Concepts of “Other”, “Other Acceptance”, and “Other Antipathy” in Mawlānā’s Masnavi-Manavi

“The Other” is a philosophy concept which has been discussed in philosophers’ works like Heidegger, Sartre, Buber and Levinas since twentieth century. Michael Bakhtin, Russian theoretician, has entered this concept in the literature area and he has searched it in literary text. However, the concept of “The Other” hasn’t been discussed as an issue in Islamic philosophy, but it has been investigated this phenomenon in literary text in different ways such as lingual, ethical and religious minority. Mawlānā’s book, Masnavi-e-Manavi, is one of the most valuable Persian poem book which contained the concept of “The Other”. Mawlānā has got two views in this book. Both views were risen from his thoughts, personality features and the cultural necessities of that time in society.In the first view, he discussed the former concept of “The Other” in the form of school jurisprudent in the society of that era. He narrated the judgments, which he hadn’t had any roles in making them. They contained a kind of conflict with “The Other” in the form of contempt, ejection and negation.In the second view, he had completely changed the concept of “The Other”. He had defined the concept of “The Other” based on his thoughts and personal experiences. Although, poet is a narrator of the others thoughts in the first view, he himself defined and formed the knowledge in the second view. In this new way, the poet with gnostic inspiration didn’t accept the former believes and he wouldn’t repeat those thoughts. He narrated the human and existence with humanity and gnostic views. In this way, he redefined the concept of “The Other” and made far difference with the first one. In this article, after discussing theoretical views about the concept of “The Other", the researcher has investigated Mawlānā’s views in two ways: the jurisprudent world and the gnostic world.