Political conceptualization from Molavi’s perspective: An allegorical approach to concepts of Maniat and Eshkastegi in World Politics

The majority of the current concepts in the field of World Politics have been constructed in the West context and mainly have been universal for modernists. In this field, there is a lack of concepts that have been extracted from the theoretical and non-theoretical (historic or political conduct) Iranian tradition. One of the reasons for the lack of efforts in political conceptualizing is the shortage of requisite ideational and theoretical foundations in the field of vernacular political thought. Therefore, one of the requisite tools for political conceptualizing and theorizing is extracting some foundations from the subject of study.Among ideational traditions in Iran, mysticism is one of the pure traditions, and accordingly extracted conceptions from this tradition can be pure and different, too. This purity can lead vernacular political concepts to be different from the current concepts in the West scientific tradition. In the Iranian mystical tradition, “Masnavi Manavi” has some metaphysical foundations that can be the basis of political conceptualizations. Among them, the main metaphysical foundations in the ideational system of Molavi is a kind of holistic and allegorical approach that will be explained and applied in this research. Therefore, in this research, we try to explain the concepts of Maniat and Eshkastegi based on the holistic and allegorical approach of Molavi.There are some articles in Persian about allegory and mysticism in Molavi’s works. In this field, ‘Yousef Poor and Mohammadi have addressed the role of allegories of “water” and “light” in explaining the enigma of the existence of god, as a unit essence, in Masnavi Manavi (Yousef Poor and Mohammadi, 1390: 211-235). Qaemi has explained the link between philosophical allegoricalism and allegorical literature in the narrative structure of Masnavi Manavi (Qaemi, 1389: 48-66). In the West scientific tradition, Molavi has been named ‘Sufi’ or ‘Rumi’. There are some works in English about Molavi's thoughts and life. In this field, Milani has described what is called Sufism in modern politics, in his book (Milani, 2018). Also, Elmehrab has studied Sufism in classical politics (Elmehrab, 2022).There are more researches like the mentioned works above, but what makes it different and novel the current research is trying to think about politics from Molavi’s perspective. Despite the prolific general literature on Molavi in Iran and beyond the borders of Iran, there is a lack of literature about political concepts from Molavi’s perspective. Due to this vacuity, the current research is trying to extract and explain the political concepts from Msnavi Manavi. Therefore, the current research has been arranged into two main parts: the first part is dedicated to extracting and constructing the political conceptualization foundations from Masnavi Manavi, and based on that, the second part, has been explained the extracted concepts of Maniat and Eshkastegi.Epistemology and methodologyMetaphysically, Molavi has a holistic ontology and allegorical epistemology in Masnavi Manavi. Ideationally, in addition to the epistemological aspect, allegory is a kind of method for Molavi and Masnavi Manavi has been constructed and written based on that. By this method, Molavi refers to similar aspects of Moshabah-on-beh and Moshabah and then infers a similar outcome for the topic.Has been applied Molavi’s method in this research explains World Politics. Accordingly, Molavi’s approach to the relation between whole and part is considered as Moshabah-on-beh, and interaction between political units and world political order is considered as Moshabah of the allegory.As an allegory, as Maniat in the action of the jackal, peacock, and shah can threaten their existence, Maniat in the foreign interaction of political unities in the world political order can jeopardize their existence. Discussion and findingsDespite Molavi's criticism of politics, it is possible to extract some foundations for researching and conceptualization in politics, by considering and applying the holistic and allegorical approach of Molavi on the metaphysical world order.By applying the allegorical approach of Molavi, we can spread Molavi’s perspective to World Politics, and based on that research and conceptualization in the political science field would be possible. By applying the mentioned approach in current research, it has been realized and explained the concepts of Maniat and Eshkastegi, as the extracted concepts from Masnavi Manavi, in the political science field.From Molavi’s perspective, Maniat in the action and foreign behavior of political units in World Politics, as a whole, eventuate to limitation of liberty of political actors and abolishing them by the other actors. In more detail, not only disproportional Maniat, based on the Jackal allegory, but also proportional Maniat, based on the peacock allegory, can result in limiting and abolishing the actors.On the other side, Eshkastegi in the behavior and interaction of political actors in World Politics eventuate to the relative desired result that is different in two kinds of this action. Devotional Eshkastegi, by considering the Nakhchiran[5] allegory, can ensure the survival of actors, but it can result in the isolation of actors in the world political system. Weighted Eshkastgi, based on the Fox allegory, can preserve actors from isolation in the world political system, in addition to ensuring their survival. From Molavi’s perspective, in the foreign interaction of political units in the world political system, Maniat is an undesirable action, and Eshkastegi is a desirable action. In conclusion, according to desirability, as a criterion, the action of political units can range along a spectrum that weighted Eshkastegi is at one end, and disproportional Maniat is at the other end of the spectrum.ConclusionApplying Molavi’s perspective in the foreign policy of the actors can be criticized because Eshkastegi in the foreign relations of actors can extend conservatism in the world political system and consolidate the status quo of the international structure. From this perspective, going to extremes in foreign policy, in form of disproportional Maniat and devotional Eshkastegi, cannot eventuate the desirable results for political actors in the world political system. Disproportional Maniat jeopardizes the existence of political actors, and devotional Eshkastegi can be miscalculated by other actors as appeasement policy and embolden them to encroach on the actors that have applied Eshkastegi in their foreign policy.In the middle of the spectrum, weighted Eshkastegi is a reasonable policy, but proportional Maniat can be a reasonable policy too because can eventuate the ascension of political actors in the world cycle of power. Therefore, from a moderate perspective, both weighted Eshkastegi and proportional Maniat, according to time and place, are appropriate policies that can be applied by political actors in their foreign interaction. Finally, as the research agenda, the foreign policy of the different states can be the issue of the case study or comparative study, in the framework of the mentioned quadruple policies.