Document Type : Scientific-research
Author
professor
Abstract
In his book Kitab al-Şaydana, Abu Rayḥān Bῑrūnῑ, when recalling the weakness of the Persian language in comparison to the Arabic language, states that the Persian language is only good for telling nightly tales and narrating stories for kings, and not for presenting precise scientific and philosophical discussions and issues. One of the most vibrant and dynamic allusive expressions that has been common among Iranian philosophers and mystics both in Middle Persian and in the modern era is the expression “sea.” This name, which was used in ordinary Persian language in a known sense, has been used by Iranian scholars and mystics to refer to heavenly things and divine attributes, as well as their opposites, i.e., demonic attributes. Of course, in the pre-Islamic period, Iranian sages used the sea to name the universals that exist in the heavenly realm, which Plato and the Platonists call Forms, and in the Islamic period, our mystics mainly considered it to refer to divine attributes or states and stages of the soul, and moral perfections and vices. In this article, which is divided into two parts, we will first try to examine the meaning that was intended for “sea” in the Middle Persian language, especially in the sixth book of the Denkard, and then we will examine the function of this word in the works and sayings of Persian-speaking mystics, from Bāyazῑd Basṭāmῑ and Abu al-Ḥasan Kharqānῑ to writers and poets such as Rashid al-Din Maybodῑ and Farid al-Dῑn Aṭṭār.
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