Huda Naamani
Miriam Cooke
September 21, 2026 DOI: 10.4324/9781003664086-4 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that Huda Naamani's embodied, multimedia Sufi practice constitutes a feminist intervention that challenges male religious authority and the political failures of her era. The author contends that by centering a woman's intimate dialogue with the divine (munajat al-unutha), Naamani reclaims mystical experience from male tradition and transforms the ineffable barzakh into a site of personal and collective liberation. |
Abstract
Contesting centuries of mostly male Sufi claims that wajd cannot be articulated beyond tawājud , Huda Naamani, a Syrian Sufi poet and artist, expresses her experience of ecstasy beyond words on the page to a multimedia performance of sound, dance/whirling, and color that fill in the silences that stop the pen struggling to script the barzakh of ecstasy that stretches into infinity before and beyond language. This chapter argues that Naamani’s radical Sufi practice constitutes a feminist intervention that challenges both patriarchal religious authority and the political failures of her time. By centering a woman’s intimate dialogue with the divine ( munajat al-unutha ), she reclaims mystical experience from male tradition, positioning the female seeker as the privileged site of divine manifestation. Her work transforms the ineffable barzakh —the liminal space of ecstasy—into a site of personal and collective liberation. Through her embodied, aesthetic practice, Naamani crafts a powerful vision of resistance that transcends the violence of war and patriarchy, imagining a future of feminist, spiritual emancipation.