PERSIAN LITERATURE QUARTERLY
Year:2009 | Volume:5 | Issue:21|Papers Count:10

There are various views about the origin of music in different human societies. Native Americans consider music a divine blessing; Brahma created music as the fifth Veda on earth; Pythagoras’followers regard it to originate from creation, resulting from the movements of the heavens. This view has been accepted by Greek and Islamic scholars and philosophers. It is “the melody of creation” to Attar and “the language of the invisible caller” to Mowlavi.Today the effect of music on suckling babies, animals and plants and on the treatment of the sick has been empirically proved. Music has also been used to cure some diseases. There are many stories of doctors who, in the past, not only cured many illnesses with the help of music but also revived a dead person who had died of heart attack.

The striking similarity between Islamic mysticism and that of other peoples is undoubtedly noteworthy. Although mystical experiences around the world share some similarity, we should not expect them to be expressed in the same words. However, one is astonished when he sees that senses and experiences used in Upanishad and Mathnavi on different topics are so identical.This article compares the mystical concept of pantheism in Upanishad and Mathnavi. The author tries to present the important points, but identification is not meant at all; proportions are attended to. These proportions reveal strikingly delicate points because the two schools have a closely similar view of the main metaphysical subjects.

Sogd (Sogdiana) was the ancient name of a place near Badakhshan valley. The center of this city was Samarqand. In the Sassanid era, Sogdians were known for their trade activities especially with China and India. It was also considered as one of the main economic centers. A large number of works have remained from the language of these people. Historically, one of the most important works is the Sogdian ancient letters. These letters were discovered in 1907 by the British archaeologist Sir Aurel Stein in a watch tower on the great wall of China in Gansu province. There are five complete and four incomplete letters. Sogdian letters speak of the social and political developments in the lives of the people of that time in China.The first Sogdian letter was written by a woman from Dun Huang to her husband.

The admixture of art and mysticism in Iranian-Islamic culture and civilization is an important issue, without the understanding of which it is impossible to describe Iranian-Islamic culture. The dominant Iranian culture and world view has given art as well as many other categories a religious tint, making it equal to mystical teachings.With the use of lexical knowledge and the etymology of art and mysticism in Persian literature, which is a great manifestation of such categories, the present research endeavors to show that art in this culture is religiously and mystically based and is far from the basics of western aesthetics.A fundamental and important common point in Iranian-Islamic art and mysticism that distinguishes it from the basics of art in the west is its epistemological value. Hence, the article continues to study the similarities between these two categories in the way they achieve knowledge and use it.

Since many years ago, the Moon and the Sun have had an elevated and important place in Persian literature. Khaqani, who is known as the poet of the Morning, has been interested in the different phases of the moon and the sun.The author of this article has tried to find and present the traces of Iranian and some other nations’ mythological, cultural and religious beliefs in the moon and the sun in Khaqani’s poetry. It goes without saying that the poet’s poetic views and mental images of these two heavenly bodies have been proved with the poet’s own words.

Sa`eb Tabrizi is no doubt one of the most studious, impressive, intellectual, meticulous and creative poets in Persian literature and is the most famous poet of the Hindi style. He looks at the nature in a close way and is inspired by it.An important feature of his poems is the loose relation between the lines. It has made the poems in this style to be based on single lines. This has made his poems so popular among people that many of his single lines are popularly used as sayings and catchphrases. Hindi style poems, which are mainly ghazals (odes), are based on lines and the value of the poem depends on its lines.Another noticeable characteristic of his poetry is the high frequency of figurative compounds, resulting from the personification of objects. Still another unique feature is the way a special kind of irony is frequently used: nominal and verbal compounds are used with two or three meanings.Like other poets of the Hindi style, Sa`eb has often used special expressions in his poetry.

One research area in the study of Shahnameh has been the classification of Shahnameh into different descriptive parts of the legendary axis that has joined the stories of Shahnameh to each other on the basis of epic, mythical and historical standards. All these researches can be divided into three parts: descriptive classification, historical analysis and mythical interpretation.After reviewing the relevant theories in the three above-mentioned parts and critiquing them, the article tries to present a new descriptive classification of Shahnameh in the three areas: mythical history, religious history and narrative history.

This research has been accomplished with the title of “Comparing the tragedy of Rostam and Sohrab with Odyssey and Oedipus.”With a historical-theoretical methodology, the required information has been collected, through note taking, from the texts of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Sophocles’ Oedipus and other epic poems of the world.The researcher has first studied these tragedies and then compared them. Research findings show that the sorrow and sadness resulting from the sin committed in the tragedy of Oedipus is stronger than what is felt in Rostam and Sohrab and Odyssey. The reader of Oedipus tragedy is more intensely felt by catharsis.

Chivalry is the favourite ethical perfection, the origin of which can be found in the divine and clean nature of mankind. This ritual was first an ethical and practical code of conduct among chivalries (ayyars) and champions. When it was combined with piety, religion and mysticism, it manifested itself as spiritual chivalry. At this time, different conditions and rituals were devised for it and a hierarchy, some special terms and rituals became common among them.This article, using the important sources on this topic, describes the special rituals to enter the circle of chivalries, expresses some of the common terms, and mentions their mysterious and delicate meanings.

While expressing the way nature images and its various perspectives are used in non-mystical poetry, the writer is going to deal with the differences in the way these elements are used in Mowlavi’s Mathnavi, Attar’s Mathnavi and Sanaee’s Hadeeqa, which are close to each other in thoughts.A quick look at the various periods of Persian poetry reveals that Persian poetry has always been in need of profiting from nature imagery. The poets of the first period of Persain poetry (khorasani style) are poets who picture nature and have objective movement, while, in Mowlavi’s Mathnavi and his contemporaries, this movement is abstract and is used as a means of inspiring meanings. What is noteworthy here is the point that the way nature perspectives are used and dscribed in Sanaee and Attar’s mathnavis is stereotypical and repetitive, while in Mowlavi’s Mathnavi this imagery is more diverse and has been expressed in a new and unique way.