Divine Immanence and Transcendent Love: Epistemological Insights from Sixteenth-Century Kurdish Theology

Abstract This article explores the epistemology of Melayê Cizîrî, a sixteenth-century Kurdish mystic and poet, through an intertextual hermeneutic lens. Through his Amorous Lyric poetry, he raises pivotal questions: Why prefer intellectual deductions of God’s existence when the divine is palpably manifest in beauty, especially the human face? And once someone encounters the divine and is enraptured by its presence, how could any intellectual argument or doubt compete with the overwhelming reality of divine love? Drawing on his broader metaphysical convictions and narratives such as the iconoclastic Shaykh Ṣanʾān, Cizîrî contends that theophanies within the phenomenal realm are authentic and offer a higher form of knowledge and certainty. However, he warns that merely seeing God in the phenomenal is insufficient. The seeker must move beyond these manifestations toward a deeper union with the divine, where the ultimate realization is that the self dissolves into the divine “Thou.” The journey culminates in the recognition that the lover and the beloved are one, as they once been before creation.