A RESEARCH ON THE STRUCTURAL DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN PERSPECTIVE OF RUMI AND MUHAMMAD TAQI JAʿFARI ON THE MEANING OF LIFE SYSTEM

Abstract In the period of advancement and development of modernism and postmodernism, the meaning of life is one of the most important issues of scholars and societies. The issue of the present study is that what are the differences between the structural components of meaning of life system from the perspective of two prominent Iranian-Islamic thinkers, namely Rumi (early, 1273 AD) and Jaʿfari (contemporary, 1998 AD)? Based on the achievements of this research conducted in descriptive-analytical method, in spite of many similarities existing in the meaning of life system of mentioned thinkers, fundamental distinctions also can be counted by painstaking research; The most fundamental distinction is the impossibility of cognition of the universe from the perspective of Rumi and, on the contrary, the possibility of cognition of the universe from the perspective of Jaʿfari; Another distinction is the value of worldly life from the viewpoint of Jaʿfari (following the discussion about the function of relative goals) and the worthlessness of worldly life (only as an instrument) from the viewpoint of Rumi; Another point of disagreement is that virtual love is just an instrument in conveying to true love and the truth of the meaning of life in the view of Jaʿfari, unlike Rumi’s viewpoint. other distinctions presented in the research.