نشریه عرفان اسلامی
پیاپی 26 (زمستان 1389)

Mysticism and mythology have a few things in common, one of which is thinking about death. Both introduce death as the most important trouble and eternity as the most exciting ambition for human being. They paraphrase and decode death through revelation and intuition, and take it as a kind of sleeping and trance that could be overcome by some means. In mythology and mysticism, death is assumed as the advent of living again, and by destroying reality it leads to eternity. Their death thinking could be examined in their common beliefs such as mortality and eternity, flying soul, fire, Hoom and source of life.

This paper deal with the study of mystical revelation and perception and its reliability in the words of God and the Impeccable, because revelation and perception have always been discussed in Islamic mysticism and that in general Islamic mysticism is based on revelation and perception of the invisible world. What is to be question is whether it is addressed in the holy Shariah or not, and if yes, how valuable it is. To this end, the two original resources, that is, the Koran and the impeccable's relations, are documented to find out the viewpoints of the Prophet and his successors, and whether these reverends have had any revelation or not, and if they did, how their revelation was different from non-impeccables.This study concludes that revelation is of two types: surface revelation that pertains to inferior heaven, and spiritual revelation that relates to superior heaven. The divine saints and mystics can have access from surface revelation degrees to talent revelation and from spiritual one to mysterious revelation; but secret degree which is drowning into the eternity stage is exclusively bestowed to Muhammad the Prophet and the impeccable. Also, correct revelation pertains to the impeccable that is aligned with the divine Shariah. Therefore, the entire Muhammad revelation is the most comprehensive one available for human being.

Although Ibn Arbi is known to be a Sunni mystic, his viewpoints on province, the impeccable, and the saint's Household members are so much close to those of Shiites that he is assumed to be a Shiite. This paper tries to explain his perspectives on the saint's household members.The greatest Sheikh knows province to be the core of prophecy and prophetic mission, and believes that province, proximity to God, is the basis for luminosity, grace, and intermediation between God and creatures, and that every prophet and messenger is primarily a province. Such a province is never ending with the prophecy and prophetic mission of the last prophet on the earth. Rather, continuing up to the saint's household members leads to Imam Mahdi (pbuh). This paper evidentially discusses the saint's position of household members, status, and chastity in the eyes of Ibn Arabi.

Allegory is an effective method to impose mental concepts to the audience which has been mostly used by mystics, and they would have been able to turn the abstract and highly polished concepts into a tangible and sensible form so that the reader also felt a sensation inside in a way that without any logical evidences they would accept it easily. Rumi has also utilized the same method in his trainings in Masnavi, which per se is the Koranic method.

This paper endeavors to discuss the following points: the origin of mystical poetry; the earthly status of the beloved as stated in Khorasani poetry style; as a kind of poet who deals with earthly beloved in his teen age period and living during the late Khorasani style and in his late years of living proned toward heavenly beloved as the first conqueror of mystical beloved; Sanayee as the initiator of mystical poetry and as a resource person for the mystical poets of later times, i.e. Iraqi style. In addition, there is a brief discussion over the mental evolution and the reason why earthly beloved is put aside and heavenly beloved became popular. Eventually, the dual character of Sanayee is clarified and revealed.

In purifying attitude of Muslim mystics, real God is superior and higher than other creatures and their attributes, and instinctively He is distinct from the whole creatures. Despite the love and affection bond that Sufis believe exists between man and God, the governing aspect in mystical theism is basically set on the purified nature of the Almighty. In mystical theism of Mowlana Jalaloddin Balkhi, no one can have access to the actual core of God, and that the nature of God is not at all recognizable through the human wisdom and understanding. In Rumi's opinion, the core of God's nature is covered in "absolute unknown", and human understanding helped by analogy and illusion or contemplation leads nowhere. However, Rumi poses two different attitudes, namely pro-catharsis and pro-analogy. In pro-catharsis attitude, he believes that human wisdom is unable to recognize the nature and attributes of God, whereas, in prophetic mission-analogous one, he believes that God reveals his own entity to mankind through His signs and effects. In his opinion, human being is able to see a ray of the Almighty light as much as possible, only through the emergence of God's revelation of signs. And in any case, the real nature of divine attributes of God is concealed to everyone but the Almighty Himself.

Inanimate objects are conscious by the divine will and order, and this insight is understandable by perfect men who are aware of the existence. Rumi offers in his allegory “Lamenting Column” a droplet out of the province source of the Prophet, who was entirely cognizant over the overall mystery of the universe.

One of the fundamentals of mysticism is the theory of perfect man who in Islamic mysticism has achieved perfection and deals with anthropocentricism and man’s originality more than materialistic viewpoints. Perfection psychology in contemporary era has come closer to mystical beliefs and there are some theories that are in line with mysticism in many cases. This paper addresses perfect man in psychological viewpoints of William James, Eric Fromm, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow, and then the theory of perfect man in mysticism in the eyes of Ibn Arabi, Abdolkarim Gilani, Aziz Nasfi, and Rumi will be examined, not to mention that there is a comparative studies between psychological findings and mysticism.

An unknown man having a pen name of "Talebi", who knew Persian and Turkish pretty well, and had enjoyed the verses and relations and stories about prophets and mystical principles, tried his hand on composing "Shogh Nameh Ahmadi" in couplets in 947 Hegira, and finished that in Mecca in 949 Hegira. Talebi wrote a poem in 4941 lines on the story of the Bloghia the Egyptian King who set out on a trip to visit the Prophet Muhammad. Therefore, the theme of the story is "desire" and "wish". Shogh Nameh which was inspired by Rumi's Masnavi and Golshan Tohidi Shahidi, structurally is similar to Attar Mosibat Nameh, though in terms of religious and moral issues, his tone is just like that of Sanayee Ghaznavi, that is, pedantic and compelling.

The best manifestation of worshiping is emerged in praying which is a kind of direct and straight relation with God. Praying is a link between the earth and heaven that has a mystical nature so that the ancient and modern writers and poets could demonstrate a type of mystical experience in explaining philosophy. This paper presents some examples of such a divine experience in various remarks and in addition, it reveals some manifestations of the common spiritual links with unanimous substances. What has been stated in the most ancient mystical literature such as Kashfol Mahjoub, Mersadol Ebaad, and Mesbahol Hedayah, represented by Ibn Arabi and Ghazali, has been depicted in the contemporary poets some samples of which will be presented in the paper.

Abu Abdollah Mohammad Ibn Abdoljabbar Ibn Alhassan Neffari is one of the mystics and Sufis of the 4th century Hegira. Neffari did not settle in a single place and was constantly on the move. What makes it important dealing with his life and works double as much is the mysterious aspect of his life. Nefarri passed away in Egypt in 366 Hegira. His works include two books titled Almavaghef and Almokhatebat that Ibn Arabi had a chance to read them and get impressed by. One reason why he was left least known is his sophisticated and less intelligible language. He offers innovative and novel mystical notions so that some of them intermission and Sevi is exclusively his own. It was he who first initiated the words. Out of other issues which he attended to involves veil, visitation, cognition, perfect man. At first this paper examines Neffari's biography according to the ancient resources and in a chronological order. Then, his mystical notions will be analyzed including intermission, visitation, cognition, and perfect man.