Seeking the Mother-God: Divine Maternity in Islamic and Christian Contemplative Texts
Nottingham Medieval Studies January 1, 2025 DOI: 10.1484/j.nms.5.151488 (opens in new tab) via Semantic Scholar
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractDivine maternity serves as a central metaphor in both Christian and Sufi texts from the late 12th to mid-13th centuries, shaping how devotees conceive of and relate to the Divine. This article examines the anonymous Christian works Ancrene Wisse and the Wooing Group (c. 1230) alongside writings by the Sufis Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240), ʿAṭṭār (c. 1145–1220), and Ibn al-Fāriḍ (1181–1235). Across these chronologically close bodies of literature, maternity emerges as a crucial configuration of the relationship between devotee and Divine.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Philosophy |
| Key finding | Argues that divine maternity is a crucial way of conceiving the Divine and configuring the devotee-Divine relationship in both Christian and Sufi texts from the 1170s to 1250. |
Abstract
This article adopts a multi-directional gaze to consider Christian and Sufi texts side-by-side, in a study of Divine maternity across both bodies of literature. In both the Christian and the Sufi texts, maternity is a crucial way of conceiving the Divine, and is a crucial configuration of the relationship between devotee and Divine. The texts are all chronologically close, spanning the 1170s to 1250: the anonymous texts Ancrene Wisse and the Wooing Group ( c. 1230), and the works by the Sufis Muḥyddin Ibn ʿArabī (1165–1240), Farīd al-Dīn ʿAṭṭār ( c. 1145–1220), and ʿUmar Ibn al-Fāriḍ (1181–1235).