Wine is a powerful and frequent poetic reference in Sufi poetry. (The Sufis are the mystics of Islam.) Wine, of course, is forbidden by orthodox faith. So why is it such a central theme of the greatest Muslim poets? Rumi (twelfth century) and Hafiz (thirteenth century) are the two most widely read Sufi poets (writing mostly in Persian rather than Arabic). In his WINELIGHT presentation, Steve Scholl shares the poetry and mystical teachings of Rumi and Hafiz by sharing a sampling of their poems with wine and drunkenness as themes.
Many have argued that the Sufis use wine and drunkenness as symbols for states of divine ecstasy, and that we should not take them literally. Others feel there is more to the imagery.
Scholl will unpack the history and the metaphysics of wine and ecstasy for these great Sufi masters.
