The Qurʾanic Origin of the Conceptual Metaphor of Creation in Nasafi's Zobdatal-ḥaqāyeq

Creation is an important topic in various worldviews including the views related to mysticism and Sufism. This importance has led to the application of all kinds of art and linguistic arrangement for the explanation and understanding of creation in mystical and educational works. Since most mystical ideas are rooted in the Holy Qurʾan, the source of many images used in Sufi's works can also be found in the Qurʾan. Nasafi is an exegete who has explained mystical issues, especially the creation of the world and the man in a clear and concrete way by resorting to Qurʾanic ayahs. In this article, metaphors of creation in Nafasi's Zobdatal-ḥaqāyeq have been investigated within the framework of the theory of conceptual metaphor using an analytic-descriptive method. The results show that most of the conceptual metaphors of creation in this work have their roots in Qurʾanic ayahs snd Nasafi, with his own way of the interpretation of ayahs has used them and has used different expressions to explain the creation. These metaphors are reflected in the form of concepts such as light, spirit, journey, plant, tree, fruits, and they all contain the concept of movement with the aim of describing creation as a purposeful move, which can be included in the macro-level metaphor of "creation is a journey".