The Concept of Environment Based on Iranian Mysticism and Wisdom, Toward Development of a Nursing Theory

Nurses seek to develop their professional knowledge through theorizing. The philosophical viewpoint dominating the nursing theories is based on Western thought and Iranian mysticism and wisdom are unknown concepts in nursing. For developing a nursing theory, there is first a need to define the main nursing concepts, i.e. human, environment, health and nursing. The aim of this study was to synthesize the concept of environment through an analytical review of the literature on Iranian mysticism and wisdom.

This is a library-based study carried out using Ryan-Wenger’s Concept Synthesis. For this purpose, first the components of the concept proposed by Walker and Avant were inductively selected as predetermined classes and, then, after reviewing one third of the selected literature, the nature of the cases to be placed in each class was deductively determined. In this study all the ethical considerations were observed and the author did not report any conflict of interests.

Based on the results, ‘manifestation’ and ‘existential orders’ were defined as the antecedents, ‘order of the creations’, ‘essential movement’, ‘temperament’, ‘sacred predisposition’ and ‘cosmic order’ were defined as the attributes and ‘balance/imbalance’ and ‘harmony/disharmony’ were the outcomes of the concept of environment.

The concept of environment in the Iranian mysticism and wisdom has a dynamic nature and includes physical/nonphysical creations including human beings; every single component inside it is affected by the whole. This is a more comprehensive definition of nursing compared to the current humanistic definitions in nursing theories, which are mainly individualistic and humanistic; it sees the nature of human being along with other creatures and the Creator and taking into account the influence of creations on each other’s health.