‘The More the Vision Increases, the More the Expression Decreases’

Muslim Mysticism between Experience, Language and Translation

Abstract

The point of departure of the present article is a review of Sufi literature translated into Hebrew (Sara Sviri, The Sufis — An Anthology, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2008). Due to methodological and other substantial issues which the anthology evokes, the article also deals with the nature of the mystical experience as an internal, personal, emotional, direct and irrational event which blurs the distinction between subject and object. The article discusses issues such as the connections between mysticism and institutionalized religion, ascetic practices as a preparation for the mystical experience, the stations (Maqämät) and states (Ahwäl) in the path toward the unification with the divine essence and the use of symbol of human love and wine parties to describe the mystical union. In order to clarify some mystical phenomena the article draws on philosophical and psychological conceptions of the human mind by addressing two basic Aristotelian terms, the ‘potential’ and the ‘actual’, and issues concerning the place of human language in the spiritual processes relating to the mystical experience. The article refers to views which consider language as the most ancient of apparatuses - one in which a primate inadvertently let himself to be captured in times immemorial, probably without realizing the consequences that he was about to face. Lastly, the article deals with the topic of silence as a refuge from the prison of language, the issue of poetry as a medium for expressing mystical states as well as the issue of translation of poetry from Arabic to Hebrew.