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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Each curling lock of thy luxuriant hair Breaks into barbed hooks to catch my heart My broken heart is wounded everywhere With countless wounds from which the red drops start.
HafizOne of the traditions cited by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti in his book on the circumstances of martyrdom (in Chapter 3) was: “whoever loves passionately (ʿashiqa), but exhibits self-control, conceals [it] and dies [as a result] is a martyr.” While one cannot say this tradition has ever acquired canonical status inside Islam because it is never cited by any of the authoritative collections, it definitely represents a trend in Muslim martyrology. Stories of the romantic lover, whose love is pure and passionate yet chaste and denied, and who ultimately dies as a result of this love, are an extremely popular theme running through much of the literature of the Muslim world. Many of these stories survived not because of their mundane character, but because of the possibility that they could be reinterpreted in a Sufi manner. From the time of the martyrdom of al-Hallaj, the category of “martyrs of love” (shuhadaʾ al-mahabba) had been ambiguous because of the possibility that these martyrs in their desire for earthly union (usually of a homosexual nature) actually sought union with their divine beloved. Stories that described their passion for other humans could be allegorically interpreted in terms of love for God. Given this ambiguity, it is not unusual for even apparently suggestive or passionate love stories to have several interpretations.
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