RELIGION & MYSTICISM
Year:2012 | Volume:8 | Issue:30|Papers Count:18

The purpose of this paper is a brief explanation of the biography and works of Fakhr Razi (544-606 AH) and an analysis of his book called "A Book on Love", out of a series called "Safinaye Tabriz" ( Vessel of Tabriz), and its translation, which among 'love books' it presents something new with specific ideas. Imam Fakhr Razi deems it impossible for the interpretation and denotation of love which strolls in the mind of mankind and roams in the imagination, taking over the will and creating symptoms so that it shrinks the love force in the lover and request in the beloved. He believes that the beloved and the lover will drown in love, but if it is divine it will ascend to the world of ideas so that there would be no trace of lover and beloved. Love has to be directed toward God whereas any reliance on the creator and creature or whatever found materialistic has to be abandoned. Because love is a situation which happens for human beings and prevents the owner of love from distinguishing and identifying sufferings and comfort, dark and light, even sometimes it may cause him death.

This paper tries to discuss the mystical views of one of the grand mystics of 6th century Spain called John of the Cross. He is one of major mystics who have clearly manifested the realistic, ascetic, and valorous Spanish mysticism in their works. His mystical experience began when he was in jail and through the revelations he perceived, trying to reflex his beautiful and valuable experience in his works and writings. Thus, after going through his works one can clearly get to know his mentality over mysticism. Out of his major objectives in this regard is sublimation of spirit and achieving union with God which is known to be as spiritual marriage. It should be mentioned that none of other mystics of the time could make us come up with the clear realities of spiritual life except John of the Cross. He wanted to show us a unified goal that exists prior to this spiritual world and the cost it requires. He is one of few mystics that manifest such an affectionate goal in an extremely careful manner, extraterrestrial and vigorous. Though his writings are apparently pedantic and personal, there is no doubt that there are personal experiences lying behind, undoubtedly trying to prove his just words that "God understands that value of our endeavors more than others' efforts to do good to us".Since mysticism has joined basis among the whole religions, as a result, John's views could be compared with those of some of Islamic Mystics including Ibn Arabi and Rabeah Adoviah. This paper seeks to have a brief comparison of them.

As a creature having wisdom and in line with achieving felicity and beauty through spiritual journey and obtaining merits, human being begins with returning to his original home land from which he had set out. The ascent and descent of mankind in the spiritual journey doesn’t mean detachment of soul from body, rather, it means detaching from the whole earthly belongings and above. Only those bodies can reach the extraterrestrial Almighty that have intuition over the overall or most of rational world before descend, coming down into the world of tangibles, including philosophers, musicians, and lovers, each of whom will begin their journey through the instructions of their mentors and some procedures and achieve their goals. This paper seeks the explanation of conditions and the procedure of spiritual journey of human being and achieving authentic felicity from platonic point of view.

The main and rudimentary purpose of composing Masnavi (rhyming couplets) by Maulana was training and education. As a realistic poet, he was highly impressed by his surrounding happenings that he has applied them to explain the excellent ethical, mystical, and divinely points. Accordingly, he has best used satire and humor as undeniable realities and means of attracting the readers toward Masnavi.This paper seeks to define satire and humor by some experts at first and then emphasize the point that Maulana Jalaloddin Balkhi has accurately made use of satire and humor to teach ethics and mysticism according to the realities of society and true identification of his readers.

The words of mystery and wonder found in Hafez's poetry have been appealing for centuries for Persian poetry lovers and researchers. Aspiration, aspiring, gratification, successfulness, success seeking, and fortunate are some areas of the above words which per se reflect the heartfelt themes from God, existence, and human being. Hafez has used the word 'aspiring' and its meaning in a lyric poem, through mystics' way of interpreting divinely revelation:What is aspiration but to quit one's ownLordly crown is obtained if quitting isThe first line which include God aspiring spiritual journeymen and then journeymen's aspiration to others, is divided into two parts: 1- what is aspiration? 2- How is it possible to leave one's own aspirations? Hafez has amassed the mystics' world in this line, which is a sphere of ascending and descending journey. 'what is aspiration' is recognized as 'no beginning aspiration' since it's based on descending journey, and 'leaving one's own aspiration' which declares ascending journey of the creation toward God is called 'no end aspiration'. As for the second line, both the no-beginning and no-ending aspirations are streamlined; in other words, the techniques of being lord and honor by Hafez include both this world and the next one.

