Ranks and Elements of Knowledge in Masnavi “Mashahed” by Shah Dai Shirazi

Shah Dai Shirazi is one of mystic poets and missionaries of Ibn Arabi’ existence unity thought and has written several works including verse and prose. One of his verses is “seteye Shah Dai”. The masnavi “Mashahed” is the first prose of his sextet masnavis in which the poet, considering his thought inclination, has composed in “seven   Mashhad”: request, abstraction, verve, exploration, knowledge, truth, and monotheism. Since no study had been done concerning this masnavi, the present research has introduced this work and studied one of important mystic issues e.g. “knowledge” and its ranks and elements in this Masnavi using analytic- descriptive method. This study indicated   that   following Ibn Arabi   and   impressive   reflection of   his ontological thought in title and structure of the work particularly words, terms frequency, and the content are   notable. According to Shah Dai’s thought,   knowledge   possesses   ranks and degrees.  Knowledge of self, knowledge of existence, and   knowledge of   God are   important elements of knowledge in masnavi Mashahed. Shah Dai argues that knowledge of human is related to ontology and these two lead to knowledge of God. The finding is that knowledge of God   is   not   possible   for   mystic   due   to   refusing   independence   and   the   mystic   can   reach “monotheism” stage thinking about manifestations of divine names and traits using exploration and intuition.