1. THE ONE AND THE MANY GODS
1. The Paradox of Monotheism
During the 1920s of this [the last]
century, the French translation of a double trilogy by Dimitri Merejkowsi, an
eminent Russian novelist and philosopher, was published in
It is to be deplored that this word, like
many others, is carelessly used in our times.
For example, one speaks of “monotheist” civilisation to describe a
patronistic (patronale)
civilisation. The term is employed as
absurdly as the word “manichaeism” by people who have absolutely no idea of its
meaning. Needless to say it is not from
this misguided use of the term as a metaphor that we should expect any
elucidation on “monotheism” and what I call its paradox. This paradox is essentially philosophical and
theological in nature. When we speak of
“monotheist religions” we generally have in mind the three great Abrahamic
religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
To draw out the paradox that I have in
mind here, first it would be wise for us to associate ourselves with certain
aspects of Judeo-Biblical thought -
eldest sister to us all. It will be necessary to specify the importance that
esoteric teaching accords the use of the word “Gods” in plural in frequently
used expressions such as “the sons of God” in verse 10/17 of Deuteronomy: “The Lord your God is God of Gods, the Lord
of Lords.” 2 It will be necessary to dwell upon the
angelology of the Essenians and the entire collection of the Books of Enoch
regarding the Angel YHWH, the Cherubim on the Throne, Angel Metatron, Angel of
the Face, the Sephirot; early and
later Kabbalah, etc. Our fellow Jewish
Kabbalists are the best placed to confront the complexity of this angelology
and cosmology. We will recall how Fabre
d’Olivet translated the name Elohim found at the beginning of Genesis: “He – the Gods, the Being of
beings”. But it will also be necessary
to evoke the expansive Gnostic systems from early Gnosis to the Christian
Kabbalists, not to mention opinions held by some Greek Fathers of the Church
for whom trinitary Christianity was equidistant from monotheism and
polytheism. Unfortunately, we have
neither the time nor the space for this.
I will therefore confine myself to Islamic theosophy and gnosis that I
have previously dealt with here at Eranos.
We will surely examine these disciplines to consider the consequences on
closely related areas of study and thus a comparison will at least have been
initiated.
And so when I speak of “the paradox of
monotheism” above all I have in mind the situation as it was experienced and
overcome by Muslim gnostics and theosophers, more specifically by the School of
the great visionary theosopher Mohyidin Ibn Arabi (d. 1240). I will summarise this paradox very briefly,
such that we may be able to discern its three phases according not only to Ibn
Arabi himself but his successors as well.
Here I will rely especially upon Sayyed Haydar Amoli (d. post 785/1385) at once critic and
fervent disciple of Ibn Arabi. We have
on many occasions in this very forum analysed his quite considerable oeuvre. 3
The three instances of the paradox are:
1)
In its exoteric form, namely the profession of faith that declares La Ilaha illah, monotheism perishes in
its triumphant moment, unknowingly obliterating itself by becoming volens nolens metaphysical
idolatry.
2)
Monotheism attains salvation and obtains its truth only by attaining its
esoteric form whose symbol of faith is expressed thus: Laysa fi’l-wojud siwa Allah - “in being, there is only God”.
For the naïve soul, this too seems to obliterate monotheism. Exoteric monotheism thus arises at the
esoteric and gnostic level of theomonism. However, just as the exoteric level is
constantly subject to the menace of metaphysical idolatry, so too the esoteric
level is threatened by the danger that arises from a mistaken interpretation of
the word being.
3)
This danger is conjured by the institution of an integral ontology presenting
itself, as we shall see, as integration at two levels; now this double
integration establishes eo ipso
metaphysical pluralism.
The risk incurred during the second
instance was often denounced with foresight notably by two of our Shiite
theosophers. As for the situation to
which integral ontology leads, it is perfect harmony of the One and Many Gods -
a situation also encountered by the great Neoplatonist Proclus in his
commentary on the Parmenides. A paradox that is apparently difficult to
perceive by the naïve soul unfamiliar with philosophical speculation who thus
confuses the various levels of meaning.
As evidence one may cite the campaign launched recently in
What exactly is the danger that arises during
the instance we have just designated as the second instance of the paradox of
monotheism? It is the danger embedded in
the very pronouncement of theomonism: “in being
there is only God” which is the expression itself of transcendental unity of being rendered in Arabic as wahdat al-wojud. The disaster occurs when feeble-minded folk,
unexperienced in philosophy, confuse this unity of being (wojud, esse, είναι,
das Sein) with the so-called unity of
the existent being (mawjud, ens, όν, das Seiende). Orientalists as well have fallen into the trap and
spoken of “existential monism”, that is to say a monism that would be at the
level of existent or existent being [étant],
the very level of the multiple, the level at which theomonism itself
established the pluralism of beings (the existents). It is here therefore that one does not see
the contradicto in adjecto. This is the danger that is vigorously
denounced by Sayyed Ahmad Alavi Isphahani (17th century)4 one of the great
philosopher-theologians from the
The confusion leads to professing unity of
the existent being, expressing itself in the pseudo- esoterism(s) by
affirmations of an illusory identity, whose monotonous repetition
understandably exasperates Hosayn Tonkaboni5
another great figure from the
“I
was concerned with the need to write something on the unity of being which goes
hand in hand with the multiplicity of epiphanies (tajalliyât) and the ramifications of their descent without the
concrete existences becoming illusory things with neither substance nor
permanence as implied by comments that are reportedly made by certain
Sufis. For understood as the Sufis
intend, the matter is no more than sophism.
