From the Desert Infinity to the Highest Horizon

Semiotics of Place in Sufi Poetry in Oriental Languages

Abstract

Arab literature in general and especially Arab poetry with qasida as a general normative in its center, phenomenon of topos could be considered one of the main intertextual resources for preservation and activation of cultural memory. Poets, while creating their songs, resorted to the presentation of places that were based and standardised in tradition for the sake of finding and scheduling arguments, of composing possible poetic worlds, as well as for the sake of the selection of compelling and emotionally powerful means of expression. One of the main topos of Arabic poetry is notion of a space which is based in ancient times and which is shown through the qasida as travel song or imaginary travelogue. In Sufi poetry, we witness extremely interesting transformation of this topos, which produces very interesting poetic consequences. Using the example of Abdullah Salahuddin Uššaki poetry we strive to explain this transformation, and to determine what kind of changes and shifts occur both at the semantic and the semiotic level.