نشریه هفت آسمان
پیاپی 42 (تابستان 1388)

This article is concerned with some of Francois Fenelon’s spiritual teachings on how to achieve the pure love. According to Fenelon, the first step towards the love of God is the knowledge of God which is an essential preliminary to loving God although, as he believes, the perfect knowledge of God is impossible in this world. Fenelon describes the love of God as a blessing which God grants to his servants. This love towards God is the means by which He confers His blessings on His servants. The article, next, deals with God’s love towards His servants, an endless and incomprehensible love which deserves his infinite existence. Finally, while calling on human beings to love God, he enumerates the characteristics of pure love and gives some practical guidelines on how to achieve it. This translation can pave the way for more familiarity with Christian mysticism, particularly that of François Fenelon.

What follows is the Persian translation of an article which has been published as the introduction to the French Dictionary of Quran. This dictionary is written for the western general readership. The aim of this article is to make the non-expert readership familiar with the history of the Quranic text and its development in its historical context. What makes this writing remarkable for Iranian expert readership is the coherent and comprehensive picture it offers of the attempts made by the western scholars for the past one century and a half. Based on different methods and orientations, the attempts of these scholars have been to put forward a coherent theory of the history of the Quran which is aimed to have the utmost consistency with historical accounts. The most important characteristic of this article is its coverage of the three Germanic, French, and English-speaking arenas which provides the readers with an overview of the researches carried out by western scholars.

Ibn Arabi, a mystic-philosopher, introduced the notion of the Movement of Love for the first time and caused a revolution in the understanding of Existence, Creation Analysis and the Return. An examination into the relationship between the Movement of Love and the Perfect Man can help understand some of the intricacies of the theoretical and practical knowledge. The Muhammadan Reality has manifested itself in the cosmos, and all the possible things are entifications and manifestations of this Reality. Therefore, in the descending arc, the truth of the Perfect Man, through descending, brings down its elements and entifications and manifests them in objectivity. The essence of descent is the downfall of God’s successor from the supreme to the corporeal world and the basis of ascent is the ascension of the Perfect Man. The downward and upward movement of the rest of the multiple things is a part of this dominating human movement. In addition to the accompaniment of the descending and ascending arcs, the Holder of Actual Humanity is the passageway of the upward movement of multiple things as well as the flag-bearer of the movement of love. All of these changes occur in the system of the existence-conferring movement of love. This writing is an attempt to investigate how the Perfect Man and the Movement of Love are related and how He intermediates or dominates it.

Shintoism, as one of the East Asian religions, is not practiced exclusively in Japan. Since Shintoism is a national religion, the extent to which it influences the national and international affairs is almost ignored. Moreover, as opposed to the followers of the Semite religions, the majority of Japanese people are not so prejudiced as regards their beliefs and they are constrained in expressing their religious feeling. That is why only a very limited number of the researchers of religion have committed themselves to the examination or introduction of this religion; similarly, that is why the Persian sources of this religion are so limited. In the light of this fact, we decided to examine Shintoism from different points of view for the first time: name and sign, origin and evolution, historical range, the most outstanding symbols and signs, beliefs and values, religious practices and necessities, scriptures and sources as well as present and future status. A close reading of this paper will provide those interested in the study of religion with concise and comprehensive information about Shintoism.

Sikhism is regarded as one of the eastern religions, which was established by Guru Nanak who at first found followers in the state of Punjab over 500 years ago. Guru Nanak merely called on people to meditate on the teachings of their religion. He claimed that he was only preaching the Name of God. But what once had been founded as Sikhism gradually turned into a different religion with different beliefs, practices and scripture. Of course, Sikhism was not completely developed by Guru Nanak during his lifetime. In fact, Sikhism has more than one Guru, spiritual leader. Guru Nanak and his nine successors are the Sikh’s human Gurus each of whom has contributed to the development of Sikhism. One of the most important measures taken by the tenth Guru in the history of Sikhism is the appointment of the sacred scripture of Sikhism as the eternal Guru of the Sikhs, which has prevented internal divergence in Sikhism. This paper is concerned with a survey of these Gurus’ roles in the evolution of Sikhism towards its final formation.

Yezidis and Ahl-e Haqq of Kurdistan are two sects who live in the west of Iran and Iraq. Such elements as Ahura Mazda, AmeshaSepanta, Kasti and Sudra as well as the kind of religious rites and festivals involved in these two sects have lead the researchers of religion to regard them as Zoroastrian. These two sects have striking similarities with the ancient Iranian thoughts and beliefs; they have been profoundly influenced by Islam as well, the Yezidis by Sunnism and the Ahl-e Haqq by Shiism. The thoughts and beliefs of these two sects have been mainly orally transmitted; that is why we didnt have enough and accurate information about their thoughts and beliefs until recently. Ultimately, however, scholars obtained detailed information about these sects and translated their books from Kurdish into different languages, causing the academic study of their thoughts and beliefs to catch on. The present article is written by a German scholar of Iranian studies, Philip G. Kreyenbroek, whose papers and books have been acknowledged as guides and reference books used in researches.

Based on a socio-theological view, Peter Berger explains religion and religiosity. In a long-term intellectual period, he endorses the theory that religion can be regarded as a sacred canopy which spreads above society, giving birth to social order. In this regard, religion is a cognitive and meaningful mechanism which provides the society, in a sacred manner, with the individual and collective way of life. In another period of his life, Berger considers the relationship between religion and secularization, concluding that the underlying and organizing function of religion is reducing but its individual cognitive function is gaining considerable ground. In the first period, he is occupied with the thought that modernity leads on to secularization; in the second period he concentrates on the synthetic religiosity and styles of religiosity and in general he considers private religion as the central component of modern period. Accordingly, his evolutionary theory of religion regarding the relationship between science and religion is replaced by his synthetic theory according to which modernity does not end in removing religion but contributes to changing religion.

Nowadays, psychology of religion as one of the disciplines of religious studies has attracted the attention of many thinkers of both religion and psychology. Psychology of religion is a complicated discipline which consists of a variety of psychological theories and methods of understanding religion as well as the relationship between psychology and religion. Thus psychology of religion is the application of the theories and methods of psychology to understanding religion. Those who are concerned with establishing or negating any relationship between psychology and religion challenge one another due to their different approaches. This paper begins with a discussion of the origins of the psychology of religion, then proceeds to examine the ideas of some influential thinkers, and deals finally with the psychological approaches like the empirical approach as well as the methodology used in psychology of religion and other branches of psychology which have been influenced by it.