Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis - ImagoMundi

the exact number, but only the vast ness of the perspective." It merely
registers the veiled memory of nameless upheavals and crimes which preceded
the history of present mankind. No archive records them, but their
trace has been found in every epoch by the activity of the metaphysical
Imagination—from the ecstatic books of Enoch down to Franz von Baader.
The postulates of the Ismaili theosophy might here be amplified in the
light of a comparative research. 67 First of all they present a decisive contrast
to the idea of "primitive man" accepted by our human sciences. Present
mankind is regarded not as a summit of progress but as descended from a
superior mankind through a catastrophe of whose mystery we can gain only
a distant intimation. It does not issue from the gloom of savagery, from a
void and an absence of humanity; the most ancient monuments bear witness
not to a babbling, nor even to a dawn, but rather to a twilight. 68 When
the speculative Imagination encounters the proposition of vulgar exoteric
theology "that there was a time when the world did not exist," it is fitting,
declares Nasiraddin Tusi (Iranian theologian of the thirteenth century) to
remind these theologians that they have remained on a plane of fictitious
representation, that in the sense in which they take the words time and
world "there never was a time when this world did not exist." 59 Or rather,
this proposition is intelligible only if we have in mind the universe constituted
by 18,000 worlds—that is to say, successive cycles each of which is
actually one world. 60 These worlds result not from a historical causality
but from a homology between cycles exemplifying the same archetypes. In
short, there was a race of human beings superior to ours, who were the
educators of our race; to this race belonged the Adam of the Bible and
Koran. Far from having been the first man on earth, Adam was one of the
last survivors of the cycle of Epiphany preceding our cycle of Occupation. 61
The idea of this exegesis from one cycle to another inspires all Ismaili
exegesis of the Koran. At the approach of the cycle of Occultation, the form
56 Cf. ibid., B, 1 (pp. 142-43 of the Arabic text).
57 Cf. above, n. 47.
58 Cf. Schelling, Essais, tr. into French by S. Jankelevitch (Paris, 1946), pp. 213-15.
59 Tasawwurat, p. 48 of the text and pp. 65 and 67 of the translation. It should be noted
that we also find this figure of 18,000 worlds in 3 Enoch 24 : 17. Cf. also Hans Bietenhard,
Die himmlische Welt im Urchristentum und Spatjudentum (Tubingen, 1951), pp.
72-73-
60 Ibid., pp. 65, 66-67.
61 One might well amplify this cyclical conception of history in which the idea of an
intercyclical homology contrasts sharply with an evolutionist conception of rectilinear
"progress." One cannot help thinking of Spengler's ideas.
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of Iblis is liberated and is manifested by grave symptoms which disturb
the state of harmony and innocence characterizing the angelical mankind
of the ending cycle. 82 These disturbances oblige the dignitaries to restore
the discipline of the arcanum at the threshold of a world and a mankind
which the direct vision of the celestial figures would only incite to destructive
fury. But those who had been the "Angels" of the cycle of Unveiling—that
is to say, those initiated into the Gnosis of Resurrection (da'wat-e Qiyamat)
—cannot bear the prospect of renouncing the state of freedom and innocence,
of direct intuition of all truth; they cannot defer to the demands of
the new esotericism. Their horror at the strictures of a religious Law gives
way, however, in the course of a dialogue full of prescience and sadness.
In the literal Koran text the dialogue takes place between God and his
Angels; the Ismaili ta'wil transposes it by one octave: here it is the last
Imam of the cycle who gravely declares to his earthly angels: "I know what
you do not know" (Koran 2 : 28). One of them, the young Adam, is invested
as Proclaimer (Natiq) of the new religious Law. 63 Now begins a drama which
must be understood as an imitation and exemplification of the drama in
Heaven. It consists of two episodes: the revolt of Iblis and the vengeance
of Iblis, having as corollary what may be called " the error of the hierophant."
At the beginning of the new cycle the form of Iblis was incarnated in one
of the dignitaries named Harith ibn Murra, one of those whose office it had
been to initiate the earthly angels of the cycle of Unveiling in the Gnosis
of Resurrection. His refusal to recognize the new religious Law is implacable:
is he to begin the arduous pilgrimage of the degrees of initiation all over
again? Was he not created of fire, whereas the young Adam, restricted to the
science of symbols, is made only of clay? Why then should he and the other
earthly angels bow down before Adam? 64 When the Angel tears his Iblis
from within him and hurls it to earth, all the ambiguity that is still possible
in Zervanism has ceased: Harith incarnates an Iblis-Ahriman in the pure
state, the No without the Yes, the contrary power of the Adversary.65
The temptation to which Iblis incarnated as Harith ibn Murra subjects
62 Cf. Idris, Zahr, ch. 12, and Nasir Tusi, Tasawwurat, ch. 16, p. 49 of the text. Here
the versions of the two great Ismaili traditions are in agreement.
63 Cf. Koran 2:35. On the father of Adam, on Honaid, his Imam mostawda' and their
Ismaili descendants, cf. Strothmann, Texte, X, 26.
64 "They all bowed down except for Iblis, who was one of the genii" (Koran 18:48).
Cf. the order to worship Adam in "Vita Adae et Evae," quoted in Wilhelm Lueken,
Michael (Gottingen, 1898), p. 29.
65 Cf. Tasawwurat, pp. 68-69.
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