The 1st Annual International Symposium on:
Sey-yed Nourod-din Shah Nematollah Vali
October 11-12, 2002
Morris Dailey Auditorium
San Jose State University (SJSU), San Jose, California, USA
SSNV Paper: Shah Ni‘matullah Wali Kermani as a mystical poet
A very brief autobiography of Professor Janis Esots:
Janis Esots (1966) graduated from the Moscow Institute of Literature (Department of Translation, Persian group) in 1991. In 1991 - 1994, he continued his studies at the same institute as an aspirant (a doctoral student); during this time he wrote his thesis "The Khamsa of Nizami Ganjavi and its Russian translations". After his return Latvia in 1995, he taught in various colleges. Since 1998 he has been lecturing on Sufism and Islamic philosophy at the University of Latvia. He has translated into Russian several works of Mulla Sadra and Suhrawardi and written a number of papers on Sufism in Russian, English and Persian.
A glance at Professor Esots' speech:
This paper is based on the study of the "Divan" of Shah Ni'matullah. The author claims that the mysticism ('irfan) of Shah Ni'matullah, as it is presented in his poetry, has several levels or "bottoms" (butun). I have tried to connect each of these levels with a particular school or "path" of islamic mysticism:
the level of the 10-called theoretical mysticism as represented by Ibn al-'Arabi and his school;
the level of the school of intoxication;
the level of "qalandari".