30 septembre 2005

A. W. Pallavicini, René Guénon Musulman: Conversion ou convergence?, (note de lectura)





Publié dans René Guénon (1886-1951). Colloque du Centenaire, Le Cercle de Lumière, 1993.

« Pourtant la clef de la prétendue conversion de René Guénon du Christianisme à l’Islam doit être recherchée dans le dogme fondamental de toute l’œuvre guénonienne, cette conscience de l’unité des traditions dans la métaphysique qui “n’est ni orientale ni occidentale”, cette Vérité absolue d’où dérivent toutes les Révélations qui ont été données aux hommes par Dieu. Dieur étant cette Vérité absolue, n’étant ni Hindou, ni Chrétien, ni Musulman. » (p. 47)

Toutes les traditions sont les différents rayons de la même roue. Tous mênent au Centre.

« Nous ne pouvons pourtant pas oublier la collocation spatio-temporelle en laquelle Dieu nous a mis au moment de notre naissance, ni refuser la tradition dans laquelle nous sommes nés et dont nous portons en nous les signes de l’événement historique d’une irruption du sacré dans le monde, irruption dirigée vers la juridiction d’un certain peuple à un moment déterminé de l’histoire de l’humanité. » (p. 48)

Question: si René Guénon reconnaissait la validité de toutes les religions et aussi le fait qu’elles resteraient valables jusqu’à la fin des temps, pourquoi n’est-il pas resté chrétien et encore pourquoi a-t-il adhéré à l’Islam? Guénon avait répondu lui-même: « Nous répondrons que cela est dû surtout aux conditions de l’époque actuelle dans laquelle, d’une part, certaines traditions sont, en fait devenues incomplètes “par en haut”, c’est-à-dire quant à leur côté ésotérique, que leur représentants “officiels” en arrivent même parfois à nier plus ou moins formellement et d’autre part, il advient trop souvent qu’un être naît dans un milieu qui n’est pas celui qui leur convient réellement et qui peut permettre à ses possibilités de se développer d’une façon normale surtout dans l’ordre intellectuel et spirituel. »

Le fait qu’une tradition soit « incomplète par le haut » ne veut pas dire que l’Esprit se soit retiré d’elle, mais seulement qu’il n’y a plus ces supports structurels qui puisseent faire bénéficier d’une transmission, d’une méthode et d’une maîtrise, les trois conditions que René Guénon s’attendait de toute organisation légitime.

« Mais au-delà du fait que Dieu rayonne du centre vers toute la circonférence, et qu’il garantisse à l’homme sont salut pour autant qu’il s’y maintienne, il se peut que “dans la présente phase du Kali-yuga il se produise des inconvénients inévitables” dit René Guénon, comme le fait que quelques-uns de ces rayons ne maintiennent pas la structure complète de la canalisation de la lumière qui pourrait nous guider jusqu’au centre-même.

En même temps, le fait d’être situé à un certain point de la circonférence, fait qu’un homme ne peut pas se passer des supports spirituels qu’il a dû recevoir avec sa naissance et dont il ne pourra pas refuser la présence dans son itinéraire vers Dieu. Voilà donc qu’il ne pourra accepter pour son chemin personnel qu’une voie complète qui inclut ces mêmes supports spirituels qui seront toujours présents en lui comme ils sont présents dans une tradition aussi valide que la sienne d’origine, mais postérieure à celle-ci. » (p. 50)

Sur l’adhésion de Guénon à l’Islam: « Il s’agit donc d’une adhésion qui ne tient pas seulement compte des possibilités initiatiques et des supports relatifs aux organisations ésotériques encore vivantes en Islam, mais encore du fait historique de l’avènement d’une nouvelle tradition, la dernière, qui englobe, sans l’opposer, la chrétienne en permettant l’attente du même événement eschatologique et en même temps la jonction avec la manifestation de la première Révélation. » (p. 51)

La soi-disante “conversion” de René Guénon ne doit pas être interprétée comme un refus de sa religion d’origine, mais comme une adhésion à celle qu’il appelait “La Tradition Primordiale”, en arabe “Din al-Quayyim” dans sa dernière expression.

« […] en effet pour nous est “muslim”, musulman, quiconque accepte vraiment la Révélation, le Messager et la Loi de la communauté à laquelle il appartient. » (p. 51)

« Ce fut en effet René Guénon qui essaya de trouver un remède aux défaillances des occidentaux modernes en leur parlant de la seule façon qu’ils pouvaient encore comprendre, dans l’espoir d’arriver ainsi à réveiller chez quelques-uns d’entre eux la conception d’une Réalité transcendante, l’intention d’une réalisation spirituelle, d’une gnosis, la connaissance possible seulement à travers l’adhésion à une tradition orthodoxe déterminée et la découverte des valeurs spirituelles et des fondamentales vertus humaines. » (p. 53)

René Guénon a été accusé de syncrétisme, d’apostasie et d’ésotérisme compris en forme occulte et magique, jusqu’au moment où, après avoir essayé de le dénigrer et après avoir opté pour une conjuration du silence, nous assistons maintenant à la tentative de ses ennemis, ceux-ci n’ayant pas pu le vaincre, d’essayer de l’intégrer dans leurs rangs.

