Golden clouds in MirHeidar’s Me’raj Nameh paintings as an embodiment of mystical path in Seyed Heidar Amoli’s view

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Visual Arts, Tabriz Islamic Arts University, Tabriz, Iran

2 Professor, Department of Graphics, Faculty of Art, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

3 PhD student in Visual Arts, Islamic Art of Tabriz

Abstract

The path to divine wisdom and mystical closeness requires enjoying heartfelt reasoning-based light arising from the light of the lights. Seyed Heydar Amoli believed that mystical closeness was dependent on the spiritual travel of the soul. Creatures of the universe take benefit of the divine grace who is the light of the heavens and the earth, surrounded by His grandeur. This light glow when the servant becomes a mystic and says Labbeik (Here I am) to take a mystical path towards the divine light.
Describing the divine path, MirHeidar discusses the Prophet Mohammad’s ascension who saw Allah through the heart as he ascended to the sublime positions. Spiritual observations of the ascension night have been illustrated by the painters, and the MirHeidari’s illustrated Me’raj Nameh, also called Shahrokhi, is one of them. An important point to attend to in Me’raj Nameh paintings is the selection and quality of the visual elements including golden clouds, which also poses the following questions: What are the illustrated and spiritual position of golden clouds as regards the prophet’s mystical closeness in ascension? And which embodiment qualities do they involve?
This research was descriptive-analytical which maintains that golden clouds are a blend of embodiment of divine path for the prophet. In this connection, the painter has created golden clouds as airing from the holy glowing of the prophet as he believes that these golden clouds are the brightening embodiment of the prophet’s soul.

Keywords

References

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