Wild social transcendence and the antinomian dervish

Abstract

Beginning around the twelfth century,a distinct movement of itinerant antinomian dervishes evolved in the Muslim world as aform of religious and social protest. By deliberately embracing avariety of unconventionaland socially liminal practices,they inverted social hierarchies and explicitly violatedIslamic law.Their peripatetic lifestyle and voluntary acts of materialdivestment, such as living on thestreets,sleeping on the ground or sheltering in graveyards,suggested adescent to animal levels of poverty. Those who chose this particularantinomian modeoflife and the associated bodily,social, and spiritual disciplines,were often distinguished by bare feet, garments of animalskins,even dirt-caked nakedness,features which served as markers of wild social transcendence.By thus rejecting thedemands of society ontheir minds and bodies,deviant dervishes re¬ mained entirelyoutsidethe normalsocial world. This distinct marginal space also served as an experimental theatre for testing and blurring boundaries between humans and other forms of being.Their peripatetic lifestyle and voluntaryacts of material divestment mirrored the harsh living conditions of wild animals.The symbolic appropriationof animalsand control over them was,therefore,ofconsiderable importance.This paper pays particular attention to the associated vocabulary of antinomianexistence in which animalsplay apivotal role as agents of transformation. Theconcomitantdisplay of animal attributes reflects the dervishes' own animal-like force.Itacts not only as ameans of liberation and acritique of social controls,but, above all, it serves as aprime tool in the dramatic attempts to discipline,control and tame their own "animal souls".