The pseudo-pious path to secular salvation

The increasingly trendy Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek is no stranger to controversy, championing two ideological and intellectual traditions, each loaded with enough anti-individualist implications to upset the most tolerant of liberal sensibilities. That is of course, Marxism albeit in a somewhat provocative and unconventional approach and the Lacanian tradition to which he adheres to much more seriously. With two films now under his belt, numerous appearances on News programmes discussing everything from the Egyptian revolution in Al-Jazeera to Julian Assange on Russia Today, Zizek has accumulated a large following among the intellectual left (something he claims to despise) and spawned many imitators with amateur Freudians haphazardly coupling psycho-sexual analysis with the crisis of capitalism, suddenly becoming a prominent phenomena among the left. It is no wonder then that Hamid Dabashi's accusation of Orientalist clichés appearing throughout Zizek's work was met with such distain among intellectual leftists. The issue that caused such controversy was Zizek's position on the Tiger economies appropriation of Capitalism, spelling the effective ideological end of any inherent democratic character contained within it.

Zizek is without doubt a profound thinker, and perhaps the only leftist ideologue worth listening to today if for the simple fact alone that he completely disturbs the ideological entrenchment and uncreatively of the current left by arguing primarily from a non-Marxist perspective and one alien to the antiquated Trotskyist-anti-revisionist rivalry. That being said the limitations to it's usefulness become embarrassingly clear when he steps outside his comfort zone and lays out his often reductionist accounts to a theological or cultural phenomena beyond the scope of his anti-metaphysical mission to arrange the world comfortably within framework of his progressive-Lacanian worldview where any local peculiarities, sacred traditions or historical ambiguities are parodied, used as a sort of intellectual canon fodder to further Zizek's own conclusions by perversely arguing that the numerous traditions of the worlds not only serve to prove the supremacy of Zizek's progressive atheistic socialist worldview, but render themselves useless in the process.

Such is the case in Zizek's "A perverts guide to ideology", where in critiquing Scorsese's The last temptation of the Christ he provokes faithful and faithless alike with the statement that in order to become a true Atheist, one must first become Christian. Whether this is to be seen as part of an already existing tradition among outwardly atheist intellectuals warming up to Christian theology  as Habermas did with the Pope, fascinated by the cognitive substance of religion is unclear. Zizek's position is unfortunately more reminiscent of Geert Wilders in his atheistic appropriation of the Christian legacy of Europe. It's no secret that Zizek is pro-European and yet it seems with the lack of any substantial secular unifying force to call upon, Zizek has opted for a Theo-nationalist reading of Europe as the predecessor to a progressive atheist community.

Zizek's position of the ontology of the crucifixion is in contradiction to both a traditional Christian perspective as well as Freud's position on the primordial patricide and the guilt-obedience complex that lingers on in Christian teaching. So while the crucifixion in Zizek's philosophy is an ultimately liberating moment, heralding the death of God as the proof of his love (resolving the problematic old-testament divinity) and imbuing the believer with the holy spirit, it is in psychoanalysis a mere solidification of the primal obedience brought about by the guilt in having murdered ones archetypal father. Zizek is clearly departing from Freud, following Kautsky in his assessment that the crucifixion was not only atheistic in nature but revolutionary. In fact it reminded me of Ahmad Shamlou's poem where he describes Christ forced to carry the cross as an exemplar of revolutionary responsibility and the crucifixion as the archetypal commitment to a revolutionary cause.

He was relieved
By the mercy he found in his soul
And like a proud swan
He looked into his own purity

The problem lies in reading the crucifixion as a resolution to a problematic theology. And here Zizek's orientalism is somewhat more evident as he laments the morbidity of the distant and harsh Semitic monotheistic divinity as somehow harmonious with the irresponsible, emotional faculty within the believer. "If God exists then everything is permitted". Perhaps it is useful that Zizek is in fact disregarding the dubious "Judeo-Christian" character of Europe by regulating the former to it's actual anti-idealised position in pre-modern Europe as a Semitic morbidity but instead of transcending both Euro-centrist and Orientalist discourses of Semitic monotheism, he lapses into both. This premise rests entirely on God's role as the Big-Other, the non-existent father who is oblivious to his own death.

That is he makes no distinction between the genuinely transcendental and the worldly ideological justification for social change. Zizek explains the monstrosity of 20th century Communism by arguing as many have that the whole affair was more or less religious, in a strict literal eschatological sense and the believer had merely been redeemed as an agent of historical progress. Of course, dialectical materialism is just that, materialism worlds apart from an orientation towards an intersectionary sacred dimension. The aims of the first are undoubtedly worldly with the eventual horizon set on the end of totalizing historical narrative. It is a sort of secular millenarianism which even in it's religious variety is utter heresy given the fact that it transposes divine knowledge to a non-messianic or non-prophetic personality. That is, theology only becomes a morbidity when it's ultimate vision is in commanding a change in the earthly dimension.

As far as Zizek is concerned, what Sufis call Fana fillah, extinction in the sacred or the apophatic Theoria of the Eastern orthodox tradition cannot exist and it is a shame that a former Heideggerian cannot recognise the ontological separateness between the two. Unlike Zizek's position whereby God's death is known but unacknowledged, placing a revolutionary responsibility on the believers shoulders "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace but a sword", the metaphysicists responsibility arises from the death of his Ego, the meditation of the thaumatological moments of his tradition (the resurrection, scripture etc.)  and the acknowledgement of the real which is ironically reminiscent of Lacan's own hatred towards Ego psychology and the need to painfully have the patient acknowledge his own helplessness, however damaging it may be.      

 

"In fear of death, in fear of rot"

It is said that the Prophet told his followers to die before they die. Are we in need of an existential euthanasia? In demanding this the act of Islam, the spiritual submission as understood in the worldly horizon evades the totality of it's temporal revelation. Sharia, the transmitted conditions of transcendental return is mortal after all, it's rulings are constrained by the metaphysical composition of Dunya (what need would we have for return if the oppositions between departure and arrival no longer convey any ontological resonance), but as we consciously die as the Prophet suggested, we project onto a certain possibility which is of course paradoxically avoided in the condition of intentional undeath. Life in death, "حي فل موت". To die intentionally then, is it not a suicide or do the inter-sensory components of the imaginal hierarchy, the shadowy presencing of which we merely mirror as fickled ambivalence assume the determinant of our own martyrdom? And thus, do we avoid the ultimate hubris in appropriating the original function in commanding for ourselves the collapsing of the infinite horizon, through nothing but our own will? 

