نشریه هفت آسمان
پیاپی 55 (پاییز 1391)

During the era of Imams, Shiite community faced with many challenges in the political and intellectual arenas. One of the most prominent cases is categorizing and internal splits of Shiites and 'Alawītes. The major focus of Shia differences was based on Imamate issue, its roles and applications. The focus of issue was that after the death of an Imam, Shia community witnesses the emergence of an independent manner with specific principles and beliefs. Emerging the divergences like Kaysanites, Zeīdīs, Ism'āīlīs, and so on, are the obvious instances in this regard. Another difference between the Shiite Muslims was the way of dealing with the ruling system. This difference first led to the divergence of Shiites into Fātimites and Kaysanites, and then, to political division of Shiites and 'Alawītes into two branches called Hassanī and Husseīnī (or Zeīdī and Jafarī in the Abbasside's time). This paper tries to study the issue based on historical and narrated sources, and mention some political and intellectual consequences of the convergences as well as Ahl al-Bayt's positions concerning it.

Horufieh in Iran in the Teimour era emerged under the chaotic social conditions of that time. Its goal was the uprising of crafts men and peasants against class prejudice (Feudalism) in Teimour's era. This survey aims at investigating and introducing the most important ideological principles of Horufieh, its historical roots, and its major founders. By investigating available documents it was clear that Horufieh was a protesting belligerent doctrine with severe nationalistic beliefs having fighting orientation in addition to having religious credo and belief. Its leader and founder was Fazlollah. According to Horufieh, man's value is so promoted that it reaches godmanship. In major and minor principles of religions Horufieh had its own special beliefs different from other sects who showed up signs of heresy and apostasy. They promoted Ali's position to that of God and this caused their annihilation. The most important beliefs of Horufieh centered on the symbolic value and secret meanings of letters (letter’s symbolism) and God's recognition through letters.

Self- Knowledge is one of the central themes of all ethical schools, rituals and theistic religions for the fact that it causes spiritual and moral sublimation and development in human beings. Invitation to self- Knowledge has been the prelude of invitation of moral schools, human reformers and divine prophets and the base of their teachings for guiding human beings. With regard to the theme of unity between theistic religions and as a result, the existence of some shared aspects between these religions in principles and objectives, if self- Knowledge is considered as one of the basic categories in anthropology, we can infer that some shared aspects should be between theistic religions from the viewpoint of self-knowledge. Accordingly, the present writing has surveyed self-knowledge comparatively from the viewpoints of these religions after a brief discussion about the basics of anthropology and degrees of soul excellence from the viewpoints of Zoroastrianism and Islam.

Transoxiana in the first Islamic centuries had proper opportunities and backgrounds to accept Sufi beliefs due to its special cultural situation and different religions and also being adjacent to Sufi centers such as Khorasan. In addition, with the advent of famous religious scholars and leaders during mentioned centuries in Transoxiana and the good relationship of Sufis with them and positive approach of Sufi teachings including opinions of all religious groups of Transoxiana caused attracting different groups of people and appearance of famous Sufi orders such as Yasavieh, Khajegan, etc in Transoxiana and Turkistan during this century, but Yasavieh stemmed from cultural environment of Transoxianain in Turkistan in its capital Yasiand with the guidance of its founder Khwaja Ahmad Yasavi; he had many followers among Turks of Turkistan and Transoxiana in a short period of time. Development of this order's thoughts doesn’t limit to Central Asia; it was then spread among The Volga Tatars and Azerbaijan and AnatolianTurks. In this study, it is tried to enumerate major currents of sufism in Transoxiana in the first Islamic centuries and study the lifetime and thoughts of Khwaja Ahmad Yasvi and growth of Yasvi mystical Sufism and its stems in Turkistan and Transoxiana.

Carol Zaleski's interpretation of near death experiences in her The Other worldly Journeys: Accounts of Near Death Experiences in the Middle Ages and Modern Times has been one of the controversial issues in this regard. According to her, the near death experiences are symbolic descriptions, which go beyond empirical observation and objective conceptualization. She maintains that the descriptions of religious experiences are symbolic, since they represent their reality through language and cultural forms, making the use of symbols inevitable. Thus, she regards theology as a scientific discipline, which should be mainly concerned with the analysis of symbols and narrations, which develop religious imagery. This writing is an attempt to critically examine Zaleski's interpretation of near death experience by considering her The Other worldly Journeys: Accounts of Near Death Experiences in the Middle Ages and Modern Times. Therefore, Zaleski's main idea is first considered. According to her, near death experiences have no common core; thus, she proposes to take a middle way in interpreting this kind of experiences, which combines William Jame's pragmatist method with his own method; it is concerned with cultural influences upon the formulation of such experiences. Finally, the implications and criticisms of Zaleski's view are dealt with.

This article tends to pinpoint one of the most fundamental aspects of the distinction between Eastern and Western arts, focusing on swordsmanship, one of the extremely significant Zen arts in Japan which not only enjoys a high social stance in Japan, but also displays key points of the Eastern art. The role of mind in swordsmanship as well as its ultimate goal has been illustrated in this article, using the invaluable works of Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki,who, in addition to being among the best researchers of Zen, is also the one who introduced Zen to the West. The path the seeker is to follow in Zen eventually leads to the highly significant point of self - control, concentrating on his Self and making effort to achieve the state of " inadvertence"; the samurai swordsman also follows the path to perfection and transcendence.

The "Bodhisattva" is a very important concept in Mahayana Buddhism. The Hinayana Buddhism, contrary to Mahayana Buddhism which has just only one bodhisattva, namely, shakyamuni, the Historical Buddha, has lots of bodhisattvas; Avalokitesvara is one of them, with two characteristic features, Prajna and Karuna. It is extreme tenderness and compassion in bodhisattvas which causes them to help all kind of beings in trouble. They appear in different forms of Buddha and bodhisattvas to help beings in various realms. His/her popularity and faith spread not only in India, its origin, but also in all over the East Asian countries; however, there are some differences and varieties in its name, gender, and etc. His/her varied appearances have been formed by following some interpretations of two main concepts, Prajna and Karuna, in different cultures, in drawings and sculptural art. The present article is concerned with this character.