Re-reading the spiritual journey from the point of view of Ali Safaei Haeri

Responding to theoretical and practical needs and concerns in the field of spirituality has always had an undeniable necessity. One of these concerns is the nature and manner of spiritual conduct, which must be answered by referring to different mystics and thinkers. One of the contemporary thinkers whose works are popular with the public but have not been studied scientifically is Ali Safai Haeri. For this purpose, first a coherent intellectual system of his thought should be made available. Since the topics of spirituality are discussed in Safa’i works, scattered and sometimes ambiguous, the aim of this research was to extract a coherent framework in this relationship, which was followed by descriptive-analytical method and based on library sources. In this regard, firstly, what is spirituality, mysticism, journey and Islamic spirituality, and then the goals of spiritual journey have been read from his point of view. The goals that can be considered in Safa’i writings regarding the journey of meaning are growth, monotheism, servitude, breadth of existence, and satisfaction; Each of them, in relation to each other, show the general atmosphere of Safa’i thought in this discussion. Then, the foundations of spiritual journey from the Safa’i point of view have been identified in epistemological, anthropological, God-cognitive, ontological and salvation-cognitive. Finally, we arrive at the program of spiritual conduct, which starts with knowledge and based on that, it reaches freedom. Freedom provides the basis for a faith that is of the nature of heart inclination and love. This faith leads to action and is manifested in the three dimensions of remembrance, obedience and gratitude. Finally, the seeker reaches the stage of ekhbaat, which he follows through the path of calamity and urgency and etesam. The results of these investigations show that, firstly, a coherent structure can be presented to summarize Safa’i issues in spiritual conduct, and secondly, this structure has many innovations, attractions and capabilities in response to spiritual journey issues, and thirdly, it has many harmonies with the system of Islamic mysticism. However, the lack of transparency in the method of understanding and referring to religion, the unprecedented use of some concepts and some misconceptions and incorrect generalizations regarding Islamic mysticism are some of the problems that can be seen in Safa’i discussions.