Islamic mysticism
Azita Belali e oskui; Morteza shajari; mina heydaritorkmani; seyd jalal mousavi sharabiani
Abstract
IntroductionHuman agency, both in creation and in recognition of architectural space and their interaction with the space, has been affected by the hidden harmony that is generated in the space, which turns the architectural space away from its static state, stillness, and lifelessness, and the core ...
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IntroductionHuman agency, both in creation and in recognition of architectural space and their interaction with the space, has been affected by the hidden harmony that is generated in the space, which turns the architectural space away from its static state, stillness, and lifelessness, and the core of the harmony is indeed the “unity”; that is, multiple parts find unity and totality within a whole that creates a sense inside, which fits the aesthetic desire and indeed the internal human self, because the human self seeks unity and suffers from multiplicity, diffusion, and conflicts (Ardalan et al., 2011). In fact, it might be acknowledged that architecture as a created work secretly involves the creation of multiplicity and turning it into unity in interaction with humans. Given the idea of the unity of existence (waḥdat al-wujūd) in Islamic mysticism, a world is portrayed that is, first, divine and spiritual, where the song of holiness resonates, and second, it involves a unity by which all multiple parts are unified, or more precisely speaking, all that exists is a manifestation or representation of the one unified reality. In this way, art in general and architecture in particular might come to have a different color. Unity of existence is evident in architectural work in the Islamic world, but the character of this unity is not adequately discussed. A genuine perception of unity in architectural space is not confined to external senses. To the contrary, in its higher degrees, i.e., internal senses, it affects the observer. The goal of the present research to identify the nature of this unity and how it occurs. The question of our research is as follows: are Ibn ʿArabī’s views of unity applicable to architectural space, and what material grounds are prepared in architectural space to attain the unity? To answer the question, we begin with an overview of Ibn ʿArabī’s mystical view, where the question of existence and knowledge of unity is discussed as the foundation of Ibn ʿArabī’s mysticism.According to our surveys, the issue of whether Ibn ʿArabī’s account of unity is applicable to architectural space has not been properly addressed in the past research. Instead, issues of the unity of existence and multiplicity within unity have been discussed separately in philosophy and architecture. Moreover, the architectural literature tends to focus on corporeal, visual, and symbolic aspects of architectural parts in the realization of unity. In the present research, we drawAssociate Professor, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Tabriz Islamic Art University, Tabriz, Iran (Corresponding Author). oskoyi@tabirziau.ac.irProfessor, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Persian Literature and Foreign Languages, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran. mortezashajari@gmail.comD. Candidate of Islamic Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Tabriz Islamic Art University, Tabriz, Iran. m.haydari@tabriziau.ac.irAssistant Professor, Department of Islamic Education, Faculty of Multimedia, Tabriz Islamic Art University, Tabriz, Iran. sjsharabiani@tabriziau.ac.irDate received: 2022/03/19, Date of acceptance: 2022/07/19 This article has been extracted from the course "Wisdom in Islamic Architecture" in the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of Tabriz Islamic Art University.on Ibn ʿArabī’s views about the questions of existence and knowledge of unity as the foundation of his mysticism to tackle material and perceptual grounds in the Islamic architectural space to examine the move from multiplicity to unity.Method of ResearchMethodologically speaking, the present research is descriptive-analytic, adopting the qualitative research approach. Qualitative research involves identification of the relevant references, studies and overviews of the written sources, comprehension of their meanings, and extraction of the relevant material, establishment of relations between issues, and providing descriptions and analyses of them.Discussion and ResultsCreation of multiplicity in architectural space and its transformation into unity has been effective in attaining an understanding of the existential unity, such that this understanding in architectural space was a determinant of the degree of the work’s life, and was somehow a cause of its existence. In fact, to attain such a unity, the human presence and existence in the space is undoubtedly what engenders a motion toward its recognition. Accordingly, the move from multiplicity to unity in architectural space implies physical movement (translocation – ocular) and semantic movement (mental movement). During the movement in architectural space, the observer’s physical movement turns into visual movement, which in turn results in reception of a series of regression and connections in the observer’s mind, leading to his or her mental movement. However, once the observer begins to recognize and see signs, it enables him or her to move in the world of imagination to attain unity. In fact, genuine unity is obtained through human imagination.ConclusionThere is a remarkable correspondence between perceptions of existential unity in both philosophy and architecture. On Ibn ʿArabī’s account, imagination is perception of images in the soul after having seen something. Indeed, imagination is the intermediary between dualities. So in his view, human imagination is capable of attaining unity in the world that is abstracted or detached from the sensible world (existence of multiplicity). Furthermore, in the unity of existence, finding the existence is the same as coming to exist, where the finding is through intuitions and revelations. In the Imam Mosque of Isfahan (or the Shah Mosque), manifestation of the pairs [imagination being in pair] in space provides a bedrock for the observer’s intuition and revelation of unity through a definition of hierarchies and qualitative geometry based on the principle of the centrality and symmetry and existence of light.
morteza shajari; sonya silvayeh
Abstract
The dome of the mosque leads the eyes and heart of the viewer to the ascendancy, which it is reminder of sublimation. The center of the dome is the symbol of unity and the lower level is the symbol of the soul. In this paper, based on Sadra 's philosophy (including of the three worlds; sense, imagination ...