Les rapports entre René Guénon et Louis Massignon n’étaient pas très heureux. Ce dernier avait fondé à Alexandrie une organisation syncrétiste, Ikwan as-safa, où les participants semblaient avoir oublié, les uns la prière “Notre Père”, les autres “Al-Fatiha”, pour inventer une nouvelle prière syncrétique. Guénon reconnaissait la validité des deux religions, mais ne les a pas mélangés.

Sur la liaison qui doit exister entre exotérisme et ésotérisme: « La garantie de l’ésotérisme ou plutôt d’une organisation ésotérique c’est l’exotérisme, dans toutes les traditions. Le yoga n’existe que s’il est fait par des hindous, le zen par les bouddhistes. Il n’y a pas d’hésychasme si ce n’est dans la tradition orthodoxe, fait par des moines orthodoxes, il n’y a pas de soufisme si ce n’est dans l’Islam. On ne peut séparer les deux choses comme on a tendance à le faire aujourd’hui: faire du yoga ou du zen sans être hindou ou bouddhiste, faire du soufisme sans être musulman. » (p. 59)


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26 septembre 2005

Joseph de Maistre, Enlightenment On Sacrifices, (full text)

Chapter I. Sacrifices In General

I by no means accept the blasphemous axiom, Human fear first invented the gods. [Primus in orbe deos fecit timor. This passage, whose true author is unknown, is to be found amongst the fragments of Petronius. It is quite at home there.]

On the contrary, I am happy to notice that men, by giving God names expressing greatness, power, and goodness, by calling him Lord, Master, Father, and so on, show clearly enough that the idea of divinity cannot be born of fear. It can be seen also that music, poetry, dance, in a word all the pleasing arts, have been called on in religious ceremonies and that the idea of rejoicing was always so closely involved in the idea of festival that the last became everywhere synonymous with the first.

Far be it from me, moreover, to believe that the idea of God could have started with humanity or, in other words, that humanity can be older than the idea.

It must, however, be confessed, after having made sure that this is orthodox, that history shows man to be convinced at all times of this terrible truth, that he lives under the hand of an angry power and that this power can be appeased only by sacrifice.

At first sight, it is not at all easy to reconcile so apparently contradictory ideas, but, if they are studied closely, it can easily be understood how they agree and why the feeling of terror has always existed side by side with that of joy without the one ever having been able to destroy the other.

"The gods are good, and we are indebted to them for all the good things we enjoy: we owe them praise and thanks. But the gods are just and we are guilty. They must be appeased and we must expiate our sins; and, to do this, the most effective means is sacrifice."

Such was the ancient belief and such is still, in different forms, the belief of the whole world. Primitive men, from whom the whole of humanity has received its fundamental opinions, believed themselves culpable. All social institutions have been founded on this dogma, so that men of every age have continually admitted original and universal degradation and said like us, if less explicitly, our Mothers conceived us in sin; for there is no Christian dogma that is not rooted in man's inner nature and in a tradition as old as humanity.

But the root of this debasement, or this reification of man, resides in sensibility, in life, in short in the soul, so carefully distinguished by the ancients from the spirit or intelligence.

Animals have received only a soul; we have been given both soul and spirit....

The idea of two distinct powers is very ancient, even in the Church. "Those who have adopted it," said Origen, "do not think that the words of the apostle the flesh lusteth against the spirit (Galatians 5:17), should be taken to mean the flesh literally, but to refer to that soul which is really the soul of the flesh: for, they say, we have two souls, one good and celestial, the other inferior and terrestrial: it is of the latter that it has been said its works are manifest (ibid., 19), and we believe that this soul of the flesh resides in the blood." [Origen, De Principiis, Book iii, Chap. iv. 8.]

For the rest, Origen, who was at once the most daring and the most modest of men in his opinions, did not persist in this problem. The reader, he said, will form his own opinions. It is, however, obvious that he had no other explanation for two diametrically opposed impulses within a single individual.

Indeed, what is this power that opposes the man or, to put it better, his conscience? What is this power which is not he, or all of him? Is it material like stone or wood? In this case, it neither thinks nor feels and consequently cannot be capable of disturbing the spirit in its workings. I listen with respect and dread to all the threats made by the flesh, but I want to know what it is...

Fundamentally, it appears that on this point Holy Scripture is in complete agreement with ancient and modern philosophy, since it teaches us "that man is double in his ways” [James 1:8.] and that “the word of God is a living sword that pierces to the division of the soul and the spirit and discerns the thoughts of the heart." [Hebrews 4:12.]
And Saint Augustine, confessing to God the sway that old visions brought back by dreams still had over his soul, cried out with the most pleasing simplicity, "Then, Lord, am I myself?" [Confessions, X, xxx.]

