the elevation of that which is abject in normal life renders it divine by
abasing the servant of God. Yet this works only for Sufiadepts, and remains
base for the population at large. The heterosexuality of epic romances
might reframe ideas from Sufithought for non-adepts adhering to every-
day, orthodox strictures.
We might also interpret these romances anthropologically, recognizing
them as written within the Islamic intertextual sphere, but also partaking in
a Central Asian cultural sphere in which nomadic traditions allowed for
greater female independence. Themes of women who rule, who control
their own marriages and fortunes, and who patronize architecture reflect
political and economic power that women at times held in pre-Islamic and
early Islamic Turco-Persian societies.^88 While women and men were not
equal under the law, social conditions accorded both genders respect. Like
Jami, a poem by Rumi similarly underscores women as sacred creations
along with men, and reflects a hierarchy not between genders, but between
the human and the animal.
The Prophet, to whose speech the whole world was enslaved, used to say,“Speak to
me, O Aisha!”
The Prophet said that women dominate men of intellect and possessors of hearts,
But ignorant men dominate women, for they are shackled by the ferocity of
animals.
They have no kindness, gentleness, or love, since animality dominates their nature.
Love and kindness are human attributes, anger and sensuality belong to the
animals.
She is not your‘sweetheart’! She is the radiance of God.^89
As archetypes,figures such as Zuleikha and Shirin represent womankind as
politically powerful, sexually desiring, and independent in thought and
action. Although not the worldly equals of men, they have full personhood
in engagement with the divine. In contrast, modern stereotypes of Muslim
women as submissive reflect patriarchal understandings of Islam parallel to
those in much of the rest of the world enshrined in modern law. This may
reflect increasing Islamic interaction with secularist European associations
between religion and the subjugation of women, exemplified in the shift
from the theological to the artistic development of the story of Joseph and
Potiphar’s wife in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe.
(^88) de Nicola, 2017. (^89) Kabbani, 1995 : xxxi.
From Theology to Poetry 255