Temple and Contemplation brings together for the first ... - ImagoMundi

SABIAN TEMPLE AND ISMAILISM
each festival, in which the Sages assemble. Iman, the inner faith in the
sense intended by the Brothers of Purity, is a faith which transmutes; it
does not commemorate, but effects and promotes the Event. This faith has
the power to actualize Events because it transmutes them into symbols,
preserving only their transcendence. It does not itself return to the fact or
try to reduce it to its causes; it takes the fact along with it to that which the
fact indicates. 87 Its exegesis of the calendar makes of the latter itself an
exegesis, for the liturgical cycle actualizes, one by one, the calendar's
permanent and original Figures. When ta'wil raises itself onto an even
higher level, the festivals will no longer be celebrated in the Temples of the
Sabian theosophers. The Event will no longer be experienced merely as an
event which survived or survives after people, but as being those very
People. The Event, that is, is no longer simply set in the present: the soul
itself becomes its presence. Thus, the lived situation will no longer be
projected only into a Temple which serves as its Figure, but into the very
reality of those Person-archetypes, the exegetes who effect the esoteric
exegesis, and whose recurrence will be the actual cycle of the soul's
calendar. By means of a conversion and an elevation which are characteristic
of the mental vision, these Persons, as celestial archetypes, will be the
Festivals themselves "in person", and they themselves will be the Time
and the Temple of the festivals. This is the ultimate meaning of the ritual
of the Brothers of Purity, as we shall see in the next section..
II. The Ismaili Exegesis of the Ritual
i. The Festivals and Liturgies of the Brothers of Purity. "Know, oh my brother,
that we are the society of the Brothers of Purity, of all men the most fitted
for the cult of religion . . . because it is we who have the most intimate
knowledge of it ... but we are also the most fitted for the philosophical
cult, the most able to maintain it and to renew whatever may have
degenerated in it." 88 The Ismaili exegesis aims at precisely this regeneration
when it is applied, in its turn, to the cult of the Sages, whose ritual
reflected an ideal Sabianism, and whose ceremonial and liturgical times
87 On this major aspect of psychic Energy which transmutes fact into symbol, cf. C-
G. Jung, Uber psychische Energetik und das Wesen der Traume, 2nd ed. (Zurich, 1948), pp.
39-44; see also my 'Livre du Glorieux', op. cit., p. 84.
88 Rasa'il IV, p. 306.
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SABIAN TEMPLE AND ISMAILISM
make possible the transition from the Sabian ideology of the Temple
constructed in the image of a star, to the Ismaili ideology of the human
Temple as veil (hijab) and sanctuary of a celestial Person of light {haykal alnur)89
"We have", it is said, "a third sort of year, the observance of which is
peculiar to us. We too have three Days which we consider to be days of
festival, and on which we instruct our brothers to gather together and
celebrate. Know, oh my brother, that our festivals resemble, not literally
but typologically {bi'l-mathal), the festivals of the Philosophers and religious
festivals. This is because our festivals are of the nature of substances
subsisting of themselves (dhaliyah qa'imah bidhawatiha); all actualization
proceeds from, by and in them. They too are three in number: one comes
at the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end. There is a fourth,
which is the most difficult to observe, the hardest to actualize." 90
After mentioning the correspondences with the times of Islamic festivals
and of the festivals of philosophical religion, as already described, the
Brothers continue as follows: "Our festivals, oh my brother, are Persons
who Announce (ashkhas natiqah), Souls in act and active, implementing, at
the call of their Creator, the acts and practices revealed and inspired by
Him. The first of our Days, and the festival par excellence of all our festivals,
is the day of the appearance of the First Qa'im amongst us. 91 Corresponding
to this day is the Sun's entry into the sign of Aries at the time of spring,
of the blossoming and sweetness of life, when the heavenly Mercy of the
Epiphany (zuhur) descends to earth and dwells there, and when esoteric
knowledge may be revealed. For us and for all our brothers it is a day of
happiness. The second day is the Day of the resurrection (qiyam) of the
Second Qa'im, the day when the Sun enters the sign of Cancer, the point
at which days are at their longest and nights are shortest, for on this day
the power of the oppressors has ceased and been consumed. It is a day of
joy, happiness and good tidings. The third day is the Day of the resurrec-
89 On these Hayakil al-Nur, see Ivanow, Rise of the Fatimid.s, p. 256 and p. 64 of the text
of Zahr 1. 9-10 (cf. notes 41, 44, 57, 66). The Prophets and Imams are the Temples of
Light, and all the hudud are oratories in this temple, limbs of this body, as the Seven
stars were the limbs and the temples of the divinity which revealed itself in them.
90 Rasa'il IV, p. 307.
91 The word Qa'im, literally "he who stands up", par excellence denotes the Qa'im al-
Qiyamah, the Imam of the Resurrection; but each Imam, and even each member of
the Order, is a Qa'im in potentiality. Cf. Rise, pp. 242-243 (54-55 of the Arabic
text).
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