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

SABIAN TEMPLE AND ISMAILISM
of exemplification. The Nusayri Ritual 134 tells of the Prophet's rebuke to
his companions who said Ramadan 135 was over: "Ramadan neither goes
nor comes; it has no double (i.e. it is a unique archetype). To be sure, the
month of Ramadan goes away and comes back (i.e. is the repetition of this
Archetype), but Ramadan itself neither goes away nor comes back. Do not
then say that Ramadan is over. In God's name! you do not know what
Ramadan is. Say that the month of Ramadan is over." 136 In the case of
what we called earlier the "day of the Angel", the day passes, but the
Angel remains.
Who, then, is Ramadan? The same Nusayri ritual tells us, in the course
of the answers given to questions concerned with the Persons of the months
and days and with their Names. Just as the first Person inaugurates the
liturgical Cycle of the Brothers of Purity, Ramadan inaugurates the year
in the person of 'Abdallah ibn 'Abd al-Mutallib, father of the Prophet
Muhammad or prophet-Annunciator {Natiq) of the sixth Period. 137 Since
this is the "month" in which the revealed Book "descended" to earth, one
can indeed see how its Person is the "father" of him who annunciated the
new religion. Furthermore, each of the thirty days and each of the thirty
nights of this month also have their person-archetype: thirty masculine
personages for the days, and thirty feminine personages for the nights. 138
Likewise, every other month is a Person of sacred history. We thus
perceive how excellent an exercise in speculative meditation it would be to
effect the transposition, or ta'wil, of each singular fact, in order to attain to
the mental vision of the archetype. 139
Of all the nights of Ramadan, there is one, called Laylat al-Qadr, the
"Night of Destiny", which has a special dignity. During this night, the
Koranic revelation is consummated, and for this very reason no one is
134 Majmu' al-A'ydd, recently edited by R. Strothmann, Festkalender der Nusairier (Berlin,
1944-1948).
135 Ramadan in Arabic (with the emphatic d). The Persian pronunciation is Ramazan.
136 Ibid., pp. 15-16.
137 Ibid., p. 12.
138 Ashkhas ayyam ( layali) Ramadan, ibid., pp. 13-14.
139 In the same way, meditation could attach itself to each of the divine Names in the
person of their respective Angel, or to each letter of the Arabic alphabet as
indicative of a cosmic force, visualized in the person of the Angel who is in charge
of it (the names of the Angels are obtained by a combination of these letters
furnished with the suffix 'il = el). This subject has inspired the composition of
what one might call "breviaries of ecstasy" (e.g. the Awrad ghawthiyah by Shah
Muhammad Ghawth, shattari, Indian Sufism, sixteenth century).
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SABIAN TEMPLE AND ISMAILISM
rash enough to assign a place to it among all the nights in the month. By
means of ta'wil, this Night of Revelation becomes a Night of Transfiguration.
It is said 140 that if you stay awake till dawn, you will have a vision of
the Prophet and all his hudud filling, in their rank of Glorified Ones, the
Temple of the Resurrector, 141 and any wish you make within yourself at
that moment is already granted. The asseveration is only apparently
paradoxical; it concerns all those who are "actualized" in this Temple,
and it signifies that after the Resurrection (Qiyamah) which overthrows the
tyranny of the Law (Shari'ah), thought and imagination precede and
suscitate the object that then becomes their symbol (because they already
typify it within themselves), and do not merely track symbols down, as
happens in the present human condition.
Even though one hesitates to assign a place to this night in the series of
Nights in the month, because it surpasses them all by so much, the
person-archetype of the night, who manifests this very transcendence, is
clearly recognized. The Night of Destiny is the Prophet's daughter, mother of
the holy Imams: "It is the typification of our suzeraine, Fatimah." 142 The
Koranic text says: "The Night of Destiny is worth more than a thousand
months. On this Night, the Angels and the Spirit come down to earth . . .
Peace accompanies this Night until the dawn" (97:3-5). According to the
Ismaili exegesis, each month is in fact a hujjah—that is, the dignitary who
is the Threshold of Mercy and Knowledge, through whom one attains to the
hidden essence and name of the Imam. Etymologically, he is "the Proof,
the Sign", the Imam's visible double, who may receive in his name the
oath of allegiance. 143 Fatimah was the hujjah of the Prophet's Wasi, the
foundation and principle of the Imamate. Therefore it is true that on this
Night, in her person, the Angels and the Spirit—that is to say the entire
line of Imams issuing from her and typifying on earth the angelic ministry
—descend to earth. That is why it is true to say that "peace accompanies
140 Strothmann, Texte II, 3, pp. 20-21 of the text.
141 Cf. note 66.
142 Mathal 'ala mawlatina Fatimah, Texte XII, 7, pp. 114-115.
143 This is one of the particulars whose great variations should be noted—variations
extending from Fatimid Ismailism (in which hujjah was something like an actual
dignitary, a specific office), to the reformed Nizari Ismailism, which inclines to
the religion of personal salvation. Cf. W. Ivanow, Studies (see note 125), pp. 40—44.
The hujjah could even be a woman, a child, or even a book; cf. Kalami Pir, p. XLV,
and the concentrated, obscure little treatise On the Recognition of the Imam (Fasi dar
Bayan-i Shanakht-i Imam), translated from the Persian by W. Ivanow, The
Ismaili Society Series B, no. 4 (1947).
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