معصومه مصلی نژاد

The resurrection season is one of the important parts of Razi’s Mersad al-Ebad which begins with the mystical reading of one of the verses of the Holy Quran. The author considers resurrection as the return of human souls to God which happens with the journey of quadruple processions of souls in seven stages. According to the systematic structure that the author has for this journey, the present study aims to answer two research questions: 1) Does Razi follow a certain pattern in explaining his worldview about the resurrection?  2) Can the stages in Mersad al-Ebad be matched with the stages of Campbell’s hero’s journey? According to the findings of the study, the condition for the beginning of perfection is divine attraction. After starting the journey, in the second part, a person goes through the stages that Campbell calls the road of tests. In this part, as Najmuddin Razi believes, a person must go through four stages of Nafs Ammareh, Lawwameh, Molhameh, and Motmaenneh. At the end of this perfection process, the person becomes a resident of the promised paradise, i.e. the court of God’s attributes. The author has determined two different fates for the seeker. In his opinion, if a person is one of the seekers, after returning, he is responsible for guidance. Those who have behaved in the manner of those who are fascinated, after returning, will not be responsible for others. In the journey, these two ends are also mentioned.

The common symbolic theme in many myths, legends, and mystical books is the story of man's journey into himself, the result of which is the achievement of spiritual growth, perfection, and psychological integrity. The importance of this issue has caused many researchers, including Joseph Campbell, to investigate the pattern of this symbolic journey. "One myth" is one of the most famous and widely used theories in the field of myth criticism, which was proposed by him in 1949 in the book ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’. Jung examined in detail the archetype of the hero's journey and by examining a large number of legends and stories of the world, he showed that this archetype reveals itself in a new form at any time and place to guide man to his inner journey and self-knowledge. Since the main subject of mystical texts and writings is the journey of a person to know the truth of her existence and achieve perfection, the archetype of the hero's journey can be found openly or secretly in many of them. The meaning of religion is that some of the works such as Mantegh al-Tayr by Attar Nishabury, Altavahhom Harith al-Masabi, and many of Masnavi’s stories clearly have this pattern, and sometimes hidden manifestations of it can be found in some works such as Mersad al-Ebad by Razi. Mersad al-Ebad is one of the masterpieces of mystical Persian prose texts. In this work, the author has raised a discussion under the title of resurrection, which can be found in the structure of the hero's journey by studying it closely. More importantly, the author has an interpretative and symbolic view of resurrection and in explaining it, he used symbolic numbers such as four and seven and defined stages for it. According to this hypothesis, the present study aims to investigate the author's approach to the issue of resurrection based on the archetype of the hero's journey. The two research questions are: 1) Does Razi follow a certain pattern in explaining his worldview about the resurrection? 2) Do the stages of resurrection in Mursad al-Abad match the ancient stages of Campbell’s hero's journey?

Review of the Literature:

Mystical studies have made it possible for researchers to investigate and analyze many of these works with a semiotic and archetypal approach and reveal some of their hidden layers with their symbolic content and symbolic and mysterious language. The attractiveness of this type of analysis and the pleasure of discovering the hidden layers of the text has caused the emergence of relatively significant studies with this approach in the field of mystical literature. In some of these studies, the archetype of the hero has been completely investigated in one work. Among them, we can mention ‘Analysis of a fictional story based on Jung's psychological views’ (Esmaili & Bahrami Rahnama, 2017), ‘Deciphering the process of individuality in Attar's Divine Book by relying on Jung's archetypes (Ahmadi & Haghighi, 2019). Some articles have also examined some of the archetypes in mystical works and writings; for example, ‘Comparison of Jung's Archetypes with Abu Sa'id's Mystical Way’ (Aegean & Arab, 2016), ‘criticism and analysis of the archetype of the shadow with respect to the concept of self in mysticism’ (Rozhatian, Mir Bagheri Fard, & Mani, 2013), ‘examination of the ancient pattern of shadow and its adaptation to the soul in Attar's masnavis’ (Qashqaei, 2013), ‘the course of the conceptual evolution of the word self in al-Tayr logic based on individuality’ (Gholampour Ahangarkalai, Tavossi, & Ojag Alizadeh, 2018), ‘the use of archetypes of color in spiritual masnavi based on Jung's theory’ Asadi, Eshghi, & Amir Ahmadi, 2018). In addition to the mentioned studies, many other ones have been written in this field, and mentioning all of them will make the article long. According to this review, the analysis of the topic of resurrection in Mursad al-Abad based on the old model of the hero's journey, both because of the choice of topic and the type of approach, is new and contains different content.

