Functions of the Story of Prophet Musa (AS) in Khorasani and Iraqi Poetry Styles

The presence of a large number of stories about prophets, along with intellectual and rhetorical capacities, in the Holy Quran is a reason for the acceptance of various roles from such Quranic stories in the Persian poetry. The extent of the events during the life of Prophet Musa (AS) and the variety of his personality traits mentioned in the Quran, particularly his encountering opposite forces in several doctrinal, political, and economic fronts have made it possible that the Persian poets each, proportionate to their own intellectual horizons, make different perceptions and due to inclusion of the core of wisdom and mysticism, and the essence of Sufi educational theories, Sufis put this story as their own mirror to show tariqa and their teachings instruction guide. This article aimed at analyzing the multiple functions of the story of Musa (AS) in Persian poetry emphasizing educational and mystical themes based on two methods of documentation analysis and descriptive review. The findings indicate that this story in Persian poetry has four praising, descriptive, didactic and mystical functions, while the last two functions, in addition to being in line with the Quranic objectives of this story, enjoy charm, mystical delicacies, semantic multiple connotations, motivation and persuasion functions and because of this, they have always been regarded as educational "medium" in the Iranian system of social education and spiritual training.