Pulchra Ut Luna: Some Reflections On The Marian Theme In Muslim-Catholic Dialogue

Journal of Ecumenical Studies, Summer-Fall, 1999 by Tim Winter

The same Tirmidhi cites Mary's qur'anic miracles as proof-texts for the belief in the prodigies of the saints (karamat al-awliya') more generally. He is joined in this by the writers of elementary Sufi manuals such as Kalabadhi, Hujwiri, and Qushayri. [77] The explicitly Marian nature of certain saintly charismata is frequently affirmed, so that, for example, we find al-Hallaj being visited by angels who bring him summer fruits in winter, as they had done for Mary in the Temple. [78] Mary's qur'anic attribute of siddiqa (the True Believer), [79] also figures as a precedent in discussions of the Sufi virtue of the trusting acceptance of God's decrees. This Mary makes no protest at the Annunciation but remains "silent and serene" (sakatat wa'tma'annat), requesting no miraculous sign or proof, and thus modeling one of the most important qualities of sainthood. [80] Here, the Mary of Islam comes close to her passive, receptive Augustinian counterpart, [81] differing only in the tradition's reluctance to draw inf erences about gender roles.

Later Sufism's interest in the Marian principle moved considerably beyond these simple themes. While Fatima and Khadija, as wives and mothers, furnished Muslims with normative models of practical femininity, Mary, wrapped in her "chador," [82] appears to have been more commonly employed as an abstract symbol for self-effacement, her austerity and purity suggesting that she will be the first of either sex to enter Paradise. [83]

This theme of spiritual purgation is taken up by Jalal al-Din Rumi, who became without question the great Marian poet of Islam. Typical of his understanding is his remarkable account of the Annunciation, which took it as a figure of the insufflation of the divine Spirit into the purified human heart. In Rumi's vision, Maryam is less the passive recipient of the word than the active mortifier of her flesh and desires who, through her detachment from the world and her deliberate pursuit of God, puts herself in the way of mystical illumination. Rumi said:

Mary became without self, and in her selflessness she said:

"I will leap into the Divine protection."

Illumination came "because that pure-breasted one had made a habit of betaking herself in flight to the Unseen." [84]

Her birthpangs, the sign of a successful via purgativa, remind us of the agonies of mortification, in the midst of which there are the fruits, or dates, representing spiritual rewards, which are nourishing compensation; as Rumi put it: "It was not until the pains of parturition manifested in her that Mary made for the tree ... The body is like Mary. Every one of us has a Jesus within him, but until the pangs manifest in us our Jesus is not born. If the pangs never come, then Jesus rejoins his origin by the same secret path by which he came, leaving us bereft and without portion of him." [85]

The perfect saint, however, is both body and soul, matrix and spirit:

You are both Adam and what pertains to Adam; you are both Jesus and Mary.

You are both the secret and the one who is privy to the secret. [86]