The archetype criticism has defined two types of self-care for the hero. In the first type, the focus is only on the universal world and the hero faces any kind of danger in the battle and shows heroic deeds. In the second type, the hero, at the same time performing his bravery and heroism, undergoes internal change and transformation, and after going through symbolic stages, he achieves spiritual maturity and spiritual perfection. Cambell's emphasis is on the analysis of the archetype of the hero, focusing on the second self-work, that is, spiritual transformation. According to him, the hero begins his journey from the everyday environment until an inner call reaches him and after that, he must step into a mysterious world that is full of unusual events. Campbell has assigned three stages to this self-care: departure (separation), arrival, and return. Departure includes calling the call, rejecting or accepting it, seeking help from the beyond, crossing the first threshold, and going to the whale's palate. The journey also includes the road of tests, the meeting with God, the temptress, reconciliation and unity with the Father, the Gods, and the final blessing. The return also includes stages such as refusal to return, magical escape, rescue from outside, crossing the threshold of return, master of two worlds, and free in life (cf. Campbell, 2004, p. 59-250). In this study, among the above-mentioned steps, we examine the cases that can be adapted to the Maad chapter of Mersad al-Ebad.

In the Resurrection season of Mersad al-Ebad, Razi divides the spirits into four stages (rows). The first phase is the souls of prophets and special saints who are in a position of immediacy and ‘Matmaennegy’. The second row is ‘Molhamegy’. The residents of ‘Lavamgy’ are in the third row, and in the fourth row are the souls of disbelievers and hypocrites who live in ‘Amargy’. According to the author, all souls in their symbolic resurrection should start their journey from the level of Amargi. This movement has a narrative infrastructure in which the triple stages of departure, appreciation, and return of Campbell's model can be clearly found. In the stage of departure, the call is the main and preliminary condition for the beginning of the journey that Razi considers to be dependent on divine attraction, which if it does not happen, a person cannot enter the path of self-knowledge. After sending the invitation, depending on whether the person accepts or rejects it, it may be placed in the category of Ashqiya or Soada. In the Tashraf stage, which is the most detailed part of the archetype of the hero's journey, Razi defines and explains the four main stages, which are, respectively: Amaregy, Lawwemgy, Molhamegy, and Ammaregy. According to him, all four spirits must go through these four stages on their way to perfection and return (resurrection). According to Razi, the passing of the soul from Amaregy, Lawwemgy, Molhamegy, and Ammaregy takes place in seven stages. These Haftkhans, respectively, include: passing through the qualities of earth, water, air, fire, the heavens and heavenly bodies, the kingdom of stars and stars, and finally the heart. Passing through this Haftkhan places a person in the highest rank and known position. After going through this difficult path, one enters the promised paradise. After that, the stage of return takes place, and in this return, if a person is one of those who are fascinated, he does not have a mission to guide, but if he is in the group of seekers, he will be a guide to others on the path of knowledge.

Goodness and badness are one of most important subjects of the Islamic theology that have different results in areas and branches such as ethics and beliefs. The Ash'arites consider goodness and badness as the religious and product of Shari'a rules, and the Mu'tazilites and Shiites consider it as one of the rules of reason and prior to Shari'a. According to the second category, goodness and badness of rulings are subject to their interests and corruptions. The verdict of goodness is subject to expediency and the verdict of badness is corrupt. Of course, due to the limitations of human intellect, finding supporting materials and corruptions or the good and bad of rulings is achieved only for some rulings and not as a general rule. The present study, with an analytical-descriptive approach based on a library method, seeks to investigate the attitude of Nahj al-Balaghah to the issue of goodness and badness and answer the question whether it can be used as a reason for the theory of goodness and badness? In answer to the central question of the research, some may claim that this book is not concerned with the issue of goodness and badness and does not refer to this principle. However, some of its interpretations can be used to prove and confirm the claim of this important theological principle. Therefore, with the help of Nahj al-Balaghah's attitude to the issue of nature, the role and position of reason, as well as parts of Imam's (as) statements, the answer to the research question can be found; Given that the rationality of goodness and badness is a conscience. Presenting narrated reasons and evidences on it is mostly punitive and negligent.