Is there nothing then, more terrifying in death? The rejuvenation towards the unveiling of the sub-conceit of an established revelation? Surely as Bram Stoker's Dracula would have it, there are far worse things in this world than death? Indeed how can fear what is not only the only certain possibility, but a desired archetypal condition. We have already inverted the projected fatal occurrence into the very condition of our fixation towards it. To fear this condition would only indicate a certain ethereal homelessness, having being hurled into the world and picked up oneself in horrified awareness of recycled time echoing behind him, and urging him onwards off a quickly approaching precipice. Treatment would require a determined yet effortless reorientation towards the finite, or the sacred life that lies on it's threshold. Is it this unknowable condition in the post-Dunya that resolutely defies the subjugation of human reasoning that deserves fearing?         

How can fear, however the ultimate reconciliatory process between initiation and releasement, aesthetic degeneration and horrific rejuvenation, word as idolic injunction and unhindered desire in a violently sanctioned commitment to the nobility of the un-self. The last principle, perhaps. The horizontal blade of the impetuous feminine royalty, refinement in the wilful erasing of boundaries, into sanctified butchery, imposing momentary inter-sensory clarity in gleeful blinding's. The blade raised vertical and inherited among the purified self-obliterated. The vigilant slave, their kohled eyes mirroring their mastery over the inter-perceptuary, the splendid symmetry of their physical form complementing the blade inherited. Unquestionably masculine in virtue though bound and worshiped through the royal birth-giver. This is the nature of the double tipped sword. It is perhaps truly impossible to rationalise the outwardly destination but not entirely in vain to glimpse in the duality of the sacred form. 

We are of course referring here to beauty. Beauty as the symbolic register of the articulation of truth, it's presence in the sensory realm. It is, not however an imitation by whose very nature is incapable of authentic admiration but a bridge unto which we gaze onto the other side and acknowledge the projected possibilities that lay beyond. Beauty is rarely a given though, but a mutilatory ideal. It's conditions must be carved through our moral and sensible boundaries. The void of the sacred light which saturates from within our exclusionary edifices are not, however fear inducing in the sense that we wish to consider here but more momentarily displacing.       

The only condition worthy of fear then should be rot. A Thrownness but not in this world but the after. In the jaded torment, the infinite tearing onto all of ones possibilities there is simply no connection to the past, nor is there a present in which to feel frustrated. One is frantically holding against the shattered threshold. Grounding Is and the conditions unto which one orients his existence in an unfathomable vacuum of anti-Is. Terrifyingly perform useless tricks to pass into an opening, only to be left dejected, confronted by ghosts of performers to which art he may recognise but that he may never see as anything other than an unrepentant elimination.                          
     

Apophatic Theology and concealment in the Islamic tradition

 

 

 

It’s revealing that the tired and mundane discourse on Islam, whether in its parental protectionist British variant or as a principled concern in the case of North America revolves entirely around a largely unchallenged dichotomy between a “moderate” and “fundamentalist” Islam. This has no doubt alarmed Muslims that found themselves caught in an imaginary crisis, an inauthentic dialectic alien to what are serious challenges to the Islamic faith as a whole. These essentialist distinctions that the likes of Mahmood Mamdani have beautifully challenged and conscious attempts to fabricate a critical juncture in Islamic history whereby the two irreconcilable poles emerge which unlike Orientalism which can be said to be a misguided obsession with extrapolation, is a more insidious and an explicit messianic imperative to throw the veil over the crumbling legacy of Descartes by subjecting the world’s second largest ( and until recently untouched by this “reformist” tendency) religious tradition to the same destructive fanaticism that has afflicted western Christianity. Some in Western Muslim communities have struck to reclaim the label “fundamentalist”, itself an inapplicable label to Islamic sects, quite rightly defending reactionary theology as the most legitimate mode through which the sacred can be experienced. The problem however lies in refusal to ground the reaction in a traditional Islamic theology, instead championing the literalist and puritanical reformist streak which ironically resembles more closely the imagined “fundamentalism” of the neurotic analysts in the west than it does any fundamental truths within Islam.

 

This week, the Jihadi plague which taints all it bloats into from its host in North Syria have declared a new blasphemy which surpasses even apostasy and heresy. A child was promptly executed for joking about the prophet to whom the perpetrators loudly proclaimed, “he who insults god is given three days to repent, and he who insults the prophet is executed immediately”. This is wholly significant, not only in that it is the now official doctrine of those most in a position to produce Islam in recent times but in that it effectively translates into the mass consciousness of Muslims in the West who as we are all familiar, wholly obsessed with the prophet and not as an ideal, or principle but as threatened idol whose provocation requires a relentlessly hostile defence. Are Muslims playing the “Muhammad card” in the same way Fr. Richard Rohr locates the elevation of Christ from the Trinity to a pseudo-pagan titan as a serious error within Christianity? Indeed, the comparability of the Cross and by token the trinity and the Shahada as the revealing of the celestial hierarchy through the meeting of the eternal with the historical and the association of both symbolisms with the masters of their respective eras (Christ and Muhammad) is no new phenomena. Is this then a Romanisation of Islam? I believe the actual process is far more degenerative and while the distortion of the trinity in Christianity wasn’t enough to vanquish the transfiguring light of the eternal Christ, the segregation and elevation of Muhammad from the Shahada risks collapsing the language of Islam entirely.

 

Two points must be clarified before proceeding, given that Muhammad’s position in the hierarchy isn’t quite comparable to “The Son” in the trinity despite their celestial correspondence to the Universal intellects. The “elevation” of Muhammad from the Shahada is actually degradation given that the prophets while both human (nasut) and spiritual (lasut), is not the latter incardinated into the former. The Shahada operates within the realm of faith and sustains the hududs (horizons) of the celestial realm; therefore a manipulation of any exoteric component of the Shahada disrupts and nullifies its ontological significance. The Heideggerian notion of “World withdrawal” is useful in illuminating the process in which the symbolic prophet is reduced to a totem and robbed of the significance of his recognition. The declaration of faith is catalogued and museumised, and although it is not historical in the sense that it is still projected into present possibilities, it is in danger of losing its function in “opening” or clearing. In removing Muhammad from the two negations and affirmations, they have not removed Islam from Muhammad but instead removed Muhammad from Islam. Within the authenticity of Muhammad within the Shahada, as the master of divine inspiration then the figure is reduced to an aesthetic, an undead apparition, driving men to relish in a highly eroticised violence as offering to this alien intruder of the Islamic tradition.

