Maram’s Reviews > Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn 'Arabī, Gender, and Sexuality > Status Update

I wonder why she needs to lift her physical veil which is correlated with her physical self with which her husband is intimate, instead of lifting her theoretical/imaginative veil, belonging to spiritual realm which would have suffice. sus 🤨

Abdullah Mushtaq wrote: "I wonder why she needs to lift her physical veil which is correlated with her physical self with which her husband is intimate, instead of lifting her theoretical/imaginative veil, belonging to spi..."

My assumption is that her concept of veiling ties to the idea of protecting her beauty from male sexual desires so lifting it in front of Bisṭāmī is kind of her believing that there is no such physical desires between them thus there is no need for her to veil around him. It is the same way women do not wear their hijabs around other women; it is persumed that they do not feel that physical attraction so there is no need for that modesty or "protection". If this is the case and this is her view of veiling then it poses v interesting questions regarding her percpetion of gender.

This is the paragraph that follows in the book:

"According to Ḥujwīrī, Fāṭima continued to treat Bāyazīd with the same
boldness until the day he commented on her henna- stained hands, when
she terminated their relationship, informing him, “Oh Bāyazīd so long as
you did not see my hand and henna, I was at ease with you, but now that
your eye has fallen on me, our companionship is unlawful.”Fāṭima’s com
ment is revealing and compelling: Sufi friendships between men and women
had to navigate the complex and at times contradictory and fraught realm
of materiality and sexuality. When Fāṭima perceived a shift in awareness in
Bāyazīd—a preoccupation with the realm of the body—she reinstated so
cially appropriate boundaries."

Hmm that's a very slippery slope, one can never guess when one's physical instincts starts playing their role, that's why even Prophet (ﷺ) himself observed all those boundaries.

Abdullah Mushtaq wrote: "Hmm that's a very slippery slope, one can never guess when one's physical instincts starts playing their role, that's why even Prophet (ﷺ) himself observed all those boundaries."

fair enough, I don’t ascribe to her logic if that’s what it was to begin with