Seyyed Mahmoud Nejati Hosseini
Volume 8, Issue 1 , May 2015, , Pages 97-129
Abstract
What does “death” mean? How death is even understood? How do we face with the death of the self and dying of the other in the moment of sealed and inevitable fate? These are existential questions which are as old as humanity life. In this sense and in other words, in order to have a meaningful ...
Read More
What does “death” mean? How death is even understood? How do we face with the death of the self and dying of the other in the moment of sealed and inevitable fate? These are existential questions which are as old as humanity life. In this sense and in other words, in order to have a meaningful life, we need a meaningful and of course right confrontation with death of the self and dying of the other. In this respect, this is culture that provides the epistemic and existential structures for developing a meaningful life in the world, so I, You and S/He will be able to face with such a social and cultural existential event. It is obvious that the power supply of this development is indeed the cultural narratives of death and dying, and science, religion and mysticism are their representatives. Science is the representative of the secular culture, and religion is the representative of the religious culture and mysticism is also the representative of the spiritual culture. Using specific questions, the article seeks to explore this narrative through three texts (scientific, religious, and literary one): A) What cultural signs and social works have been used in the secular text of social theory of death to describe “death of the self and dying of the other”? B) What religious signs and the epistemic and existential works have been used in the religious text of Nahj al-Balagha to describe “death of the self and dying of the other”? C) What epistemic signs and the conscience - existential works have been used in the literary text of Masnavi-I Ma'navi to describe “death of the self and dying of the other”?
