This study explores the distinguished Persian Sufi mystic Shaykh Maḥmūd Shabestarī’s Golshan-e Rāz, or The Rose Garden of Mystery. Adopting a hermeneutic approach, it scrutinizes the intricate spiritual journey towards DIVINE realization delineated in Shabestarī’s poetry, utilizing qualitative content analysis of original texts and interpretations by scholars such as Lāhījī and Ibn Turka Iṣfahānī. The main question the paper addresses is this: “How can the spiritual journeyer overcome obstacles—particularly ‘otherness’—and achieve UNITY with the DIVINE Essence within the framework of Islamic mysticism, as interpreted through Shabestarī’s teachings in Golshan-e Rāz?” To answer this inquiry, the paper addresses pivotal questions concerning Shabestarī’s depiction of the spiritual journeyer’s path, its stages and challenges, and the critical role of the human form in DIVINE manifestation. The study underscores the necessity of overcoming duality and distinction, alluding to the transformative nature of the journey that necessitates self-purification and the cessation of otherness. Findings from this study provide an enriched understanding of Shabestarī’s thought, contributing to the discourse on Islamic metaphysics. It presents valuable insights into the spiritual journeyer’s path, offering a comprehensive interpretation of the challenges, practices, and transformative experiences leading to DIVINE realization and UNITY.

The truth about DIVINE Names and the meanings of DIVINE Names and ATTRIBUTES have always been regarded as key issues in Islamic theology and philosophy, and their surrounding debates have so far triggered controversial and challenging ideas. In this context, the difference of opinions between Ibn Sina as the head of the Peripatetic School and Mulla Sadra as the founder of Transcendental Theosophy have been underestimated. Therefore, in the beginning of the article, some principles in relation to the issue of Beautiful DIVINE Names have been shortly mentioned in order to set the ground for the primary discussion, i.e. the disagreement between Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra on UNITY and the conceptual differences of DIVINE names and ATTRIBUTES. Then, the ideas of Ibn Sina and Mulla Sadra are analyzed and their disagreement is reviewed

The DIVINE UNITY and the supplications of the infallible Imams (A.S.), specially Imam Sajjad's Sahifat al-Sajjadiyya, are closely inter-connected from, theoretical and practical perspectives. These prayers both teach the DIVINE UNITY, its process and kinds, and are also purest manifestations of theoretical and practical DIVINE UNITY. This article tries to study the manifestation and aspects of DIVINE UNITY in the supplication of the infallible Imams (A. S.). Based on this premise, first the decisive role of the DIVINE UNITY in Islam and the significance of supplication are explained. Then, while referring to some of Imam's supplications, it is demonstrated that supplication is both a step towards the DIVINE UNITY and a manifestation of practical DIVINE UNITY.      

Ibn Sina’s definition of DIVINE ATTRIBUTES is of two kinds. On the one hand he takes those ATTRIBUTES both externally and conceptually as one and the same. In other words, one cannot derive multiple meanings from a single impervious Truth to multiplicity. on the other hand he deals with them from the viewpoint of negation or relation or particular negation and relation. These two sayings which are based on the purifying ontological and tough epistemological views of Ibn Sina can go together in the sense that each has been offered in accordance with the audience’s level of understanding. At the intermediate level, he points out the manifold concept of DIVINE ATTRIBUTES each becoming known through particular relation or negation. At a more superior level, Ibn Sina considers the concept of DIVINE ATTRIBUTES as one and the same which is abstracted from that Truth as a consequence of the UNITY, simplicity and purity of his existence. In sum, there is no contradiction here, each addressed to a specific audience. One for average audience and the other for advanced one.

In the majority of his works, Tabatabaie takes the side of cataphaticism about DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. But the theory is presented in his different works in different ways. There are at list 3 ways in which he has presented the theory including (1) verticality of meaning regardless of instances, (2) verticality of meaning with respect to expression of instances, and (3) ungradedness of meaning with respect to the goal and the common function. In this article, we shall try to explain and analyze the three models, and give examples of each one from his works. Notwithstanding that cataphaticism have advantages and transcends the finitude-oriented natural language and makes use of it with regard to God, it suffers from noteworthy shortcomings.

