The Theme of “Unity” in Jami and Attar’s Poetry and Its Reflection in Imam Khomeini’s Poems

Abstract

The majority of mystical poets like Attar and Jami have employed allegory to better influence and express complicated mystical themes in their works. These mystical themes were reflected in the works of later poets clearly without any use of allegory. This article, developed based on a descriptive and analytical method as well as review of library sources, studies the theme of “unity” in Jami and Attar’s poetry with two distinctive schools of mysticism, followed by an analysis of “unity” in Imam Khomeini’s mystical poems and thoughts. The findings indicate that both poets, while maintaining uniform practice, in their attempts for arguing mystical themes and clarification of the theme of “unity,” introduce a form of unity that is attained after gaining the ultimate goal of mystical journey, i.e. fana fi Allah or “complete and absolute surrender of self to the Divine will” as well as the stages to reach fana fi Allah. Such an approach is found in Imam Khomeini’s works and thoughts where he argues “unity of being” as the core theme of theoretical mysticism and places the theory of unity of intuition at the heart of practical mysticism.

Keywords

• imam khomeini
• mysticism
• unity
• jami
• attar
• mahian
• simorgh