مجله ادبیات عرفانی
پیاپی 30 (پاییز 1401)

One of the major approaches to understanding the structure of narrative is its analysis based on Greimas’s system of binary oppositions. Greimas strived to achieve a comprehensive pattern in analysis of stories by dividing the actants into three binary oppositions and a tripartite division of events. This research aims to comparatively analyze the narrative structure in three Persian epistles of Suhrawardi by applying Greimas theoretical framework. The findings of the research point to the lack of formation of a complete narrative based on the actants in Greimas model. The reason is the dominance of knowledge-building, as the primary goal, over the narration form, as the secondary goal of Suhrawardi. As one of the consequences of this dominance, we can point to the spread of disjunctive progression across the epistles, which also arose from the dominance of discourse over structure. The research also reveals the formation of the same form of narration in terms of the system of actants and the type of layered narration. This style of processing the story indicates Suhrawardi’s understands of the concept of the nine planets and their connection with the soul. The similarity in the object/aim actant as a conceptual matter and the weakness in form indicators are other findings of this comparative study.

Environmental linguistics is one of the new approaches in linguistic research and a branch of social linguistics that studies the relationship between language and the natural-social environment of its speakers from a new perspective. According to environmental linguists, geographical environment and climatic conditions cause linguistic variations; as a result of which intellectual and cultural differences in an environment emerge. Tarjumān al-Ashwāq (The Interpreter of Longings) is a poem by Mohi al-Din Ibn Arabi, one of the prominent thinkers and mystics of Islamic mysticism who depicts Ibn Arabi's romantic feelings towards Nazam, the daughter of Sheikh Makin al-Din, during the poet's years of residence in Mecca. In this work, Ibn Arabi employs a language that has semantic correlates appropriate to the geographical environment of Mecca and the socio-cultural conditions of the residents of that environment to express his moods and describe the characteristics of his beloved. From the linguistic viewpoint, this work depicts a linguistic community representing the particular discourse of the geographical environment the lover and the beloved were residing in.  In the present study, with the aim of evaluating and recognizing the specific discourse of the poet's biosphere, the linguistic community and the lexical network of Tarjumān al-Ashwāq were categorized based on the biological, intellectual, and cultural components and indicators of Ibn Arabi's life environment; using a descriptive-analytical method and from the perspective of environmental linguistics. The findings of the study reveal the correlation between the natural environment and language, which has in turn affected the culture, vision, and worldview of Ibn Arabi as one of the users of that environment

Research on the contemporary mystical literature of Afghanistan is a neglected field. Despite the current sufferings inflicting the country, the literature has more or less remained an active area. In this research, three mystical poets, Mastan Shah, Majnon Shah and Heydari Wojodi, who lived in the last one hundred years, have been briefly introduced and the concept of love, as the underlying theme of mystical literature, has been examined in their poetry. This study, adopting a descriptive-analytical method, sought to explore the following questions: What are the commonalities and possible differences between the poems of Majnon Shah and Mastan Shah, who followed Chishtiyyah order, and those of Heydari Wojodi, who followed the Naqshbandiyyah order; What is the place of love, as a condition for attaining perfection and knowing God, in the ontological orientation of Chishtiyyah and Naqshbandiyya orders? How have important issues like the contrast between love and reason and the relationship between material and real love reflected in the poems of these three poets? The results show that the poets, influenced by the unity of existence and the unity of intuition, considered love the origin of the universe and indefinable, and introduced it as the world of unity and the ultimate goal of the seeker; which frees him from reputation and shame. In the poems of Majnon Shah and Mastan Shah, whose mystical state is somewhat reminiscent of the state of Maulana's sonnets, also in the poems of Heydari Wojodi, which are influenced by his long engagement with Maulana's Masnavi, true love is considered as evolved form of material love and regarding the contrast between love and reason, all three poets have given priority to love over reason.

Sufi narratives as hetero-biographies produce a textual face for the subject due to variables such as the time interval and the type of relationship between the narrator and the referent subject; the reading and intentions of the narrator; and the verifiability of the narrative data. Accordingly, this textual face cannot completely coincide with the true personality of the Sufi referential subject. This research, using a descriptive-analytical method and relying on the ideas of Paul de Man in "Autobiography as De-facement" article, examines the types of face-making in Sufi narratives and answers the question whether all methods of face-making lead to facement in the audience reading. The study of Sufi narratives shows that the face of Sufis has been processed with the aim of sanctification by dignifying and modeling religious and mythological figures, depicting an objective and ontological "devalued self" based on the principle of annihilation (Fana), prosopopian speaking in the grave, and the epitaphs. Prosopopeia gives a surreal and sublime dimension to the declining face of the dead Sufi, hence generates a new face. In depicting the objective “I” of Sufi, based on which self-devaluation of “I” (face) has deliberately and consciously taken place, a new face has emerged for the Sufi. Nevertheless, exaggeration in the description of some Sufi characteristics such as carelessness with appearance, purity and unity in Love for God and disengagement with others; examples of which could be reflected in the lice-infested robe, the prayer causing the death of the child, and the driving away of the disciples, has had the opposite result, and has turned face-making into defacement.

The discursive fluctuations of the idea of “religious tolerance” in different periods of Sufism show the direct and indirect influence of the social and political conditions of these periods on the contraction and expansion of this approach in Sufi works. This article, via deploying the framework of Foucault's theory and considering the mutual relationship between power strategies and ideologies governing the society, assumes the idea of ​​religious tolerance among Muslim Sufis as having a discursive nature related to the political will of the rulers, and studies that in the context of socio-political transformations of the historical eras. The studies show that the religious tolerance discourse in the Sufi works, until the end of the sixth century, has faced ideological challenges despite its expansion in the Buyid and Seljuk eras, due to the religious nature of the governments (the control of the political institution by the religious institution) and the stable hegemony of the jurisprudence discourse. However, in the seventh century, the rise of secular Mongol rulers and their policy of religious tolerance, on the one hand, and the removal of the religious-law enforcement from the arena of political power, on the other hand, set the ground for the expansion of the discourse of religious tolerance in a favorable way for Sufism. The purpose of this article is to examine the discourse of “religious tolerance” in Islamic Sufism with regard to the political and social developments of the historical periods up to the eighth century. The study has been conducted using a descriptive-analytical method.

In ancient Iran, many groups, sects, and even some guild owners and craftsmen used to invent a particular language over time that was sometimes difficult, if not impossible, to be understood thoroughly or even generally by others. Qalandars were considered one of the most important social classes in Iran that had their own thought and consequently their own language, and some clear indications of them are still present in Iranian culture. In spite of all the valuable efforts that have been made to gain sufficient knowledge about Qalandars, many aspects of their lives have remained unseen or unknown. Their constructed language or the Qalandari Lutr is one of the topics deserving attention. Qalandars’ letters to each other are among the works left by them which are replete with jargons and terminology specific to this class. In other words, they represent the way they thought and lived. The most important of these letters are included in The Generalities by Obaid Zakani. Some scholars have been skeptical about attributing these works to Obaid. In Obaid Zakani’s The Generalities, the manuscript kept in Raghib Pasha Library which has previously been neglected by the editors of Obaid's works, these two letters were found along with a third letter, which is very similar to the previous two letters. The present paper initially presents the background, and subsequently examines the texts of all three letters regarding the handwritten manuscripts, prints, stylistic features and some equivalence references, and tries to provide a more accurate edition of the first two letters while presenting the new-found letter. Finally, this paper presents the correct form of some jargons and terminologies, some of their semantic aspects, and the researcher’s reading of them.