This paper is a research on the Sufi language of Sheik Ahmad Qazali's Bahrolhaghighah. It seeks to examine the way mystical concepts of Sheik are getting across through his rhetorics and writing styles.Therefore, after skimming through Sufis' jargon and their characteristics, the figures of speech of Bahrolhaghighah in connection with meaning transfer through simile, metaphor, and some other figures such as paradox and exaggeration are explored and classified. Throughout the text it is endeavored to keep the relation between meaning and word of sheik so that the function of the relation and aesthetic role of time would be highlighted together.

The title of the paper deals with a comparative studies of the fictional and non-fictional applications of relations on Maulana's harp player old man with that of tamboura player in Assraroltohid. Comparing the poets' and writers' views is one of the most important branches of analyzing the Persian prose and poetry as well as major discussion in literary criticism. In this paper, the targeted relations are compared in terms of their content and structure. Concerning the structure of the relations, the focus is on the story telling methods of Mohammad ibn Monavvar and Maulana in which it is illustrated that both relations have coherent structure and that to highlight the main theme, adequate number of elements of storytelling are utilized. In terms of the content, it is obvious that the broadness, lightheartedness, and humane emotions and highflying imagination of Maulana have special outstanding in comparison with those of Mohammad ibn Monavvar.

The literary and literal meaning of imagination is disclosed if one refers to literary, philosophical, and mystical dictionaries explaining that imagination is the storage of a common sense so that common sense is the regulator of the whole senses and whatever drawn out of the figures and meanings. Imagination has a broad spectrum: delicate, profound, farsighted, the heaven and the major element of poetry. Mystics take it as the monster of the overall heavens and the essence and origin of an existence which is the manifestation of the creator from within. The world of imagination though assumed as something away from rational world together with wisdom is the existing and reality layer of human being so that whatever revealed out of it has been shinning onto the broad and ever present heaven for mankind. Mystics also discuss about imagination to be one of the most important human vigor. Maulana has also talked about imagination just like other mystics which in this paper imagination in Masnavi will be studied. From Islamic philosophers' point of views such as Ibn Sina, Farabi, and Sohrevardi imagination has multiple meanings that each of whom has strived to explain their own opinions in their own works; the same is true with western philosophers such as Descartes and Plato, totally different from others.Imam Mohammad Qazali, Sohrevardi, Mowlavi, Ibn Arabi, Hafez, and Mollasadra have all agreed on the broad scope of imagination and its importance in the existence.

"Attar's Masnavi (rhyming couplets)" is known to be the spiritual father and a practical role model for Maulana's Masnavi. The story of Attar who presents his Masnavi to the young Maulana as a gift is an allegory of the substitution and submission of the spiritual flag of the Islamic and lovely Iranian mysticism and Sufism from a spiritual mentor to a student who revolutionized the whole world, just like the flag taken from Sansyee by Attar, for which Maulana had said that:The spirit, Attar, the eyes, SanayeeFollowing we are, Attar, SanayeeAttar's beliefs and allegories have had a clear impact on the mystical mindset and the form and content of Maulana's Masnavi for which the paper deal with a common use of frenzied language, after explaining their essential commonalities in the learning section, as well as the implicit and verbal and effective impacts and Attar's Masnavi relations mentioned in Maulana's Masnavi.

Affection or love is a merit of God and is one of the mystical features and exclusive to human beings that are not bestowed to angels. According to Muslim mystics, the journeyman can rapidly achieve his desires through showing affection and love making with the Almighty. In their opinions, the path of love is something horrible, disastrous and interwoven with numerous pains and sufferings, and as long as a man is not experiencing the bitterness and sulkiness of love, he would not be able to enjoy the spiritual sweetness of that. Thus, the lover should not only abandon the comfort, prudence, and health, but he also should be prepared for sufferings, disaster, self-sacrifice, and death.This paper tries to explain the concept of suffering and pain pertained to mystics while trying to identify affection and its levels. As continued, the perspectives of great mystics on the philosophy of cruelties and the ultimate love making disasters, the cause of taking conspiracies for granted and taking sufferings to be merits by lovers, and how it relates with affection will be explored.