Corporeality in the Lives of Female Awliya': From Sulami to Jami

This paper presents a re-reading of premodern Persian and Arabic Sufi biographical texts from the 11th - 15th centuries through the lens of gender and the body. While the paper's main focus is the late 12th / early 13th century Tadhkerat al-Awliyā' of Farīd al-Dīn 'Aṭṭār Nīshapūrī (d. ca. 1221), it also incorporates other, less-evaluated works of Sufi biography, including al-Sulamī's Dhikr al-Niswa al-Mu'tabbidāt (d. 1021), Ibn al-Jawzī's Ṣifat al-Ṣafwa (d. 1200/01) and 'Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī's Nafaḥāt al-Uns (d. 1492). These works form a comparative basis upon which to examine 'Attar's rendering of the relationship between gender, the body, and spiritual practice. These sources are particularly valuable for the rare data they provide on pious female Sufis in the 11th - 15th centuries. In a surprisingly large number of entries, women feature at the centre of these biographical accounts, rather than hovering in the periphery as is typical of the ṭabaqāt literature. That these authors transmit so many accounts of women immediately raises the question: Did these authors construct a distinct paradigm of female spirituality? How can these representations inform us about the authors' attitudes towards women's practice of Sufism?

I posit that, within the world of literary representation, female Sufi saints (awliyā') and pious women of this period are linked more closely with their base corporeality and, as a result, must overcome their physical limitations with greater fervor than male saints. However, this association, and their ability to overcome it, is then used by women as leverage by which they assert their supremacy and spiritual authority. As such, the misogynist premise of women as tied to their physicality is converted into a tool for exemplary holy women to control their own circumstances and exert influence on their communities.

The paper borrows from scholarship on Christian female saints and investigates the extent to which their findings can apply to Islamic sources. I argue that in the case of the Islamic sources consulted, these theories can be carefully applied and, where necessary, adjusted in order to further our understanding of women's practice of Sufism as it was represented by male biographers.