This study undertakes a comparative exploration of Lacanian psychoanalysis and Islamic mystical experience, aiming to demonstrate how two seemingly divergent epistemic systems—despite their distinct ontological and linguistic foundations—nonetheless converge at the level of structural and experiential dynamics. The central problem is the relation between lack as the motor of desire in Lacan and poverty [faqr] as the horizon of the mystic path; a nexus where desire, jouissance, the objet petit a, the Big Other, and other Lacanian categories are reread through the lens of mystical notions such as longing, annihilation [fanāʾ], divine ruse [makr], and the ethics of spiritual discipline [adab]. The method employed is a homological reading of classical Sufi texts in the light of Lacanian vocabulary, avoiding both reductionism and mechanical equivalence, while allowing each discourse to illuminate the blind spots of the other. Findings indicate that Sharīʿa and the ethics of the ṭarīqa can be read as analogues of the “Name-of-the-Father” and the symbolic order; that infinite longing and burning desire parallel the function of the objet petit a; and that limit-experiences of annihilation and bewilderment mirror the disintegration of the divided subject in psychoanalysis. Mysticism thus foregrounds the teleological horizon of lack, whereas Lacan insists on its structural logic. The study concludes that the encounter between the two discourses not only enables a cross-disciplinary understanding, but also redefines the central categories of each within the horizon of contemporary theory.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
This study aims to reinterpret key concepts of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory within the framework of Islamic mysticism [ʿirfān], exploring the possibilities and limits of dialogue between two seemingly heterogeneous epistemic systems. Lacanian psychoanalysis, as a language-centered and immanent theoretical framework, is grounded in lack, subjective division, desire, and structural incompleteness. Islamic mysticism, particularly in its Sufi tradition, by contrast, articulates a spiritual path in which the subject moves from multiplicity to unity, from selfhood to annihilation [fanāʾ], and from lack toward the horizon of the Absolute. The central question of this article arises from this tension: Can Lacanian concepts be redefined in a way that renders them meaningful within a mystical horizon, without reducing one system to the other or erasing their fundamental ontological differences? The article argues that both Lacanian discourse and mystical language operate through a shared logic of “reference to absence”: psychoanalysis through signifiers, slippages, and discursive ruptures, and mysticism through paradox, symbolic speech, and ecstatic utterance [shaṭḥ]. This structural affinity allows for a functional, rather than ontological, comparative reading.
 
Methodology
The research adopts an analytical–interpretive and comparative approach, based on a parallel reading of Lacanian concepts alongside key notions in Islamic mysticism. Rather than translating one discourse into the vocabulary of the other, the study examines conceptual correspondences at the level of structure and function. Core Lacanian concepts—such as the unconscious structured like a language, the Imaginary, the Symbolic order, the Big Other, the Name-of-the-Father, the phallus, desire, fantasy, jouissance, the Real, transference, and repetition—are examined in relation to mystical concepts including sharīʿa, spiritual discipline [adab], remembrance [dhikr], divine Names, imagination, veils, longing, intoxication [sukr], annihilation, ecstatic speech, and the master–disciple relationship. A guiding methodological principle is the distinction between formal homology and ontological heterogeneity. Similarities are analysed as structural correspondences, not as claims of metaphysical equivalence, thus avoiding reductionism or forced identification.
 
Discussion and Findings
At the theoretical level, the article shows that Lacan’s thesis of “the unconscious structured like a language” can be reread in mysticism as the mediation of truth through a sacred signifying order—scripture, divine Names, and ritualized remembrance. Just as the Lacanian subject emerges within a network of signifiers, the mystical subject is formed within a symbolic economy governed by Names, rites, and discursive discipline. The mirror stage and the Imaginary find resonance in the mystical domain of imagination [ʿālam al-khayāl], which likewise functions as a realm of images that both reveal and veil truth. The Symbolic order, the Big Other, and the Name-of-the-Father—understood as the network of law regulating desire—correspond structurally to sharīʿa, spiritual etiquette, and the system of divine Names in mysticism. In this context, Lacan’s “point de capiton” [quilting point] can be read alongside spiritual lineage, initiation [beyʿat], and named rituals, all of which stabilize meaning within a chain of signification. Desire in both systems is organized around lack; fantasy, as the screen structuring desire, appears in mysticism as veils and imaginal forms. Jouissance—excessive pleasure-pain beyond the pleasure principle—finds a structural counterpart in states of intoxication, ecstasy, and annihilation, which destabilize symbolic coherence. The Lacanian Real, as the traumatic and unsymbolizable, is reread in mysticism as overwhelming divine manifestation [tajallī qahrī], both marking the limits of language, though one operates within a negative logic of impossibility and the other within a logic of sacred disclosure.
The findings demonstrate that many Lacanian concepts are structurally translatable into a mystical framework. Ecstatic utterances [shaṭḥiyyāt] function simultaneously as signs of encounter with the unsymbolizable and as attempts to symbolically register extreme experience. Lacanian transference—love grounded in the presupposition of knowledge in the Other—corresponds to the master–disciple relationship in Sufism. Linguistic slips in psychoanalysis can be read alongside ecstatic speech as signifying events that expose a rupture in discourse. The divided subject of Lacanian theory resonates with the mystical distinction between ego and spirit, with the crucial difference that psychoanalysis insists on the permanence of lack, while mysticism emphasizes movement within lack toward moments of annihilation and subsistence [fanāʾ and baqā’]. Repetition and the death drive, understood as compulsive return to impossibility, find a parallel in disciplined repetition of remembrance and the prophetic injunction “Die before you die.”
 
Conclusion
The study concludes that the relationship between Lacanian psychoanalysis and Islamic mysticism is best understood as one of formal homology rather than ontological identity. The Big Other, as an empty structural position guaranteeing meaning, can be functionally compared—but not equated—to the Absolute as plenitude of being. The phallus as a signifier of lack is not identical with the divine Names as modes of manifestation, and the Real as negative impossibility is not synonymous with divine disclosure. Nevertheless, this comparative encounter allows each discourse to illuminate the blind spots of the other. Mysticism introduces a positive teleology of lack—where lack becomes both deficiency and a path of transformation—as well as an ethical containment of jouissance. Psychoanalysis, in turn, warns against the fetishization of images and Others, emphasizing the necessity of traversing fantasy. By maintaining a clear distinction between horizons, the article proposes a critical and productive framework for redefining Lacanian concepts within a mystical structure without collapsing their fundamental differences.