RESEARCHES IN MYSTICAL LITERATURE GAWHAR-I GUYA)
Year:2008 | Volume:1 | Issue:4|Papers Count:11

Mantegh-ot-Teyr, Attar's allegorical-mystical work, is of high value from several points of view; including the poet's discourse stylistics, its linguistic features, and in a more restricted way, its diction, specially its rare use of words. This is due to the fact that Atta'r conversational style, which itself resulted from the simplicity of his style, allows him to take use of special colloquial words. Based on the old volumes of Mantegh-ot-Teyr, one could find some of these rare uses of words, among which Koroh is the focus of our attention in this article. The authenticity of this word will be contemplated upon along this article.

Immaculate Transcendent Theology is the name given to a mystical-religious school of the twelfth century (A.H) established by the outstanding Gnostic of that time, Seyed Qotb al-Din Muhammad Neyrizi. This school is about theoretical and practical theology and mysticism of the Twelfth-Imam Shi’ism.In this theology, Universal Divine Protection is the only criterion which is used in explaining and interpreting every theoretical and practical aspect of seekers of divine. In this school, the first manifestation of Universal Protection is the Greatest Divine Name which reflects the Divine essence and attributes of God. The mission of all prophets was to take this Divine Light to the people; whoever benefited from this Light would own intuitive unity. The structure of this theology is based on the unity of wisdom, the sacred law and tradition, attention to the element of time, specific literary style and love of Iran which is an answer to the specific conditions and religious-mystical mentality of the Safavid era.After Seyed Qotb al-Din, Immaculate Divine theology continued in the works of Aqa Muhammad Hashem Shirazi, the writer of Menahel al-Tahqiq and Velayatnameh and also in the 51 mystical works of Seyed Abolqasem Azar-e shirazi.

The present paper written according to the library method of research, and presented both descriptively and analytically, was aimed to study the figure of antagonist in Iran national epics.The conflict between evil and good powers has always been significant in Iranian epics, in which heroes are the manifestation of all venerable attributes, and the antagonists are the representation of evil characteristics. Hence, an antagonist struggles with the hero either because of the sensual motives or as a result of the will to reduce his power and qualities.This article mainly focuses on the investigation of antagonist in the Iran national epics. It will be clarified that regarding the "types", the figure of an antagonist, could be classified into human, animal, natural and supernatural one; whereas, regarding the "role" and "performance" of the hero, it could be categorized as principal, consultant, commander, combatant, tempter, assistant, allied, guide, formal, enamoured and instrumental one. (The features as well as the subcategories and definition of each of the categories are given along with examples.)

The present collection is an overview of the intellectual basis, fundamental orientations and different aspects of Islamic mysticism (based on religion) and postmodern mysticism (based on secularism). Mysticism, as an Islamic term, deals with an internal and heartfelt force and capacity for cognition, through which a mystic can reach the horizons of ascendancy in his relationship with God. Getting to such a capacity and obtaining this type of completion depends on quitting the worldly interests and ego-centricism. Taking steps in such a direction, a mystic can find his real and godly entity combined with absolute and pure reality of existence. Nevertheless, mysticism as a term in new esoterique schools of thought and modern spiritualism in developed communities, particularly from the viewpoint of postmodernism, is merely a mental and imaginary process. In such a mystical approach, human heart is not considered to be a place for wisdom any more. In addition, in the instructions of this type of approach to mysticism, purification of inner nature from any attachment and getting to spiritual completion are not significant. Instead, this process is considered to be a strategy for preventing the deterioration of intellectual, spiritual and physical forces of human beings in a hasty path that today's men follow in their movement towards the pinnacles of materialistic advancements. Through using the instruments of mysticism, the developed man intends to temporarily alter the taste of life in order to avoid being trapped in the monotony of the materialistic enjoyments and to obtain the highest rate of pleasure from the natural life. Therefore, the postmodern mysticism is used as a spiritual strategy to serve the materialistic objectives.

