پژوهشنامه ادیان
سال دهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 19، بهار و تابستان 1395)

In Sufi literature there are important materials on Imam Ali's life and teachings so one can consider Sufi literature as a proper source for knowing him. With an emphasis on four important aspects this essay tries to describe the place of Imam Ali in the Sufi texts. These four aspects are as follows: 1) the description of Imam Ali’s character according to traditions used by Sufis, 2) the relationship of Imam Ali with the other Caliphs, 3) miracles that ascribe to him, 4) Sufi's experiences of meeting Imam on dreams. It should be noted that all the above-mentioned aspects are based on the Sufi texts up to the twelve century C.E. The essay leads to the conclusion that Sufis’ perception and understanding of the Imam’s status is to a large extent close to Shiite understanding of Imam Ali, and it is on this ground that one can increasingly emphasize the closeness of Sufism and Shiism.

Common rites in every society reflect the cultural and religious ideas of their people. The structure of a rite is built by the mythical, metaphysical and sometimes mundane believes of people who have been faithful to them for centuries. Passage rites are of the most important and most common practices in human societies. These rites are in fact the reminders of the most important stages of life to people and at the same time introduce some new sets of responsibilities and roles to people who are experiencing the passage. This paper considers the ontological change that is realized by man in these stages of life, including birth, puberty, marriage and death. This change is so radical that they describe it as a symbolic death to one's previous being and birth to a new one. When brought to birth, man is not yet complete unless he undergoes successive symbolic and spiritual deaths before the final one.

The relationship between church and state in all religious traditions is an important issue. This is of particularly importance in Protestantism and Martin Luther's thoughts. Luther's doctrine of "two kingdoms" gave religious legitimacy to the government and political power which implied a kind of primacy of the secular power and had some unpleasant practical consequences for Luther himself as much as finally forced him to limit the principle of religious legitimacy of state to secular realm and prevent it from encroaching into the realm of religious authority. However his early teachings were so much appealing to the governments that his subsequent amendment was neglected by them. For example one can claim that the Nazi's trespassing on German Church was a consequence of Luther's early teachings.

Tidjāniyya is a Sufi order which was founded by Saikh Aḥmad Tidjāni (1737-1814 C.E.). The order is one of the greatest Sufi orders of north Africa which has played an important role in the development of Islam in that region. Shaikh Aḥmad joined Sufi path when he was young and after initiating into some important orders such as Qādiriyya, Nāṣiriyya and Khalvatiyya, gradually became a Sufi master. In 1781 C.E. he claimed that he had a mission from the prophet of Islam to establish a Sufi order and he called it Tidjāniyya or Ibrāhimiyya. Nowadays the order is active in African countries such as, Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Tunisia and Mali. The main practice of the order is invocations (Dhikr) of God and the prophet.

The Holy Quran refers to the Christian Trinity and rejects it but this issue poses a question: does Quran reject a kind of Trinity which has been prevalent during the time of the advent of Islam in the Hedjaz (Arabia) or completely reject the whole idea? It has been said by some Christian writers that there are two differences between the Trinity which is rejected by the Holy Quran and the orthodox Christian Trinity; firstly it speaks of Trinity as tri-Gods and not "one Essence in three persons", secondly Quran's Trinity includes "God, Jesus and Mary" and not "the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit". By collecting the related verses of the Quran and referring to some commentaries, these writers try to prove their theory. On the other hand, some Christian writers have claimed that Holy Quran not only does not reject the Trinity but also confirmed it. In their arguments, they mention two other terms, i.e., "the word" and "the spirit" which alluded to the Jesus in the Quran. We believe that the interpretation of these Christian writers is incorrect and the evidence shows that the Quran rejects the prevalent Trinity and not "Tri-Gods" and Trinity for Quran does not include "God, Jesus and Mary" but "the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit".

One of the important issues in the Abrahamic religions is human felicity and perfection. This felicity in Islam and Christianity is human perfective conversion toward God and approaching Him. Islam and Christianity have much in common in human perfection and felicity, however, they have some differences such as different theological and anthropological views on the nature of man's spiritual conversion, its characteristics and its impacts. From the perspective of Islam and Christianity, this approach leads human toward perfection and realizes his potential gifts. There are several stations or degrees on the path of perfection such as "new birth and new life", "migration toward God" and "illuminating". However this conversion is partial, external and increasing. In Islam, it is acquired by man's own deeds and in Christianity is granted by the grace of God.

Negative Theology is a type of theological thinking that attempts to describe God by negation, in contrast to Positive Theology that uses "positive" terminology to describe the Divine. Negative Theology, based on the idea of inaccessibility and transcendence of God, claims that He is imperceptible and ineffable. According to this viewpoint God is beyond all personal and anthropomorphic descriptions. Thus we cannot speak of Him except by negation. Maimonides is one of the greatest Jewish philosophers of medieval period. He is a famous representative of this kind of theology. For him there is no similarity between God and man, so there is no way to describe God, i.e. we can speak only in terms of what may not be said about Him.