Comparison of Views of Allame Tabatabai and M.Arabi on Vision and Seeing

This paper compares vision, in general, and seeing God, in particular from two view points: Allame M.H.Tabatabai’s and M.Arabi’s, who are representatives of two school of Hikmat Mutaalie and Gnosticism. Subjects such as: heart as the place of receiving vision, the factors for incerasing heart’s receiving capability of the inspirations, error in visionary knowledge, criteria for finding these errors and seeing God are investigated in this paper. A quick look at these two scholars’ definition of “vision” makes one think that these two views are complementary and point to the same direction. Also there are similarities in their approach to the subject of vision. For example, both agreed that the heart is the place to receive the vision and Aref can increase his heart’s receiving ability by some self-watching exercises. They both believe that it is possible for visionary knowledge to be erroneous for the probability of non-divine sources of revelations or inspirations and wrong interpretations of observations. However, there are important differences between the thinking methods of Allameh and Ibn Arabi, the most crucial of which is the different position of rational mind in their views. As for Allameh, unlike Ibn Arabi, it has a special importance as a cognitive tool and he refers to it as a criterion for the validity of visionary knowledge