 

Some Sufi orders in their wisdom recognised the fallacy in presentation of the historical figures of Islam in the literalist tradition as Nasut. The Bektashi’s for example through their upholding of the concept of Haqq-Muhammad-Ali both conceal and clear the space of Gnostic revelation. Though this is often misunderstood as Trinity, it occupies the same space in the realm of faith among similar horizons in the celestial realm. The saying of the Prophet;

 

“Ana madinat al Ilm wa Ali babu’ha (I am the city of knowledge and Ali is the gate)”

 

 Is evidence of the vital importance in recognition and veneration of the hududs in the understanding of concepts and symbolisms pertinent to the realm of faith. Also at the first, this seems a hopeless descriptive endeavour to codify the divine, it is given it’s dualistic revelation a far more conservative a cautious approach than the literalist tradition which disrupts the exoteric manifestation through anthropomorphising the divine without thought to the dimension  of lasut within these phenomena. An opening line in a Bektashi nefes should explain the inseparability of the historical figures of Islam more clearly:

 

“God forbid that anyone should see them as separate from one another. Muhammad is Ali, Ali Muhammad”

 

Curiously the Muhammad of both traditions is the transfiguring light (as is Christ); the relationship between the resurrector (Qa’ism), the prophet (Nur al Nabi) and the gate (Bab) is worth meditating on. Is this however Apophatic? Or is it at least more so than the current dominant trends within Islamic discourse? Perhaps a more general Sufi tradition not exclusive to any particular Sufi sect is more convincing, that of Dhikir (remembrance). As Henry Corbin explains, many forms of Dhikir consist on the repetition and meditation of the first statement of the Shahada, that is the negation (Nullus Deus) both as a guard against the Nafs (ego) by rejecting all claims and pretence to divine authority or immunity. Borrowing again from Heidegger, it is the unconealment of the Shahada which conceals and the exclusive power of the one paradoxically conceals its nature. We cannot simply disclose anything we wish from the Shahada nor can we ignore its esoteric function, what are not present lies in an unimaginable cosmic abyss.

 

It is in this sense that we should perhaps repeat and meditate upon the first principle of the declaration of faith “La ilaha” before we are ready to carry the burden that the affirmation entails.             

The Gothic-Ghulat Manifesto

Written for the Moorish Orthodox Church, late 2012

The Gothic-Ghulat Manifesto

 

By

Isaac Nejem

 

“Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me — in vain”

 

 

Since the works of Horace Walpole, specifically The Castle of Otranto first introduced, or arguably reintroduced a veneer of dreadful romanticism in western literature, the sort that had been abandoned  by the totalising cultural phenomena we now know as the renaissance, a literary juncture was established where the horrific undertones, proto-anti humanist rhetoric and a more cynical interpretation of human behaviour could be explored and elaborated, much to the disgust of the intellectual establishment. Frustrated with the banality of renaissance romanticism as well as the rigidity and narrowing scope of early realism, a artistic tradition was born that was at once heretical and religiously obsessed, morbid yet aesthetically fascinating, fictional and yet embracing of a politically and socially sarcastic tradition.

 

            It is without doubt that the tradition of gothic fiction, and much later, the gothic sub-culture remained fixated within religious, particularly catholic symbolisms, iconography and even artistic expression. Early examples of this on-going relationship include Lewis’s “The Monk” which became one of the first literary examples whereby a member of the religious clergy portrayed the primary antagonist. The apparent “anti-religious” provocation, however, over shadowed a very genuine artistic attempt to return to a literary tradition whereby the symbolic order held significant importance. The horror in “The Monk” lay not in some fantastical, primal fetishisation, instead emphasising the unknowable forces that reside both internally as well as the forces that lay outside human control, forever meddling among us.

 

            Since its beginnings as a neo-romantic literary movement, the “Gothic” has come to signify a particular interpretative tradition within popular culture, particularly with the turn of the 20^th century and the exploration of the more horrific themes of interest to the brooding cultural pioneers, tragically stranded in the modern while remaining firmly fixated with the past.

 

            Keeping in mind the “Gothic” in this particular instance refers to that very interpretative tradition rather than the thinly veiled anti-Catholic social commentaries of the likes of “The Monk”, one can draw parallels between what is often seen as the Islamic equivalent of the religious aesthetic focus of Gothic literature, that is Shi’ism. At first, one may question the legitimacy of such a comparison, given the disparate historical circumstances surrounding the two, as well as the inherent difficulty in contrasting a religious sect with a 18^th century European literary movement, one which never felt the need to offer such a commentary in the first place. Yet to limit the “Gothic” to such a euro-centric sphere of influence would surely to injustice to the tradition itself. Surely there is more to “The Monk” and “Dracula” than Castles, monasteries and monsters.

 

            Indeed, as I’ve suggested above dark romanticism is at it’s a core a meditation on the dynamic interplay of tradition and religion, all within an encompassing aesthetic focus. There can never truly be a rationalist, atheist Gothic creation, the only possible exception being Lovecraft who may have delved into the Islamic tradition more than is realised, by forsaking the centrality of Earth and our species as dictated by Chriso-centric worldview, and juxtapositioning the human perspective among a myriad of unknowable horrors. While Sufi (particularly within the Sunni tradition) esotericism may be compatible with this arguably post-gothic thematic, the same cannot be said for the heterodox Shi’i cultural tradition whose immediate and mystic principles are far closer to Shelley than to Lovecraft.

