Mysticism and Literature: A Study on the Aesthetics of Devotional Music and Poems

ABSTRACT: In this paper, we examine the philosophical underpinnings of sufism, its historical development, and the aesthetics of sufi music. The works of Sufi poets like Rumi, Hafiz, Bulleh Shah, Amir Khusrow, and Khwaja Ghulam Farid served as inspiration for Sufi devotional music. The Whirling Dervishes’ Sama ritual likewise emphasizes music heavily. According to the Sufi school of thought, this music is food for the soul. Typically, they take place in front of a head or other significant member of the Sufi hierarchy who is meant to have easy access to the performance that is being planned in a particular shrine of a well-known Sufi. In general, it may be said that the aesthetic quality of devotional music depends on its capacity to induce a state of altered awareness in both performers and listeners. Devotional music enables experience beyond the liminal border of the physical world within a freshly developed awareness. The spiritual aesthetic required to achieve the objectives of Sufi music is created by the interaction of symbols and metaphors from the genre, local religious belief and cosmology, as well as the natural and manmade settings.

Key Words: Sufi Music, Alternative Aestheticism, Sama, Sufi Poets, Devotional Music