It would follow then that heaven and earth, paradise and hell, judgement
and resurrection, that all this would be illusory. The futility of these conclusions will be
apparent to all.” 6
Theomonism therefore does not profess
that the Divine Being is the only existent but the One-being, and precisely
this unitude of being establishes and
renders possible the multitude of epiphanies that are existent beings; the act
of existing [exister] alone and on
its own existentiates the multiple beings, for beyond being there is only
nothingness. In other words, the
One-being is the source of the multitude of theophanies. The immanent danger, present already in the
first instance of the paradox of monotheism, is to make of God not a pure Act
of being, the One-being, but an Ens,
an existent being (mawjud),
infinitely above all the other existents.
Since it is already constituted as existent being, the distance that one
attempts to establish between Ens
supremum and the entia creata
only aggravates its condition of Ens
supremum as that of an existent being.
For as soon as one has invested it with all the conceivable positive
attributes to their pre-eminent degree, it is no longer possible for the spirit
to rise further. The ascension of the
spirit is stilled in the absence of the hereafter, an Ens, an existent being. And
that is metaphysical idolatry7, which
contradicts the status of existent being since it is impossible for an existent
to be Ens supremum.
Indeed,
the Ens, the existent being in
essence refers beyond itself, to the act of being that transcends it and
constitutes it as an existent being.
Muslim theosophers conceive the movement of being (esse) to existent being (ens),
as putting being into the imperative (KN, Esto). It is by the imperative Esto that the existent being is invested with the act of
being. What is the Source and Principle
cannot therefore be Ens, an existent
being. And this is what mystic
theosophers, notably such as the Ismailis and those of the
With them we shall discern the threat all
the more clearly; the paradox by which monotheism of the naïve soul perishes in
its triumph, were we to briefly evoke, as I pointed out a moment ago, the
situation that reigns from beginning to end in the commentary that Proclus
wrote on Plato’s Parmenides. The Parmenides for Proclus is the Theogony that his very own “Platonic
Theology” was to elaborate upon further.
Plato’s Parmenides is in some
ways the Bible, the Sacred Scripture of the eminently Neoplatonic, negative,
apophatic theology. Negative theology, via
negationis (tanzih in Arabic)
rejects the cause beyond all causes, the absolute One beyond all the Ones;
being beyond all existent beings etc.
Negative theology is presumed precisely by the investment of being in
all existent beings of the One in the
Many etc. All the while appearing to
destroy affirmative theology of the dogmatic consciousness, it is negative
theology that in effect safeguards the truth it bears; and this is the second
instance of the “paradox of monotheism”. The term is well known to both Greek
and Arab Neoplatonists. In both cases
it is resolved by simultaneity, the at once present [comprésent] One-God and the many divine Figures. Comparison of the process in these two cases
has yet to be attempted.
Let us say that in the system envisioned
by Proclus, there are the One and Many Gods.
The One-God is the henad of henads. The word One does not name what it is but is the symbol of the absolutely
Ineffable. The one is not One. It does not possess the attribute One. It is essentially unificent [unifique],
unifying, constitutive of all the Ones, of all the beings that can only be
existents by being each time an
existent, i.e. unified [made one], constituted in unities precisely by the
unifying One. This sense of unifying of the One is what Proclus
meant by the word henad [principal of
unity]. When this word is used in the
plural form, it does not denote productions of the One but manifestations of
the One, 8 “henophanies”. Those in
addition to Unity, are the divine Names and these Names govern the diversity of
beings. It is from beings that are their
partners that it is possible to know the divine substances, that is to say the
Gods that are themselves inconceivable. 9
We have already compared the theory of the divine Names and celestial
hierarchies in Proclus and in Pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite.
There is much to be learned from an
in-depth comparison of the theory of divine Names and theophanies that are the
divine Lords -- I mean to say the parallelism between Ibn Arabi -- the
ineffability of God who is the Lord of Lords and the multiple theophanies that
constitute the hierarchy of the divine Names -- and Proclus: the hierarchy
originating in the henad of henads manifested by these henads themeselves, and
permeating all levels of the hierarchies of being: there are the transcendant
Gods; the intelligible Gods (at the level of being); the
intellective-intelligible-Gods (at the level of life); the intellective Gods
(at the level of intellect); the hypercosmic Gods (leaders and assimilators);
the intracosmic Gods (celestial and sub-lunar); there are the superior beings:
archangels, angels, heroes, daimons. 10 However, these multiple hierarchies
presuppose the One-Unique that transcends the Ones, because it unifies them;
the being that transcends existents because it essentiates them;
life that transcends the living because it vivifies them. In Proclus, harmony results from the
encounter in
One may say that from generation to
generation, the mystics and theosophers in Islam have contemplated and
reflected on tawhid ad infinitum. This term generally denotes the profession of
monotheist faith, which consists in affirming that there is no God except God;
what Haydar Amoli, disciple of Ibn Arabi, designates as theological tawhid.
