Rumi's Mysticism in the Field of Religious and Mystical Experiences

Religion, as one of the most important fields of knowledge, has different aspects, including the esoteric and inner fields. In modern mystical studies, esoteric or personal experiences about God are interpreted as “religious and mystical experience”. In this research, we will examine Molavi's perspective based on new theories that are in the field of mystical studies, and the main issue will be the search and analysis of Molavi's mystical experiences and their literary reflection in his expression. It seems that since Rumi possesses his own style and ideas in monastic mysticism, avocation mysticism, and theoretical mysticism, he has undoubtedly gone through vast mystical experiences and has artistically recreated these pure, complex, and astonishing experiences in the form of language and literary writing. Mowlavi's mystical and intuitive experiences have been revealed in his sonnets in a more unmediated and direct form, and with mediation in the layers of Masnavi's mystical allegories and in the situations that the powerful attractions of the discourse have brought the scope of his words to the unconscious realms. Some of Rumi's mystical experiences can be analyzed in terms of their form and structure of representation adopting the framework of William James' analyses of mystical experiences. In this research, we have examined the principle of experientiality in Rumi's works, particularly in the story of King and the Maid, based on James' theoretical framework, and we have shown its structural similarity with the experiences presented by James.