---

In Sufi terminology, Shat'h is a series of aesthetic words expressed involuntarily by mystics during the mystical experiences. There have been multifarious interpretations and judgments concerning these paradoxes ranging from linguistic and epistemic interpretations to religious ones. The Sufis and their opponents have also voiced their diametrically opposing views on  this issue. The present study addresses the traditional Sufi doctrines as well as what has been suggested about the various aspects of  Shat'h including its ambiguity, its relationship to poetry, and its paradoxicality as argued by the contemporaries. The central issue of concern  is whether these aesthetic words carry more emotional or epistemic content. Another impetus behind this research is to probe whether the linguistic expression of these words is indeed a representation of a special form of life. A deep understanding of these words requires a certain affinity and empathy with this form of life without which it's hardly possible to see the hidden meanings of the words. Thus, it is argued that the justification of Shat'h is more importand than its explanation.

---

As the title indicates, the main purpose of this paper is to consider how the early mystics dealt with the essential concept of reason. To this end, we have examined forty works either written on or including the ideas of the mystics living in the first five centuries of the Islamic era. The findings are then placed in ten main categories: Reason and one’s knowledge of god; Reason and the Koran; Reason and Riligion; Reason and Ethics; Reason, this world, and hereafter; Reason and Mystical Hierarchies; Reason and Mystical states; Reason and Love; Reason and soul. Each category has then received its due attention. The paper intends to delineate how these mystics discuss divergent issues related to knowledge, this world, the hereafter and mysticism with reference to reason. Also, attempts are made to shed lights on the relationship between them. It must be admitted that these mystics had a limited view of reason; however, the very reference to reason in their arguments points to their concern about this concept. In fact, in their delineating of the limitations of reason in different realms of knowledge, they have resorted to the same notion (i.e reason). Although our main concern here is issues related to reason in one way or another, one can note the extent and diversity of knowledge theses mystics have touched upon in their   works.

---

In verse 172, Aaraf Sura, God covenants with its thrall (servants); but this verse expressed a general concept and did not discuss the details. This resulted in suggesting different views and comments by mystics, scholars, theologians, commentators and jurists. They explicitly pointed to some of the cases of this eternal covenant, such as testament of Adam, confession of people to God and saying "yes" by Adam to God; but commentators and mystics had different and contradictory perceptions. This study analyzed the process of concept formation and different thoughts of "eternity" from the first commentator to the books of Persian literature mystics, and offers a comprehensive and detailed discussion of the issue

---

Longing is one of mystical states that appeares in the absence of the beloved and must vanish at meeting the beloved. In mystical texts, longing at the joining moment is elaborated on. Some mystics believe that after joining and at the presence of the beloved, longing increases and converts to a state of desire. The continuity of longing or converting caused by the presence of the beloved, in turn, lead to an unending journey to God. The beloved has a myriad of manifestations and the lover in each stage reaches one of  the beauties of the beloved. So, the lover has reached one manifestation of the beloved’s beauty and is still striving for understanding and uncovering the other aspects. The beloved’s unconditional enthusiasm and presence is stimulated by the lover’s continuous need to love the beloved. Once the journey to God is over, another journey in God starts. This journey never ends because of the the beloved’s unlimited beauty and glory; hence, the lover remains longing and loving the beloved forever.  

---

Since human soul seeks excellence, he continuously hunts for answers to his questions. Therefore, he works towards tools to help him achieve a better life, create a dream world (Armanshahr) or utopia; a nowhere; his desired world. The Sufis has been more attentive to the local realities of their society, and they saw the society full of shortcomings and sought to lead their people into a desirable world by knowing the existing society and understanding its shortcomings and failures. The mystic understanding of Sanaei, Attar and Rumi of utopia is different from the perception of philosophers and scholars. In this way, scholars, poets and writers attribute some features to utopia, and although these features share some commonalities, they are different in some aspects as well. In this research, we have tried to study the main literary works of the 6^th and 7^th centuries through descriptive-analytical methods to, on the one hand, explore the evolution of the concept of utopia in the works of the elders of Persian mystic poetry, and on the other hand to explore the characteristics of their utopias and their differences according to the socio-political characteristics of that period.

---

Qotol-al-Qolob is an organismic and rich text that has been very effective in stabilizing the Sufist discourse. This is because of the flow of Sufism articulated in the late second century in the context of religion and passed through contradictory discourses such as jurisprudence, theology, and philosophy and then emerged in a period that radical rationalism, jurisprudential controversy, philosophical conflicts as well as political and social quarrels spead over the entire Islamic world. The ideologues of Sufism highlighted absent and separated propositions with the help of the logic of discursive difference and by studying and recognizing dominant approaches. They were gradually able to successfully integrate and dominate the Sufist discourse. This is visualized in Qotol-al-Qolob which we consider to be the confluence of two scholarly and insightful discourses. To achieve this important point we use the method and discourse analysis of La Clau and Mouffe and we show how Abutaleb Makki could renovate the absent, excluded, and depleted propositions of the jurisprudential discourse by the use of interpretation model.
 