 

            In this admittedly brief analysis, I’ll outline instances of similarity in the Ghulat Shi’i tradition (that is the heterodox sects who often deified Imam Ali or the following Imams) and key themes within the Gothic principle with the intention in opening an alternative mode to think of the Ghulat faiths as well as the Gothic subculture. Firstly I will consider the prevalence of a “deathly aesthetic” as an essential condition of Shi’i cultural expression, particularly the beautification of death as a principle among the living in the philosophy of Imam Ali, as well as some theological meditations on esoteric significance of tombs are all that is related to graves. Secondly, the idea of a romantic theology will be discussed, keeping in mind the spiritual significance of a glorious ancestral past (often associated with Iran) with an individual’s elevation to the spiritual light. Finally, in a subversion of the Gothic has the profane, the tradition of religious profanity as adherence, that is the utilisation of blasphemous and macabre symbolisms in Shi’i-Sufi literature as a Gnostic strategy to overcome the falsities of orthodoxy.

 

A deathly aesthetic

 

            Death as a literary theme is perhaps most often associated with the Gothic genre, perhaps unfortunately so since it tends to obscure the richness and diversity of its use as well as elements of the Gothic unrelated to mere obscenity and mortal dread. Yet for its over-association, there is no doubt that death features prominently in the Gothic, both as a source of great anxiety and fascination. Whether in Edgar Allan Poe’s Ligea or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, both of which have greatly diverging views on the use of death but both of which force the reader to consider death in an alternative light, albeit a dark one at that. Whereas Poe’s death challenges the assumption of the absolute finality in the departure of a character, Shelley almost ironically warns the reader on a scientific obsession with the prolonging of life. Just as Gothic culture’s preoccupation with death can arguably be traced to the religious origins of the Christ on the cross and it’s fetishisation throughout European history, so to can we find a similar process in Shi’i cultural history which includes a far more tragic narrative considering the lack of a redeeming resurrection in the case of the martyrs in Karbala, placing the blame on the believers as well as the perpetrators. Every year, this event is commemorated and re-enacted in a similar manner to the Christian passion plays yet the mourning of Muharram is no mere dramatisation but a realisation of the eternal tragic circumstances that the faithful remained bound too. The individual mourner finds himself within a tragedy in a vaguely Shakespearean sense where he/she plays the part of an anti-villain, symbolised as the collectively imagined people of Kufa who refused to follow Hussain to confront the Umayyad Empire, and in doing so sealed his horrid fate. The believer remains displaced by the contradictory circumstances of his position in relation to the Imam, declaring his allegiance to the fallen Hussain with the words “Labaik ya Hussain” all while acknowledging the impossibility of such a statement given the temporal barrier he/she faces. Hamid Dabashi locates the mourners of Muharram within a Shakespearean lens declaring that for the Shi’i, the “time is out of joint, O cursed spite that ever they were born to set it right”.

 

            This visual and performative meditation on death is applicable to all Shi’i, and is by no means limited to the Ghulat sects who arguably contain fewer of these immediately visceral displays of tragedy and death. In analysing the philosophical and literary manifestations of these ideas, it would be best to start with a Gnostic reading of the words of Imam Ali and how those influenced a culture fixated on a beautification of deathly expressions of faith.

 

“Death is more intimate to me than the breast of a mother is to a suckling babe” Imam Ali

 

To die in this sense, is of course to be interpreted entirely esoterically and in conjunction to what would become the Sufi idea of self-obliteration or Al Fana fi Ilah (extinction in god). In Shia theology, there is a prevalent motif which states the believer must die before his death, to walk with one foot firmly in the grave thus partially awakening the sleeping divinity within ones Nafs (soul). As the Imam himself is documented as saying, “he who knows one’s Nafs knows one’s lord”. It is interesting then that the Imam should bring our attention to the image of the mother and the suckling babe since the process of death as self elevation works symbolically through a Freudian lens whereby the desire of the child to remain in the weaning stage represents the death drive inherent in all individuals, that is the desire to return to the mother’s womb and revert back in an inanimate state. So to, the believers desire to embrace death is to return to some transcendental state, from the perspective of those on this plain of understanding, inanimate but as the Qur’an reminds us; “nay for they are alive but ye perceive not”. In keeping with the idea of death in Gothic literature as a challenge to the finality of passing, we can think of death in a Shi’i scope in a deconstructed sense, since our approach is from that of he who is already dead.

 

“I am the death of the dead” Imam Ali     

 

Jacques Derrida believed the concept of the “undead” to be a useful concept in the binary deconstruction between the dead and living. Whereas the Vampyre can be thought of as the personification of a guilt ridden anxiety between lovers on separated by death and life, or the modern Prometheus as the disgusting transgression of mankind which makes the thinking of the undead a horrid endeavour, the undead in Shi’i theology shortens the gap between the world of spirits and the worlds of bodies, existing only partially as a fluctuating image in the realm of visible perception. The Persian philosopher and mystic Mushin Fayz Kashani thought of this immeasurable gap between the bodily world and the spiritual as being located of separate ends of an intermediately plain which he calls the world of archetypal images. This universe while being the object of material and intellectual perception exists only from the Quranic “Nur”, and is best thought as a “duality of dimensions”. It is through this dimensional correspondence with symbolisations in the human imagination that spiritual interties become corporealised. It is from this sphere the Imams visit in corporeal form in the highly symbolised imaginings of men. It is interesting then that many have hypothesised the Vampyre from a Jungian perspective whereby the Vampire archetype is the fetishisation of the Shadow, the unconscious irrational projection which the ego fails to recognise. Of course, unlike Christianity which rejects the idea of God as responsible for what is understood as evil, the concept of Tawhid which even the Ghulat sects hold sacrament necessitates this manifestation of the divine as we are reminded in Surat Al Nur;

 

“Or else they are like shades obscure over a vast ocean,

Enveloped by the waves,

Above which are waves,

Above which is fog;

Darkest shades piled one upon the other.

If he stretches forth his hand, he can scarcely see it.

He on whom God sheds no light, no light has he.” 

 

For a chapter so often remembered for the “light upon light”, one may too often overlook the “Dark upon dark” as an essential component in understanding the divine. It’s interesting to note the concept of Black light is important in the understanding of Iranian Shi’i Sufism but we shall leave this component out for a later analysis.

