Sociological and Mystical View to the Scope and Contexts of Pessimism in Masnavi

Pessimism, one of the important keywords in philosophy, psychology and sociology, it’s the Produce of time, place, and society’s political, economic, social, and cultural conditions. As a mystic poet and social critic believing in the human soul and thought’s transcendence, Rumi always seeks to criticize the society and the occasions around him in the form of a social reformer. In Rumi’s era, political and sectarian troubles, riots due to the Mongol invasion, the domination of fraudulent Sufis and ascetics, as well as bribe-taking judges have all propelled him to portray his community’s corruption and destruction, not as a psychologically (paranoid) pessimistic negative person, but as a realistic critic. The present research will address Rumi’s viewpoint to each of the pessimism’s underlying factors from the sociological and mystical perspective. The results of the current research, studying the Masnavi with a descriptive-analytical approach, indicate Rumi’s pessimistic viewpoint towards many social, political, and religious phenomena of his era, including rulers, kings, hypocritical ascetics, and Sufis, as well as the society’s other strata, of course, seeming normal given the society’s conditions at that time.