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

THE REALISM AND SYMBOLISM OF COLOURS
Other Koranic verses attest that what is posited is a book, as for example
(he following: "You will remain in the Book of God until the day of
Resurrection" (30:56); and again: "What, then, did the past generations
desire?" asks Pharoah of Moses, who replies, "The knowledge of that is
close to my God in a certain Book" (20:51—53). This Book is the glorious
Word that God will utter and that is wholly a Book, 27 comprising genera
(homologous to the large sections of the Koran), species (homologous to
the chapters), categories (the verses or "signs", ayat), and individuals
(homologous to the words made up of letters) . 28
Such being the case, the colour red is in one sense a letter (harf) of this
Book; in another sense it is a word, a verb (kalimah); in yet another sense it
is an entire verse (a "sign", ayah). In this way it corresponds to all the
components of the phenomenon of the Book ("And among His ayat ... is
the diversity of your languages and your colours" (30:22) ). 29 That is why,
concludes the shaykh, recapitulating everything that correlates the two
aspects of the phenomenon of the Book, "the colour red contains a ta'wil as
the Book contains a ta'wil.'' The science of Nature and the science of the
Book are two aspects of the same science of the Spirit.
1. The ta'wil of the exoteric dimension of the colour red (ta'wil al-zahir), that is
to say, the immediate term to which the ta'wil leads the colour back, is
Nature in the act of being, or being as Nature: the lower left-hand pillar of
the cosmic Throne of Mercy. A hadith attributed to the first Imam has
already informed us that this pillar is characterized by red light, "whereby
the colour red becomes red". All red colour in our world derives from the
essential red light of this pillar; thus, the pillar is the Treasure or arche-
'Write!'—'What shall I write?' asked the Pen.—'That which is and that which will
be until the Day of the Resurrection.' And the Pen wrote. Then God put a seal over
the mouth of the Pen and, having written, it did not declare the hidden meaning."
27 On the transition from the Word as uttered—from its state as Logos—to the Word
as it is when set down in scripture, in its state as the Book, cf. Mulla Sadra Shirazi,
op. cit., pp. 193-194 of the French text; cf. also the index s.v. Kalam Allah, Livre.
28 "The Most High God designates its categories by the word ayat (verses, Signs). He
says: 'We will show them our Signs [that is to say, the categories of the Book written
by the Pen] both on the horizons and within themselves' (41:53). And he designates
its individuals by the word kalimah (word, Logos), as he does in the case of Jesus:
'By one of his Words, whose name shall be Christ' (3:45), and with reference to his
name as a sign {ayat): 'We have made of Maryam's son and of his mother a Sign'
(23:50). And he calls the whole by the name of Book, as you have just heard."
29 This is the verse already quoted (see above, note 11), as a Koranic testimony in
favour of the thesis that colours are actually in things themselves, not merely in our
perception.
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THE REALISM AND SYMBOLISM OF COLOURS
type whence the colour red "descends" into this world, and it is the
explanation of the colour. To complete the picture, our author reminds us
that this fourth pillar of the Throne—Nature—comprises the four elemental
modalities characterized respectively by the four basic pillars: Fire (red),
which is the very nature of being; Air (yellow), which is its exemplary
Image (mithal); Water (white), which is its matter; Earth (black), which is
its body. It is to be observed that the descending order of the Elements
(beginning with Fire, that accords with the supra-sensible world) is reversed
in our temporal and phenomenal world (in which we ascend from
Earth up to the element Fire).
A certain legend alludes to this ta'wil of the colour red when it recounts
how the Creator produced a "red hyacinth" (the words that form the title
of our shaykh's work) and that he contemplated it with admiration.
Under his gaze, the red hyacinth melted and turned into Water (once
again, the alchemical idea of the reciprocity of Water and Fire). Out of the
foam on this Water, God created the Earth; out of its vapour (the subtle
part) he created the Heaven. The shaykh explains that the red hyacinth
typifies Nature: it turns into Water which is Nature's matter; the Heaven,
which is the mundus imaginalis ('alam al-mithal), is created out of its subtle
vapour; while from its Earth is created the telluric mass, which is the
world of bodies. In this way, the symbol of the red hyacinth embraces the
totality of the four fundamental modalities. 30
2. The esoteric dimension of the colour red (batin al-zahir, the esoteric of its
exoteric, II, chapter VI), takes us from the cosmic Throne or Temple of
Mercy to another Throne or Temple, which is in perfect symbolic
accord with the former. The second Throne is in fact the hierocosmic
Throne of Shiite esotericism, and is named the Throne of the "walayah"
{'Arsh al-walayah). We know that the word walayah is one of the key words
in Shiite theosophy, for it is at the heart of the Imamology that goes hand
in hand with prophetology. The walayah (Persian dusti) is the gift of love,
the divine love or favour that renders eternally sacred the "Friends of
30. The author has added later, in the margin of the text, a number of possible ta'wilat
"We can also lead back the colour red to violence, anger, murder, or to the bile that is
in the human body, or to fierce beasts, or to fire, or to the planet Mars, to the sun, to
political power, to the Turks, to the sword, to copper, or to the elixir of gold and
oilier, similar things." Doubtless on re-reading what he had written, the author
added this inventory haphazardly; the rules of the ta'wil that are thereby demonstrated
are not clear, whereas he is extremely precise when speaking of the correspondences
between the Thrones.
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