Document Type : Original Research Paper

Author

• M. Sepehri

Assistant Professor in Philosophy of Islamic Word, Faculty of Theology & Islamic Studies, University of Imam Sadiq, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Ninian Smart, a distinguished contemporary pioneer of religious studies, moving away from traditional religious studies known as theology, considers his studies to be historical, comparative (in his favorite term cross-cultural), interdisciplinary as well as phenomenological and empathic, and presents his model as an analytical one. His model offers seven interconnected dimensions for the religion: rituals, experimental, mythological, doctrinal and philosophical, ethical and legal, social and institutional, and material. On the other hand, mystical theology in comparison with the Smart’s view, through a model developed by Seyyed Haider Amoli (720 - after 787 H.), offers a type of spiritual-subjective and intuitive way that creates a phenomenological distance – to stay away from presuppositions and prejudices – and has the ability to show essentialist empathy in religious studies. This empathy, in the modern non-mystical phenomenology, does not go beyond mere mental and emotional empathy. Although Smart’s model introduces pluralistic dimensions of religion, and is broader in the analysis of worldviews and religions, it is not able to deeply analyze dimensions of religion as compared with the mystical-unitary model. The shari’a-tarighat-haghighat mystical model in its tripartite structure involves the metaphor of »the way» while providing a deep relationship between the dimensions of religion; this metaphor has a symbolic importance for the analysis of religious traditions as the manifestations of trans-historical realities in a historical and temporal path.

Highlights

• Mystical theology in comparison with the Smart's View, offers a type of spiritual-subjective and intuitive way.
• Smart's model is not able to provide a deep analysis in comparison with the mystical-unitary model.
• The shari'a-tarighat-haghighat mystical model in its tripartite structure involves the metaphor of "the way".

Keywords

• Ninian Smart
• modern religious studies
• mystical religious studies
• the dimensions of religion
• historical-comparative studies
• religious model

Main Subjects

• Interdisciplinary
• Mysticism