Reza Javan; Katayoon Katibeh; Samira Bakhtiari nasab
Abstract
Asrar al-Velayeh is one of the works of Mirza Abulqasem Raz Shirazi, the Shia mystic of the 13th century AH. The present research, which is conducted with a descriptive-analytical method ...
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Asrar al-Velayeh is one of the works of Mirza Abulqasem Raz Shirazi, the Shia mystic of the 13th century AH. The present research, which is conducted with a descriptive-analytical method using library sources, refers to four manuscripts and one lithographic version of this book in order to introduce the poet, his intellectual foundation, and the stylistic features of the poem. Using difficult Arabic words and verbal and philosophical terms, using Arabic poems, using poems of other poets, being influenced by the style of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh in the narration of battles, the abundance of literary allusions to verses and hadiths, frequent Quranic elements and terms are the most important stylistic features of this mystical text. From a structural point of view, Asrar al-Velayah consists of three parts: the middle part of the text is about the battles of Imam Ali and his honors and is considered a religious epic; but the beginning and the end of the text are clearly focused on deep mystical topics. The concept of “velayat” is what makes the structure of this work coherent and connects its three parts. At the beginning and the end of the work, Raz Shirazi deals with the internal concept of “vali” and in the middle with its external concept. In this way, by replacing the concept of superhuman or hero with the concept of vali, he gives two important features to Asrar al-Velayah; first, he places this poem in the form of couplet (mansavi) with a coherent structure on the border between a religious epic and a mystical epic; second, by almost separating the mystical and epic topics from each other, he intelligently includes both the external and internal aspects of the concept of vali in the structure of the work and presents it to the audience.
