Motif
self-consuming destructive fire
self_consuming_destructive_fire
A motif of the Sacred Fire and Divine Light family, within the sub-family Destructive and Weaponized Fire. Every row below is a tagged passage; each rests on a quote in its source text.
1 occurrences
1 traditions
sufi
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The Confessions of Al Ghazzali THE AIM OF SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY AND ITS RESULTS / DIVISIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES / SUFISM / THE REALITY OF INSPIRATION: ITS IMPORTANCE FOR THE HUMAN RACE; lines 1219-1307 confidence: medium
The passage imagines a grain-small thing that can destroy a city and itself, identifies this as fire, and compares rejecting this unwitnessed effect to refusing belief in mysteries of the other life.
Fire is described as a small-seeming thing capable of destroying a city and then itself, illustrating a reality that may seem impossible without direct experience.
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