A Comparative Study of the Allegorical Commonalities between Indian and Islamic Mysticism

"Allegory" is one of the most commonly used methods for expressing abstract meanings in Persian literature, which makes complicated and intangible religious and mystical subjects more simple and easy to understand. The language of allegory is the best and closest language to human understanding, because it expresses the conditions of the human being and the world in the form of sense and experience. This literary style can also be noticed in mystical texts, especially Indian mystical texts. A comparative and bilateral study of Persian and Hindu literature indicates that there are allegorical similarities and commonalities between them. For this purpose, making a review of some Indian mystical texts and prominent Persian mystical texts, this paper makes a comparative study of the art of allegory and comments on the fiction allegories common between Persian and Indian. The research findings indicate that the fiction allegories in Persian literature are similar to those of the Indian mystical literature in content as well as the structure and elements of allegory.