Representing the Emancipation Metanarrative of Islamic Mysticism in the Discourse and Narrative of Attar's Tazkirat al-Awliya

Mystic texts are among the fruitful branches of Persian literature. Because of their transparent relationships with mystical and human experience and imagination, they constitute the foundations of artistic originations and indescribable lingual experiences. One of the structural features which connects all mystical texts of Persian literature is the discourse-based relationship. The main profession of Attar of Nishapur, the great poet and thinker of the 12th century, is poetry; however, through compiling Tazkirat al-Awliya, he tried to make use of the same discourse which he pursued in Mantiq-ut-Tayr. Although he adopted the majority of components of Tazkirat al-Awliya from previous mystic works such as Al- Risala al-Qushayriyya, Kashf-ul-Mahjub and Tabaqat al-Sufiyah, his aesthetic and linguistic behavior in creating the microcosm of this text is completely different, in such a way that all parts which have been allocated to Tazkirat al-Awliya and remembrance of the mystics have the same discourse-based structure. Some pale shadows of this structural pattern can be found in Kashf-ul-Mahjub, Tabaqat al-Sufiyah, and Al- Risala al-Qushayriyya, too; but Attar has given depth and direction to this pattern and has taken over a special style. The present paper is trying to find answers to two research questions which are directly related to the structure of Tazkirat al-Awliya. 1- How is the emancipation metanarrative of Islamic mysticism represented in mystical discourse? 2- How does Attar juxtapose the emancipation meta-narrative with discourse to create the narrative structure of Tazkirat al-Awliya? The metanarrative which is seen in Tazkirat al-Awliya is the “saga of emancipation.” This saga brings into existence the discourse of the “journey of mankind in the world.” With the metaphor of “journey,” he realizes the saga of sin and repentance. Therefore, his narrations start with repentance and end in death. In Tazkirat al-Awliya, the selected people start their journey with self-identification and repenting of their sins and then turn into identified agents and then their behavior and speech will influence the others and eventually their journey ends in death.