Mystical Journey: A study and a Critique of Seyhyed Ahama Wasli Samarqandi's Mathnawi Nazm al-Selseleh

In the years after the introduction of Islam to the region of Transoxania in the first century (A.H.) the history of this area had an inseparable relation to Islam and spiritual paths risen from Islamic teaching Meawhile, the teaching of Khājeh Baha ‘al-din Muhammad Naqshband Bokharāyi (1381 –1389) and the spiritual path related to him, Naqshbandiye, had such a great effect on the heart and souls of different classes of people and tribes of that area that they worshipped him like God. In the years of rejecting religion and tradition, in the period of councils and before the beginning of the fight against the mystical inheritance this region, the enlightened and modernist writers and poets of that area who later joined the communist party and spread its cause severely doubted the holiness and reverence of this path. But the deep respect that the poet, scholar and great intellectual of Samarqand, Seyyed Ahmad wasli (1925 – 1870) had in his Mathnawi, Nazm al- Selseleh, toward Khājeh Baha al-Din Naqshband and especially toward his spiritual director, Ehsan wali Khan Orgguti, showed the real intellectuality and enlightening of his personality. In this article, after an introduction about the author’s biography, for the first time the Mathnawi of Selseleh- which is the last work of the kind of spiritual genealogy regarding mystical plles and saints in Transoxania – is analysed and criticized under two general titles of form and content.