From Blessed Beginning to Eternal Rest: Perception of Soil in Turkish Mysticism

Abstract

Starting from ancient mythologies, it can be seen that some conceptsare endowed with connotations of the symbol language. Notionof soil is also loaded with various meanings by being fed from the oldest texts to the today's understandings and manners of lives. This notion is used for literal and figurative connotations with its containing meaning richness in tasawwuf/sufi literature which emerged from the interaction betweenIslamic belief structure and cultural elements. Soil which is accepted as one of the basic ingredients of creation of the world and the humankind, on one hand, is used in texts as a symbol of humility, devotion, loyalty, vitality, reliableness on the other hand, it also connotates death in minds along with belief, mercy and grace symbols. In this study, the connotations that notion of soil will be tried to revealed based on the Turkish Tasawwuf texts.