Hadi Vakili; Maryam Davarniya; Zeynab Barkhordari
Abstract
Spirituality is a concept that has been given special attention in the present era and is now also used in relation to children. Spirituality is one of the key religious concepts and is based on certain foundations, structures and religious methods. It also plays a central role in spiritual mysticism. ...
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Spirituality is a concept that has been given special attention in the present era and is now also used in relation to children. Spirituality is one of the key religious concepts and is based on certain foundations, structures and religious methods. It also plays a central role in spiritual mysticism. Considering the specialized discussions in the field of spirituality, we seek to study the relationbetweenthe contemporaryteachings on spirituality for children and the teachings of Islamic mysticism. Limiting its scope of research to two mystics of Ayatollah ShahAbadiand Imam Khomeini, this paper studies the principles and teachings of spirituality for children, and the corresponding discussions of this concept in Islamicmysticism. Obviously, spirituality for children as anindependent topic has not been presented inworks of these sages, butthe study oftheir works showed that the definition of spirituality, the significance of spiritual teachings for children, its foundations and methods, can be derived from their works. In terms of its foundations and goals, spirituality for children in Islamic mysticism differs from what can bederived from non-Islamic principles, although one can find some similarities in methods and examples between them.