著者

DAIBER Hans

出版者

日本中東学会

雑誌

日本中東学会年報 (ISSN:09137858)

巻号頁・発行日

no.10, pp.27-67, 1995-03-31

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The article on Literary Process between Fiction and Reality contains the translation and analysis of an Arabic tale, a report ascribed to the mystic Sari as-Saqati, a student of Djunayd (died 910 A.D.). This tale is available in two versions, a long one preserved by Hurayfish (died 1398 A.D.) and quoted by Zakariya' al-Ansari (died 1520 A.D.) and a short rendition, preserved by Ibn Qudama al-Maqdisi (died 1223 A.D.), Ibshihi (died 1446 A.D.) and in an Arabic manuscript from the 16th century (collection Daiber, Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo no. 94, fols. 3v-4v). Saqati narrates his meeting with a female slave in a lunatic asylum. This slave called Tuhfa was taken by her owner to the lunatic asylum because her behavior became like that of a lunatic. Saqati, however, recognized that Tuhfa's seemingly crazy behavior was in reality her mystical love for God. He gives a vivid picture of her mystical love and informs us about his decision to free her by paying the owner 20 thousand Dirham. As a sufi Saqati had no money to pay for her but he prayed the whole night. During the early morning a man called Ahmad Ibn al-Muthanna brought him the money; God had asked Ahmad Ibn al-Muthanna in a dream to bring Saqati the money. Tuhfa was freed and left the lunatic asylum. Some time later Saqati and Ahmad Ibn al-Muthanna met Tuhfa again on the pilgrimage to Mecca, during their circumambulation of the Ka'ba. They found Tuhfa in the state of mystical ecstasy; she was weeping, and yearning for God and for renunciation of the world. She fell down in front of them and died. At the same moment Ahmad Ibn al-Muthanna fell down too, and died.-- Literary cliches, the terminology and the analysis of the contents show that the story in its present form is a literary fiction which ultimately has its roots in the 11th/12th century. The story does not propagate Djunayd's ecstatic unification with God which is followed by the socalled "second sobriety", by a new alertness of the mind (sahw); it propagates Bistami's abandonment of man's self, his death in the mystical unification with God. Contrary to Djunayd who prefered to talk about his mystical love through indications (isharat) and similar to Halladj's public propagation of his unification with God in the well-known utterance ana l-haqq, the main figure of Saqati's narrative, Tuhfa, does not hide her mystical love of God. Who seems to be lunatic is indeed near to God and "knows" Him, as it is exemplified in tales told by as-Sarradj and al-'Attar from the 11th and 12th century about mad people in the lunatic asylum who because of their nearness to God are visited by the public.-- The mystic Saqati and the object of his tale, the mystic woman Tuhfa, inform the reader or listener on the essence of mystical love. The mystical death of the lover of God is in the eyes of Saqati not a miracle, but something marvellous. Herewith the narrative appears to be classified as something similar to the "marvellous" things, the 'adja'ib of old Arabic tales (hikayat) which since the 9th and 10th century became the literary background of The Thousand and One Nights. One of the preserved collection of "marvellous tales" contains the story of a woman called Tuhfa who was sold by her husband because of poverty; after a long odyssey they are united again. This story which is taken up in the tales of The Thousand and One Nights, is a modification of a theme in the Greek novel, of the rebellion of a couple against fate. In Islam it became a record of human instability and fatalistic consequences. This theme of an odyssey is changed in our mystical tale into a didactic narrative on the ecstatic unification with the divine loved being, God, and its consequences for man on this earth.