Comparative Analysis of Religious Experience of Sohrevardi and Hafez HosseinAli Ghobadi

Persian literature and especially mystical literature, is largely mixed with illuminationist thoughts of Sohrevardi (Suhrawardi). This blending and the resulted effect are mainly due to his mysterious works in which he expressed his philosophical ideas in a literary language. In his works, the religious experiences are expressed in different ways: sometimes directly, sometimes in the form of mysterious stories, and sometimes he classifies and systematizes these experiences as an external observer. Hafez as a poet, who has always been connected to the previous literary heritage, sometimes communicates such unique experiences through sonnet which considered being significantly similar to Sohrevardi’s experiences. Facing a holy idea which is indefinable and formless in nature, this is the experiencer’s mind which forms the experience in this process. It can be claimed that Sohrevardi’s works played a role in forming the structure of Hafez’s mind. Sometimes these experiences are similar regarding the location of the events which is Sohrevardi’s “world of ideas” or “hovargheliya”, and sometimes the similarity is in the quality of the experience manifested in the form of visual, auditory and olfactory experiences. The description of experiences as a fleeting lightning or midnight son, meeting the sacred witness (Shahid) and the holy Pir (leader) are some of the common features in Hafez and Sohrevardi’s works.