Companionship, Human Perfection, and Divine Union in Thirteenth-Century Persian Sufism

Abstract

This article reevaluates Rūmī’s approach to divine union in the light of the larger institutional and normative context that orchestrates it. Via key terms “spiritual companionship” [ṣuḥba] and normative Sufi “conduct” [adab], I situate Rūmī within the Khurasanian Sufi milieu wherein divine union was perceived as a communicative and communal process whereby the existentiating divine mercy overflows to, and reflects from, embodied companions. Not only Rūmī’s, but also Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār’s approach to divine union can be better appreciated in this normative Sufi setting where the perfection of human soul, body, speech, and agency coincide with an apophatic communion of companions.