Fractal models from mathematics can illuminate the structure of thought, consciousness, and cultural texts. Fractality is a geometric property and an epistemological and aesthetic principle grounded in self-similarity, nonlinearity, and recursive organization. Through analysis of Sūfī mysticism and the poetry of Jalal al-Din Rūmī, including the Mathnawī and the Diwān of Shams al-Dīn Tabrīzī, the article argues that Sūfī epistemology represents fractal cognition: spiritual knowledge arises through cyclical, reflective engagement. This has implications for philosophy of mind, literary studies, Islamic mysticism, and cognitive poetics, offering tools for analyzing how meaning and consciousness emerge through complex, interconnected systems.
This article compares Western philosophical and Sufi models of self-reflection to create an integrative metamodel of subject formation. In Western philosophy, self-reflection is a rational-analytical procedure for clarifying knowledge and securing subjective certainty. In Sufi spiritual anthropology, it is an existential, transformative path involving inner contemplation (murāqaba), self-examination (muḥāsabah), overcoming egocentricity (fanāʾ), and attaining a renewed being (baqāʾ). The study reconstructs ontological, epistemological, and procedural foundations from classical sources. It argues that reflection in philosophy is a cognitive procedure of clarification, while in Sufism it is an ontological event transforming the subject's mode of being. The proposed metamodel treats philosophical analyticity and Sufi transformability as complementary modes in subject formation, expanding self-reflection beyond pure rationality without irrationalizing mystical experience.