A comparative study of the similarities and differences between the first myths and metaphysical beings in Islamic thought, in a selection of illustrated copies of the Me'raj Nama.

The mythological field of human life history has always been one of the interesting fields of attention in relation to the analytical study of the history of human societies and the schools of thought belonging to them. Myth is, in fact, the manifestation of the social aspirations and aspirations of human beings who have common cultural components and, in order to have a deeper understanding and greater language in praise of the values ​​specific to those ideals, know They have given a visual form. Mythical thinking has a spirit full of praise and sometimes even worship and has gradually become a sacred thing. This approach arises from the inner desire of man to praise forces beyond himself and can include different aspects of his life. Areas such as love, power, natural instincts, the forces of nature, the passage of time, the cosmic and celestial structure of the planets, warfare, fertility, blessing, fertility and thousands of other areas, each of which has a place in the common life of human societies. Dedicated to themselves and given.The mysterious and wonderful realm of the holy Quran, in the form of pre-Islamic Prophets’ stories and tribes, has caused the emergence of various imaginary and mythical icons in a variety of illustrated manuscripts of texts with religious content, such as Islamic accounts of The Ascension (Meraj-Nameh). In addition to similar comparisons which are more or less observed between the abstract and sacred creatures like the angels, there exist some differences and even deep contradictions in previous mythology and Islam, some of which originated from revelation and some others had an imaginary and man-made origin. In this study, the account on the Ascension of the holy prophet of Islam has been discussed from one of the imaginary storytelling aspects in Islam to find the similarities and differences with Islamic mythology and a book called “ Asatir-al-Awalin” which translates as “the first mythologies”. A case study was conducted on the chosen copies of Meraj-Nameh during three periods of Ilkhani, Timurid and Qajar. The aim of this study was to achieve a comparative aesthetic in the application of imaginary and mythical elements in the illustrations used in Meraj-Nameh in the above-mentioned periods and a comparison between imaginary and historical mystical figures. This study is of fundamental nature and was carried out through a historical-descriptive methodology and the data were collected in a comparative way through library and online sources. The review of literature in the areas of the interpretation of the Qur'an, the narrations of the Ascension of the holy prophet of Islam, mythological studies, history of Persian painting and the history of religions have been used and finally it has been shown that many of the previous mystical figures share similarities in terms of ontology and they have some differences with regard to identity and meaning with Islamic mystical figures in the story of the ascension in the above-mentioned editions. And also in terms of visual arts aesthetics include more or less similar forms.