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

THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
cosmic mountain of Qaf, on the threshold which opens onto all the worlds
beyond—therefore at "the meeting-place of the two seas". It is thus the
perfect exemplification of a traditional Imago Templi. Moreover, we also
know that the rock on which Jacob rested his head was actually made up
of twelve stones, and that God subsequently immersed this composite stone
in the sea, so that it might be the centre of the Earth. 37 One cannot but
recall here the meditation of a Shiite gnostic such as Qadi Sa'id Qummi
on the twelve edges of the cubic form of the temple of the Ka'bah, which
are interpreted as typifying the pleroma of the Twelve Imams. The cubic
temple of stone is then transfigured into a spiritual temple, the centre of
the earthly world, the terrestrial homologue of all the temples of the
celestial universes. 38
We referred above to the concept of the "Temples of Light" in Suhra-.
vardi, which make the microcosm—man's spiritual individuality—a
temple of Light. The concept expands to take in an entire community. A
Koranic verse (7:159) says: "Among the people of Moses there is a
community which is guided by the Truth and which thereby practises
justice". By means of this personal ta'wil, Suhravardi transposes the idea
of this community of the elect to the ancient Persian people, the people of
sages whose doctrines he revived in Islamic Iran, as he expressly puts it,
without having had a predecessor in carrying out a project such as this. 39
The Imago of the spiritual Temple—of the community-temple—enables
Suhravardi to link the Khusruvaniyun of ancient Iran with his own disciples,
the Ishraqiyun, in Islamic Iran. In Ismaili gnosis we also encounter the idea
of the "Temple of Light" of the Imamate, constituted by all the forms of
light present in the initiates, the high dome or "Sublime Temple of Light"
being formed by the Imams themselves. 40 As the community-temple the
spiritual Temple has its own architecture. We shall come across the
equivalent in the Imago Templi of the Essene Community of Qumran.
In this way the Imago Templi of Islamic Iranian gnosis, with Suhravardi
as its great mediator, leads us back to the primordial hierophany of the
37 Ibid.
38 See my article on the spiritual interpretation of the temple of the Ka'bah in Qadi
Sa'id Qummi, published above. We cannot go into the details of this interpretation
here.
39 Suhravardi, 'Le Verbe du soufisme', chap. XXII, French translation in L'Archange
empourpre, op. cit., p. 170.
40 Cf. H. Corbin, Trilogie ismaelienne, Bibl. Iranienne, vol. 9 (Tehran/Paris, 1961),
index s.v. Temple de lumiere de l'lmamat.
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THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
Temple: it allows us to perceive this hierophany through it. The Sakinah—
Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew Shekhinah, and signifying the steady
illumination dwelling permanently in the "Temples of Light"—is identified
by Suhravardi with the Xvarnah, the Light of Glory in Mazdean religion.
This Light of Glory passes from the heroes of the heroic epic to the heroes
of the mystical epic, to the community which, among the ancient Persians,
was the homologue of the community of the elect among Moses' people.
The great rock of the Temple of the Angel, to which the pilgrim of the
"Occidental Exile" ascends, has the very name of the rock which was the
foundation-stone of the Temple of Solomon. I remarked above how for
one of Suhravardi's followers, the fifteenth-century Jalal Davani, Persepolis
became one of the main spiritual centres of Iran, and Persia became
a Solomonic kingdom. 41 At the same time, in the north-west, in Azerbaijan,
the temple of Shiz, the great sanctuary of Fire where the sovereigns of
Sassanid Persia were consecrated, became the Throne or Temple of Solomon
(Takht-i Sulayman). Even in the absence of written documents, the Imago
Templi supplies us with persuasive testimonials about itself.
One essential factor stands out over and above everything else. We
spoke earlier of the hermeneutic which adds depth to the notion that the
destruction of the Temple is the occasion of our birth into this world of
exile, since the exile follows on the destruction of the Temple. All the
catastrophes, then—the destruction of the Temple of Solomon in 586 B.C.,
the destruction in 70 A.D. of the second Temple, which had been rebuilt by
Zerubbabel, and the destruction of the Temple of Shiz—are only so many
episodes in the history of the exile. To be sure, the norm of those who arc
in exile remains centred on the rebuilding of the Temple, because their
norm is to fight against the desacralization of the world. But this rebuilding
will be definitive and imperishable only if it is the building of the Temple
to come, beyond the time of this world. The destruction of the Temple is
the original catastrophe. Its rebuilding can only be a cosmic restoration.
This is the significance of the vision and theology of the Temple in the
prophet Ezekiel—a vision that provided the archetype on which was
modelled the ethos of the Qumran Community. Ezekiel's vision is the
reply to the knights of the Temple, to their cry of despair in a lonely
amphitheatre of the Pyrenees.
41 Cf. A. S. Melikian-Chirvani, art. cit., note 14.
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