 

In keeping with the theme of the deathly aesthetic in both the Gothic and Shi’ism, one simply can’t ignore the role of architecture in embodying the pleasure of a heightened emotional state in a permanent reflective structure. The word gothic itself largely lends to the architectural legacy of the medieval Gothic which had found a new appreciation in its revival during the 18^th century. The Gothic ruins scattered across an otherwise unspoilt countryside or the lordly manor of an eastern count serve to amplify a sense of decay and a certain futility in the face of the supernatural. The use of religious buildings, despite often espousing a certain anti-catholic sentiment, was more effective in invoking a sense of awe and insignificance. The esoteric symbolism of tombs is just as widespread in the Islamic world, and not limited to any particular sect. The largely Sunni Mevlevi orders attire is entirely bound up in graveyard symbolisms, from the tomb shaped headgear to the white robes worn by corpses, the Mevlevi dervish wears his death to the bodily world in his uniform while remaining attentively awaken to the transcendental realm in Zikir and Semma. For this study, we’ll consider the work of the Iranian theological innovator Shaykh Ahmad Al Ahsai, founded of the Shaykhi School which would later develop into the post-Islamic faith, Babism. The tomb understood esoterically by Al Ahsai is thought to be revealing of the innermost essence of an individual in life. The spirit and subtle body is fixed within the higher plane of the degrees of time. The example of sleeping it utilised as the entrance into the autonomous archetypal realm, at least temporarily. Therefore while the tomb in classic gothic literature may be a strategy to capture an ecstatic state in stagnated horror, the tomb in heterodox Shi’ism projects these states by way of manifestations of spiritual and bodily properties in the imaginary and transcendental realms.                      

 

 

 

The value of traditionalist ethics

 

I’ve become rather obsessed with death recently. Not quite as a morbid musing, nor a lamenting reflection but more as a transcendental state; that is a threshold which recognises no division between truth and its allegorical transcriptions in the realm of perception.  That primordial drive of eternal return, to recognise the self in relation to the seemingly inanimate and to strike forth into the darkness in as every bit of freedom as a corpse. This sentiment is more or less present in most pre-modern cultures, but I’d like to draw attention to two particular cases; that of the Bushi warrior aristocracy of Japan and the deathly aesthetic present in Shia Islamic ethics. In the Hagakure (In the shadow of leaves), the classical of the Japanese warrior classes written by Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Samurai retainer turned Buddhist Monk; the freedom in death is stressed in the first chapter.

                “If by setting ones heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body is already dead, he gains freedom in the way. His whole life will be without blame and he will succeed in his calling”

Yet far from constituting a rejection of life; or a license for the glorification of misery, murder and morbidity, the deathly aesthetic is nothing more than the unification of the scattered relics of practical existence and the reorientation towards an authentic state. Tsunetomo explains;

                “We all want to live. And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. This is a thing dangerous line”

 

The way as death, or the affirmation of life?

An interesting method in which to interpret this seemingly nihilistic statement is perhaps in contrast to Nietzsche’s appeal to noble ethics as life affirming as opposed to the tempting solace found within medieval Christian values. The comparison is problematic given the formers explicit embracing of death and Nietzsche’s hatred of the idealised aesthetic but in negating the materially defined opposition between life and death, the two espouse a similar set of ideals. Nietzsche of course took issue with the slave ethic at the heart of western moralities obsessive need to relegate the cause of suffering to the sufferer himself. The process in which the individuals will is perverted into a regressive, self hating paradigm is in itself a great act of will, or as Tsunetomo might have put it “making our logic according to what we like”. Tsunemtomo’s “frivolous sophisticates” who dream up excuses for cowardice and Nietzsche’s priestly class who champion a perverted order may be seen as one in the same.

                 “One must pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while still alive”    

That isn’t to say however, that the Bushi conception of death is identical to the Greek-rooted idealised affirmation of life. The two are qualitatively separate, although both noble in character. The Bushi not only transcends the immediacy of his material existence in the embracing of a warrior morality but forcibly reorganises his existence towards an unknowable horizon rather than a philosophical ideal.

 

                “A real man does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death. By doing this, you will awaken from your dreams”

I feel the Japanese gentlemanly ideal is in stark contrast to the western, not in the same sense as classical nobility is to secular mysticism but in its anti-philosophical outlook; and the rejection of binary oppositions, empirical reasoning or even the closest western equivalent of chivalric sentiments. Is there perhaps a middle ground between the Greek and Japanese tradition? I believe there is, and that it is most visible within the ethical discourse and Gnostic philosophy espoused by the first Shi’ite Imam, Ali Ibn Talib, which reflect both pre-Islamic notions of Futuwwa (chivalry) and a philosophical disposition towards a deathly aesthetic.     

Imam Ali's deathly aesthetic

            “Death is more intimate to me than the breast of a mother is to a suckling babe” Imam Ali

I’ve written before on Imam Ali’s philosophy in my Gothic-Ghulat manifesto, and so in the interest of not repeating myself, I’ll briefly summarise the interpretations behind these aesthetic sentiments. The death in this sense, is more explicitly esoteric and has more in conjunction with the Sufi ideal of self obliteration “Al Fana fi Ilah” (extinction in the divine), than the seemingly Bushi conception of death as utterly irrational but necessarily threshold. The two, however are relatable in their rejection of the unauthentic, whether the frivolous concern of the “sophisticate”, or the egotistical attachment to the world and the enslavement of the soul to realm of immediate perception. In Shia theology, there is a prevalent motif which states the believer must die before his death, to walk with one foot firmly in the grave thus partially awakening the sleeping divinity within ones Nafs (soul).

                “The world is an abode for which annihilation is ordained, and for its people departure from it is decreed”

Both discourses are concerned with the awakening of the soul, the setting sites on the horizon of death and in kierkegaardian terms, the recognition of the wholeness of existence in this mortal boundary. Imam Ali’s philosophical orientation towards death had much to do with his very classically Gnostic adoration of the universal intellect as the initial cosmic principle. This should not, however be understood in the post enlightenment sense of the intellect as the capability to logically deduce the real from sensory perception alone. Rather it was more in harmony with the Greek intellectus, which implies the capability to directly contemplate transcendental realities. Thus, the universal intellect is tied to the conception of the soul, which can become a battleground in the struggle towards the total orientation towards the real.

                “The ultimate battle is that of a man against his own soul,

                He who knows his soul, fights it”

 This is remarkably similar to the Bushi ideal of true victory as the victory over the self. Indeed, both the Bushi ideal and the teachings of the Imam stress kindness, restraint, mercy and good character but not for their own sake. Such actions are not of the altruism that the likes of Nietzsche despised, but a strict adherence to the tracedental real. This brings me to the point of this essay, to ascertain whether these values, of the warrior aristocracy are of any use in today’s world.

