Mytho-Mystic Literature
Year:2018 | Volume:14 | Issue:51 |Papers Count:12

Adat mikonim (We'll Get Used to It) by Zoya Pirzad is one of the most influential Persian contemporary novels. The key character of the novel is a woman called Arezo, who is struggling with many hardships in life. The Arezo's life follows Maureen Murdock's pattern of the heroine's journey. This ten-step pattern is as follows: Heroine separation from the feminine, identification with the masculine and gathering of allies, road or trials and meeting ogres and dragons, experiencing the boon of success, awakening to feelings of spiritual aridity/death, initiation and descent to goddess, yearning to reconnect with the feminine, healing the mother/daughter split, healing the wounded masculine within, integrating the masculine and feminine. The present article studies Zoya Pirzad's novel, Adat mikonim, based on various stages of Murdock's pattern, and shows that this pattern is suitable for analyzing novels that Athena archetype is dominant in behavior and personality of their heroines.

Nowadays, “ archetypal criticism” or “ mythical criticism” is one of the most important and the most widely used methods of contemporary literary criticism which studies the nature and characteristics of archetypes and their roles in literature. Mythical criticism has originated in Jung's thoughts and generally, it is done by referring to his ideas. Based on the Jungian individuation theory, the present article tries to study the romance of Homā y o Homā yun by Khā ju Kermā ni. In this story, Homā y, the hero begins his journey to China to reach Homā yun (anima). The journey of the hero to China, as the base of the story, is a symbol of process of individuation and of his search for self-knowledge. By activation of anima and announcing the message of continuity and unity in the hero's conscious realm, the process of individuation of Homā y who is a young and inexperienced prince begins, and by guidance of the wise old man and eliminating difficulties and shadows and flexibility of persona, his conscious and unconscious are coordinated and finally, the process of individuation and self-knowledge achieves successfully.

The intellectual system of any text can be described by analyzing its conceptual metaphors. The aim of the present study is to find the structures derived from the conceptual metaphors of Lam’ at (Divine Flashes), written by Fakhr al-Dī n Ibrahī m Irā qī . These structures represent the intellectual system of Lam’ at. To this end, first, the conceptual metaphors of the text are identified by careful examination of its language. Next, the structure derived from the conceptual metaphors of the text, which functions as a mirror reflecting its worldview, is described by analyzing the metaphors and finding the links among them. The four main pillars of Lam’ at and Fakhr al-Dī n Ibrahī m Irā qī 's thought are these conceptual metaphors: ‘ God is love’ , ‘ love is the king’ , ‘ love is the Sun’ and ‘ love is a mirror’ . In addition to the links among these four metaphors, the conceptual metaphor ‘ love is human’ plays a key role in linking the four conceptual metaphors to each other and shows the intellectual level of Lam’ at. There are other conceptual metaphors in Lam’ at, each of which describes the worldview of its author, but the abovementioned five metaphors are more pivotal.

In storytelling, the events of the story are driven by a cause and effect relationship, and go to a certain point. By studying the narrative structure of a work, its concepts and deep-structure can be identified. William Labov and Joshua Waletzky, theorists of narrative structure, believe that oral narratives have their own principles and criteria; they propose a structure for oral narratives. According to the Labov, a narrative consists of six principal parts: an abstract, an orientation, the complicating action, the result or resolution of the action, a final coda to close the story, the evaluation. The present article tries to examine the story of Pire Changi (the Harpist) in Masnavi of Manavi based on the narrative model of Labov and Waletzky. The results of the research show that Masnavi, despite being an old book, can be adapted to modern theories (including theory of Labov and Waletzky), and the evaluation, as the most important part of this theory, exists in free (independent) narrative clauses.

Asceticism, as one of the main factors shaping Sufism, is an important topic for Sufis and has been spoken about it in the most mystical texts. In this research, Jalal al-Din Rumi's views about asceticism have been discussed. The present research claims that Rumi has different views about asceticism and he has looked at it from various perspectives. The aim of the article is to explain different perspectives of Rumi about asceticism and to answer this question why Rumi had different views on asceticism. In order to achieve the purposes of the research, the terms of asceticism (zohd) and ascetic (zahid) in the prose and verse texts of Rumi are analyzed and is tried to examine the position of asceticism and its functions in these texts; also Rumi's different views on asceticism are explained. The results show that Rumi has looked at asceticism from the perspectives of jurisconsults, mystics and qalandars (wandering darvishs and Bohemians). From the perspective of the jurisconsults, asceticism has a high value, but from two others it is worthless. It seems that the degree of individuality expressed in his various works is the reason of his different valuation of asceticism.

