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.
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