The UNITY of the DIVINE Essence and ATTRIBUTES has always been one of most important topics in theology and an issue of high interest to theologians, philosophers and the mystics of Abrahamic Religions. The present article is an attempt to consider the viewpoints of one Jewish and one Muslim philosopher and to analyze them in a comparative manner with reference to the Old Testament and Quran. Maimonides, as a Jewish theologian, takes the view that as God is incorporeal no attribute dependent upon material constitution can be applied to His essence.....

One of the pivots of controversy among the Islamic sects is the issue of the DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. From among the DIVINE ATTRIBUTES, the informative ATTRIBUTES have been stood as the matter of discussion and controversy more than the other ATTRIBUTES. The main semantic question concerning the informative ATTRIBUTES is that whether those [words related to the] ATTRIBUTES of the essence like hand, foot and face or the reporting ATTRIBUTES of the action like sitting [upon the throne], descend and ascend which have been brought in the book [of Qur’an] and the traditions should be defined with their exoteric meaning or must allegorically be interpreted or none but basically the knowledge of the informative ATTRIBUTES must only be conferred on God! The answer of Vahhabism –fallowing Ibn Teimiyyah- is an intense denial of both the allegorical interpretation and the leaving the judgment to God. To escape from the constraint of corporeality and anthropomorphism, they defend the theory of “conferring [knowledge of] quality”. According to this theory, in addition to attributing the informative ATTRIBUTES to the exoteric meaning, quality is being affirmed for the DIVINE AATTRIBUTES, but they claim that we do not have the knowledge of that quality. This attempt of Vahhabism has not succeeded and never solve the problem of corporeality of God.

One of the most important issues which has long attracted the attention of most thinkers is the relation of man's voluntary acts to Almighty God. The belief in the UNITY of DIVINE Acts indicates that the world of being has only a single real agent and the effusion of existence and independent influence are restricted to the Holy Essence of the Almighty Truth. Various theories have been propounded in this regard. On the one hand, a group of theologians (Ash'arites), by acknowledging the UNITY of DIVINE Acts, totally denied the influence of intermediary causes and, by negating causality, introduced the Almighty God as the direct agent of each phenomenon. On the other hand, another group of theologians (Mu'tazilites) accepted some kind of independence in influence (at the level of delegation), particularly, concerning the above-mentioned voluntary agents and rejected the attribution of man's voluntary acts to the Almighty. They denied the UNITY of DIVINE Acts.There were also some philosophers who agreed with the indirect (through an intermediary) dependence of all phenomena, even man's voluntary acts, on vertical activity. Finally, Mulla Sadra explained and analyzed causality as self manifestation or self-disclosure. He also explained creative activity and, on the basis of the principle of basilal-haqiqah (the truth in its simplicity contains all things), demonstrated that Almighty God is always with His Manifestations. He also stipulated that intermediary causes are the self-manifestations of the Almighty. Accordingly, the effusion of existence in its real sense of the word is limited to God, and the other causes, which enjoy different levels, function as the channels of effusion of existence. In fact, this analysis entails the same content as that of the famous statement, There is no influence in existence but God. In other words, independent influence and effusion of existence are specifically for Almighty God.

When speaking of God, man uses the words referring to His ATTRIBUTES. To perceive the statements containing DIVINE ATTRIBUTES well, some analytical study should be performed. DIVINE names and ATTRIBUTES are to be known as signs for calling Him by His servants, however, with different meanings than their meanings when used in the level of human states and life. When using these names and ATTRIBUTES, man does not intend to qualify God by them but to keep Him pure from them. Since, all names and ATTRIBUTES have been created by God and differ from His Essence. He, therefore, has introduced His names and ATTRIBUTES in many verses of the holy Quran to make us aware of Him to the degrees possible.