The Meaningfulness of Love for God in Ruzbihan Baqli’s Works and* its Theological and Mystical Contexts

Document Type : Scientific-research

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Islamic Theology, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran.

2 M.A of Philosophy of Religion, Faculty of Islamic Theology, Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz, Iran.

Abstract

The concept of love for God in the works of Ruzbihan Baqli is not a merely conceptual or abstract expression. Rather, it is the result of encountering and experiencing God in beautiful imagery and accompanied by ecstatic states. Although he always emphasizes the transcendence and purity of God's essence and rejects anthropomorphism (tashbih) and corporealism (tajsim), from a structuralist perspective on religious experiences, the realization of this experience is compatible with contexts such as aestheticism, the Ashʿari belief in divine vision (ruʾya), and the Sufi concept of iltibas. Ruzbihan considers beauty to be the object of love, and in divine love, beauty in its sensory sense takes precedence and is not interpreted in other terms such as goodness or perfection. As an Ashʿari, he believes in the possibility of seeing God. The Ashʿari God, transcendent of logical laws, is capable of any action and thus, while being transcendent in existence, can descend to the realm of human perception and knowledge. According to the Sufi theory of iltibas, divine lordship can manifest in objects and visible forms, although this manifestation is epistemological rather than ontological. From the totality of these contexts, love for God is interpreted in its conventional, interpersonal sense and the result of a personal experience. The analysis of the meaningfulness of love for God, considering its experiential nature and its contexts, is one of the findings of the present paper

Keywords

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