مجله ادبیات عرفانی
پیاپی 37 (تابستان 1403)

Daqhughi's story in Masnavi Manavi is a multi-layered narrative that can be analyzed from different angles due to its fluid structure. One such analysis is to understand the features of mystical experience that constitute the essence of this parable. The mystical experience involves moments of fascination and vision in which a person experiences an extraordinary journey and is in communion with the transcendent world. Many intellectuals in the field of mystical philosophy have tried to understand the nature of this phenomenon. Among them, William James and Walter Stace stand out as prominent theorists who have described the characteristics of this phenomenon. The scientific and theoretical framework they created for recognizing elements of mystical experiences can shed light on even the most complex of these experiences. The mystical experiences depicted in Daqhughi's story possess identifiable features, and their ambiguities can be resolved using this theoretical framework. Characteristics such as inexpressibility, paradoxes, unity in vision, a sense of blessing, objectivity, and an epistemological quality are evident in the story. At the onset of his experience, Daqhughi perceives the unity within multiplicity—a perception that appears paradoxical amid successive transformations. His experience bears an epistemological quality, and while recognizing it as profoundly blessed, Daqhughi also acknowledges its inexpressibility. Therefore, the primary goal of this essay is to offer an alternative interpretation of this symbolic allegory through the lens of mystical experiences as described by theorists. However, it's important to note that not all features are present in this narrative; for instance, transiency is notably absent from this allegory.

The linguistic symbols present in a particular work can convey a multitude of meanings contingent upon the mystic's spiritual experiences, temporal conditions, status, and life.   A primary objective and methodology of semiotics is to investigate  this horizon of meaning and reveal the process of creating meaning.  Umberto Eco, through his mastery of various methods of semiotic analysis and the unique qualities of each method, has attempted to develop a synthetic and interpretative theory of semiotics. In this article, Ṣafwat al-Ṣafā, written by Ibn Bazzāz, has been chosen as the primary source for the study and research of dream and spiritual phenomena. Ṣafwat al-Ṣafā is a collection of the spiritual experiences of Sheikh Ṣafī al-Dīn Ardabīlī and his mentor, Sheikh Zāhed Gīlānī. This research aims to elucidate the process of producing spiritual phenomenon and its comprehension and interpretation. The research findings indicate that, although spiritual phenomena are typically considered as a message for the spiritual wayfarer (sālik) from the realm of archetypes (ʿālam maʿnā), from the perspective of the theory of "sign creation" and spiritual phenomenon, it is a coin which on one side is the path of communication between the spiritual wayfarer and the world of archetypes, and on the other side is message from the world of the archetypes to the spiritual wayfarer.  The spiritual wayfarer is the recipient of this message; however, he is not able to comprehend the meaning of the message. They can only convert the message to linguistic signs. The pīr(spiritual guide) is the interpreter of the spiritual phenomenon, and it is the pīr who reveals the primary message of the phenomenon to the spiritual wayfarer. Furthermore, spiritual phenomena are signs that have different functions, such as the endeavor to "find the Truth" and "educational functions."

One of most important topics in mystical philosophy is the investigation of the role of experiential structures in shaping mystical experiences and their interconnections. This investigation has led to various approaches, including perennial philosophy, essentialism, structuralism, and decontextualism. In this analytical-comparative study, each of these perspectives is presented, followed by an examination of Mulla Sadra's perspective on the subject.  Findings From Mulla Sadra's perspective, personal structures have a significant impact on mystical experiences. He argues that mystics gain insights into deep truths by reflecting them in their souls. Talents, beliefs, behaviors, expectations, tendencies, and attentiveness all shape these experiences. Although he recognizes the existence of parallel mystical encounters in diverse traditions, aligning with the tenets of the perennial philosophy, Mulla Sadra's approach is not the same for all mystical experiences. He deems certain vertical data as illusionary and adopts a purely structuralist stance. Mulla Sadra's methodology can be described as “Gradational structuralism”, wherein he suggests that as the mystic progresses to higher existential levels and reduces self-centered focus, individual structures play a less significant role, and the convergence of mystics in parallel experiences increases. Consequently, in these cases, his analytical framework for studying mystical texts leans towards contextual analysis.

This article explores the Sufi tradition of rending garments and compares it with similar practices in Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Judaism, as well as in some ancient Arab, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian cultures. The first section gives a brief introduction to the Sufi custom and highlights the striking similarities between this symbolic gesture in Islamic mysticism and the tradition of stripping in some ancient religions and cultures, mainly rooted in the Near East. Broadly, all of the contexts, in which the act of rending garments is performed, indicate deep anxieties and intense feelings. Older instances show that the main triggers include the death of loved ones and the dreadful consequences of cardinal sins such as blasphemy and sacrilege. These meanings can be found in Jewish, Christian and Islamic literature and can also be found in Sufism. In addition to these meanings, Sufism has reinterpreted the ancient tradition, giving it new meanings aligned with its fundamental concepts to introduce it as a Sufi tradition. Lastly, the article's final section explains this tradition's formation and evolution, presenting two different theories on its origins.

This research examines the meaning of love on the basis of mystical texts. The theoretical basis of the study is the relevance theory of Sperber and Wilson. The result of this research shows that in the review of mystical texts (a case study of a sonnet from Hafez's Divan) from the audience's point of view, love has no prescribed and predetermined meaning and is in fact a multiple phenomenon And because of the impossibility of expressing metaphysical experiences in mysticism the mystics’s speech is implicitly presented to the audience in the form of textural patterns. And this is the reason for the emergence of multiple phenomena of semantics outside the world of mysticism. According to relevance theory, these implications comprise a series of strong and weak hints that the reader of the text interprets depending on the encyclopedic information and the contents of long-term and short-term memory, as well as on his own perceptual context and other cases, and whenever the listener's expectation of the relevance of the message seems sufficient, he abandons the attempt. In addition, using a questionnaire created on the basis of relevance theory and the importance of contextual implications for the method of exploratory comprehension of words, factors such as age, gender, education, beliefs, etc. were examined and it showed that some of these factors can affect the reader's perception of love is effective in rereading mystical texts and others.

A symbol is a very broad concept that has been given many definitions in different books. In the category of symbols, one of the types of symbols mentioned is the creative symbols, which are mentioned with other titles such as random, exclusive, personal and special symbols in various books. Each of the symbolic poets has innovative symbols in his symbolic images that no one has used before. Attar is one of the poets who succeeded in developing a coherent symbolic system in his poems and achieving a unique style among the mystic poets. He has innovations in symbolization that in this research we aim to extract these symbols in the Tragedy by using descriptive and analytical methods and by using written and electronic sources and documents, and through this way we can obtain both the methods of Attar's symbolization and its generalization or not. These symbols will be revealed to us after Attar. The results of the research show that Attar frequently used his symbols in the form of simile additions. Moreover, some of Attar's innovative symbols were not used by any other poet except Attar, while some others have become universal symbols in the poetry of poets after Attar. Attar's innovative symbols are expressed in the three forms of simile additions, metaphors and allegorical stories, with most of the extracted cases being in the form of simile additions.