Theologians reflect on the
concept of God. Theological tawhid poses and presupposes God as
already being an existent being, Ens supremum. Now, the word tawhid is causative; it means to make one; to enable the becoming
of one, to unify. It goes without saying
that for abstract monotheism -- which consists of expressing oneself on the concept of God -- the unity of
God cannot be envisaged as resulting ontologically from tawhid by man. This is the
attestation of Unity, not the act of the Unificent (Unifique) making itself One in each One. This “unificence” comes into play with and by
ontological tawhid: in being (the
Act-to be) there is only God (laysa fi’l
wojud siwa Allah). Which does not amount to saying that the only existent
being (mawjud) is God. This confusion, already denounced here, is
such a fatal error that Haydar Amoli does not hesitate to declare emphatically:
Tawhid is to affirm being (wojud, the Act-to be) and to deny the
existent being.11 It is not denying that
the existent is existent, but to deny that it is being and to deny that being
is existent. It is to deny that tawhid professes the Unity of an
existent, for it professes the unity of being, of the Act of being.
One therefore needs to consider the
relationship between being and existent being. We shall advance two hypotheses: does the One
absolutely One transcend being itself?
Or is it concomitant with Being, of the “Act-to be” that transcends existent beings? The first interpretation is Plato’s
interpretation as held by Proclus. We
encounter it again among theosophers of Ismailism, in the
In order to make themselves understood,
our authors turn to comparisons; for example ink and letters, the theme of the
cosmic Ink and the primordial Inkwell.12
Ink is single, letters multiple. It would be ridiculous to claim -- on the
pretext that there is only one inkwell -- that letters do not exist. There would be nothing to read! This is the horrible confusion between wojud and mawjud; the inability to conceive simultaneously the One and the many. The transcendent One is therefore the
unificent [unifique], the unitive,
what constitutes the existent as existent since unless at each instance the
existent were to be an existent (a plant, a colour, a mountain, a forest, a species, a group) there
would be chaos; there would be no being-s.
To be an existent being is to be constituted one; to be made one by the unificent One. Then the ontological multiple acts that unify
the existents are always a unique “Act-to be” of the One and must be
represented by 1 x 1 x 1 x 1, etc. In
other words, the Unitude of the unificent One is not a mathematical unity; it
is an ontological unity. That is what laysa fi’l-wojud siwa Allah seeks to
express. On the other hand, the many
existent beings actualised by the unificent One are represented by 1+1+1+1,
etc. We may thus represent the simultaneous presence of the One and the
Many in two ways. This occurred to me
while studying the great mystic Ruzbehan Baqli of
Henceforth we understand the import of
pithy declarations such as those made by Haydar Amoli: He who contemplates the
Divine (al-Haqq) at the same time as
the Creatural (al-Khalq), i.e. the One
at the same time as the Many, and vice versa, without either one veiling the
other, well yes, then he is a unitarian, an authenthic theomonist in the real
sense of the word (mowahhid haqiqi). On the other hand, whosoever contemplates the
Divine without contemplating the creatural, the One without the Many, though he
[perhaps] attests no more than the unity of Essence is not one who integrates
the totality, one who actually accomplishes this integration.
Which is why the Sages of God, the
theosophers, are categorised according to their kind or mode of vision:
1)
There is the person who possesses intellect (dhu’l-aql, the man of ‘ilm
al-yaqin); he is the one who conceives the creatural as being what is
manifest, apparent, exoteric and the Divine as being what is concealed, hidden,
esoteric. For such a person, the Divine
is a mirror reflecting the creature but he does not see the mirror; he only
sees the form that is manifested therein.
2)
There is the person who possesses vision (dhu’l’ayn,
the man of ‘ayn al-yaqin). And conversely, unlike the first, he sees the
Divine as what is manifest, visible; and the creatural as what is concealed,
hidden, not apparent. Well then, for
this person the creatural is the mirror reflecting the divinity, but he as well
does not see the mirror; he only sees the form that is manifested therein.