Rescuing noble values

There is little doubt that the modern world exists within the shadow of Kant. A messianic imperative to bring the world under a certain uniformity, one which upholds positivist logic. The needs to eliminate other alternatives to this vision lie at the heart of Kant’s perpetual peace theory. His successors, particularly John Rawls went on to have significant philosophical influence on American foreign policy, one that has been particularly damaging. This imperative triggers a neurotic need to crusade in the name of the ethics of pity; an unyielding adherence to the consciousness of the masses, and the establishment of eternal truths as justification for these actions. The sovereignty of man is abandoned as are noble ethics in favour of a moral fanaticism. The Bushi code acts as a check against this deontological principle;

 

                “To think that being righteous is the best one can do and to do one’s utmost to be righteous will, on the contrary, bring many mistakes. The way is in a higher place than righteousness.”

 

      Kant’s vision of perpetual peace, is a kind of Imperial morality in its totality, the obsessive need to reconstitute its broken core in the unification of its peripheral extremities, and the relegation of the noble individual to a mere recipient of reason. Nowhere in the aristocratic ideals of the Bushi or the Gnostic chivalry of the Imam can there exist a concept which rejects the sovereignty of man, or regulate a warrior to the realm of the homo sacer.  Indeed, a noble ethics requires the seeking out of similar characteristics in the enemy, necessitating a respect unheard of in modern times.

 

Chivalry

                “The knight of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends”

Returning to the theme of Gnostic chivalry, we see that Imam Ali was one known for his harshness towards his closest allies and respect towards his enemies, a characteristic which eventually cost him his life. At the battle of Siffin during the first Islamic civil war, the forces of Ali had largely overwhelmed the opposing forces led by Muawiyah who had rebelled against Ali’s appointment as Caliph following the murder of the third Caliph, Uthman. The conflict itself had it's origins in the divide between an practically minded Imperialising tendency championed by the pre-Islamic Arab old guard and the belief that the Caliphate must revert to a spiritual order given the non-Arab mawali converts to the religion. Muawiyah had built a support base in Syria and with their backing, refused to give the baya (oath of loyalty) to the new Caliph, forcing Ali into a military confrontation. On the eve of victory, however, Ali’s forces broke off their attack when Muawiyah ordered his troops to hoist Qur’an’s on spears with the message “Let god decide”. Despite personal reservations, Ali agreed to withdraw his forces and enter into negotiations, expecting his opponent to return the honourable gesture as was common in pre-Islamic warfare. Ali’s gallantry had not only spared the opposing force, but by recognising the autonomy of the Syrian elite severely hindered his ability to rule undisputed and without further incident. As we have seen though, Ali's philosophy was based on a noble ethics, guided by transcendental principles as opposed to lust for immediate material gains.        

This is perhaps the ethics that should be of value today; those decisively irrational, recognising the sovereignty in the enemy and fixated upon the unknowable horizon. As opposed to the Imperial philosophy of Kant, in it's totality and uniformity, a feudal or pre-Imperial ethic could be considered. An individualist path which stresses the romantic roots of the warrior aristocracy as a will to power in it's own right while at the same time, recognising the chivalrous potential not in the sense of righteousness for it's own sake, or in service of a ethics of pity but in eternal awareness of the boundless vision.

 

Nowruz in esoteric Shi'ism

From March 19 to the 22nd, the Iranian community, the greater Iranian cultural continent as well as numerous ethno-religious and esoteric communities celebrate the coming of spring and a new year, as epitomised in the observation of Nowruz, that is the Iranian new year. The word is derived from the Persian words Now (New) and  rōz (day, but can sometimes be used to denote light) and marks the beginning of the Iranian calendar. Originally a Zoroastrian festival, the emergence of the commemoration of Nowruz is shrouded in myth, often attributed to the prophet Zoroaster himself, yet it has origins in various Mesopotamian festivals commemorating the arrival of spring and the renewal of nature. These festivals were usually strongly associated with the creation myths pertaining to the culture observing and this was no different in the case of Iran, in which the Zoroastrian creation myth plays an important role as the archetypal religious symbology behind the beginnings of the cycle of life, and the commemoration of the seasons.

 In what is sometimes interpreted as dualistic, the Zoroastrian belief explains the existence of Ahura Mazda (the lord of wisdom), residing in eternal light who evoked the hostility of Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), which led to an intrusion into creation (previously within the domain of light) by those residing in eternal darkness. Ahura Mazda created several immortals to protect his creation, to which Ahriman responded to causing the cataclysmic conditions which led to the visage of our world as it is. The cycle of life began as the result of the sacrifice of the three prototypes of life, and this was the first Nowruz. In a cyclical process, several saviours in four periods, one for each 3000 years will descend upon creation until the arrival of Saoshyant, the final messiah. What is interesting is that this figure is strongly associated with the 12th Imam in Twelver Shi'ism, and the process in which he leads the dead across the bridge of Chinvat mirrors the day of resurrection in the Qur'an. How is it that a seemingly secular celebration of spring, with origins in ancient Mesopotamia be infused with such a potent spiritual expression of a religion which came long after it's founding and practice? Let us look to another example for our answer.

Nowruz is celebrated by various esoteric Islamic communities including the Ismailis, Alawites, Alevis and Bektashis. But it is in the Bektashi case where this celebration takes on a particularly mystical form, that is in it's dual association with the beginnings of the cycle of life and the birth of Imam Ali. Baba Rexhab explained the reasons for the celebration to an Albanian audience in New York in 1952:

"It is known that the Arabs did not calculate their months using the sun, but rather by the moon. However, later when we started to calculate months the 13th day of the lunar month of Rajab, which is the lunar birth date of the exalted Imam ‘Ali (may God’s blessings be upon him!), it was found to coincide with the 22nd of March, 600 CE. Thereafter the day of Nevruz received special importance and it remained unforgettable in the memory of generations and generations, not as the “new day” in the old Persian understanding, but as the birthday of this illustrious man, the strongest pillar of Islam, the exalted Imam ‘Ali." 

