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The Iranian MetaphysicalsExplorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny$
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The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny

Alireza Doostdar

Print publication date: 2018

Print ISBN-13: 9780691163772

Published to Princeton Scholarship Online: September 2018

DOI: 10.23943/princeton/9780691163772.001.0001

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PRINTED FROM PRINCETON SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.princeton.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Princeton University Press, 2022. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in PRSO for personal use.date: 21 May 2022

Metaphysical Pleasures

Metaphysical Pleasures

Chapter:
(p.78) 8 Metaphysical Pleasures
Source:
The Iranian Metaphysicals
Author(s):

Alireza Doostdar

Publisher:
Princeton University Press
DOI:10.23943/princeton/9780691163772.003.0009

This chapter examines occult practices in terms of the metaphysical pleasures they provide by focusing on the domain of leisure and play. It first considers metaphysical pleasure arising from wonder and astonishment, with particular emphasis on how these emotions, typically known through the concepts of ʻajab and taʻajjub, have been understood in the premodern Islamic tradition. It then discusses the pleasures of contemporary aesthetic and literary consumption and how these pleasures are enabled by a trend toward subordinating the metaphysical to a set of secular sensibilities governing the appreciation of cinema, graphic arts, literature, and fashion. It shows that that each of these metaphysical pleasures provides rationalized pathways for approaching the metaphysical that do not require one to answer questions of truth or falsity.

Keywords:   occult, metaphysical pleasures, leisure, play, wonder, astonishment, ʻajab, taʻajjub, truth, falsity

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