Barzakh as Liminal Ontology: A Mystical Reading of Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy’s "Barjakh"

 Barzakh as Liminal Ontology: A Mystical Reading of Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy’s "Barjakh"

Abstract

This essay analyzes Barjakh, a metaphysical poem by Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy, through the lens of Islamic Sufism, particularly the thought of Ibn ʿArabi and Al-Hallāj, in conjunction with comparative mystical traditions including Advaita Vedanta and Mahāyāna Buddhism. The poem is interpreted as an existential and symbolic exploration of barzakh—the intermediate realm—as not only a metaphysical concept but also a poetic structure of spiritual transformation. The analysis foregrounds themes of annihilation (fanāʾ), divine reflection, egoic rupture, and mystical apocalypse, offering a contemporary interpretation of ancient mystical motifs.

Introduction

The poem Barjakh by Farheen Bhuiyan Nancy enters the literary field as a visionary composition grounded in Islamic metaphysics and interwoven with echoes of global mysticism. It thematizes the notion of barzakh (Arabic: بَرْزَخ)—commonly translated as “isthmus” or “intermediate realm”—as a space where divine and human, form and formlessness, being and non-being coalesce. In classical Islamic cosmology, barzakh refers to the threshold between life and death, but in Sufi thought, especially in the writings of Ibn ʿArabi, it also signifies the ontological in-between: the imaginal realm where the divine manifests without losing transcendence.

In Barjakh, this threshold is not merely a metaphysical locale; it is embodied in the poet’s subjectivity, internalized as a psycho-spiritual crisis and mystical awakening. The poem emerges as a contemporary gnosis—part lament, part revelation—situated within a fragmented world of drone warfare, egoic collapse, and spiritual yearning.

Barzakh: The Mirror of the Absolute

Ibn ʿArabi’s doctrine of al-Insān al-Kāmil (the Perfect Human) posits that the realized being is a barzakh between the Absolute (al-Ḥaqq) and creation (khalq), functioning as a mirror through which God contemplates Himself (Chittick, 1989). Nancy’s speaker self-consciously inhabits this station:

“In the process of 'Being' I become—'The Truth',
'The Triumph'—'The Mirror'—reflecting the 'Giver',
I am the one whom God gives away—The God's mirror!”

Here, the seeker embodies the metaphysical barzakh: not merely a vessel for divine knowledge but a reflective node, collapsing the dualities between God and world. The phrase “gives away” resonates with Al-Hallāj’s ecstatic identification with God—“Anā al-Ḥaqq” ("I am the Truth")—which led to his execution for heresy in 922 CE. Nancy’s poetic voice navigates similar terrain, but in an era where internal annihilation is more potent than martyrdom.

Fanāʾ, Catastrophe, and Mystical Disintegration

The poem’s journey enacts a classic Sufi arc of fanāʾ (annihilation of self) and baqāʾ (subsistence in God). The speaker burns through layers of ego:

“Emerging from the ashes,
Ashes of 'Selves' that I burnt—
Many many a times—thousand times I recall!”

This echoes both Al-Hallāj and Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī, for whom the burning of the self is the price of divine intimacy. But Nancy introduces an apocalyptic register:

“The apocalypse! The catastrophe!”

This catastrophe is ontological rather than eschatological. The annihilation is not of the world per se, but of the false “I”—a spiritual event resembling the Buddhist realization of emptiness (śūnyatā), where even the illusion of a persistent self evaporates:

“I saw the 'self' and it vanished like a dew—
I prayed like a 'Jew' but got caught in a hue—
I am a nobody and have no clue—
Who is who?”

This stanza’s theological ambiguity and disoriented syntax suggest post-egoic bewilderment (ḥayra in Sufi vocabulary). The reference to “Jew” not only signals interreligious humility but also echoes the sincerity of prayer across traditions, while “hue” undercuts it with ironic color-coded estrangement.

The Imaginal Apocalypse and Ethical War

The poem’s metaphysical descent is framed by contemporary imagery of war and surveillance:

“The white leopard—bombarded through drones!
War and war,
Inner and outer—”

This symbolic bestiary positions the “white leopard” as both spiritual avatar and war victim—its annihilation by drones implicates modern warfare in spiritual regression. Nancy makes a critical move here: the inner apocalypse (of the self) mirrors the outer apocalypse (of the world), binding spiritual and ethical realms.

The poet-seeker functions not only as a mystic but as a witness, an “interpreter of the ‘Supreme’” who speaks through divine inspiration. Thus, the barzakh becomes a site of resistance, where God-consciousness counters the violence of empire—a reading that aligns her work with decolonial Sufi ethics (Mbembe, 2003).

Comparative Mysticism: Self, Emptiness, and Reflection

Nancy’s poem invokes global mystical lexicons:

  • Ramana Maharshi’s Advaitic self-inquiry: “Who am I?”

  • Buddhist ontological emptiness: “Emptiness within emptiness”

  • Christian apophaticism: “An emptied vessel full of pearls and stones”

Each tradition recognizes the ineffable core of being not as an object but as a process of un-becoming. The poet’s declaration—

“A wind within wind,
A storm within storm,
Emptiness within emptiness”

—echoes Nāgārjuna’s dialectics of dependent origination and Eckhart’s notion of the divine spark beyond concepts.

Conclusion: The Threshold as Prayer

Nancy’s Barjakh culminates in a theological paradox: the veil (ḥijāb) is not what separates the seeker from God but what reveals Him:

“Only we remain—
The interpreter of the 'Supreme' who is our veil!
Who speaks through us and therefore we contain!”

This resonates with Ibn ʿArabi’s insight that the divine is only knowable through its veils—that tajallī (self-disclosure) requires obscuration. Thus, the barzakh becomes not a barrier but a language, a liturgical threshold where prayer, self, world, and God collapse into one echo.

References

  • Chittick, W. C. (1989). The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-Arabi's Metaphysics of Imagination. SUNY Press.

  • Ibn ʿArabi. (2000). Journey to the Lord of Power: A Sufi Manual on Retreat (trans. Rabia Harris). Inner Traditions.

  • Al-Hallāj. (1999). The Tawasin (trans. A. Schimmel & M. Massignon). Paulist Press.

  • Mbembe, A. (2003). Necropolitics. Public Culture, 15(1), 11–40.

  • Ramana Maharshi. (1985). Be As You Are: The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi. Penguin.

  • Nāgārjuna. (2nd c.). Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

  • Eckhart, M. (2009). Selected Writings. Penguin Classics.


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