| المستخلص: |
Ecstasy, though, is an inexpressible and condensed experience through which the Ultimate can be revealed, the mystic poet finds expression in resorting to symbolism to reflect the uniqueness of his/her spiritual experience and to communicate the unsaying. Approaching the divine essence and expressing the euphoria of His presence in meditation, recollection and self-forgetfulness are often described as provoking ecstatic trance-like states of intoxication, dancing, flying, or even death. Within a broad interest in comparative mystical literature, this study traces the creative merit and the mystical layers of significance behind the writings of the Arab Sufi ’A’ishah al-Ba’uniyya and the Irish poet, W.B. Yeats. It follows a synthesis model, mainly Heidegger’s existentialist view of ecstasy that envisages non-temporality presence, epiphany, transcendence and the experience of Being or Dasein, Jung’s concept of individuation, and the Sufi theory of Ibn Arabi and Ibn al-Farid. This paper examines the interpretation of ‘Aishah’s and Yeats’ spiritual visions, though different in culture, religion and gender, in terms of a powerful and beautiful poetic endeavour. Their mystical poetry reveals a blend of Western and Eastern thoughts though it is dominated by a single Sufi touch. Their symbolism of love and ecstasy reveals the lovers' yearning to drink the undrinkable, and how "They are drunk on cups of love" to approach the Absolute. Since wine intoxication is forbidden in Islam, though Halal in the afterlife, it is used beyond even the sensual realm. This paper also investigates how spiritual dimensions, like transport, unveiling, illumination and beauty of the divine beloved, are exquisitely and metaphorically interconnected with physical love symbology--the wine, woman, roses, gyres, and shapes, in the process of elevating the erotic to the sanctity of the spiritual realm and integrating gender differences in the conscious quest for union with the Absolute.
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