The Animality of the Soul in the Anecdotes of Tazkirat-al-Auliyā

In mystical texts, there is a trace of the animality of the soul, though this belief dates back to the primitive era of human life. In his works, Carl Gostov Jung has introduced some of the repeated animal symbols in primitive and quasi-primitive ethnic groups; his theories are based on mythological and anthropological studies about these groups. In the present article, we study the role of animals in Tazkirat-al-Auliyā with a comparative-analytic method based on Jung's ideas. The results show that in the anecdotes of the book, animals play a role based on mythological beliefs about the animality of the soul. If we, like Jung's psychoanalysis, believe that the soul is an old expression of "self" and "psyche", then the animals play the role of unconscious symbols and are part of the process of psyche evolution. In the anecdotes of Tazkirat-al-Auliyā, sometimes, animals are the symbol of the mystic's transcendent self, they protect him and talk to him, they have superior knowledge and give him a transcendental knowledge; and sometimes they refer to the mystic as the head of the tribe and the owner of the totem.