ran, 1345 Š./1967, chap. xi).
As the center of gravity in Persian poetry shifted from court to ḵānaqāh, bāda gained a new range of meanings which transformed the immorality of wine-drinking into an alternative mode of piety. In order to separate themselves from Islamic orthodoxy, Sufis created a world which, in their poetry in particular, was the diametric opposite of court and mosque. The well-established association of wine with intoxication, irrational behavior, the impious rejection of orthodoxy, and the joys of fellowship made wine-drinking a logical, even an inevitable symbol for the piety of mysticism. Wine-drinking and drunkenness came to stand both for the search for transcendent spiritual knowledge, and for the brotherhood of mystics. Wine was also widely believed by Muslim Iranians to be a part of Zoroastrian religious rituals, and this association with illicit or unconventional religious practices provided mystical poetry with an alternative clergy, the magian elder (pīr-e moḡān), and an alternative place of worship, the winehouse, that were in direct and shocking contrast with shaikh and mosque. And in the fusion of the “beloved” of the courtly tašbīb with the magian’s acolyte, the cupbearer or sāqī who poured the wine, mystical poetry found its most powerful and attractive symbol—the metaphorical love (ʿešq-e majāzī) for a beautiful youth which transformed the seductions and distractions of worldly joy into an allegory for the pursuit of transcendent union (Schimmel, pp. 284, 292). The association of worldly drunkenness with spiritual intoxication eventually became so firmly established in Persian poetry that wine drinking lost its original meaning of simple, worldly revelry.
Given in the text. See also A. G. Chejne, “The Boon-Companion in Early ʿAbbasid Times,” JAOS 65, 1965, pp. 327-35 (discusses the tradition of the wine party in early ʿAbbasid times).
A Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1975.
E. Yarshater, “The Theme of Wine-Drinking and the Concept of the Beloved in Early Persian Poetry,” Studia Islamica 13, 1960, pp. 43-53 (contains numerous references to the treatment of wine-drinking in contemporary literary works).
(J. W. Clinton)
Originally Published: December 15, 1988
Last Updated: August 19, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. III, Fasc. 4, pp. 353-354