3)
Then there is the person who at once possesses intellect and vision (the man of
haqq al-yaqin). He is the hakim
mota’allih, the mystic theosopher, the “hieratic” in the Neoplatonic sense
of the word. This person simultaneously
sees the divine in the creature, the One in the many; and the creatural in the
divine, the multiplicity of theophanies in the Unitude that “theophanises” itself. He identifies the unitive Act of Being (1 x 1
x 1, etc.) in all the beings actualised in as many monads or unities. The henadic unity that monadises all the
monads and constitutes all the beings in multiple unities does not blind him to
the multiplicity of epiphanic forms (mazahir)
in which this Unitude of the primordial One is epiphanised. Here the mirrors reflect each other. 13
Although this person (a disciple of
Suhravardi and Ibn Arabi) has read neither Plato’s Parmenides nor its interpretation by Proclus, he finds himself at the
very stage that Proclus’ initiatory teaching -- revealing the secret in the
theogony of the Parmenides -- wishes
to lead the initiate (myste). This observation will prove to be important
for the dénouement of the paradox of monotheism.
We now have to consider how this
integration is accomplished, more specifically, how the idea of an ontology --
that we may describe as an integral ontology and that corresponds to the very
process of Creation as theophany -- unfurls.
We shall then be able to appreciate how Haydar Amoli’s diagrams
illustrate this relationship between the One and Many entirely in conformity
with the relationship between the unificent One and the unified One [i.e. made
one]; of the pure Act-to be (wojud, esse) and of the being - existent being
(étant, mawjud, ens) as we have
just described: a relationship between the unitude of the unificent henad and
the monadic unities that it monadises by actualising them. The vision will culminate in a figure
(resembling a stained-glass window of a cathedral) in which Haydar Amoli
integrates the entire history of religions.
2. Integral ontology and the theophanies
The advent of integral ontology has three
moments, until we learn, as Ibn Arabi says, that “it is a world that is hidden
and that never appears, whereas the Divine Being is the Manifested and is never
hidden”; in short, the moment when Adam explains why he accepted the burden
that the sky, the mountains and all creatures had refused: “I was not aware,” he says “that there was any
Other than God.”[14] This
could very well be the expression of integral ontology.
There
is:
1)
the point of view (maqam, station)
that is called differentiation or discrimination (iftiraq, farq); that of the naïve conscience [simple soul]
distancing things outside itself and contemplating their concept. This is the exoteric “station” of theological
monotheism (tawhid oluhii),
proclaiming divine unity as that of the Ens
supremum, the Existent Being that dominates all the others, without an
intimation of the question that being (the act of being) asks of the other
existent beings. To use a familiar
image, let us say that this is the point of view of one who cannot see the
forest for the trees, or the inkwell for ink.
2)
the point of view that is called integration (jam’). The dispersed or
widely separated units are gathered and totalled in a unique whole. The latent danger here is the confusion
between unity of being [wahdat al-wujud]
and unity of the existent being [wahdat
al-mawjud]. At this level in fact
there are no more trees: there is only the forest; there are no more letters,
there is only ink and nothing to read.
All that is other than the unique existent, all that constitutes “the
many” is said to be to be “inexistant”, illusory.
Next:
3)
One must reach the level called the integration of integration or sum of the
sum (jam’ al-jam’), i.e. move from
the undifferentiated Whole to the differentiated Whole once more. After the integration of diversity into
unity, there must follow the integration of unity in diversity vanquished
again. This is the second differentiation (farq
thani) that succeeds the first integration.
Such is the integral vision possessed by the integral Sage: a complete
and whole vision of the One-God and the many divine forms. The trees enter the picture again. We see the forest and the trees, the inkwell
and letters [of the alphabet]. The integrated “unitotality” is then itself
integrated into the diversity of its component parts. Mathematicians speak of functions. In this case we have mazhariya, the theophanic function that expresses the relationship
between the One-Being and its theophanies.
It is therefore the transition from monolithic unity -- that excludes
the “many” and in so doing excludes any notion of a theophanic unity -- to the
henadic unity, which is the explanation of the “many” whose epiphanic functions
it establishes. To turn once more to the
Parmenides as commented by Proclus,
we would say that the first two instances just described correspond respectively
to those [instances] in the physicians from the Ionian School and
metaphysicians from the Elean School, namely Parmenides and Zeno. Their encounter took place in
By this we have an intimation of what the
fundamental categories of esoteric tawhid
mean, that is to say tawhid in its
ontological aspect: tawhid of Essence
(dhat), of the Names and Attributes (asma’ and sifat, tawhid of the
operations (af’al) or of
theophanies. Haydar Amoli’s imaginal representation of these three
categories of tawhid in diagrams uses
the image of trees.[16]
Now,
as for the question pertaining to how the unitive act of tawhid is accomplished in these three forms: this may be grasped by
referring to the cosmogony professed by the
1)
The first theophany (tajalli awwal)
is the theophany of Essence with regard to itself, of the divine absolute Self
to itself (al-dhat li-dhat-hi). [17] It is the level of the Presence or as Ramon
Lull translated it, henadic “Dignity” (hazrat
ahadiya), the level at which the act of Being in its pure state consists of
neither definition, description nor qualification any more than the henadic
unity needs, in addition to itself, a Unity that makes one-being or determines
it as a unity, since quite the opposite it
is the unificent of all unities (the unified);
that which monadises all the monads (1 x 1 x 1. . .). One might say that all the metaphysical
entities (haqa’iq) are in the henadic
One just as the tree is [already present] in its seed, whereas the henadic One
is the mystery of mysteries (ghayb
al-ghoyub).
