Visualizing Sufism : studies on graphic representations in Sufi literature (13th to 16th century) / edited by Giovanni Maria Martini.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / Giovanni Maria Martini -- 1. Diagrams and Visionary Experience in al-Būnī's (d. 622/1225) Laṭāʼif al-ishārāt fī al-ḥurūf al-ʻulwīyat / Noah Gardiner 2. Illustrating the Forms: Ibn al-ʻArabī's Images in al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya / Ali Karjoo-Ravary -- 3. Visualizing the Architecture of the Universe: Ibn al-ʻArabī's (d. 638/1240) Diagrams in Chapter 371 of the Meccan Openings / Sophie Tyser -- 4. Reading and Reciting the Qurʼan: Calligraphic Spaces in Saʻd al-Dīn Ḥamūyeh's (d. 649/1252) Kitāb al-Maḥbūb / Elizabeth R. Alexandrin -- 5. Use of Diagrams in the Ḥurūfī and Nuqṭavī Manuscripts, and Possible Links between the Ḥurūfī 'Verbal' and the Bektashi Visual Iconographies / Orkhan Mir-Kasimov -- 6. Shīrīn Maghribī's (d. 810/1408) Visual Sufism: Diagrams, Intellectual Networks, and the Transmission of Spiritual Knowledge in 14th Century Tabriz and beyond / Giovanni Maria Martini -- 7. "Sensible Images": Pictograms in the Manuscript Transmission of ʻAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʻrānī's (d. 973/1565) al-Mīzān al-kubrā / Evyn Kropf -- Index.

"Visualizing Sufism approaches the question of the presence of graphic materials in Islamic mystical literature from a broad and comprehensive perspective. To this goal, an international group of specialists in the field worked on largely manuscript and unpublished sources with the aim of analysing the use of visual elements in the works of some key figures of Islamic mysticism-Ibn al-'Arabi, Ahmad al-Bini, Sa'd al-Din Hamuyeh, al-Sha'rani-, and in intellectual networks-Hurufiyya and Bektashiyya, Shirin Maghribi and his connections. The result is the most extensive collection of specimens of Sufi graphic materials ever brought together and discussed in a single volume. By virtue of the object of study investigated in the chapters of this book, in addition to the history of Sufism, questions are raised that touch upon numerous areas in the field of Islamic Studies, including intellectual history, codicology, and art history. Contributors Elizabeth Alexandrin, Noah Gardiner, Ali Karjoo-Ravary, Evyn Kropf, Giovanni Maria Martini, Orkhan Mir-Kasimov, and Sophie Tyser"-- Provided by publisher.