On the Arabic Concept of Houries (ḥūr ʻīn) and its Representations in the Literature of the Bulgarian National Revival

The present study draws on texts from the classical Muslim exegetical tradition discussing the houries (ḥūr ʻīn) – one of the eschatologically central, but insufficiently defined Qur’ānic concepts referring to key notions of the heavenly virgins. Unlike other aspects of Islamic doctrine, early eschatology entails a more emotional and sensual sacred imagery system subsequently turning into a rich source of motifs and allusions for various interpretations not only in Muslim tradition itself but also in the cultural perceptions of the Other among non-Muslims. The article aims to reveal the Bulgarian uses of the term houries as one of the realia in Bulgarian literature from the period of the nineteenth-century National Revival and to comparatively and imagologically trace the artistic representations of the images of the heavenly virgins. The analysis is focused on the approaches of Sofroniy Vrachanski, Georgi S. Rakovski, and Hristo Botev to the presentation of the somatic and the sexual in the notions of afterlife characterizing the religious Other, as well as the reasons for their desacralization, which have formed sustainable attitudes in the context of the emerging modern Bulgarian nationalism.