Universe - Man - Text; The Sufi concept of literature (with special reference to Malay Sufism)

Series of macro-/microcosmic correspondences of this sort appear in the Arabico-Muslim tradition from at least the 10th century onward (see, for instance, 'Epistles of the Brothers of Purity', Bakhtiar 1976:105), and later played an important role in falsafah (philosophical), Ismailite and Sufi treatises. [...]in the Sufi treatise Mirat al-Muhaqqiqin [The Mirror of Those Seeking the Truth], ascribed to the Persian Sufi poet Universe - Man - Text: The Sufi Concept of Literature 203 Mahmud Shabistari (died 1320), mountains are likened to bones, trees to the hair on the human head, and bushes and grass to the down on the human body. [...]the four following types of mystical cognition correspond to the hierarchy of the four worlds (mulk/nasut, malakut, jabarut, lahut), which constitute both the macrocosm and the microcosm: certain knowledge ('Urn al-yaqin), i.e., the knowledge acquired through proof and discourse; certain vision ('ain al-yaqin); true certainty (haqq al-yaqin); and perfect certainty (kamal al-yaqin); i.e., the three forms of direct experiential cognition achievable thanks to the identification of the Sufi with the Divine Names, Attributes and Essence respectively (Braginsky 1985:122, 130-1,168). Since the macro- and microcosms are a text containing hierarchically ordered knowledge, the penetration of this knowledge, which was conducive to the transformation of the gnostic in the course of his ascent by ontologico-psychic-somatic stages, was naturally understood as a process of reading correlated with the above-mentioned process of Creative Writing sui generis. For this act to be successful, zikir must encompass the Sufi's entire being: 'One who practises zikr should do it in this way, that he makes la ilaha come up from below his navel and must beat his breast [the seat of psychic and spiritual life - V.B.] with a mental picture of ilia Llah in such a way that the effect of the zikr becomes joined to all his limbs, and fixed firmly within him so that he contemplates the Being of God - if God so will' (Johns 1957:97-8).' [...]the cultural and ideological context in which 17th-century Malay literature evolved possessed inter alia the following features:- characterization of the Sufi tradition which played an important part in this context by anthropomorphism of the expression of macro-Anicrocosmic parallelism and of the conception of man and the Universe as texts;- perception of the Sufi Path and of the main instruments in the Sufi's transformati