Again We Went Astray (Explaining and approving the view of Zarinkoub about decoding the first tale of Molavi's Mathnavi)

The researchers of Mathnavi have considered the first tale of this work named “Kanizak va Padeshah” as a symbolic tale and each of them has decoded it according to his particular view. They all agree upon decoding three characters of this tale. The main dispute is over decoding the king and maid characters. Seemingly following the Kharazmi commentary، most commentators assume king as the symbol of soul and maid as the symbol of the self. In the works of Dr Zarinkoub، maid and king symbolize human being and God respectively. But some scholars believe that king’s taking shelter in the mosque and confessing to his fault is discordant with considering him as the symbol of God. Thus، there seems to be more propensity to Kharazmi’s view. After criticizing other views، this research tries to explain the view of Zarinkoub by focusing on the motif of the story and Molavi’s manner of fictionalization. It is assumed that the motif of this tale is the fault of human (maid) in knowing the true beloved (king) and choosing an unstable beloved named the world (goldsmith). There are two groups of factors which confirm this hypothesis: the factors outside the tale which include the theme of the main source of the tale، the record of such theme in gnostic texts، the presence of this theme in the works of early mystics like Attar and the repetition of such theme in other tales of Mathnavi. The factors inside the tale are: the prologue of the tale and final verse، the dilemma of the tale and its pivotal character، the denouement and conclusion by Molavi at the end of the tale.