Creative Imagination in Shams Tabrizi's Divan

The theory of imagination has a special position in philosophy and theoretical mysticism (Sufisms). Ibn Arabi is one of greatest theoretician in the field of imagination. In his words, Imagination is, in a sense, everything except God and His manifestation, but in human being imagination is a kind of perception that gathers between tangible forms and abstract meanings. Human is the successor of the creative God and can use his imagination to create scientific, literary, and artistic creations, and can be the source of perfection. The most important purpose of the paper is to emphasize the role of the creative imagination in wandering human’s identity, in order to escape from the crisis of identity and to achieve its true status. Rumi's poetry in Divan Shams is one of the hallmarks of the creative imagination in mystical literature. In this study, Ibn Arabi’s and Rumi's common views on the theory of God in the creation have been compiled and analyzed using a comparative-analytic approach.