Embodiments of Love
The Prophet and his Family as Ritual Symbols in Pre-War Syrian Sufism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21293324 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paulo Gabriel Hilu Da Rocha Pinto (0000-0003-0071-2510, Professor at the Department of Anthropology, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) , Rua Professor Marcos Waldemar de Freitas Reis, s/n – Bloco O, Campus do Gragoatá, Bloco O Niterói, 24220-900 , Niterói , Brazil, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 80 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 593-609 |
| Publication date | 2026-05-26 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Asiatische Studien – Études Asiatiques (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0004-4717 • E-ISSN: 2235-5871 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/asia-2025-0037 |
| OpenAlex | W7167801036 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 14 |
This article analyzes the ritual mobilization of the Prophet and his family as concrete symbols in the collective rituals of the Sufi communities in pre-war Aleppo, Syria. The members of the family of the Prophet did not stand simply as holy figures who derived their sacred character their role in the sacred history of Islam, but they were also connected to mystical states and doctrinal concepts of the Sufi tradition through a series of metaphoric and metonymic associations that infused them with emotional and experiential meanings. Metaphor and metonymy are central elements in the functioning of symbols, which get their meanings through these forms of imagining and apprehending things, persons, categories and concepts. Therefore, through the analysis of the evocation of the Prophet and his family as ritual symbols we can have a better understanding of the role of metaphors and metonyms in the configuration of mystical experiences in Sufi communities in pre-war Syria. The ethnographic data analyzed here were gathered during several periods of fieldwork in the Zāwiya al-Bādinjkiyya , a Sufi community located in Bāb al-Nayrab, Aleppo, from 1999 to 2010
Character (mathematics) · Ethnography · Evocation · Interpretation (philosophy) · Metaphor · Metonymy · Mysticism · Sufism · Synecdoche · Islamic Studies and History · Islamic Thought and Society Studies · Turkey's Politics and Society
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| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |