The Function of Ecstatic Expressions in the Holy Defense Poetry

The use of ecstatic expressions (šaṭaḥāt) in the poetry of the Holy Defense evokes the mystical atmosphere that prevailed on the fronts and shows the knowledge and insight of the warriors. Poets, in order to make the presence of God on battlefields more palpable, have given him color, smell and light, and with the aim of expressing God's closeness to the brave men of the battlefields, they have imagined a place for God. They have also used expressions reminiscent of the incarnation of God in warriors in order to express the tangible presence of God. They have called the warriors of Islam the same as God in order to better express mortality in God and to evacuate human attributes and evoke divine attributes. The research methodology of the present article is descriptive-analytical. The data were analyzed by library and document analysis using content analysis method. The result shows that the main purpose of the poets in using ecstatic expressions is simply to express the divinity of the warriors, the sanctity of the nature of defense and martyrs’ association with the Almighty, the tangibility of God in the fronts and His closeness to the warriors. In order to show that God is perceptible in battlefields, they have used themes such as saying “I am the Truth,” seeing God, and believing in human actions and attributes as the basis for their poetic images, in such a way that the audience can feel the presence of God in the battle scenes and their prayers and testimonies.