Comparative Study of Personality between Rumi's (Iranian Mystic) and Abraham Maslow's (Western Psychologist) Point of View

Just like many other poets and authors of this ancient territory—Iran – Rumi has a humanitarian stance for composing his own works of art. In the light of the grandeur and various powers available in human being, Rumi takes the originality to belong to mankind, be it personal originality or the social one. And throughout Masnavi, his masterpiece, 'human orientation' is obvious in the eyes of Abraham Maslow, the founder and spiritual leader of human based psychological movement. Respectively, Rumi's ideas are by far closer to human based psychologists including Maslow. Maslow strictly criticized behaviorism and psychoanalysis, especially those of Freud, of personality. Maslow believed that if psychologists merely investigate the abnormal and frenzied people the positive characteristics of human being will be ignored, including satisfaction, happiness, and peace of mind. Thus, he emphasized positive concepts including self-actualization. Maslow believed that if we are unable to investigate the best types, the most creative, the healthiest, and the most sophisticated human beings of the society, the nature of mankind will be underestimated. Consequently, this paper tries to make a comparative study over the proximity of Rumi's ideas as an Iranian mystic with the leader of human oriented psychologist, Maslow.