Pathology of Ascetic Behavior in Persian Sufi Literature
Subject Areas : Research in Iranian classical literatureKeywords: Islamic Sufism Ascetic Behavior pathology Sufi Literature Intra-Discoursal Criticism,
Abstract :
Asceticism, like other cultural phenomena, because of the special level it attained in Islamic Sufism has a great tendency to deviate from its primary origin and roll towards different kinds of damages. Muslim ascetics, themselves, were the first serious critics in the domain of asceticism pathology, and have identified and fixed the damage from different angles. General account of this subject reveals that damages like falling into traps of arrogance, pride, an unfaithful and tradesman- like attitude towards ascetic efforts and using hypocrisy to gain public acceptance, have been noticed by the prominent characters of this domain since the first centuries of spreading Islamic asceticism and Sufism, and it has even been accelerated as the damages expanded more. This critical intra- discoursal view which is a prominent part of the Sufi literature has been much more successful in refining the Islamic asceticism. This article tends to display the unique and special role of pathological intra-discoursal view by refining it.