---

So far, many thinkers with different approaches have studied the concept of “the other” and its examples in various aspects of human life. Literature has also attracted the attention of researchers and interested scholars as a platform for representing examples of “the other”. In addition to recognizing the place of “otherness” in the worldview of individuals in different eras, studying examples of “the other” in the literary texts has also made it possible to delimit the realm of “I”. In this paper, using an analytical method and adopting an eclectic approach, the researchers studied the potentials of Rumi’s Mathnavi in ​​representing the types of “the other” and in realizing the levels of otherness of “the other” and its place in the mystical worldview so as to gain a relative knowledge of the structures that govern mystical thoughts. To that end, we first explained the concept of “the other” in three intellectual-philosophical systems, namely contrastive, dialectical and intersubjective, and mentioned examples of “the other” in verses of Mathnavi. Then, we presented a reading of the levels of realization of otherness of “the other” and the conditions of their possibility in this text. From a general point of view, due to the contrastive structure of the mystical worldview and the definition of “the other” as an “alien”, the realization of high levels of otherness in the text of Mathnavi cannot be expected, but the narrative of the experience of union and depicting the inability of “I” to understand “the infinite other” can be regarded as representation of the highest level of otherness. Meanwhile, in the distance from the “alien” to “the infinite other” and through dialogue, a level of otherness is also represented in the relationship between the characters in some stories of Mathnavi.
 

---

There are some words and phrases in Hāfez’s Diwān (Book of Poems) which merit careful attention as this brings us closer to the world of his poetry and thought. One of these words is “Jām” (“cup”) and its synonyms. The frequency of this word and its synonyms is indicative of its significance in the mind of the poet. To investigate Jām in Hāfez’s Diwān, the importance of Jām in Persian literature and Hāfez’s Diwān, and the opinions of the old and contemporary exegetes regarding the meaning and function of Jām in Hāfez’s Diwān were explained in this paper. The body of the paper contains two distinct parts: the first part deals with Jām in the tradition of poetry prior to Hafez. There are three kinds of Jām or “Mey” (wine): earthly, mystical, and Khayyamian. The second part is concerned with the display of the artistic skills of Hāfez in dealing with Jām in the following subheadings: 1. The repetition and foregrounding of the word Jām and making it a symbolic motif, 2. Creating opposition by Jām and using it as a tool for political and social struggle, 3. Mixing the various and opposing meanings and functions of Jām, and 4. Making paradoxical expression with Jām to create masterpiece couplets. The conclusion of this descriptive-analytical research is that Hafez intentionally repeated Jām to make it prominent and symbolic and mixed its Islamic and Iranian senses to create a prism of which any reader based on their background knowledge and experience could get various meanings.    
 

---

Teaching monotheistic topics and trying to understand the ambiguous concepts of epistemology have always been the concern of thinkers. Despite the commonalities in monotheistic teachings, access to rich concepts is not possible for everyone, and there may be contradictions in the understanding of meanings. Hadiqah al-Haqiqah and Masnavi are among the instructive texts that have used figures of speech to express monotheistic concepts. In this article, the teaching style of Sanai and Rumi based on the method of using Monotheistic Images and Corbin’s hermeneutics approach is studied.  The monotheistic language of Masnavi and Hadiqah al-Haqiqah is almost the same. Sanai has expressed monotheism in a general way and at a high level, while Rumi has gone into more details about monotheistic concepts. Hadiqah al-Haqiqah images are mostly designed on the horizontal axis, whereas in Rumi’s Masnavi, many images can also be found on the vertical axis. Rumi has sometimes used Sanai symbols and in many cases has taught monotheistic concepts with completely innovative symbols. The monotheistic images of both mystics are a combination of philosophical teachings and mystical intuitive symbols in Corbin’s hermeneutics. Benefitting from the graphic form of the letters (alphabetical symbolism) and the metaphor of the letters are common to both works.
 
 

---

According to the Bible and the Holy Quran, Adam who was the first man created by God lived in Paradise but later fell to the earth for some reasons. The story of expulsion of Adam from Paradise has been widely mentioned in Old Persian literature and has been interpreted in different ways. This article aims to investigate the reasons for the Fall of Adam from Paradise in some interpretive, mystical texts and in the divans of famous Persian poets up to the eighth century A.H. The researcher classified, compared, and analyzed these reasons based on their similarities and differences. The findings showed that in Old Persian literature including interpretive, mystical, and poetry works the Fall of Adam was either the result of his sin and God’s wrath upon him, or it was his destiny as decided by God, therefore he had no other choice, or he consciously decided to leave the paradise. In each case, there are some reasons behind Adam’s expulsion from Paradise to the earth.

 

---

---