March 1998
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Visiting Fulbright Studies Impact
of Eastern Ideas on TranscendentalismProfessor Siddiq Ali of Osmania University in Hyderabad, India, arrived in Boston in August 1997 to begin an inquiry into the influence of Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism, on 19th Century American poets. From his ofice in the English department, he has pursued his research thanks to a Fulbright grant.
"Many 19th Century American poets were fascinated by eastern ideas, and the Transcendentalists in particular were attracted to Sufi poetry," says Prof. Ali. The Concord, MA.-based group of writers and thinkers included Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Henry Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and others. Ali has found references to Sufi poets in their journals and letters, and Sufi imagery and symbolism in their literary works.
"In fact, Emerson describes 13th-century Persian Sufi Musli Huddin Sadi as the 'ideal poet,' and Thoreau was also greatly influenced by Sadi,"Ali says. He has investigated the influence that Sufi thought and literature had on the lives and works of American writers through research at the Boston and Concord Public Libraries, the Boston Athenaeum, and Harvard's Houghton Library.
"This research gives me an idea about the intellectual receptivity of America, and it will help me interpret the American experience to my students back home," says Ali, a professor of English at Osmania University's American Studies Research Centre. He hopes to expand his research to look at Sufi influence on other writers, such as Melville, Poe, Whitman, and even contemporary American poets such as Robert Bly, eventually gathering enough material for a book.
Prof. Ali came to UMass Boston through his association with English Prof. Linda Dittmar, who was a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Hyderabad in 1995. Before he returns to India at the end of April, Prof. Ali will lecture at Northern Essex Community College, and at the University of Texas Pan American later this Spring.