Some Manifestations of Mentor and Sheikh and its Role in Sanai’s Divan

Sanai is one of the intellectual poets in mystical literature whose works has been researched from different approaches but whose divan of poems have rarely been scrutinized. One of the outstanding and frequent elements in mysticism and Sufism and Sanai’s divan of poems is the subject on “mentor and sheikh” that as the spiritual guideline they have an effective and undeniable impact on rearing mystic wayfarer and followers of spiritual journey of Tariqa, with whose guidelines wayfarers go through the internal journey and passages and risky paths. This paper tries to explain the standpoint view of this mystical literature about mentors and sheikhs in mystical journey via a descriptive analytic method within the poetic signs and evidences. It is concluded that the availability of guiding mentor is manifested in two forms and dual dimensions, sometimes seeking materialistic joys and virtues and some other times in search of other world’s virtues, dressed as Sufi and ascetic and leadership, free from worldly engagement, and above all love and fatality toward reaching the spiritual and comprehensive mentors of a perfect man.