2)
The second theophany[18]
is of divine Names and Attributes. Let
us point out that the process here is conceived as an intensification of light,
an ever-intensifying intra-divine illumination.
The second theophany is the initial determination (ta’ayyon awwal, in German: die
Urbestimmtheit.
Here
the pure henadic essence becomes contemplative, its own witness, that is to say
of its eternal cognoscibles. These are all the Names by which it can be
named and flowing from this the divine Attributes denoted by the Names; for
example, the Knowing and Knowledge, the Desiring and Desire, the Viewing and
Vision, etc. (At a corresponding level,
one may evoke the procession of the divine Names in the Hebrew 3 Enoch or of the Gods in the Greek
Neoplatonists). The metaphysical and
concrete / physical realities to which these Names and Attributes correspond
are termed “eternal hexeities” (a yan
thabita) - archetypes of all the individualised concrete existences (the
“socrates-ness” [socrates-like quality] of Socrates). These eternal hexeities respond to the
nostalgia of the Divine Names aspiring to be revealed, to be invested with
concrete existences that underpin them. There is complicity between the divine
Names and these hexeities, without whose actualisation the divine Names (as
denoted by the plural Gods in the expression Ilah al-aliha, God of Gods) invested respectively in beings, would
remain forever unknown and unrevealed.
Here we are at the crux of the matter, namely of the theogony that
irradiates into a third instance.
3)
The third theophany is at once contemplative and operative, i.e. onto - genetic
(tajalli wojudi shohudi). It is the manifestation of the being as Light
- Theophany in its many forms of divine Names; forms that are the concrete
supports for the revelation of these divine Names because they are respectively
its operations (in the
In short, the first theophany is at the
level of the mystery of the henadic Unity (ahadiya)
that only apophatic theology can discern and that can be represented by 1 x 1 x
1 . . . The second theophany is at the level of constituted monadic Unity (wahidiya), a unity able to be “pluralised” (1 + 1 + 1 . . .), that which
has affirmative or cataphatic theology in mind when it articulates or deduces
the divine Names and Attributes. The
third theophany is at the level of Operations
(af’al) being the very
theophanies themselves. It is the level
we designate as robubiya, of the
lordly condition because that is where the plurality of divine Lords (Arbab) is born; precisely that which
establishes the integral ontology, the metaphysical pluralism, thus the level
of integration of the integration, second differentiation succeeding pure and
simple integration that abolished the many, the multiple. It is therefore the denouement of the theogony
upon which the relationship between the unificent One-God and many Gods or
theophanies depend. We have just said as
much: this relationship is defined as the lordly condition - robubiya. Which is to say?
To say it is to attain what we technically
designate as sirr al-robubiya, the
secret of this lordly condition; the secret establishes and renders it possible
and without which it would disappear.
The divine Names possess meaning and reality only by and for beings for
whom they are forms, theophanies by which divinity reveals itself to his
loyal-faithful. [20] Al-Lah,
for example, is the Name that signifies the divine Essence clothed in all its
attributes. Al-Rabb, the “Lord” is the particularised Divine one of these Names
personified in one of its Attributes.
These divine Names are the “lords”, the “Gods”, [21]
whence the supreme Name such as “Lord of Lords” (God of Gods in the Deuteronomy and Suhrawardi; “the best of
the Creators” in the Qur’an.
Haydar Amoli[22]
explains it thus: “The Divinity (oluhiya)
and lordliness (robubiya) only become
real by God and by one whose God is this God, by the Lord and by one whose Lord
is this Lord.” Furthermore[23]: “The absolute active Agent (al-fa’il al-motlaq) requires an absolute
receptacle (patiens) such as the
relationship that exists between the Divine Being and the Universe. Similarly, the limited active Agent requires
a determined and limited receptacle, such as the relationship between the
multiple divine Names and the eternal hexeities [pure possibles that do not
demand concrete existence]. This is so
because each divine Name, each divine Attribute postulates its own epiphanic
form; what we designate as the relationship between rabb, the lord and marbub,
he whose lord he is. These signs attest
to the plurality of Creators and the multiplicity of Lords (Arbab).”
The complicity we spoke of earlier --
between the divine Name and the eternal hexeity in which this Name aspires to
reveal itself -- leads to the investment of this Name in a form of
manifestation (mazhar) that is
specific to itself. There follow the
acts of a cosmogony or theogony based not on the idea of an Incarnation, but on
the idea of a theophanic union (a union exemplified by image and mirror), a
theophanic union of the lahut and nasut, of the divine Name and the sense-perceptible
form that is the mirror in which this name would appear. For integrality of the divine Name is an
ensemble of Name and its mirror, the
form of manifestation, not one without the other nor one confused with the other (as is the case in
a hypostatic union). It is these two
together that constitute the totality and reality of the divine Name. [24] Integral ontology is based on the epiphanic
function that holds the “secret of the lordly condition”.