How is it then that a believer can find such power esoteric resonance in what appears to be coincidence, or look to the saviour of two separate religious traditions as one in the same? We are dealing here with what Henry Corbin termed Imaginal history, that is the history of the mundus imaginilis. It is in Ibn Arabi's division of the imaginative sphere into two forms, the absolute and the captive from which we understanding the metaphysical symbolism being utilised in the above cases. The absolute resides in the world of the soul and exist as manifestations of the pure intellect while the captive are the manifestations of the Imaginal form in mans imaginative consciousness, accessible only by a spiritual faculty.

Access to the imaginary history of the mundus imaginilis is accessible through the process of ta'wil, that is to reinterpret the exoteric by reconducting something towards it's source. Orthodox theology is reversed, the esoteric is not a metaphor of the apparent and literal but vice versa. It is in this sense that we should perhaps seek to understand the above practices, as one dealing entirely with the epoch of the transcendental real, for which the exterior world is merely a shadow.

 For when the Bektashi's speak of divine reality as manifested in Haqq-Muhammad-Ali; or Iranian Shias see the 12th Imam as the final cyclical zorastrian saviour figure, or imagine Fatima as the first principle or the Insan-i-Kamil as the highest spiritual attainment, it is in refrence to a highly complex archetypal realm where the subtle bodies we immediately encounter are merely reflections. That the coming of spring, the presence of the illuiminational presence of the divine and the cyclical beginning of life should be associated with Imam Ali is no mere coincedence. For the archetypal Imam Ali, always irreversibly a part of Muhammad in esoteric Shia mysticism, is nothing more than the Nur of Insan-i-Kamil as embodied in the figure of Muhammad.

It reminds one of a conversation between Kumayl Ibn Zaid and Imam Ali in which Kumayl inquires as to the nature of Al-Haqiqa (the truth) to which the Imam replies in a series of convoluted gnostic explanations which Kumyal demands be further elaborated until the Imam settles for the much simplified answer; "Quench the Lamp, for the dawn has indeed arisen". It is for this reason I light a candle on Nowruz, to Imam Ali, the divine light and it's sacred source.  

Qabbani's "Five letters to my mother"

In honour of Mother's day in the Arab world, I'll leave you with an excerpt from "Five letters to my mother", from a shared love between myself and my own mother, the great Syrian poet, Nizar Qabbani. If there is a single intrinsic symbolic experience at the heart of mankind, it is undoubtedly the overwhelming desire for return, and what better way to express this theme than by the hauntingly nostalgic adoration of the sacred source inherent in Qabbani's poetry.


"Good morning sweetheart.
Good morning my Saint of a sweetheart.
It has been two year mother
since the boy has sailed
on his mythical journey.
Since he hid within his luggage
the green morning of his homeland
and her stars, and her streams,
and all of her red poppy.
Since he hid in his cloths
bunches of mint and thyme,
and a Damascene Lilac. 
    
I am alone.
The smoke of my cigarette is bored,
and even my seat of me is bored
My sorrows are like flocking birds looking for a grain field in season.
I became acquainted with the women of Europe,
I became acquainted with their tired civilization.
I toured India, and I toured China,
I toured the entire oriental world,
and nowhere I found,
a Lady to comb my golden hair.
A Lady that hides for me in her purse a sugar candy.
A lady that dresses me when I am naked,
and lifts me up when I fall.
Mother: I am that boy who sailed,
and still longes to that sugar candy.
So how come or how can I, Mother,
become a father and never grow up."

A nation without a flag?

Part 1

As a result of an unfortunate provocation by a well meaning but fiery young advocate of the Syrian opposition, I became embroiled in an argument over the proposition that the flag of Syria as displayed on a University's Arab society's logo should be changed to reflect the contested nature over which political body is the legitimate government of Syria. I challenged the assumption that we, as Arab expats or members of the Arab diaspora had an inherent right to dictate what does or doesn't represent the Arab people. On what basis, I asked, do we decide whether a national symbol as emotive as the flag be said to exclusively belong to the realm of the government or people? In any case, probably due to a misunderstanding, some interpreted in my concerns, a tone of accusation towards the motives of those in charge and I've since learnt to keep my mouth shut and instead leave what may be interpreted as passive aggressive commentary to my newly founded blog! But the unfortunate incident wasn't all in vain, for it fuelled what was to become a discussion on what, if any flag could represent the society, and potentially the Arab people.

 I've been thinking about the Arab people as a nation for a while; as a result of my recent readings of key Arab nationalist thinkers, having undertaken numerous sociology courses on nationalism as well merely following the unrest throughout the region in current years. Thinking about the Arab nation is nothing new. In fact, if we accept Anderson's Imagined communities theory, then the Arab people are bringing their nation into existence everyday, by means of a common language, mutual concerns, hopes and affinities are read, consumed and articulated in a manner that is far more prevalent than any mode of religious expression. But this kind of modernist understanding must be applied with caution when approaching the Arab world. After all, theories of print capitalism don't quite correspond to the experience of national awareness among the Arabs who have shared a single language for over a thousand years. Al-Arsuzi and Aflaq both stressed the uniqueness of Arabic as an organic language, in conformity with nature and vitality of the vernacular to the awakening of the Arab people. A sense of "Arabness" cannot be reduced to a practical need to structurally reorient society into harmony with a new economic order. But whether or not the modernist interpretation is legitimate, an interesting dilemma remains. Imagining the Arab people isn't new but imagining the Arab people as reduced to a vexillological symbol?

Unlike the Iranians or Turks, the very definitional condition of Arab as pan-ethnic and comprising a wide array of disparate cultures, as well as religious, social and political differences makes the task of infusing a highly symbolised appeal to political unity, as manifested in a flag rather difficult. The sort of banal nationalism that neighbouring middle eastern nations taken for granted is reduced to the domain of the twenty two individual political entities that make up the Arab league. Even during the heyday of Arab nationalism, the flags employed by the various unified regimes such as the United Arab Republic and the Arab Federation, were primarily political and never extended beyond the reach of their territorial dominion. Nasser famously abolished the All-Palestinian government and the Arab revolt flag they had employed upon the founding of the UAR and imposed the flag of unity over Gaza which remained until the formation of the PLO to which it was abandoned in favour of a modified flag of the All-Palestine government which neatly brings us to our next point, the initial popularity of the flag of the Arab revolt.

