“Contemplating the mystery” (tamāshāgāh-e rāz) is the collective title given to a series of five conferences held around 1971 by Mortazā Motahhari (1919-1979), one of the most prominent Shiite scholars of 20th century Iran, on what is generally known in the West as the “gnosis” (‘erfān) of Shams al-Din Mohammad Hāfez Shirāzi (ca. 1315-1390), by far the most iconic and beloved Persian lyrical poet - in Iran as well as in the rest of the Persianate world. The five academic lectures, given by Motahhari - a direct disciple of Āyatollāh Khomeyni and a political activist - at the Department of Theology and Islamic Studies of the University of Tehran, show, on the one hand, how much Persian poetry, and especially the codified, allusive language of pre-modern ghazal, was perceived as a powerful tool to read the contemporary reality of society and political subject in the years immediately preceding the Islamic revolution; on the other hand, Motahhari’s philologically and philosophically refined classes attest the centrality of the philosophical discourse of ‘erfān in the making of Iran public life and collective self-representation: a discourse whose roots can be ultimately traced in the Safavid period and whose persistence is proven here by the very fact that Motahhari could still make use of it to actively counter both the liberal-capitalist and the Marxist hegemonic ideologies. Contemplating the mystery is, thus, a precious document locating the reading of Persian lyrical poetry in contemporary history, and showing how much such reading can not be ignored when looking for a proper understanding of the complex philosophical and, I’d like to stress, aesthetic-religious premises of Iran’s 1979 revolution. Besides presenting the first-ever unabridged and annotated English translation of Motahhari’s work on Hāfez, the volume will include a detailed bio-bibliographical note on Āyatollah Motahhari and an essay Hāfezian poetry, ‘erfān and the aesthetics of the Iranian socio-political discourse.
Contemplating the mystery. Mortaza Motahhari, Hafez's gnosis and the Iranian revolution
PELLO' S.
In corso di stampa
Abstract
“Contemplating the mystery” (tamāshāgāh-e rāz) is the collective title given to a series of five conferences held around 1971 by Mortazā Motahhari (1919-1979), one of the most prominent Shiite scholars of 20th century Iran, on what is generally known in the West as the “gnosis” (‘erfān) of Shams al-Din Mohammad Hāfez Shirāzi (ca. 1315-1390), by far the most iconic and beloved Persian lyrical poet - in Iran as well as in the rest of the Persianate world. The five academic lectures, given by Motahhari - a direct disciple of Āyatollāh Khomeyni and a political activist - at the Department of Theology and Islamic Studies of the University of Tehran, show, on the one hand, how much Persian poetry, and especially the codified, allusive language of pre-modern ghazal, was perceived as a powerful tool to read the contemporary reality of society and political subject in the years immediately preceding the Islamic revolution; on the other hand, Motahhari’s philologically and philosophically refined classes attest the centrality of the philosophical discourse of ‘erfān in the making of Iran public life and collective self-representation: a discourse whose roots can be ultimately traced in the Safavid period and whose persistence is proven here by the very fact that Motahhari could still make use of it to actively counter both the liberal-capitalist and the Marxist hegemonic ideologies. Contemplating the mystery is, thus, a precious document locating the reading of Persian lyrical poetry in contemporary history, and showing how much such reading can not be ignored when looking for a proper understanding of the complex philosophical and, I’d like to stress, aesthetic-religious premises of Iran’s 1979 revolution. Besides presenting the first-ever unabridged and annotated English translation of Motahhari’s work on Hāfez, the volume will include a detailed bio-bibliographical note on Āyatollah Motahhari and an essay Hāfezian poetry, ‘erfān and the aesthetics of the Iranian socio-political discourse.
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