فصلنامه مولوی پژوهی
پیاپی 11 (تابستان 1390)

The subject of the present article is to examine how the text tempts the reader to continue reading. These techniques are delay and gap in which a text encourages the reader to continue reading where the plot slows down the reader‘s comprehension in order to create suspense, interest, excitement, anxiety and curiosity in him. By a broad analysis of these devices in Mathnavi, the capabilities of Molawi as a skillful storyteller are represented. It can be concluded that these elements are used conveniently to serve the mystical and didactic purposes of the narrator. For instance, the narrator uses one kind of delay named blockage to provide an opportunity for his interpretive speeches in the middle of narration and through this he promises to the audience that the rest of story will come soon after this delay; in this wayhe obligates the reader to listen to these speeches.

One of the criteria of the evaluation of poetry, in the modern literary criticism, is its dependence on the poet’s lived experiences; because, unlike the poems composed upon the poet’s learned experiences, they enjoy a more structure. It has been said that the existence of a semantic relationship among the lines of a Persian sonnet is not an obligation and any line which is independent of the other lines can have a complete meaning. This principle does not hold in the sonnets of the leaders of the Persian poetry and one of the factors of their being structured is the overt and covert relationship of the lines with each other. This relationship in the mystical sonnets expressing the intuitive experiences of their composers and originating from their unconscious mind is more observable. These sonnets in the position of some surrealistic and minimal stories make use of a symbolical and narrative language in their deep structure to recount their creators’ epiphany and moments of revelation; since the nature of this experience is metaphysical and supernatural and the common worldly language cannot convey it, then these sonnets are ambiguous and their interpretation and elucidation seem to be necessary. In this article, one of the most famous narrative sonnets of Mowlana Jala-alddin Mohammad Balkhi has been interpreted by means of a hermeneutical approach. This is a sonnet that uses a symbolical language and a narrative-surrealistic structure to report the poet’s purely mystical moments of meeting and speaking with his own superego.

It seems that Mowlana, in his Poems Collection of Shams i.e. the Great Book of Sonnets and sporadically in his Mathnavi-Ma’navi, has made use of the “collective unconscious” to create the literary images constructed upon “grief” with animal symbols. This claim is based on the fact that Mowlana (upon investigation) often uses the animals which in ancient Iran were among “wild beasts” and “wolf-heads” and they were considered to have been created directly by the Devil (Ahriman) and they were regarded to be the agents of destruction and corruption, the symbols of evil, malevolence, morbidity, wickedness and in brief harmfulness. The quetion which may be asked in this respect is whether Mowlana has acted consciously in employing these symbols or there has been no deliberate intention in using these animals and they have been selected accidentally. In order to reply to these questions, we extracted the lines composed by Mowlana to create the artistic images of “grief” with the animal symbols and after analyzing those lines, we concluded that Mowlana for building these images has made use of the animals which were the emblems of ugliness, vice, and being sinister in ancient Iran; Mowlana’s unconscious mind has played an important role in employing these animals.

One of the basic and inevitable subjects in mystical studies is the issue of monasteries and the related matters. Thus, this article intends to investigate Mowlana’s criticism of the monastery in Mathnavi using the methodology of the content analysis. The results of this research show that Mowlana does not hold a positive opinion of these official and ceremonial centers of Sufism; he looks at some of the customs held in the monasteries such as giving up working and business, reliance on alms and charities, idleness and beggary, with a disdainful denial and probably he considers the very existence of these monasteries as a source of corruption and abnormal behavior among the Sufis. Of course, Mowlana’s criticisms of the monastery and its residents have an aspect of self-criticism; his aim is the identification of the defects of Sufism and also purifying it of the deviations which distort its countenance. Therefore, studying and learning about Mowlana’s criticism of the monastery may be a trustworthy touchstone when differentiating the truth from the falsehood and also the original Sufism from the Sufism represented by impure and crude residents of the monasteries (the pseudo-Sufis). Moreover, having analyzed Mowlana’s criticisms sociologically, we find him an intellectual who has sought to identify and correct the abnormalities of his own society. Mowlana, in some places in Mathnavi, regards the monastery as a symbol of the world and the society, and in the framework of criticizing it, somehow he criticizes his contemporaries.

Mathnavi-e Manavi “, the masterpiece of "Mowlana"- the famous and Gnostic poet of the 7th A.H. century- is one of the outstanding and incomparable compilations in the constituency of Islamic literature and culture. This great poetical work in a majority of cases, with reference to the kind of thought and intention of the poet, is founded on the meaning of the words; and where he is placed on the junction of the form and meaning, he, undoubtedly, sacrifices the form for the meaning. In this essay, we have pondered one of the illustrations of this claim, i.e. Masnavi's deconstructions in Persian grammar, and have shown it with some examples. In this research that is organized in three parts, we present, the Grammatical properties of “Khorasani Style ", grammatical deconstruction by the force of rhyme and meter and Special linguistic properties in "Mathnavi".

Considering the fact that Faqr is one of the basic foundations of mysticism, this research has tried to answer the question that how “Poverty” (Faqr) has been explained in Mathnavi, and whether any new outlooks have been presented about Poverty in Mathnavi, or not.With studying and analyzing the six books of Mathnavi and comparing this work with the other definitions of former “Mashayekh” (leaders) and the changing meaning of Poverty, it resulted that meaning of Poverty in Mathnavi is: “being without worldly concerns” (To be dependent only on Allah and not on anybody else) “Annihilation” and “Expressing Need to Allah”.Also there is a difference between “Praised Poverty” and “indecent Poverty”. Although very often, the synonym of Poverty in Mathnavi is “Annihilation”, with deducing some divine knowledge of Poverty, there is a difference between Poverty and other types of lack and nonexistence.Also poverty in the meaning of “Annihilation” very often includes poverty in attributes, but Mowlavi has spoken about Poverty in essence as well.

Sayyid Ahmad al-Haq (1918- 2011) is one of the most famous theosophists, scholars and Rumi's (Mowlavi’s) l iterary experts in Bangladesh. By analyzing Sayyid Ahmad al-Haq's works, one could say that his works and writings have been important to describe and convey Rumi's messages in Bengali language and due to such efforts he is a well-known researcher throughout Bangladesh. Basically Sayyid Ahmid al-Haq was a dominant scholar in mysticism. He was born to a Sufi family and by his talent; he achieved the privilege of being called a distinguished researcher of mysticism.