Love Is Fire and I Am Wood:
Laylâ and Majnûn as a Sufi Allegory of Mystical Love
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
published in Sufi: Journal of Mystical Philosophy and Pratice,
Summer 2011
Laylâ and Majnûn is the
best-known love story of the Middle East, and for the Sufi is an
allegory of mystical love. Sufis are lovers of God, wayfarers travelling
through the desert of the world, making the journey from separation
back to union with God. For these mystics the relationship with God is
that of lover and Beloved, and it is the longing for their Beloved that
turns them away from the world, drawing them deeper and deeper into the
mystery of the heart. These lovers of God have made Laylâ and Majnûn
their own story, full of symbols and images of this great love affair
of the soul, a love affair as mad, dangerous and destructive as that
experienced by the young man Qays, whose love for Laylâ changes his name
to Majnûn, the mad one.
Laylâ is the beloved, Majnûn the lover, and his story is that of the
seeker consumed by longing, burnt by love. In Nizami's version, written
at the end of the twelfth century, their relationship is rich in Sufi
symbolism—as when Majnûn, driven by the pain of separation, creeps to
Laylâ's tent:
All the radiance of this morning was Laylâ, yet a candle was
burning in front of her, consuming itself with desire. She was the most
beautiful garden and Majnûn was a torch of longing. She planted the rose
bush; he watered it with his tears.
.... Laylâ could bewitch with one glance from beneath her dark hair, Majnûn was her slave and a dervish dancing before her. Laylâ held in her hand the glass of wine scented with musk. Majnûn had not touched the wine, yet he was drunk with its sweet smell.
.... Laylâ could bewitch with one glance from beneath her dark hair, Majnûn was her slave and a dervish dancing before her. Laylâ held in her hand the glass of wine scented with musk. Majnûn had not touched the wine, yet he was drunk with its sweet smell.
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