Perfume of the Desert

Reviewed by Karen Fisher on February 8, 2013

While theology seeks to ascertain sacred truth, it may also serve to be a source of contention. All too often competing doctrines result in sectarianism and separation rather than realization of tawhid. Media such as story and poetry — not to mention music — can, on the other hand, heal those wounds of separation. No doubt, this is why such forms have been favored by Sufis — as well as mystics of other traditions — over the centuries. Poetry and story point us beyond doctrine, at times seemingly even wordlessly, towards the One Truth. Or as the 14th century Sufi poet Shabistari, in one of my personal favorite selections, asks us,

What are “I” and “You”?

Just lattices

In the niches of a lamp

Through which the One Light radiates.

 

“I” and “You” are the veil

Between heaven and earth;

Lift this veil and you will see

How all sects and religions are one.

 

Lift this veil and you will ask —

When “I” and “You” do not exist

What is mosque?

What is synagogue?

What is fire temple?

A translator and scholar of Rumi, as well as a mystic in his own right, Andrew Harvey has gathered together many such gems together in this volume, along with insightful introductions to each section. They are also well complemented by the desert photos contributed by Eryk Hanut.

The ‘perfume’ of the desert, as in the introduction Harvey quotes an (unnamed) contemporary Sufi scholar as describing, is found in its emptiness, its purity. How “in the desert you feel at once annihilated yet totally alive and present in all things in and above you.” It offers you the opportunity to lose yourself in the Mystery. Having myself spent hours, days and nights in the desert, I can intuit this meaning. Imagine vast night skies so vivid the stars may startle one awake. Or deep silence in which, were one attentive enough, one may discern the sacred sounds of creation echoed within one’s own heart. This volume offers many gems of such intimation, oases on our own journey.

“Here is a book on Sufism that conveys the love and passion that belongs to this path. Andrew Harvey speaks with the language of lovers, and his book carries the invisible perfume for which the soul longs.” -Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, author of Sufism: The Transformation of the Heart