Performances of the Sufi Ascent in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Metaphysics, Tunisian Ḥaḍra and DhikrRituals, and Three Sufi Plays: Journeys in God’s Vast Earth
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Barghouti, Dia. 2021. Performances of the Sufi Ascent in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Metaphysics, Tunisian Ḥaḍra and DhikrRituals, and Three Sufi Plays: Journeys in God’s Vast Earth. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis]
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Text (Performances of the Sufi Ascent in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Metaphysics, Tunisian Ḥaḍra and DhikrRituals, and Three Sufi Plays: Journeys in God’s Vast Earth)
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Abstract or Description
The story of the Night Journey describes the Prophet Muhammad’s miraculous ascent to the heavens. In several Sufi communities, the ascent has become part of the Sufi path, symbolizing the different spiritual stations adepts encounter in their journey to God. Tunisia is home to many Sufi orders, including the Shādhiliya and ‘Īssāwiya, who perform the ascent in dhikr and ḥaḍra rituals. Drawing on the philosophical-theological writings of Muḥyiddīn Ibn-‘Arabī (1165-1240), this thesis explores the dhikr and ḥaḍra rituals through the framework of Islamic metaphysics in an attempt to examine what constitutes performance from an Islamic Sufi perspective. The purpose of this practice-as-research thesis is to examine the metaphysical concepts and cultural contexts that have given rise to these rituals and provide both theoretical and concrete principles by means of which theatre practitioners can experiment with Sufi modes of performance. My practice-based component – in the form of three plays – demonstrates how Sufi understandings of language and embodiment can create new avenues for theatrical experimentation. Methods of writing, corporeal techniques, and a religious culturally specific understanding of performance are embedded within the dhikr and ḥaḍra. They have not been explored specifically in terms of the theatre – a lacuna that my plays, written within the frames of reference of the religious, spiritual, philosophical and other relevant research of the theoretical part of my PhD submission, which is integral to my thesis as a composite whole, begin modestly to fill. My plays focus on the tension between the transcendent and immanent attributes of God, one of the most fundamental principles of Ibn ‘Arabī’s ontology, embodied in dhikr and ḥaḍra rituals. Three characters travel through various landscapes in search of God until they realize that the divine is both within and beyond the forms they witness in the Sufi journey that has no end.
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Item Type: |
Thesis (Doctoral) |
| Identification Number (DOI): |
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| Keywords: |
Sufism, Ibn 'Arabi, Tunisia, Playwriting, Performance, Islamic Philosophy |
| Departments, Centres and Research Units: |
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| Date: |
28 February 2021 |
| Item ID: |
29998 |
| Date Deposited: |
27 Apr 2021 13:39 |
| Last Modified: |
07 Sep 2022 17:18 |
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URI: |
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