"One Kind of Water Brings Another." Teresa de Jesús and Ibn 'Arabi

Bibliographic Data

ID3597382
AuthorsMaría M Carrión (0000-0001-5132-8522, Emory University, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume11
Issue10
Pages542
Publication date2020-10-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel11100542
OpenAlexW3094105049
LanguageEN
References cited25

Mystical literature and spirituality from 16th-century Spain engage religious images from the three most prominent religions of al-Andalus-Christianity, Islam, and Judaism: among others, the dark night, the seven concentric castles, the gazelle, the bird, the sefirot's encircled iggulim or towering yosher, the sacred fountain, ruins, and gardens. Until the 20th-century, however, scholarship read these works mostly as "Spanish" mysticism, alienated from its Andalusī roots. This comparative study deploys theological, historical, and textual analysis to dwell in one of these roots: the figure of the garden's vital element, water, as represented in the works of Teresa de Jesús and Ibn 'Arabi. The well-irrigated life written by these mystics underscores the significance of this element as a path to life, knowledge, and love of and by God. Bringing together scholarship on Christian and Sufi mysticism, and underscoring the centrality of movement, flow, and circulation, this article pieces together otherwise disparate readings of both the individual work of these two figures and their belonging in a canon of Andalusī/Spanish mysticism. The weaving of these threads will offer readers a different understanding of early modern religion, alongside traditional readings of Spain's mystical literature and its place in the global context

Archaeology · Art · Christianity · Fountain · Islam · Jewish mysticism · Judaism · Literature · Mysticism · Scholarship · Spirituality · Theology · Early Modern Spanish Literature · Early Modern Women Writers · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies

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