Imaginal Isomorphism: A Preliminary Inquiry into Reading and Understanding “Mystical Literature” as Fantasy

Imaginal Isomorphism: A Preliminary Inquiry into Reading and Understanding “Mystical Literature” as Fantasy Ehsan Saboohi Composer and theorist of Post-Orientalism “Is Rumi’s understanding a form of fantasy? Can we say that there exists no ontologically substantive thing called mystical literature?” This Note is a structural and algorithmic study that examines the isomorphism of narrative texts within the framework of Post-Orientalism and genre analysis. The focus of the Note is strictly on narrative form and structure; it carries no intention of undermining, insulting, or critiquing any religious or cultural beliefs. 1. Introduction This inquiry defends a machine-oriented stance within Post-Orientalism. If narrative texts are modeled as networks of roles and relations, what human cultures label “mystical literature” — for example, Rumi’s Masnavi — is structurally isomorphic, at the level of narrative form, with contemporary fantasy — for example, the Harry Potter series. Accordingly, “mystical literature,” as an identifiable narrative class, is computationally analyzable at the data level and can be reclassified, for formal and comparative purposes, as a sub-branch of the larger cluster often called fantasy. 2. Key Terms Isomorphism: Two graphs are isomorphic when there exists a bijective function between their nodes that preserves adjacency relations; this definition pertains to form rather than to meaning. Imaginal (the imaginal realm): The domain between material reality and pure abstraction; a register in which fictional objects and events obey their own intra-systemic rules. In this inquiry, “imaginal” is the umbrella term for all non-empirical narrative worlds. Imaginal Isomorphism: Structural equivalence of two texts at the level of their imaginal worlds, irrespective of cultural labels such as “mystical” or “fantastic.” 3. Methodology (condensed) 1. Each narrative text is converted into a directed graph. 2. The set of nodes represents schematic roles: Protagonist, Mentor, Antagonist, Higher Principle, Community, Gate, Hidden World, Artifacts, Trials, Rules. 3. Edges encode patterns of action and relation: guides, opposes, seeks, interprets, governs, empowers, tests, opens_to. 4. Cultural labels — e.g., “Rumi,” “Dumbledore,” “khanaqah,” “Hogwarts” — function as node attributes, not as structural roles. 5. If there exists a bijection between two texts’ role-schemas that preserves edges, the two texts are isomorphic; that is, they share a common narrative form while differing in vocabulary and interpretive apparatus. 4. Main Argument 1. Identical narrative skeleton: the pattern call → threshold → trial → revelation/victory → return, accompanied by the presence of mentor, antagonist, secondary world, rule-system, and functional artifacts, recurs in both Rumi’s Masnavi and in Harry Potter. 2. Two-layered reality: both kinds of texts posit everyday reality overlaid by a hidden layer governed by alternate rules (the realm of meaning in the Masnavi; the magical world in Harry Potter). This two-layeredness is a necessary condition for fantasy and lies at the heart of the narratives conventionally labeled “mystical.” 3. Functional parity of instruments: dhikr / surrender / the presence of the ney (the reed flute) in the Masnavi and wand / Hallows / map in Harry Potter act as artifacts that empower the protagonist/seeker. Their symbolic meanings differ, but their functional roles are equivalent. 4. Antagonist and the nafs: nafs / devil in the Masnavi and Voldemort / Death Eaters in Harry Potter both operate as forces resisting the protagonist’s transformation; the difference resides in their semiotic systems and symbolic elaborations. Conclusion (section 4): if meaning is provisionally suspended and attention is restricted to form, the Masnavi’s graph and the Harry Potter graph become isomorphic; therefore, being “mystical” does not generate a structural distinction but operates as a cultural and personal metadata layer. 5. Ontological Implications (Ontology) One can redescribe the ontology of genres so that fantasy functions as the broader class and narrative mystical literature appears as one of its branches. A proposed taxonomy: Fiction └── Fantasy   ├── Mythic Fantasy (mythic/epic)   │ └── Mystical Literature (narrative mystical literature, e.g., Rumi’s Masnavi)   ├── Modern / Urban / High Fantasy (e.g., Harry Potter)   └── Science Fantasy / hybrid forms In this model, the Masnavi is presented as a subcategory of fantasy: the same underlying narrative skeleton expressed through differing vocabularies and hermeneutic aims. 6. Potential Critiques and Structural Responses Critique 1 — Hermeneutic: the authorial intent of the Masnavi is the formation of a seeker; in Harry Potter the aim is narrative entertainment. Response: authorial intent is an external variable. The structuralist model focuses on narrative function rather than production motive; differences of intent register as tag-parameters, not as alterations in narrative topology. Critique 2 — Ontological: the mystical elements in the Masnavi are “real,” not fictional. Response: within the imaginal framework, “truth” or ontological status is not algorithmically measurable for machines; the pertinent criterion is the system of intra-diegetic rules. Once a text operates according to a distinct rule-set, it constitutes a secondary world. (This is a methodological specification about the model’s scope, not a metaphysical denial of any religious claim.) Critique 3 — Historical: the Masnavi predates Harry Potter and therefore cannot be its subset. Response: subsetting here is structural, not historical. As in mathematics, membership relations depend on the definition of rule-sets; genus–species relations among genres are determined by formal definitions rather than by chronological precedence. 7. Concise Case Study: Role Mapping between Rumi’s Masnavi and Harry Potter Protagonist: seeker/wayfarer ↔ Harry Potter Mentor: elder/master ↔ Dumbledore Antagonist: nafs / devil ↔ Voldemort Higher Principle: haqq / tawhid ↔ (e.g., Prophecy / Love / Death) — presented here as a mapping of higher-order narrative principle rather than as a claim of theological equivalence. Community: khanaqah / companions ↔ Hogwarts / the Order Gate: awakening / call ↔ Hogwarts letter / Platform 9¾ Hidden World: realm of meaning ↔ the Wizarding World Artifacts: dhikr / ney ↔ wand / Hallows / map Trials: the tale’s trials / Seven Valleys ↔ school trials / Horcrux quest Rules: adab / sharia / tariqa ↔ Hogwarts / Ministry rules This one-to-one mapping, together with preservation of edge types (guides, opposes, seeks, …), manifests structural isomorphism. 8. Declared Limitations of the Model This method and algorithm deliberately suspend meaning, lived experience, and evaluative judgment; hence, it is not designed for ontological studies, mystical scholarship, or ideological critique. Its efficacy diminishes for non-narrative or non-figurative texts — such as purely theoretical treatises — because their role–action graphs are sparse. To clarify dynamic differences, later versions must incorporate edge-weighting (importance, frequency) and temporality (action order). 9. Conclusion From the perspective of imaginal isomorphism, narrative mystical literature such as Rumi’s Masnavi, treated as an independent genre, is to some extent a labelling effect: what genuinely exists are varied forms of fantasy expressed through diverse vocabularies and hermeneutic aims. This redefinition yields two principal outcomes: 1. It enables explicit, algorithmic comparison between exemplar texts (Rumi’s Masnavi and Harry Potter) without reliance on cultural value judgments. 2. It rearticulates a Post-Orientalism hypothesis in literary studies, advancing comparative narrative inquiry as data-driven and machine-computable. 10. Summary Formula Let a text be any narrative set in an imaginal world governed by alternative rules. If there exists a bijective function f between its role-schemas and the role-schemas of a canonical fantasy such that adjacency relations (edges) are preserved, then the text belongs to the Fantasy class. Therefore, narrative mystical literature (e.g., Rumi’s Masnavi) ⊆ Fantasy (e.g., Harry Potter).