Rabb
is actually a proper name that postulates and implies the relationship with one
whose lord he is; his marbub (marbub “carries” the Name; his name is
theophore [god-bearing]). Sahl Tostari, a great mystic defined the secret in
question as follows: “The divine lordly
condition has a secret and that secret is you.
If this you/I were to be
removed, the lordly condition of the divine lord would also be abolished.” [25] Elsewhere we have already pointed out the
idea of a chivalric pact underlying the mystical relationship of Rabb and marbub, of the lord and his vassal, his “theophore”. Each depends on the other. In the West, this very notion is what
inspired a most beautiful distich composed by Angelus Silesius: “God does not
live without me; I know that without me God cannot exist even for a blink of an
eye.” This is the “secret of the divine
lordly condition”. It is this secret
that one must not forget when we pronounce -- as we did at the beginning -- the
words “death” and “renaissance of the Gods”.
Thus, abstract monotheism opposing a
divine Being (Ens supremum) with a
creatural Being vanishes. The latter is
integrated into the very advent of the lordliness of its lord. It [the creatural Being] is itself its own
secret. They are partners in the same theogonic epic. In truth, this secret originates in the
initial determination with which the totality of divine Names postulating the
multitude of theophanies appear; thus the multiplicity of the relationship
between Rabb and marbub linked to one another by the same secret which is definitively
the epiphanic function of [the] marbub. This epiphanic function extends to an
esoteric catotriptic level (i.e. of the science of mirrors). We now understand that it can only be
safeguarded by integral ontology, going beyond every antinomian concept of the
One and the Many, of monotheism and polytheism by the sum of the sum or
integration of the integration (jam’
al-jam’) integrating the unified Whole to the diversified Whole. The danger of metaphysical idolatry, of
confusion between unity of being and unity of the existent being, is henceforth
averted. In his exentsive commentary on
the Gems of Wisdom by Ibn Arabi,
Sayyed Haydar Amoli -- whose ingenius, I would say even inspired diagrams that
we have already analysed here at Eranos some years ago -- will illustrate some
aspects of this integration of the integration, as determined by the authentic
relationship between the unificent One and these multiple theophanies; the
unificent One by no means a mathematical unity adding itself to the concrete
unities that it unifies, i.e. actualises in unities. Which is why in these diagrams in the form of
circles, it will always be at the centre.
3. Diagrams of the unificent One
and the many theophanies
We have previously highlighted Haydar Amoli’s
penchant for diagrams (there are 28 of them, each one taking a whole page in
his Text of Texts) [26]
and the significance of this “diagrammatic art” as such, mostly ignored until
now. Haydar Amoli expressly establishes
a relationship [between his art] and metaphysics of the Imagination. We may say the same for the cosmological
diagrams so dear to Ismaili theosophers.
It is an attempt to conjure (at the level of the active Imagination) a
structure that corresponds with a pure intellective diagram. Which is why Haydar Amoli speaks of
“intellective” or “metaphysical” images projected into pure imaginal space. [27] According to him, the construction [of this
imaginal space] is indispensable as soon as we wish to better appreciate the
relationship of unitive tawhid with
regard to multiple theophanies. Here we
readily perceive the case of an “anamorphosis” [distorted projection] sui generis that we wish played a role
in his research. Haydar Amoli’s effort
-- with a view to depicting in space the relationships and intensification of
modalities of being -- resembles that attempted by Nicolas d’Oresme (14th
century).[28] The
success of Haydar Amoli’s diagrammatic art lies in the fact that we sometimes
get the impression we are reading a ground plan of some temple in the round in
which the inscribed circles are indicating the placement of columns. There are also gardens (categories of tawhid forming tangled branches of
trees). [29] Finally, we discover therein an ideal
topography that meditation is called upon to roam in the manner of a mandala.
Haydar Amoli explains this very well
himself: [30] “The reason,” he says “for all these diagrams
in the form of circles is that it is extremely difficult to make tawhid understood and rather arduous to
explain Being. Many philosophers have
gone astray while seeking to understand tawhid
(the unitive act) and being; and subsequently they have misled many others that
followed them.” It is incumbent upon the
gnostic “to integrate and
differentiate”. Separated from each
other, both operations lead to catastrophe.
It is up to you therefore to combine them for he who does so is an
authentic unificent (a theomonist, mowahhid
haqiqi, practises tawhid in the
true sense) and this is what we call the integration of integration (jam’ al-jam’). To differentiate (tarifa, to separate) is to contemplate created beings without
contemplating the divine Being at the same time. To integrate (and no more) is to contemplate
the Divine Being (the Unique/ the One) without simultaneously contemplating
created beings (the Many). . . . To such a person, the vision of the Divine
Being in its epiphanic forms (vision of the One God in the many Gods) -- forms
in which in one sense he shows himself, although in another sense these forms
are other than him -- remains veiled. It
is therefore key to have a simultaneous vision of the Divine Being with that of the created beings, and the
simultaneous vision of created beings with
that of the Divine Being. In short, it
is important to see the multiple in the very unity of this multiplicity (and to
see the unity in the very multiplicity of this unity), an integral vision that
is “the integration of integration”; this is realised by the differentiation
that succeeds the first integration.
