A Mystical Look at Avicenna’s Thought on the Issue of Sleep and the Mysteries of Religion

This paper seeks to study the Avicenna‟s thought on the issue of sleep and the mysteries of religion from a mystical viewpoint. Accordingly, the author has analyzed the views of Avicenna and Ibn Arabi on the sleep and mysteries of religion through a new look at the whatness of interpretation, interpretation criteria and the relationship between interpretation and mystery. The most important findings of this study are, the cryptic identity of the language of religion in the view of Avicenna, multi-layered nature of sleep, common attention to the language of religion and the interior of religion to express the relationship between interpretation and mystery, and finally, the difference between these two ideas on the position of the appearances of religion. The purpose of this study is extracting and developing Avicenna‟s thought on the issue, comprehending his view in the context of new issues and the trans-philosophical approach of theoretical mysticism. Avicenna‟s method is philosophical and intellectual research and analysis in words and propositions.