The Deluge

Abstract The article explores the tunnel as both a material and spiritual path that extends beyond the confines of the colonial state and legal apparatus. It seeks to capture the metaphorical and literal significance of Gaza's tunnels through conceptions of being, knowledge, freedom, martyrdom, and disappearance. Delving into these subterranean networks, the article reflects on Palestinian resistance through the dialectical interplay of the Sufi notions of al-baˉṭin wal-ẓaˉhir (the esoteric and exoteric), situating this within esoteric understandings of self-annihilation, absolute servitude, and divine unity. In doing so, it goes in search of a form of knowledge that transcends conventional liberal notions of freedom — as an internalized subjugation — by contrasting them with absolute liberty, spiritual poverty, and epistemic humility. As an interstitial space between material struggle and spiritual knowledge (gnosis), the article contemplates the tunnel as an epistemology through its relationship to the state, the law, and what may lie beyond, in an attempt to “go outside the law.”