Comparative study of Maulana and Attar's view of love from a cognitive perspective

The theory of cognitive or conceptual metaphors was first introduced by Lakoff and Johnson. According to this theory, the metaphor was not only a rhetorical element specific to the language of poetry, but they believed that the basis of human thought is metaphorical. Although cognitive metaphors were first studied in everyday language, but given the abstract nature of mysticism, it slowly opened its place in mystical studies. Love, as the key element of mysticism, plays an important role in mystical texts, especially mystical love. This research is based on the theory of metaphorical cognition of Lakoff and Johnson, followed by a deeper understanding of love in Attar and Mathnawi's rituals from the cognitive perspective. In this article, love is considered as the target domain and its source domains of it, are studied in the poetry of the two poets. Then a comparison has been made between the source domains of love in their works. The results of the research show that despite the similarity of the viewpoints of the two poets, there is a difference between Rumi's view and Attar's view. Attar focuses more on the aspects of the mastery and destruction of love, while Rumi notices more about the aspects of Uniting the enjoyment and sentiment of love. In fact, the movement to look at love from Attar to Maulana, from mastery and destruction of love, towards unity, the pain and suffering mixed with pleasure, and the inclusion of love.