Theoretical Foundations of Imam Khomeini in Mystical Love and Its Comparison with the Intellectual Foundations of Ahmad Ghazali, Founder of Romantic Mysticism

Romantic mysticism is an intellectual movement with certain principles and characteristics either in theoretical aspect or in practical and spiritual wayfaring dimensions that has received less attention. A review of a few cases of theoretical principles and specifications in the works of Ahmad Ghazali, will help understand how he has managed to popularize romantic mysticism as an intellectual movement as well as an independent and flourishing entity. In comparison with Imam Khomeini’s views on this, we can understand that how far Khorasani school of mystical love has affected mystical views of a contemporary theosophist although with different line of thinking. This paper’s claim or achievement in clear words is this that Imam Khomeini, as a highly learned person belonging to Ibn Arabi’s school of thought and that of Molla Sadra, accepts the generalities of the Khorasani school of mystical love, and in his poetry his language is very close to the gnostic poets of the school of Khorasan. However, in his works in prose, he has reflected the same principles in another form and language in Ibn Arabi’s school. Elsewhere, impressed by the common approach in Shia jurisprudence, he has not paid that much attention to principles governing some romantic mystic traditions such as virtual love.