1)
Diagram of Mirrors (no. 18). [31]
In the centre the One-God. The many flames in the surrounding mirrors
are as many theophanies of this One-God: one in itself many in its theophanies
without the truth of the Unity abolishing that of multiplicity or vice versa
(cf. in Proclus the One and Many Gods).
“The vision of unity in plurality,” declares Haydar Amoli “and of
plurality in unity is only truly understood by the image of a single mirror in
which (sic: fi-ha) there is a single
candle placed in the centre. All around
there are many mirrors, such that in each mirror a candle is seen depending on
the placement of the [single] mirror.” Now, such is the reciprocal relationship
of being (wojud) and determined
existent (mawjud) (or the unificent
One and the unities that it monadises).
Most people are perplexed before being, before its essential unity and
its multiplicity as for its Names and forms of manifestation (mazahir, its hypostases). The mystic theosophers solve the matter by
the vision of the Unicity in the multiplicity itself and of the multiplicity in
the unicity itself. “In fact whosoever
contemplates the single mirror placed in the centre and the many mirrors all
around, contemplates in each of these mirrors the same candle, in such a manner
however, that the single candle is each time another candle. The person contemplating will not be dazzled
by the fact that the candle in the middle is one all the while being many in
its epiphanies (the mirrors).”
To summarise, one who differentiates (and
no more) sees the mirrors but does not see the solitary candle in the
center. This is the case with most
people. The person who integrates (and
no more) simply shatters all the mirrors.
He only sees the solitary candle in the centre. Such is the case with exoteric monotheism. Integration of integration is to see all the mirrors differentiated at the
same time as one sees the candle in the centre.
That is esoteric monotheism, theomonism.
2) Diagrams
of the divine Names. A) Diagrams of the Names of grace/bounty and Names
of austerity (diagram no. 17). This
differentiation between the divine Names is a fundamental dichotomy that is
also present in the Sephirot of
Jewish Kabbalah. Unfortunately we shall
have to confine ourselves to very brief comments here.[32]
When the Absolute agent wishes to confer being to one of the receptacles of its
Names designated as eternal hexeities (a’yan
thabita) this implies that he has forever known the quiddity, the essential
reality, the inherents and the accidents in which its existence will consist . . . (n.b. these hexeities, these
essences are uncreated; they are eternally as they are and have been in the
divine knowledge.) Then the absolute
Agent confers it existence as a function of the knowledge he has of it and due
to justice doing right by each deserving one (. . . ). Zayd cannot voice an
objection: why did you create me in such and such a manner? This objection
would be overruled by itself because what is manifested of Zayd is what has
always belonged to his essence and requires to be manifested in such and such a
fashion (. . . ). Similarly, when a
writer confers being to a certain letter among the letters [of the alphabet],
either orally or in writing, this letter cannot object to the writer: why do
you make me exist in such and such a fashion?
The writer would say to him: it is your eternal individuality, your
quiddity that demands this. I have no
choice but to confer being to what you are (not to what your are not).” In short, the act of existing is conferred in
response to a silent request (lisan
al-hal) formulated by the very state of the hexeity in which such and such
a divine Name is invested. [33] Now there are Names of bounty (asma’ jamaliya) and Names of austerity (asma’ jalaliya). The entire secret of predestination (sirr al-qadar) is thus the very secret
of the theophany of divine Names. In
diagram 17, the vertical diameter separates the blessed from the outcasts. Each semicircle has twelve divine Names
inscribed: on the one hand, twelve Names of grace or gentleness that are the
“lords of proximity and rejunction”. On
the other hand, twelve Names of austerity that are the “lords of distancing and
rejection”. On one side Adam, the
prophets and men of God down to blessed animals and plants. On the other, Iblis-Satan, the Pharaohs,
Nimrods, down to the cursed animals and harmful plants. [34] We get the impression that we are standing
before a dualist Zoroastrian diagram. In
fact it is a depiction of the twofold category of divine Names. It appears that
what is being postulated here is a metaphysics of immutable essences and that a
revolution of the essences (inqilab
al-haqa’iq) is inconceivable.
However, it is this revolution indeed that Molla Sadra Shirazi (d. 1640)
will attempt by giving priority to the act of existing whose intensifications
and diminutions determine and vary the essences themselves.
B) Diagram of the Names of essence, attributes
and operations (diagram no. 19).[35] The divine Names are the divine Essence
itself and the divine Attributes are its act of being . . . Which is why the
mystic theosopher does not contemplate any divine Name without at the same time
contemplating what this Name names, which is to say this Essence which it names
relative to an Attribute, whereas this Attribute is itself relative to a
theophany, a determined divine operation.