Nobody knows exactly when the Flag of the Arab revolt (علم الثورة العربية الكبرى) was founded, or by who exactly it was designed. Several theories exist attributing it to various Arab secret societies active during the final years of the Ottoman Empire, modelled after the Young Turks who successfully pressured the Empire into a constitutional model before sowing the seeds for the Turkish nation following the failure of that enterprise. One of these societies were the Arab literary club, based in Constantinople during the early years of the 20th century who formulated the Pan-Arab colours based on a poem by Saif al din al Hilli;

بيــض صنائعنا سود وقـائعـنا خضر مرابعنا حمر مواضينا


White are our deeds, black are our battles,
Green are our fields, red are our swords.


Other sources attribute the foundation of the flag to Al-Fatat, another Arab nationalist society within the Empire which developed close connections with Iraqi officers within the Ottoman military, many of which would join Faisal's Arab revolt which brings us to our third candidate, Sir Mark Sykes himself who supposedly created the colours to bestow a sense of nationalism among the Arabs. The last of course many simply be claims as a result of the obsessive, parental impulse of the coloniser to take credit and subdue any sense of autonomy among his subjects. That being said, it became extremely popular among Arabs who had no part in the revolt, specifically the Palestinians who readily adopted it despite having sided with the Ottomans in the conflict. It briefly served as the Lebanese flag as well as laying the foundations for the Pan-Arab colours which have been adopted by most nations in greater Syria as well as Egypt and a few gulf countries. The enthusiastic adoption of the colours coincided with the national anthems adopted by many of these newly founded nations, which often shared a common lyricist or musician such as those by Mohammad Flayfel who composed the anthems of Palestine and Syria. It's indicative of a very unique component of Arab nationalist sentiment which retains diversity under the threats of uniformity, organic and fluid, permeating the seemingly manufactured structure of modern Arab political boundaries.       

Esoteric-Ethnicisation

Part 1

For those with a familiarity of the Sufi orders which existed throughout the lands of the former Ottoman Empire, esoteric manifestations of Shi'ism among the Turkic communities of Iran and Anatolia, or even a passing knowledge of what are often erroneously called the "ghulat" sects of Islam, the Bektashi's may initially appear to the layman as a largely turkified expression of more traditional Sufi orders, syncretising elements of Anatolian folk beliefs with heterodox Shi'ism. It's an order I've become particularly attracted towards in recent years, and through which I've been alerted to a curious phenomena concerning the relationship between ethnic or national identity and religion in the Islamic world. Although existing primarily in Albania as a result of the Tanzimat modernising reforms of the 19th century which sought to break the powerbase of the traditional and military elites to which the order was strongly associated with; as well as the subsequent banning of Sufi orders by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk upon the founding of the Turkish republic, there nevertheless exists a perception (from both westerners and often non-Bektashi Turks) that the teachings of the patron saint Haji Bektash Veli are something of a Turkish redemption of Islam, cleansed from a dogmatic Arab praxis and reoriented towards a Turkish understanding of spirituality.

 While in Antakya (Hatay), I was even told that the Bektashi-Alevi faith in Turkey is used as a legitimiser by Turanian advocates to appropriate Bektashi traditions as modernist concepts (feminism, humanism etc.), both to decisively sever any cultural association with Arabs and Iranians, as well as infusing what they interpret as authentic Turkic religious expressions, such as that of the animalist faith, Tengrism. As I conducted more research into the faith, I noticed this trend, being raised by orientalist scholars who have unfortunately been responsible for much of the misinformation about the order, as well as by Bektashis and Alevis themselves. This is no doubt similar to claims by Iranian nationalists that reinterpret Shi'ism as a distinctly Persian phenomena, Neo-Zoroastrianism in a thinly veiled Islamic visage, imagining and encouraging a false sectarian dichotomy between Arabs and Persians based on a supposedly ethnic understanding of Islam. The same could be said of the existing accusations in Arab discourse of the cultural customs (often the finger is pointed towards Pakistani and Indian communities) which have supposedly been confused with the purity of Islamic doctrine as exemplified by the Arabs.

Of course, such postulations are preposterous and completely ignorant of actual historical (probably deliberately so) circumstances surrounding the evolution of those varying expressions of faith as well as an overstating of the cultural boundaries and the translatability of those theological innovations between Arab, Turk, Iranian and beyond. After all, how is it that an order founded by a Persian born mystic, though liturgically Turkish and theologically Arab be explained within a pan-ethnic understanding? The ethnic nationalist will no doubt stress the supposed Turkic roots of the patron saint but the ideas that are supposedly so cherished as unmistakably Turkish are in reality a synthesis of already existing doctrinal Islamic traditions with origins from South Asia and the Qalandarriyya as well as the Iranian Hurufis. Indeed, even the identity of the Bektashi order during it's time under Ottoman patronage is one of constant fluctuation and resistant to definite identities, being presented at times as a Sunni order, heterodox Shia-Sufi movement and an essentially syncretic religious ideology. The idea of Shi'ism as an Iranian answer to Islam also fails to account for the long period prior to the Safavid conversion of the region, whereby Iranian remained a stronghold of Sunnism while those lands often associated with Islamic orthodoxy, namely Egypt and Syria were at times under the banner of what would today be described as the heterodox Ismailis.       

These unfortunate reconstitution of the symbolic identifications of faith is no doubt the result of the paradigmatic shift brought about by rapid modernisation, new ideological developments  and the looming spectre of the dominant European example of statehood, all of which contained an implicit rejection of religion as a fluid phenomena, existing in an impenetrable sacred space, for use at the sovereigns own peril. The exact moment in which variations of Islamic esotericism were selected and segregated into individual national or ethnic models is difficult to pinpoint. One could see the national awakenings during the fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire as necessitating a nationalist individuation of a now dominant belief, using the European national churches as a model to emulate, or as a product of bio-power and the manipulation of faith as a means to subjugate a population and reorient them towards nationalist goals. Both these theories have merit but what I intend to argue, is that segregation, labelling and defanging of spiritual movements by mostly secular-nationalist regimes in the Islamic world was the result of a neurotic crisis of identity brought about by the realisation that those newly established states, rested upon precarious and often contradictory internal factors.