A Critical Analysis of Political Literature in the Tale of the Lion, the Wolf, and the Fox in Book One of the Masnavi

Abstract

The tale of the lion, the wolf, and the fox in Book One of the Masnavi-ye Ma’navi, beyond conventional mystical readings that reduce it to the struggle among the faculties of the soul, is a rich text on allegorical political philosophy. Using the method of critical discourse analysis and close textual reading, this article examines the mechanisms of legitimacy production, political division of labor, and the ideological formation of power in this tale. The main question of the article is what analysis Rumi offers, through this allegory, of the relationship among violence, law, and legitimacy, and which type of political action each of the three characters in the story represents. The theoretical framework of this study is a synthesis of fundamental concepts from classical political philosophy and contemporary critical theory, including concepts such as “the state of nature and the social contract” (Hobbes, 1651, p. 88), “hegemony and the manufacture of consent” (Gramsci, 1935, p. 57), “ideology and ideological state apparatuses” (Althusser, 1971, p. 182), “symbolic violence” (Bourdieu, 1998, p. 34), and “the political economy of the body” (Foucault, 1975, p. 29). The findings of the study indicate that the lion is not merely a symbol of the self, but rather the embodiment of “absolute sovereignty” and the “state of exception,” which establishes law on the basis of a will to power (Schmitt, 1922, p. 13). The wolf represents “dogmatic opposition” and a tragic subjectivity that lives under the illusion of the universality of rules and becomes the victim of founding violence (Benjamin, 1921, p. 65). The fox, in turn, embodies the “court technocrat” and the regime’s “organic ideologue,” who translates sheer violence into “generosity” and “benevolence” and manages the crisis of legitimacy. The article concludes that, in this allegory, political legitimacy is the product of the intertwining of physical violence and linguistic interpretation, and that Rumi, by unveiling this mechanism, offers a call to “political awakening” and reflection on the relationship between truth and power.