پژوهشنامه عرفان
سال سوم شماره 6 (بهار و تابستان 1391)

Mohammad bin Mortada, better known as Mulla Mohsen Faiz Kashani (901-1007 hegira), was a renowned jurisprudent, transmitter of tradition, exegete, philosopher and Gnostic of Imamiyeh in the 11th century hegira and wrote a large number of books because of his comprehensive command of different Islamic fields. His inclination to Sufis and mysticism is clear in his works in which he has defended them. At the same time he has criticized the pseudo-Sufis and superficial Ulama of his time. However, it should be borne in mind that his inclination and defense of Sufis had its ups and down. In other words, Faiz defended the Sufis between 1030 and 1065 hegira and then on with inclining towards the Quran and Tradition, his Sufi inclination declined and paid more attention to mystical issues and this companionship of mysticism and Quran was always blissful. It seems that in his mysticism, he was mainly influenced by Mulla Sadra, Gazzali, Ibn Arabi and his expositors, particularly Jami and Seyed Heidar Ameli. The main thrust of the present paper is to study the approach of Faiz Kashani to mysticism and Sufism and the influence of others on him.

Although the issue of mystical approach to the inner layers of the Quranand meanings of its verses has been a focal point of discussions of the Muslimscholars, particularly the mystics since old times and considerable works have beeninherited from the mystics either as exegesis or interpretation or other subjects, the issue of relationship between jurisprudence and mysticism and mystical approach to the verses of the Quran which constitute the foundation of jurisprudential decrees is relatively a new issue. The subjects of Sharia, wayfaring and truth in Islamic mysticism too is clarified in comparison with the very issue of relationship between jurisprudence and mysticism. The present paper is an attempt to discuss the necessity of a mystical approach to jurisprudence and jurisprudential verses and their reasons, circumstantial evidences and proofs. This issue is important because some thinkers consider some of the Quranic verses as clear ones and do not permit such an approach to those verses. While reflection on the Quranic method in expression of commandments, distinction between the status of Islam and status of belief in Quranic perspective and also the preference of inward aspect of religion to its outward in different religions underline the necessity of a mystical approach to the Quranic verses on commandments.

The present paper is an attempt to study sensual perception in viewpoint of Ibn Arabi through a phenomenological approach. The phenomenological approach tries to study the principles of a sensual issue to explain its status in the field of perception. What is primarily meant by sense is outward senses. This refers to the primary essence of sense, but what we really mean is sensual observation, its open view of the being or original brightness of a sensual issue in the world of being. The reason for choosing hermeneutical phenomenological method is to delve into sensual-intuitional perception in direct proximity to the Being and the way of presence and absence. On the basis of this method, the base of division is lingual not logical. The first section begins with application of man s tongue in the process of description of openness of sense to existence as human perception and in the last part discusses the application of tongue for description of sense as an existential event.

Belief in the existence of accidental being in the thought system of Mohyeddin bin Arabi leaves no place for conventional philosophical causality, which entails relationship between cause and effect and creation of a reality by another reality. While rejecting that God is the root-cause of things and that of causal relation between manifestations, he explains the universal phenomena on the basis of diverse evolutions of simple being and unalterable principles of fixed objects and considers the creative action in all positions and status of being exclusively an act of God. Espinosa too on the basis of his monotheistic ontological principles, while rejecting essential possibility and necessity of other with regard to phenomena of the world, explains all possibilities in his thought system on the basis of the concept of necessity. By rejecting the external causality and accepting internal causality on all levels, he explains the relationship between essence and system of internal conditions and inner relationship within internal conditions. Hence, Ibn Arabi and Espinosa have similar views in rejecting external causality. By giving a specific definition for determination, both the thinkers reject free will and advocate determination in all universal fields.

Different Islamic schools of thought have their distinct approach to the principle of commandment of Good and Prohibition of Evil. The main hypothesis of the present paper is that not only the mystics have not been indifferent to this issue but also have three distinct theoretical approaches to it. Some of them have a jurisprudential approach, some an ethical and others a completely mystical approach to the issue. As a result of ethical and mystical approaches, the jurisprudent who had a merely jurisprudential approach to the issue considered mystics as discarders of the Commandment of Good and Prohibition of Evil.

Jala and Estejla are two concepts in Islamic mysticism which explain the manifestation and epiphany of God in possible things. Jala means manifestation of the Absolute Truth in other than Himself and Estejla means excessive manifestation. Attempts have been made in the present paper to study the literary and mystical meanings as well as some of their referents and the way of their manifestation on the basis of the genuine mystical texts, some Quranic verses, traditions and even Islamic philosophy. Also the sayings of great mystics have been critically studied in the present article. Moreover the following issues have been explained in the present research: the status of Jala and Estejla in the creation system, the way of perfection of these two, the relationship between Jala and Estejla, whether the Jala perfect is the estejla perfect or whether the Jala perfect and Estejal perfect have their own distinct referents.

Silence is one of the pillars of mysticism. In this project, I have examined the different kinds of silence from mystics’ point of view, causes of silence in mysticism, the relation between silence and other pillars of practical mysticism. The findings of this research are as follows: 1- There are two kinds of silence in mysticism: silence of the tongue and silence of the inner self. 2- the silence of the inner self, is a mystical experience. 3- The most important mystical elements related to silence are inward solitude, unity, meditation, litany, wonder, spiritual peace and gnosis.