Theosophy excludes all that philosophy designates as nominalism. It is a question of the relationship between
being as inactive (wojud) and the
existent as a passive name (mawjud),
since the latter is the receptacle, the patiens,
of the unificent being that constitutes it as an existent. We are guided here by the relationship
between the single and multiple candles in the diagram of mirrors (see above,
diagram no. 18). Whence we have here at
the centre of the diagram in the form of a circle, the henadic Essence (dhat ahadiya). The periphery is formed by three large
concentric circles: a) The innermost is the circle of the Names of essence (al-Lah, al-Rabb, etc.), 36 names in total.
b) The middle circle is the circle of Attributes (sifat) where 24 small circles bearing 24 Names of attributes are
inscribed. c) As for the outermost
circle, it is that of Names of activity or operation (af’al) upon which are inscribed 33 small circles bearing 33
names. The diagram that follows is its
complement:
C) Diagram
of divine Names relating to numbers and letters (diagram no. 20).[36] This diagram invites one to contemplate the
divine Being in numbers and letters, the numeric value of these serving as the
basis of the science of letters (‘ilm
al-horuf) which is a kind of philosophical algebra. “The “co-presence” [i.e simultaneous presence
(ma’iya)] of the Divine Being with
the world is nothing less than the co-presence of the One with the Numbers or
the co-presence of alif with the
letters, or of the manifestation of ink with the form of these letters.” In the centre of this diagram there is tawhid, the unicity of the One in
relation to the forms of numbers and letters participating in the One. Then, as in the previous diagram, three large
concentric circles: a) Inscribed in its radiuses, the innermost circle bears
the names of a two-fold series of cosmogonic entities (28 + 28 = 56). b) and c)
A double outer circle is inscribed with 28 small circles corresponding to
28 cosmogonic entities. Each small
circle is divided by a line traced in the middle. In the lower section, there
are the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet.
In the upper section, the value of each letter is indicated. The method of theosophic prayer thus sets the
philosophical algebra to work. Here too,
contemplation of this diagram leads to the diagram of mirrors.
3) Diagrams
of Religions (nos. 21 & 22)
The
purpose of these diagrams is to “enable us to see” by means of an imaginative
structure, the edifice of the history of religions as a whole; in other words,
to operate integration of the integration.
We regret one matter. The
material at Haydar Amoli’s disposal is drawn entirely from the encyclopedia of
the history of religions (Kitab al-Milal)
by Shahrastani (d. 1153), granted a very honest and sincere historian to whom
we owe knowledge of many sources, yet without being elaborated upon to the
extent the presumed scale envisioned by Haydar Amoli. Before proceeding, let us recall that in these
diagrams, the unity in the centre is not a unity that would be added to the
others. As in the previous diagrams, it
is unificent [unifique]; generator of
all the surrounding determined unities as individual unities. The centre is not a mathematical unity in
addition to the others. It is
co-presence of the One with all the unities.
This situation will enable a homologation of the structure presented by
schools of thought and sects within Islam with the structure presented by all
religions other than Islam.
This was a rather audacious undertaking; a
theomonist, an esoterist alone could have conceived it. Haydar Amoli was perfectly aware of
this. Referring to these two diagrams
(21 & 22) in the form of circles or rosettes that correlate branches of
Islam and those constituting the entirety of religions i.e. the res religiosa of mankind, he writes: “My
purpose is to facilitate their perception in the imaginative faculty . . . No
one before me has ever had the idea of presenting such diagrams especially in
terms of their layout (a structure enabling comparison).” In each diagram there are 72 “squares”. “Contained within this number,” continues
Haydar Amoli, “are esoteric secrets of subtle realities, secret impressions.” [37]
The point of departure is thus the
material that Shahrastani provides in his encyclopedia of the history of
religions to which everyone has referred over the centuries because it
testifies to matters that have since perished.
Amoli begins by recalling the pages in which Shahrastani mentions the
different ways to classify religions.[38] Some classify them in terms of the seven
climates of traditional geography; others according to regions of the world
(North, South, East, West); others still based on empires (Persians, Arabs,
Byzantines, Indians); finally in terms of opinions and doctrines. From this rich diversity, we shall here
retain only the remark about the arithmosophic significance of the number of
branches vis à vis the four communities that constitute the People of the Book
(Ahl al-Kitab).[39] We are told that the Mazdeans are comprised
of 70 branches; the Jews 71; the Christians 72; and Muslims 73. No doubt a number rich with arithmosophic
meaning. Unfortunately, reasons for the
mathematical progression from 70 to 73 are not given. Still we are aware of the importance of the
numbers 70 and
This arithmosophy does no more than prompt the recollection of a famous hadith in which the prophet of Islam clearly states: [40] “My community will be divided into 73 branches; only one will attain salvation, the others will be condemned.” Two questions arise immediately: in the first place why 73? Haydar Amoli goes to great lengths to point out that all the modes of arithmosophic deduction, whether borrowed from anthropology, cosmology, astronomy or hierohistory lead to the number 72 and not 73. Unfortunately, we cannot here dwell upon his reasoning in detail.[41]