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Unknowing and the Everyday

Name: Unknowing and the Everyday
Brand: DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
SKU: 9781478019534
Price: 59.99 AUD
Availability: InStock

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESSISBN: 9781478019534

Sufism and Knowledge in Iran

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By Seema Golestaneh
Imprint: DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Release Date: May 4, 2023
Format: PAPERBACK
Dimensions: 229 x 152 mm
Weight: 360 g
Pages: 277

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In Unknowing and the Everyday Seema Golestaneh examines how Sufi mystical experience in Iran shapes contemporary life. Central to this process is ma'rifat, or "unknowing"-the idea that, as it is ultimately impossible to fully understand the divine, humanity must operate from an engaged awareness that it knows nothing. Golestaneh shows that rather than considering ma'rifat an obstacle to intellectual engagement, Sufis embrace that there will always be that which they do not know. From this position, they affirm both the limits of human knowledge and the mysteries of the profane world. Through ethnographic case studies, Golestaneh traces the affective and sensory dimensions of ma'rifat in contexts such as the creation of collective Sufi spaces, the interpretation of Persian poetry, formulations of selfhood and non-selfhood, and the navigation of the socio-material realm. By outlining the relationship between ma'rifat and religious, aesthetic, and social life in Iran, Golestaneh demonstrates that for Sufis the outer bounds of human thought are the beginning rather than the limit.

Seema Golestaneh is Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University.

Acknowledgments ix Prologue xv Introduction 1 1. Sufism in Iran, Iran in Sufism 29 2. Unknowing of Text, Unknowing of Authority 59 3. Unknowing of Self, Unknowing of Body 96 4. Unknowing of Memory 135 5. Unknowing of Place 165 Postscript 189 Notes 193 Bibliography 211 Index 225

"Golestaneh's writing throughout the book is lucid and effective, frequently poetic. ... A beautifully crafted memoir of a wandering Sufi of an academic, lost in the charmingly mystical landscape of contemporary Isfahan." - Guangtian Ha (International Journal of Middle East Studies) "This theoretically rich and analytically compelling book weaves broader themes of text, body, memory, and place together to interrogate scholar's approaches to Sufi conceptual paradigms of zekr, sama', and, importantly, ma'rifat. This strikingly written monograph centers the voices of Golestaneh's interlocutors to engage complex Sufi states of being and knowing through accessible narratives of their everyday life. It is a must-read for scholars interested in Sufism and Islamic mysticism and anyone with interest in Iran." - Merin Shobhana Xavier (Journal of the American Academy of Religion)

Unknowing and the Everyday

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