Author

• Seyyed Mohsen Mousavi

Ph.D. student of Philosophy of Religious Art, University of Religions and Denominations (URD), (m.mohajer1369@gmail.com)

Abstract

The teaching of Pīr (the Sufi guide) to the murīd (disciple) in Asrār al-tawḥīd can be compared with Gadamer's hermeneutic concept of ‘play’ whose ultimate goal is to challenge subjectivity. Gadamer challenges the notion of subjectivity as an ultimate goal via the concept of ‘play’ to serve as an opening for his account of art. In fact, his goal was to critique the subjectivity of rationality in modern thought. Thus, the purpose of comparing the relationship between Pīr and murīd with the hermeneutic concept of play in this article is to introduce Islamic Sufism (especially the common Sufism in the province of Khorasan) as a parallel discourse to the Greek art in challenging the subjectivity. This purpose is pursued through a descriptive-comparative-analytical method. As a mystical text, the anecdotes of Asrār al-tawḥīd encompass the features of the hermeneutic play in a complete sense (in the light of mystical epistemology, not art). The features that find expression in Asrār al-tawḥīd are the independence of play from the players, the seriousness and non-seriousness of the play, the presence of the spectator, the ultimate goal of the play, and finally the elimination of the individual subject.

Keywords

• Keywords: Asrār al-tawḥīd
• hermeneutic concept of play
• subjectivity
• Hans-Georg Gadamer