Love and Spirituality in Leylâ ile Mecnûn: A Cultural Study of Ottoman Sufi Poetry

Abstract

This paper examines Fuzûlî's Leylâ ile Mecnûn as a complex work of Ottoman Islamic literature. It transcends being a love story and serves as a spiritual, cultural, and psychological text. Drawing on recent studies of Sufi poetry, Ottoman culture, and manuscript illustrations, this paper examines how Fuzûlî transforms the classic Majnûn-Layla story into a mystical allegory. This allegory represents a divine longing (maḥabba), a letting go of the self (fanā'), and spiritual knowledge (ma'rifa). The poem employs symbols, metaphors, and themes that reflect the Islamic mystical tradition and Ottoman sociocultural environment. Using local folk elements, court rituals, and powerful images, the poem becomes a means to impart spiritual lessons to both the elite and the general public. In addition, the study examines the visual aspects of illustrated manuscripts and how the poem sounds when performed, which further emphasizes its spiritual message. The poem's connections to earlier Arabic and Persian sources are reinterpreted through an Ottoman perspective. This paper concludes that Leylâ ile Mecnûn is more than a romantic epic. It is a cultural and devotional object that showcases the spiritual imagination of the Ottoman Islamic world, connecting literature, mysticism, and identity through a shared poetic narrative.