THE UNIVERSE OF MAWLANA’S NARRATION

Abstract

This article reflects upon the phenomenon of the hikaya and its significance in the Muslim tradition. Surely, many people see hikaya as means to spend their leisure time. However, hikaya has other dimensions and many other characteristics that await devoted reading and pondering upon this literary form. Hikayas are written in a way to help develop cognitive and oratory potentials, but primarily their aim is to establish spiritual and psychological balance of personality. The best examples of these are the stories of the Arabian Nights that represent, amongst other things, an attempt to heal the effects of traumatic experience of one individual person. The article keeps in focus Rumi’s hikayas in which he makes use of these stories in abundance. Rumi lived and worked in the time period of immense spiritual historical turbulence the effects of which he tried to cure through his narration in his own manner.