Religious Inquiries
Volume:10 Issue: 1, Winter-spring 2021

Man employs a variety of methods to communicate his ideas and intentions. When he trusts that his audiences are competent enough to comprehend his oral or written message, and when he feels assured that no prejudice or misunderstanding exists on the part of the audience; he speaks directly and avoids figurative or ambiguous language. In contrast, if he feels or predicts otherwise, he tends to apply another strategy, expressing meanings implicitly under the guise of allusion, symbolism, and/or allegories. Some researchers believe that symbolic mysterious language (ramz) is exclusively employed in mathematics and mysticism to express topical objectives, but in this article, we will attempt to explain the application of this language in philosophy, and demonstrate why Muslim philosophers leaned toward using this encoded language. The author of the present study believes, to the best of his knowledge, that this research study is the first of its kind that seeks to explore the motives and considerations behind the use of this encoded language by philosophers.Man employs a variety of methods to communicate his ideas and intentions. When he trusts that his audiences are competent enough to comprehend his oral or written message, and when he feels assured that no prejudice or misunderstanding exists on the part of the audience; he speaks directly and avoids figurative or ambiguous language. In contrast, if he feels or predicts otherwise, he tends to apply another strategy, expressing meanings implicitly under the guise of allusion, symbolism, and/or allegories. Some researchers believe that symbolic mysterious language (ramz) is exclusively employed in mathematics and mysticism to express topical objectives, but in this article, we will attempt to explain the application of this language in philosophy, and demonstrate why Muslim philosophers leaned toward using this encoded language. The author of the present study believes, to the best of his knowledge, that this research study is the first of its kind that seeks to explore the motives and considerations behind the use of this encoded language by philosophers.

The spiritual exercises practiced by the wayfarers on the path of Truth should be done in different stages, so that the traveler on the mystical path gradually and rightly realizes spiritual perfection. Most mystics and scholars believe in the existence of seven stages – as number seven is always revered and held sacrosanct in our religious texts and national narratives. Some thinkers, like Ibn Sina, contend that the first step is the seeking or demanding, other philosophers maintain that it is doubt, while others, including Khwaja Abdullah and Imam Khomeini, believe that it is the awakening. Of course, such different views share similarities. The authors of this study will attempt to highlight the frequency of the stages of the Truth path wayfaring as well as discuss the differences and similarities on the stations of wayfaring, while trying to choose the best view on the order of the stages of wayfaring, especially the first stage. Of these stations, the valleys of intention, seeking, repentance and penitence, vigilance, sorrow and annihilation have the highest frequency in the view of authorities.

The current essay tackles Saint Augustine of Hippo’s conception of the issue of angels; and is based on Augustine’s book: The City of God, one of the most influential works of Augustine that contains a synopsis of the foundations of angelology in the era of Church Fathers. In his book, Augustine discusses such issues as the eternity and emergence of the angels and their spiritual and luminal creation; and claims that angels enjoy free will and therefore are divided into two groups: good angels and bad angels; and he focused his book on the former group (good angels). According to Augustine, angels do not have any role in creation and everything is an immediate creation of God; however, their knowledge based on the model of seminal creation influences the phenomena and the creation of other beings in the world. According to Augustine's belief that has its origin in Christianity, although angels have an influence on the life and orientation of mankind in some ways, they do not have a stature to mediate for the prosperity and happiness of mankind, and it is Jesus the Christ solely who is entitled and competent for such mediation.

In the current essay we have explained the philosophic-mystical principle of analogical unity of existence as a theory that offers a solution for overcoming this critical situation. The existing capacity in this principle is in a form that can be raised as a new theory for resolving the environmental crisis. This essay is composed of two parts: first part has dealt with the evaluation of the theories of environmental ethics and the causes of these crises. Second part has turned to the study and explanation of the principle of analogical unity of existence and its quality of application in resolving the environmental crises. Among the results of the current research one can refer to the fact that based on this principle we can ground the theory of "environmental spirituality". The theory of environmental spirituality has introduced the nature as a sacred being that contains all divine perfections like living, perceiving and rational. Moreover, it has been proven that for prevention from environmental crises instead of adoption of "ethics-centered" laws we need to adopt "spirituality-centered" laws. The method used in this essay is descriptive-analytic and the discussion is based on arguments.

The editing, reconstruction, translation and commentary upon all the extant fragments of two Parthian Ewangelyōnīg bāšāhān (the ‘Hymns of the Gospel’) from the Manichaean Middle Iranian collection found in Turfan, Xinjiang, China, i.e. M88/II/, 91/I(?)/, M92, and M898, under one umbrella, is the most important goal of this article. We have tried to answer the substantive question of why the Ewangelyōnīg hymns had nothing to do at all with Mani’s Living Gospel itself, namely the actual prose text of the Living Gospel; in fact, Ewangelyōnīg hymns present a poetic description of the New Testament, as Mani saw it. We have argued that the Manichaean hymnology and tradition of writing ‘hymns’ and ‘psalms’ is not an Iranian tradition, although there was poetry in the Iranian tradition, like the poetry in Avestan and Pahlavi texts. This contribution is an attempt to shed light on the contents of the Ewangelyōnīg hymns, both thematically and structurally.

Zand texts or Middle Persian translations of Avestan texts are an important part of Middle Persian literature. Zoroastrians believe that Zand literature is as important as Avestan texts. Most scholars suppose that Zand literature dates back to the period when Avestan texts were compiled. According to oral traditions, even some are of the opinion that Zand texts are older than Sassanid Archetype of Avesta.  In the whole, it can be said that Zand literature, probably, belongs to the period in which Sassanid inscriptions were written. In this article, general concepts regarding translation and translation techniques will be examined including communicative and semantic translation. In addition, some manners of translation like borrowing, calque, transposition will be studied. This survey is based on Zand rendering of three gāthic hymns 28-30. One of the most important doctrines of Gāthās is the role of abstract forces which are called on along with God’s name. in later Avesta, these forces are totally individuated and called Aməša Spəntas “divine immortal beings.” We also consider whether the translator was aware of that these entities were abstract forces or he considered them as individual gods.