Molavi’s Ontological Approach to the World of Imagination in the First Book of Masnavi

The viewpoints related to the imaginary world are based on two approaches: ontology and epistemology. The ontological approach considers the world of imagination as one of the levels of existence, which is the boundary between the world of minds and the world of matter; On the other hand, the epistemological approach considers imagination as one of the powers of human perception, which is limited to imagination. Among the mystics who have addressed this issue is Rumi, who has made indirect references to this world in his Masnavi, but unlike great scholars such as Mulla Sadra, Sheikh Ashraq, and Ibn Arabi, there is no independent chapter called the world of imagination in his works. For this reason, some think that in the Masnavi, the subject of the imaginary world is not raised as a level of existence, and the meaning of the imaginary world in the Masnavi is simply the connected imagination, imagination and mental imagination. Most of the researches that have discussed about imagination in Masnavi have examined imagination only in the field of epistemology and have considered it as one of the perceptive powers of humans, which mostly has a negative aspect and hinders the achievement of knowledge. The main goal of this research is based on the fact that the imaginary world in the Masnavi includes ontology, epistemology or both fields.

In this research, with a descriptive-analytical method, the ontology of the imaginary world as one of the levels of being and being in Molavi's thought has been proven by relying on the first book of the Masnavi.

In Rumi's opinion, imagination is not only one of the inner powers of man, but it is also accepted as a level of existence and has been conceptually discussed in many Masnavi verses.

Molavi considers the ways to reach the world of fantasy to be things such as the transformation of external attributes into internal ones, sleep and dreams, inspiration, natural death and voluntary death.