Nazar ill'al-murd
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As a practice by some antinomian Sufis, which was seen as deviant by Rumi and Shams [1], the meditation known in Arabic as Nazar ill'al-murd (Arabic: نزار الى المرد) refers to the concept of "contemplation of the beardless."
Peter Lamborn Wilson asserts that this contemplation uses imaginal yoga to transmute erotic desire into spiritual consciousness.[2]
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[edit] Pedophilia
The nature of such poetry is that of pedophilia, as opposed to homosexual or homoerotic love, while the physical aspect is pederasty. [3]
[edit] Pederasty
Not all followed the teachings strictly to the letter. On being challenged by Rabi’a al-‘Adawiyya (c.717-801) of Basrah (Sufi woman saint who first set forth the doctrine of mystical love), upon noticing him kissing a boy, for appreciating the beauty of boys above that of God, the ascetic Sufi Rabah al-Qaysi retorted that, "On the contrary, this is a mercy that God Most High has put into the hearts of his slaves."[4]
[edit] Criticism
Muslim theologians as well as prominent Sufis like Rumi and Shams condemned the custom of contemplating the beauty of young boys. Their suspicions may have been justified, as some dervishes boasted of enjoying far more than "glances", or even kisses. Nazar was denounced as rank heresy by such as Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328), who complained, "They kiss a slave boy and claim to have seen God!"[5]
Wilson claims that the real danger to conventional religion was not so much the mixing of sodomy with worship, but "the claim that human beings can realize themselves in love more perfectly than in religious practices."[6] Despite opposition from the clerics, the practice has survived in Islamic countries until only recent years, according to Murray and Roscoe in their work on Islamic homosexualities.[7]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ RUMI: PAST AND PRESENT, EAST AND WEST. By FRANKLIN D. LEWIS. Oxford, Oneworld, 2000. pg 320
- ^ Peter Lamborn Wilson, "CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNBEARDED: The Rubaiyyat of Awhadoddin Kermani" in Paidika V.3-4 p.13 (1995): "Love imagery in Persian Sufi poetry usually flows from this mystical, symbolic appreciation of love's spiritual power. In some works, however, the imagery refers also to specific practices, code named 'nazar ill'al-murd' or 'contemplation of the unbearded,' namely, the unbearded boy."
- ^ Encyclopedia Iranica [1]
- ^ Quoted from as-Sulami, Early Sufi Women = Dhikr an-niswa al-muta 'abbidat as sufiyyat, translated by Rkia E. Cornell, Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 1999, pp. 78-79.)
- ^ "Needless to say, although the poets of the Witness Game followed the letter of the Shariah and its sexual code, their dangerous game of Sublimation was condemned as rank heresy by such as Ibn Taymiyya, who complained, `They kiss a slave boy and claim to have seen God!' However orthodox (or not) the sufis might have been in their private lives, their poetry has given much aid and comfort to `real heretics' like the Ismailis, who would of course take quite literally such lines as Iraqi's: Forget the Kaaba: The vintner's gates are open!" Peter Lamborn Wilson, THE ANTI-CALIPH: Ibn 'Arabi, Inner Wisdom, and the Heretic Tradition [2]
- ^ Wilson (1995), op.cit, p.21
- ^ Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, Islamic Homosexualities; New York University Press, 1997; p.111
