ETHICAL RESEARCH (RESEARCH JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR ISLAMIC THOUGHT)
Year:2005 | Volume:1 | Issue:1|Papers Count:7

The subject of "religious experience" has been discussed in the two or three recent centuries. But the elements of this subject consists in the reports that different mystics have mentioned about their experiences. In this paper at first the characteristics of religious experience has been discussed from the viewpoints of some modern Western Scholars. Then these characteristics has been compared with Ibn Arabis views in this relation. Thirdly "Imagination" has been introduced as the center of Ibn Arabis discussions on the religious experience. Then the difference between religious and mystical experiences has been discussed. Finally those criteria have been mentioned that according to Ibn Arabi help us to distinguish between these experiences.

Afdal al-Din Kashani is a chear-sighted and sophisticated philosopher who lived in the sixth century. He produced a new system which was both a combination of current philosophical trends of his time such as peripatetic school, illuminative philosophy and mysticism. The result was an integrated philosophical and epistemological system that was peculiar to Afdal al-din Kashani. He not only elaborated on fundamentals of philosophy (hikmah) and knowledge in general, but also devoted parts of his works to discussions about self-knowledge (or marifat al-nafs). His ideus of self-knowledge are coherent and of course, innovative in many aspects. Nevertheless, this greut phisosopher is still fully unknown in scientific and philsosophical circles, what has been done about him up to the present time is nothing but editing and publishing his complete works as well as writing some different biographies. Since exploring his thoughts and ideas in more detail to look for pearls of knowledge in his works seems necessary and significant, it is incumbent upon the present writer to take a further step and introduce this great figure, who is both a philosopher and a mystic, in a scientific research project. Thus, the writer seeks to cast light on one of his major concerns, i.e., the discussions on self to reveal some hidden aspects of his ideas on self-knowledge and makes some interpretive remarks on them.

The concept of Faith is considered to be essential and significant in the Islamic tradition. Yet, the Glorious Quran has not given a clear defintion of it. Nor has the other sacred books or Scriptures. On the one hand, it seems that sacred (heavenly) books tend not to give a literal definition of faith but lead the interlocutor in a practical way to a more comprehensive (all-embracing) understanding of faith by stating the characteristics (properties) and implications of faith in various circumstances or experiences. On the other hand, the concept of faith is not of objective or concrete nature which it is impossible to give an exemplary definition (definition by extension). In other words, faith is an abstract or 5 piritual concept. The best way of defining a concept of this kind is to make it ideational. To make a careful analysis of the nature of faith, the writer in this article seeks to cast light on this concept in semantics from the Quranic point of new

Wilhelm Dilthey is a distinguished theoretician in human sciences (humanities) as well as a recognized contributor to hermeneutics, literary criticism, who produced an epistemological system of his own. In his view, human or social sciences can be objectified through hermeneutics. The main theme of Diltheys project is that he distinguishes the real cutegories of human sciences from those of natural sciences. So, according to him, the real subject of hermeneutics, is not our understanding of a certain text, nor is it our understanding the meaning of a text, but understanding (in this context), hermeneutically concieved, is a process of interpretingothe objectifications of life, the external expressions or manifestations of human experiences. Diltheys major concern is the attack launched by positivits against this objectification and reality of human sciences. He made efforts to show, by providing certain measures and criteria, that human sciences can have the status and position of natural sciences and are to be considered as objective, valid and factual. Dilthey maintains that understanding humanites requires that a reader (of a text) should feel that he or she is in the same place and time as the author of the text was. In other words, understanding consists in discovering oneself in the author or substitung oneself with the authors life and his mental experiences. This article provides the reader with a brief account of ermeneutics and its principles as well as its course of development as understood by Wilhelm dilthey.

Upanishads are a group of ancient Hindu philosophical texts or the esoteric sacred doctrines. They are such that all the schools which consider themselves as among traditional Hindu beliefs have sought to establish the truth and validity of their own teachings in accordance with the themes of these doctrinally authoritative sources. In these texts, which have attracted the attention of so many scholars all over the world, one can find the most sophisticated and delicate philosophical Hindu teachings. These doctrines or teachings, according to scholars, reveal a combination of Aryan and pre-Aryan thoughts and ideas in India as well as various teachings and views, but their central theme shows a turn in the ancient Hindu doctrines (especially Vedas), a turn from the external world to the internal world or from the exterior to the interior. The most important doctrine in the Upanishads is, in fact, the one that puts emphasis on the one sacred truth (which is called Brahman) and the knowledge of the human real self or ?tman as the means of obtaining and apprehending that one sacred truth which can be fulfilled only by seeing through veils of ignorance and traversing various levels of false selves.

From among the subjects which have been the major concern of philosophers and men of science is the presentation of a certain kind of effective division of sciences which can be both inclusive and exclusive. One of these philosophers is Ibn Sin? (Avecinna) who presented two divisions in his works, one of which seems to be similar to that of Aristotle and the other is his own. In his first division, he divides the rational or intellectual sciences into theoretical and practical sciences, each of which is again divided into three branches and secondary or subordinate branches and comes to introduce a branch of a third kind of philosophy as logic. In his own selected division, he divides sciences in to instrumental (ali) and essential (Asali), the latter of which is divided into theoretical and practical which are again divided into four categories. Explicating the two types of philosophy, theoretical and practical, the writer deals with the problems and deficiencies each faces and raises six objections to each.