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The dome of the mosque leads the eyes and heart of the viewer to the ascendancy, which it is reminder of sublimation. The center of the dome is the symbol of unity and the lower level is the symbol of the soul. In this paper, based on Sadra 's philosophy (including of the three worlds; sense, imagination and wisdom), a visualization the mosque's dome associated with these three cosmos is presented. Materials of the dome is perceived by the sense of eye as a reminder of the physical world. The cube and sphere in the dome, which emerged from the imagination of the architect artist, is like a fantasy world and a form of congregation, which begins from the base of the dome (multiplicity) and reaches to the top of the dome (unity), it shows the congregation and stability of the wisdom world. God is the origin of the universe, if the mosque's space is like the universe, then the mosque also has the origin with that passes through the entrance and the courtyard to it, which eventually ends to the dome.
morteza shajari; safa salkhi; maziar asefi
Abstract
Motion is necessary for architectural perception. Architecturalspace provides the observer with physical, mental, and intuitivemovement due to dynamic properties, fluidity and pause.In philosophy, the cause of the motion is the basis of perceiving the facts of the material world. Islamic philosophers ...
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Motion is necessary for architectural perception. Architecturalspace provides the observer with physical, mental, and intuitivemovement due to dynamic properties, fluidity and pause.In philosophy, the cause of the motion is the basis of perceiving the facts of the material world. Islamic philosophers believed that motion was related toperfection and has an aim to pursue that been subject to the principle of potential and action.According to MullaSadra theory ofSubstantial Movement, the material existence through its constant movement toward the spiritual presence, by passing through the realms of sensibility, imagination andrationality, is achieved through the true perception of the world.The research methodology is qualitative particularly analytical-descriptive one and with an interpretive approach, the research strategy is a case study. Through analyzing the perceptual experience of the observer in themosque of Tabriz, this research views the implication of movement and perception inboth philosophy and architecture.From the main findings of the study, there is a significant correlation between the steps toward perfection from the body to the soul in acquiring knowledge based on the philosophy of Substantial Movement and the stages of experiential perception of space from material to meaning in Islamic architecture.With thecreation of a particular spiritual environment, Islamic architects of Iran have always provided a place for theobserver's inner discovery and intuition, and according to its fluiditycharacteristics, the perceptual experience of the observer was guidedfrom the lowest to its highest.
Amirhossein Farshchian; Morteza Shajari
Abstract
Tradition is a path that preserves all fundamental aspects of human life and keeps them connected to their original sources, to the sacred past, and one of the most important aspects of human life - almost encompassing and framing all the others and being central to our experience of being human - is ...
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Tradition is a path that preserves all fundamental aspects of human life and keeps them connected to their original sources, to the sacred past, and one of the most important aspects of human life - almost encompassing and framing all the others and being central to our experience of being human - is ‘architecture’. There is a causal relation between the ‘Islamic tradition’ and ‘Islamic architecture’, thus, it would actually be meaningless to attribute the adjective ‘Islamic’ to ‘architecture’ in the absence of true traditional values. The present study critically investigates Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s attitude toward Islamic architecture, including its relation to Islamic tradition and traditional Islam, its definition and its essential characteristics, its interaction with urban societies and finally its socio-religious functions in traditional and modern life. Islamic architecture is not an outdated-forgotten art with some sets of footprints left in the remains of ancient settlements. It has internally survived long enough to reproduce itself in concordance with the necessities of the time without losing its essential characteristics and elements.
morteza shajari; zakiyeh sadat tabatabai lotfi
Volume 7, Issue 2 , August 2016, , Pages 23-44
Morteza Shajari; Leila Ghorbani Alvar
Volume 3, Issue 2 , October 2013, , Pages 125-143
Abstract
In science of logic equivocation and content participation has been described on the basis of the literary contractions among men of letters, but Mulla Sadra referring to that philosopher doesn't pay attention to these contractions, explains the two terms on the basis of realities of things and the relation ...
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In science of logic equivocation and content participation has been described on the basis of the literary contractions among men of letters, but Mulla Sadra referring to that philosopher doesn't pay attention to these contractions, explains the two terms on the basis of realities of things and the relation of single word (wujud) with them. As a result of the "graded unity of being", the concept of existence is content participated; since it indicates on a single truth that is common in all creatures. But according to "particular unity of existence" that Ibn Arabi found it through intuition and Sadra proved it in discussing about cause and effect, the only extension of existence is God and thus, all discussions of equivocation and content participation will be meaningless. Therefore, we cannot really predicate "existence" to the possibilities, but we have two options: either predicate it to them by using a special gnostic term called "entity", or predicate the existence to them, metaphorically. A metaphor mulla Sadra names it as a 'gnostic metaphor' which is different from verbal one.
Morteza Shajari
Volume 1, Issue 1 , September 2010, , Pages 29-54
Abstract
A number of Muslim mystics believe that knowledge consists of the truths which man’s soul has learned or acquired before being trapped by man’s body and becoming a prisoner in the veils of this material world. This was called the remembrance theory in the philosophy of Plato, and it was based ...
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A number of Muslim mystics believe that knowledge consists of the truths which man’s soul has learned or acquired before being trapped by man’s body and becoming a prisoner in the veils of this material world. This was called the remembrance theory in the philosophy of Plato, and it was based on the acceptance of the immateriality of the soul, a certain relationship between soul and body and the priority of the soul to body. The prophets and the divine saints have come to notify the people and to make them remember those truths in man’s life which he has forgotten because of the veils covering his soul. The reason for the revelation of the Qurān which is called “remembrance” is also emphasizing this fact. The mystic, who moves in the path of Allāh, when coming out of the veils of his body, attains Self- knowledge, a kind of knowledge which is the knowledge of all truths and knowledge about God himself. The present article deals with the differences between Muslim mystics on this issue according to their theoretical and tasting foundations; also the explanation and analysis of “the resemblance theory” in Sufism are examined. Before explaining this theory, we have given a brief explanation of the founfations of this theory such as “the reality of the soul”, “the relation between the soul and the body” and “the priority of the soul to body".
