Facement and Defacement in Sufi Narratives

Sufi narratives as hetero-biographies produce a textual face for the subject due to variables such as the time interval and the type of relationship between the narrator and the referent subject; the reading and intentions of the narrator; and the verifiability of the narrative data. Accordingly, this textual face cannot completely coincide with the true personality of the Sufi referential subject. This research, using a descriptive-analytical method and relying on the ideas of Paul de Man in "Autobiography as De-facement" article, examines the types of face-making in Sufi narratives and answers the question whether all methods of face-making lead to facement in the audience reading. The study of Sufi narratives shows that the face of Sufis has been processed with the aim of sanctification by dignifying and modeling religious and mythological figures, depicting an objective and ontological "devalued self" based on the principle of annihilation (Fana), prosopopian speaking in the grave, and the epitaphs. Prosopopeia gives a surreal and sublime dimension to the declining face of the dead Sufi, hence generates a new face. In depicting the objective “I” of Sufi, based on which self-devaluation of “I” (face) has deliberately and consciously taken place, a new face has emerged for the Sufi. Nevertheless, exaggeration in the description of some Sufi characteristics such as carelessness with appearance, purity and unity in Love for God and disengagement with others; examples of which could be reflected in the lice-infested robe, the prayer causing the death of the child, and the driving away of the disciples, has had the opposite result, and has turned face-making into defacement.