Sacred Deserts: Reading Fuzuli's <i>Leyli and Majnun</i> With Deleuze and Theology

ABSTRACT This article explores the symbolic and theological significance of the desert in Fuzuli's Leyli and Majnun , examining how Majnun's exile into the wilderness functions as both a space of loss and a stage of transformation. Drawing on Deleuze's geophilosophy, the desert is approached not as an absence but as a productive “smooth space” where desire deterritorializes and new forms of being emerge. This philosophical framework illuminates how the desert in Fuzuli's narrative becomes a site of paradox, where solitude yields communion with nonhuman creatures and barrenness blossoms into renewal. In dialogue with theology, particularly the theology of the cross, the study shows that Majnun's wilderness journey resonates with broader traditions in which divine presence is revealed in weakness, abandonment, and trial. The desert thus appears as a sacred space that holds together suffering and grace, human longing and divine love, and ecological fragility and renewal. By positioning Fuzuli's poem at the intersection of literature, philosophy, and theology, the article argues that the desert motif offers a transreligious and ecotheological lens for rethinking desire, creation, and redemption in the Anthropocene.