Comparative analysis of mystic themes in Nahj al-Balaghah and Tazkerat al-Awliya

Undoubtedly, Nahj al-Balaghah, following holy Quran, is the most important Shi’ah book which is the manifestation of love, knowledge, humanity, government, justice, education, rhetoric, etc. Attar Neyshabouri's Tazkirat al-Awliya is about the fate, virtues, words and thoughts of ninety-six saints and elders have been mentioned with moral virtues sermons and words, and all its parts are full of the springs wisdom and knowledge and a unique mystical work. A comparative study of these two works undoubtedly reveals important aspects of their differences and similarities for researchers. In the present research, at first it is tried to extract the important mystical, points of the two works, and then to identify common and different themes by examining their similarities and differences, at last to use some verses of the Qur'an and prophetic hadiths as criteria to Analyze them. In this research which was conducted in a descriptive-analytical method, it is tried to work on the main question of the research ie. the similarities and differences between them. The results of this research demonstrate that both of the works originate from Quran and Sunnah, however, the reason of some differences in type of attitude and interpretation. After examining and analyzing the extracted samples, the most important results include superiority of literal aspect of Tazkereh al-Awliya on the educational aspect, The extreme views of some sayings in Tazkereh al-Awliya, the use of literary arrays in it, contradictions in sayings, the expression of dignity and fictional exaggerations, etc. have caused differences in these two works.