The Alireza Ahmadian Lecture in Iranian and Persianate Studies presents: Rumi’s Misogyny and Racism and the Limits of Mystical Knowledge on January 18, 2025.
In this talk, Mahdi Tourage will discuss what we should do with the ample evidence of misogyny, racism, and male-supremacy in the poetry of a globally celebrated mystic like Rumi. He will begin with a survey of the overlooked passages in Rumi’s poetry containing “non-mystical” vulgar stories, jokes, reproving other Sufis, mocking other men, slaves, Jews, and loathing women. Moderated only by the degree of our passion for justice and compassion, and judging Rumi by his own standards of the Quran and Sunnah, Tourage will argue that Rumi is irrelevant to our time and our concerns. Because of Rumi’s inexcusably harmful beliefs, he was also harmful to his own time as he upheld and perpetuated elite male supremacist, sexist, and racist aspects of his culture. Tourage will conclude that mystical knowledge is not a guarantee against personal flaws; nor is it evidence of a recoverable internal core in mystical experiences claimed or conceptualized by Sufis.
Speaker
Mahdi Tourage, PhD (2005, University of Toronto), is currently Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Social Justice and Peace Studies at King’s University College, London, Ontario. He is the author of Rumi and the Hermeneutics of Eroticism (Brill 2007) and the edited volume Esoteric Lacan (with Philipp Valentini, Roman & Littlefield 2019). His publications have appeared in Iranian Studies, International Journal of Zizek Studies and Body and Religion Journal. His areas of interest are Islamic religious thought, Sufism and postmodern theories of gender and sexuality.
Discussant
Abolfazl Moshiri is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and lecturer in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. He also serves as the senior research associate for the Women Poets Iranica project at the Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies, in collaboration with the Encyclopedia Iranica Foundation. His research focuses on Iranian mysticism, antinomian and heterodox Sufism, and the intellectual history of the Persianate world from the 10th to the 16th century.
At the University of Toronto, he has taught undergraduate courses on Sufi tradition, classical Persian literature, and Islamicate culture. His work has been published in journals such as Iranian Studies (2014), Iran Namag (2021), and the series Christian-Muslim Relations: Primary Sources 600-1914 (2023). He is currently working on two chapters for two upcoming publications by De Gruyter, which will explore various aspects of heterodox Sufism in 13th- and 14th-century Iran and Anatolia.
Registration is required. Register here:
https://ubc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rRjW_zkpQ1-8vexmGO5wWw
