"Sitting onto the soul" - inner experiences of modern Iranians with sufi poetry

This thesis aims at exploring the inner experiences of Iranians when reading or listening to Persian-language Sufi Poetry in modern Iran. Iranians have access to a large body of spiritual poetry that was composed on the fertile grounds of Sufism. Based on interviews and participant observation conducted during three months of field work, the study presents poetry as being experience itself rather than just a linguistic medium to transport fixed messages. Apart from investigating different kinds of poetic experiences, this thesis explores the various ways in which Sufi poetry creates experience in the reader and the listener, in both individual and collective settings. Being the first anthropological study on the experiential dimension of reading Sufi poetry in contemporary Iran, my thesis contributes to our understanding of Persian poetry, but also to our perspective on the medium of poetry as a whole. It also shows how a culture, even in the fast-paced 21st century, has managed to preserve its literary-spiritual heritage to an extent that it continues to provide meaning and direction to those who intentionally turn to it for guidance.