Abstract

One of the main issues with regards to religion in contemporary world is the similarities between religious, mystic, and artistic experiences and the way they are represented in language. Yet, ignoring the differences between these types of experience has caused the belief that all these various states of mind are one and the same. In this paper, after setting forth the definitions and concepts of religious and mystical experiences, we will discuss the relation of these experiences to artistic ones. According to religious doctrines, there is an essential difference between the expressions of a mystic and a poet (in its literal sense, and not the sage or mystic who makes use of poetry to clarify his viewpoints). Ignoring such a difference, the insistence of Holy Quran and prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) and also some gnostics on the difference between themselves and poets (and even their hatred of poetry) would be untenable. Thus, this paper tends to show that along with similarities between religious (and mystic) experiences and artistic ones (such as their being based on taste, emotion, paradox,…) the differences between these mental activities(such as their different origin, universality of religion, authority of prophet in religion,…) and their linguistic significance should be addressed, too.