Divine Quest of Sufi Order: Communicating the Realization – A Folkloristic Interpretation

Abstract

‘Realizing the Real’ – certainly is the goal that a Sufi aspires for. What we know is our ‘knowledge’, but what we realize stands to be ‘Real’. Realizing the ‘Real’ is reality to a Sufi. But, Sufi philosophy hardly ceases journey after personal realization. He who realizes, endeavors to transmit the content of what he realized. Besides personal sharing, the Sufis have created ‘text’ by writing philosophical narratives and by composing very rich music songs. There are many more important things in the entire Sufi Cultural complex.
This paper proposes to throw light on the ‘text’ of devotional songs (containing Sufi elements) with an aim to unearth the multiple stratification of the ‘text’. For this paper, at least three levels of text, say – (a) Language Text (the lexical component), (b) Music Text (the musical component) and (c) Cultural Text (the cultural content) will be critically examined to notice how the ‘text’ as whole, is aligned with the Sufi philosophy and practice. Theoretically, ‘text’ is inseparably linked with the context and the texture. The text emerges ‘from the context’ (psychological context) and ‘for the context’ (social context). The ‘context’ of Sufi songs covers both individual space as well as social space. The Sufi songs, to the best of our understanding, are not mere literary creation, they are indeed the ‘codified texts of realization’, where, loyalty to faith is stronger than logic; dedication is regarded superior to debate; agreement seems to be more powerful than
1 Kolkata, India
argument. This paper will try to explore the underlying mechanism that has facilitated the process of transmission of Sufi ideology. The main paper is designed to appreciate the Sufi songs from the perspective of Folkloristics.