Manṭ iq uṭ-Ṭ ayr (The Conference of the Birds) and Gulshan-i Raz (Rose Garden of Secrets), written about a century apart, are based on suluk (mystical journey). The authors of these two books consider mystical path (tariqat) as a difficult path; Farid ud-Din Attar in Manṭ iq uṭ-Ṭ ayr calls it "valley" and Mahmud Shabestari in Gulshan-i Raz speaks about "obstacles". Gulshan-i Raz speaks about four obstacles to suluk and, in Manṭ iq uṭ-Ṭ ayr, Attar believes in seven valleys: request, love, knowledge, detachment, Unity, wonderment and finally poverty and annihilation. If the stages of suluk put forth by these two mystics are analyzed based on seven valleys in Manṭ iq uṭ-Ṭ ayr and forty stages of suluk (as mentioned by the Muslim mystics), it becomes clear that Shabestari puts forth "repentance" and not " request" as the first stage of suluk. In contrast to Attar, Shabestari proposes concepts for stages of "love" and "Unity (tohid)" which are accompanied by shaṭ ḥ iyyā t and tamat (ecstatic sayings), but Attar considers wonderment as necessary for Unity. The fourth valley in Attar’ s suluk, “ detachment” , like the stages of love (mohabbat), patience (sabr), exertion (jahd), worship (ibadat), and obedience to God (taslim), is not present in Shabestari’ s poetry. Similarly, the stages of piety (vara), sincerity (ikhlas), and saintship (vilayat) are present in Shabestari’ s poetry while they are nowhere to be seen in Manṭ iq uṭ-Ṭ ayr. The two poets cite 27 common stages and both of them do not mention a number of stages. In this descriptive-analytical study, seven valleys of Attar and the forty stages of suluk, as basis of the research, are evaluated in Manṭ iq uṭ-Ṭ ayr and Gulshan-i Raz, and common and controversial concepts and terms are outlined in them.

By using co-word analysis, knowledge structure can be determined in a research field and its topical clusters can be identified. This research tries to study knowledge structure in mystical researches via this method and by using network analysis approaches and science visualization. The population of the current study is comprised of 1931 published articles in the field of mysticism that have been indexed in Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC). By using scientometric and network analysis techniques, the records were retrieved and integrated. It has been used a combination of softwares, including UCINet, VosViewer and SPSS, for data analysis and mapping. Analyzing all keywords show that the most important keywords, based on frequency distribution, are top figures of mysticism: Rumi (Mulavi) and Ibn-Arabi, also Love. As in the co-word analysis, keywords’ pairs such as “ Rumi-Masnavi” , “ manifestation-unity of existence” , “ Ibn-Arabi-unity of existence” have the most frequent co-occurrences. Analyzing lexical clusters show the most important topics related to mystical research in eleven clusters with diverse titles. Based on multidimensional scaling map, these eleven clusters are decreased into eight ones with more general topics, more conjunction and similarity. Studying the centrality and density of these clusters-which indicate maturity and development of each topic based on its keywords-in strategic diagram show that Hekmat (theosophy) or theoretical mysticism, especially from Ibn-Arabi’ s point of view, not only have development ability, but also most central role among other topics.

Various intellectual schools have proposed different ways to study myths. Jung, one of the pioneers of psychology, discusses about the depths of collective unconsciousness and archetypes. Animus as the unconscious masculine side of a woman, and anima as the unconscious feminine side of a man, are two Jungian archetypes that help us to know unconsciousness. Also, according to Jungian thought, much of the unconscious is manifested through myths. The mythological narratives of different nations about the Moon are good platforms for the study of unconscious and archetypes. Based on Jungian concepts of animus and anima and archetypal relationships, in the present article, the common beliefs of the nations about the myth of Moon are reviewed and the dual nature of Moon and the union of opposite views about it are shown.

The last half of the epic of Borzu Nā meh by Atā bin Yaqub Nā kuk Razi, is based on the battle of Susan the Minstrel (rā meshgar) with Iranian Heroes, and because of its independent structure, it is recounted as a separate story. According to the scholars, in its infrastructure, the story, like other national epics, narrates the ancient Iranian myths. From mythological point of view, by using two elements of action and character, the Creation myth of Bundahesh has been re-narrated in Borzu Nā meh. It seems that by comparing the structure of the re-narrated myth and the structure of Borzu Nā meh, it can be judged whether some verses and stories of the epopee have been added later. In this way, by referring to the text and structure of the myth, we can comment on the authenticity of the added or deleted parts of the epopee. Contrary to the opinion of some scholars and with regard to the reflection of the Creation myth of Bundahesh in Borzu Nā meh, it seems that the story of Susan the Minstrel had not been added later to the epopee and is part of the main body of it.

Myth, as one of the oldest and most important creations of the human mind, is also the maker of human life. It is a symbolic narrative of all existence that explains the great and fundamental issues, such as the genesis of the universe and its components and end the world. Despite the lack of historical and scientific evidences, myth for believers is a holy and supreme truth. One of the most important mythological narratives in all nations, is the myth of creation of man. Despite the intellectual, cultural and religious differences, different ethnic groups and nations share common views about the myth; there is a great resemblance between Aryan myth of creation of man, especially its Iranian version, and Semitic myth of creation. These similarities can be traced to the two religions of the Judaism and Islam. By descriptive-analytical method and based on narrations in Iranian and Semitic sources, in this article, we try to look comparatively at the myth of creation of man in Iranian and Semitic mythologies. The research shows significant similarities in these two mythologies, especially in the subject of the emergence of man from plant or soil. Sometimes, these similarities are due to the natural influence of myths, and sometimes are due to the fundamental and common beliefs of mankind that are the result of the common human biological experiences.