ادبیات عرفانی (Jul 2021)
Interpretability of the Concept of Infidelity in Mystical Thought: The Case of Attar’s Sheikh Sanan Story
Abstract
The story of “Sheikh Sanan and Christian girl”, which is one of the longest stories in Attar’s Mantiq al-Teyr (Conference of the Birds), is rooted in real events and has been cited in many credible references preceding Attar. Nonetheless, Attar's narration of this story has gained popularity due to its integration with mystical and Sufi concepts. On the one hand, this narration has unveiled Attar's ascetic face and has turned Sheikh Sanan's story into an ideological and religious text, on the other hand, it has been subject to various interpretations, some of which are contrary to its ideological beliefs and have raised epistemological questions. In view of that, through seeking a counter-discourse line of thought in the story of Sheikh Sanan, we intend to answer this question: If the story of Sheikh Sanan is an ideological and religious text, how has it been subject to various interpretations so far? By tracing the history of the evolution of the term "infidelity" in Sufism of Khorasan before Attar, the writer has shown the background of this term and how it had evolved prior to its being taken up by Attar. Analyzing the story through Critical Discourse Analysis was the next step. The results of the research indicate that in fact the history of the evolution of the term "infidelity" as well as Attar's intellectual system allow the interpreters to recognize this term in the story of Sheikh Sanan in its evolved meaning (counter-discourse) and thus consider an intrinsic meaning for "infidelity". Accordingly, it could be seen that the relationship between infidelity and religion is sometimes opposite and sometimes a parallel movement.
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