The Comparative-Analytic Study of “Journey” and “Mystical-Journey” in Narrative Literature: Ahmad Ghazali and Samad Behrangi’s works in Focus

Journey has always occupied a unique position in world literature. The current paper investigates the concept of journey in children and adult’s narrative literature. Samad Behrangi’s “the Little Black Fish” concerns the challenges faced by the main character while passing through different stages of the mystical journey. The present paper aims at investigating the comparability of the stages of the Little Black Fish’s journey with that of the birds in Resalat Al-Toyur by Ahmad Ghazali. In the two works, the stages are not distinctively named. In Attar’s Mantegh Al-Tair, as an adaptation of Ghazali’s work, the seven stages of the mystical journey includes: quest, love, wisdom, independence, monotheism, amazement, indigence, and death. This framework is employed in comparing the aforementioned stages. The findings revealed that the stages are remarkably similar to each other. The major reason for the existence of such an incredible similarity was originated in the fact that they belong to mystical literature and cover the same theme of “Mystical Journey”. Last but not least, the similarity may also have its origins in the unconscious impact of the classic writers (i.e., Attar, Ahmad Ghazali) on the contemporary author (i.e., Samad Behrangi), as well as the human soul commonly shared by all human beings.
Introduction:
The Notion of “journey” has been always given a unique position among the other multiple interesting concepts in the world literature. The current study is an investigation of this concept (Journey) in both children and adult’s narrative literature. Fiction or narrative literature has played an important role in showing the impact of “journey” on religious, cultural, and social changes.
“Journey” has appeared in children’s literature, both in the form of physical and spiritual journeys. The story of The Little Black Fish is one of the few works that deals with the topic of spiritual journey in a pleasant and delicate way. This story comprises a lot of symbols that, if explained and decoded, reveal the deep layers of the story to the reader. In adult narrative literature, there are also works in the field of travelogues and spiritual journeys, the latter of which is referred to as a “mystical journey”. In the classical literature of Iran, a large quantity of outstanding works on “mystical journey” exist. Attar is one of the most prominent literary figures of Iranian-Islamic mysticism and his “Mantegh Al-Tair” is a masterpiece in Persian literature. This book is considered as an adaptation from Ahmad Ghazali's “Resalat Al-Toyur”. In the present paper, the primary focus is on the stages of journey in “Resalat Al-Toyur”.
The research questions are as follows:
1) Is the journey of the “Little Black Fish” comparable to that of the birds?
2) Which of the stages on the journey of birds is comparable with the stages of the journey of the black fish? How can we analyze the journey of the black fish in the context of the journey of the birds?
3) What factors can influence the comparability of a work in contemporary children’s literature with a work in classic adult literature?
Methodology:
The story of The Little Black Fish is written by the famous Iranian writer, Samad Behrangi, and is referred to as one of the most important works of Iranian children's literature. This book was published in 1968. The story of The “Little Black Fish” was chosen from among various works of Samad Behrangi since it was his only work on the mystical journey. The “Little Black Fish” concerns the challenges faced by the main character in passing through different stages of the mystical journey.
Ahmad Ghazali was a mystic jurist and a jurist mystic. In The Resalat Al-Toyur, he has pleasantly narrated the journey of the birds to the King-Simorgh palace.
In studying literary works, the focus is usually on the text, the writer, and the reader. In the current comparative study, the authors could be divided into two groups of contemporary and classical. Readers also belong to two different groups in terms of age. However, the texts are well-matched since both are among the famous literary works of Iran and share the same theme of mystical “journey”. Both works also enjoyed an allegorical and symbolic language.
In Attar’s Mantegh Al-Tayr, as an adaptation of Ghazali’s work, seven stages of a mystical journey are engaged which include: quest, love, wisdom, independence, monotheism, amazement, indigence and death. This taxonomy was employed as a model or framework in comparing the stages of the mystical journey
Results and Discussion:
In the current research, the stages of journey in “The Little Black Fish” (in the contemporary children’s literature) have been compared with the stages of the mystical journey of the birds (in classical literature). In the two works, the stages were not distinctively named. However, all seven stages of the journey of the birds could be identified in Samad Behrangi’s “The Little Black Fish”.
Amazingly, the classic framework of Ghazali’s and Attar’s mystical journey of the birds was so applicable to the story of “The Little Black Fish” that it seemed as if Samad Behrangi had artistically and delicately arranged the stages of the black fish’s journey in accordance with the stages of the mystical journey of the birds.
Behrangi was quite familiar with children’s language, and he was also familiar with the classical Persian masterpieces like those of Ghazali’s and Attar’s. It does not seem improbable that while he was writing The Little Black Fish, he also might have been thinking about the stages of the mystical journey of the birds. The process could also be of unconscious or subconscious type. In any case, what was found in the present paper indicated the high comparability of journey stages in the two works in Persian (children and adult) literature.
Conclusion:
The findings of the current research indicate that the story of “The Little Black Fish” can be compared and interpreted based on the framework of the journey of the birds in Ahmad Ghazali's Resalat Al-Toyur and Attar’s Mantegh al-Tayr. It was realized that the stages of the journeys of the heroes in the two works were remarkably similar. The major reason for the existence of such an incredible similarity was found to be the fact that they belong to mystical-literature and cover the same theme of ‘mystical-journey’. Last, but not least, the similarity may also have its roots in the unconscious impact of the classic writers (i.e., Attar, Ahmad Ghazali) on the contemporary author (i.e., Samad Behrangi), as well as the human soul commonly shared by all human beings.