ABSTRACT
The present study seeks to problematize the equation of male Sufi mysticism with femininity and gender transgression by reconsidering the evidence from thirteenth- to fifteenth-century hagiographies of Andalusi and Maghrebi Sufi mystics and ascetics. It undertakes a gendered reading of biographical representations of ascetic and Sufi men performing embodied acts of piety, expressing religious emotions and affective states, and interacting with their wives, families, and other pious women. It then compares the findings of this research with hagiographic depictions of ascetic and Sufi women, which will also consider the portrayals of the wives of pious men. Some of the Andalusi and Maghrebi Sufi biographies examined in this paper exemplify ambiguous or transgressive gender identities and gender egalitarianism. Yet the narrative strategies used to discuss or avoid discussing the corporeality and sexuality of male and female Sufis reveals a tension between the reification and the contestation of traditional gender identities and roles. Automatically equating weeping with feminization is to apply a Western cultural assumption to these texts. Rather, context determines the relative “masculinity” or “femininity” of weeping. Charismatic tears are a male prerogative characterizing holy men with supernatural and mundane power over other men. Yet a contrast is implied between Sufi women able to bear the burden of family life and still attain spiritual states in contrast to weaker Sufi men unable to do both, and Sufi women do defy gender hierarchies and norms by interacting with men unrelated to them.
