siyāda fī mawḍūʿāt al-ʿulūm, 3 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Zavraka, Despoina (ed.). 2019. Islamic Gardens: Multi-Meanings of Paradise. Kavala: MOHA Publications.

Metrics

All Time Past 365 days Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 127 127 8
Full Text Views 6 6 0
PDF Views & Downloads 12 12 0