The question of idolatry shifts from the literal worship of objects as
divine to the exaltation of forms and practices as unassailable. Al-Hallaj or
Sa’di would demand our willingness to relinquish all that we hold sacred–
as the American Beat poets of the 1950s suggested, to kill our darlings–to
achieve true insight. Iconoclasm itself, when used as a proof of piety, results
in self-promotion or self-worship, and itself becomes an idol. As Nizari
Quhistani (1247–1321) explains of his resistance to court patronage,“Iam
a word-burner, not a word-spinner, a speech-consumer, not a speech-
writer: iconoclasm is different from iconolatry.”^64 Thus the poet works
Figure 7Anonymous,The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus Discovered by
Alexander the Great, from aBook of Omens, 1550s, 58 × 45 cm.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 35.64.3
(^64) Lewisohn, 2003 : 231.
Exile and the Seven Sleepers 201