Regarding discourse features, story-telling and way of thinking, Saadi's mind is of a symmetric nature. This, in itself, causes him to put his thoughts down clearly, logically, reasonably, and pleasurably. This article is about to examine dimensions of this subject in Saadi’s Gulistan. The symmetries we are studying include those symmetries available in the name of the chapters, the structure of the stories, the syntactic and semantic constituents, the characterizations, and finally the figures of speech such as antimetabole contrariety, meta-thesis, and simile. Based on the findings of this research, it is clarified that Saadi takes high advantage of different kinds of syntactic and semantic symmetries in the linguistic, semantic, stylistic and narrative level without letting it result in complexity. Saadi’s fervor for rhythmical and melodic prose could, also, be credited to his symmetrical mind. The subject at hand will be exemplified and clarified along this article through an optimal magnitude of examples extracted from Gulistan. It should be noted that except for some sporadic researches in this case, the subject hasn’t been directly come under the light of analysis so far. Consequently, there feels to be a critical must for further research on this case, as well.  

This article mainly deals with the definition of "proposition" in the language and literature. This subject is connected to various sciences relating to language such as Philosophy, Logic, Linguistics and Semantics and even to Connections and Discourses. Consequently, we have studied to see whether the definition of proposition in all language features is true or not, regarding different aspects especially in Rhetoric. If the answer is negative, the writer proposes to offer another fully qualitative definition of proposition, or to find out their outputs and acts.

Due to its unique natural, geographical and political situation, Iran has passed through numerous events since the dawn of the history. However, what has preserved the country from the widespread invasions is, actually, their national identity. Such a national identity has developed and manifested itself in the Persian language. This language has been always playing a unique role in the sustainability of the Iranian nation as well as their national identity. This language was always doing so, both at the time when Cyrus and Darius had their orders and statements carved on the mountains and columns, and at the time when the great Ferdowsi wrote his epical poems in Persian so as to strengthen the national and cultural interests and to display the self-awareness of the Iranians. In fact, Persian is like a visible and invisible circle welding the Iranian national identity with its different ethnic groups, and keeps playing the key role in maintaining Iranians national unity.In the present paper, the writer will point out the role of great Persian poets, some of whom are non-native speakers of Persian, in maintaining and preserving such valuable heritage, as well as their efforts to preserve the Iranian identity in general and Persian language in particular.

Tarikhe Jahan-Goshaye Joveini by Ata Malek Joveini is an example of elaborated prose in seventh century (A.H.). The erudite style, ample allusions to the holy Quran and Hadith, too many Arabic and Mongolian words and expressions, the use of the rare meaning of the words, using much Arabic literature, subtle use of language, and, finally, innumerable names makes it necessary to elaborate on its language. The present essay critically studies the corrective explanations on the book recently written by Dr. Abbasi and Dr. Mehraki. It, also, explains some difficulties of the text.

Deconstruction, as concerns with literature, refers to a theory and practice of reading which denies, and in fact converts, the existing assumption which believes that the system of any language provides adequate grounds to establish the framework, the coherence, and the determinate meanings of a literary text. This approach, in no way, ruins the structure of the text; rather, it substitutes a previous structure with a new one.This approach, in its practical aspect, has been used in this essay so as to analyze the story of Beshr (one of the stories in Nezami's Haftpeikar). In the process of deconstructing this story, the main focus of our attention is on the capacity of linguistic, cultural and literary signs used in the text, and at the same time, on a structure that can replace the previous structure.

"Qaside of Tarsa'ieh", meaning ode to Christianity, is one of the most difficult Qasides (odes) of Khaghani. Its intricacy rises mainly from the use of the jargons particularly found in Christianity. This, in itself, has forced many men-of-letters to put interpretations on this poem, the first of which is an interpretation belonging to Sheikh Azar-e- Toosi (866 A.H), which is firstly reported completely in his Meftah-ol-Asrar, and later on, briefly in his Javaher-ol-Asrar. Thereafter, many of the succeeding researchers take benefits of this old interpretation among whom are Zarinkob (in his translation of Minoreski's interpretation) and Sajjadi (in his elucidatory work on Khaghani's Divan)Sheikh Azar-e- Toosi has merely explained 35 out of 91 couplets of this poem ranging from brief word explanations to full verse interpretation. However, this interpretation, due to its priority as well as its somehow eccentric interpretations which are ignored in the succeeding interpretations could be of high value for researchers.