No, without doubt, he was not HIMSELF, and no one knew this better than he, who tells us in the same passage, How much difference there is between MYSELF and MYSELF; he who so well distinguished the two powers in man when he cried out again to God: Oh, thou mystic bread of my soul, spouse of my intelligence, I could not love you. [Ibid., I, xiii.]

Milton has put some beautiful lines into the mouth of Satan, who howls of his appalling degradation.* Man also could suitably and wisely speak them ...

[* "O foul descent! that I who erst contended
With gods to sit the highest, am now constrain'd
Into a beast; and, mix'd with bestial slime,
This essence to incarnate and imbrute,
That to the height of deity aspired!" - Paradise Lost, ix, 163-167.]

I am aware that the doctrine of the two souls was condemned in ancient times but I do not know if this was by a competent tribunal: besides, it is enough to understand it. That man is a being resulting from the union of two souls, that is to say, of two intelligent constituents of the same nature, one good and the other bad, this is, I believe, the opinion which should have been condemned and which I also wholeheartedly condemn. But that the intelligence is the same as sensation, or that this element, which is also called the vital principle and which is life, can be something material, completely devoid of understanding and consciousness, is what I will never believe, unless I happen to be warned that I am mistaken by the only power with a legitimate authority over human belief. In this case, I should not hesitate a moment, and whereas now I have only the certainty that I am right, then I would have the faith that I am wrong. If I were to profess other opinions, I would directly contradict the principles which have dictated the work I am publishing and which are no less sacred to me.

Whatever view is taken about the duality of man, it is on the animal power, on life, on the soul (for all these words meant the same thing in the ancient language), that the malediction acknowledged by the whole world falls...
Man being thus guilty through his sensuous principle, through his flesh, through his life, the curse fell on his blood, for blood was the principle of life, or rather blood was life.[Genesis 9:4-5; Leviticus 17:11; Deuteronomy 12:23-24.] And it is a remarkable fact that old Eastern traditions such as these, which had long been forgotten, have been revived in our own day and upheld by the most distinguished physiologists. Let us accept the vitality of blood, or rather the identity of blood and life, as a fact which antiquity never doubted and which has been acknowledged again today; another opinion as old as the world itself was that heaven grew angry with the flesh, and blood could be appeased only by blood. No nation doubted that there was an expiatory virtue in the spilling of blood. Now neither reason nor folly could have invented this idea, still less get it generally accepted. It is rooted in the furthest depths of human nature, and on this point the whole of history does not show a single dissenting voice. The entire theory rests on the dogma of substitution. It was believed (as was and always will be the case) that the innocent could pay for the guilty; from which it was concluded that, life being guilty, a less precious life could be offered and accepted in place of another. Thus the blood of animals was offered, and this soul, offered for a soul, the ancients called antipsychon, vicariam animam, as you might say a soul for a soul or substitute soul...

It should be noticed that, in sacrifices properly speaking, carnivorous or nonintelligent or nondomestic animals like deer, snakes, fish, birds of prey, and so on, were not slaughtered. Always, among the animals, the most valuable for their utility, the gentlest, the most innocent, those nearest to man by instinct and habit were chosen. Since in the end man could not be slaughtered to save man, the most human, if I can put it like that, in the animal world were chosen as victims; and the victim was always burned wholly or in part, to bear witness that the natural penalty for crime is the stake and that the substitute flesh was burned in place of the guilty flesh...

The roots of so extraordinary and so general a belief must go very deep. If there was nothing true or enigmatic about it, why should God himself have retained it in the Mosaic law? Where could the ancients have found the idea of a spiritual regeneration through blood? And why, at all times and in all places, have men chosen to honor, supplicate, and placate God by means of a ceremony that reason points out to all and that feeling rejects? It is absolutely necessary to appeal to some hidden and very powerful cause.

Chapter II. Human Sacrifices

The doctrine of substitution being universally accepted, it was thought equally certain that the effectiveness of sacrifices was proportionate to the consequence of the victims; and this double belief, at bottom just but vitiated by the force that vitiates all things, gave birth on all sides to the horrible superstition of human sacrifices. In vain did reason tell men that they had no rights over their fellows and that they even testified to this themselves by offering the blood of animals to atone for that of man; in vain did gentle humanity and natural compassion reinforce the arguments of reason: in face of this compulsive dogma, reason remained as powerless as feeling.

One would like to be able to contradict history when it shows us this abominable custom practiced throughout the world, but, to the shame of humanity, nothing is more incontestable... Once again, where did men take their opinion from? And what truth had they corrupted to reach their frightful error? It is quite clear, I think, that it all results from the dogma of substitution, whose truth is beyond dispute and is ever innate in man (for how could he have acquired it?), but which he has abused in a deplorable manner: for, accurately speaking, man cannot take up an error. He can only be ignorant of or abuse the truth, that is to say, extend it by false induction to a case which is irrelevant to it.
It seems that two false arguments lead men astray; first, the importance of the subjects which are to be freed from anathema. It is said, To save an army, a town, even a great sovereign, what is one man? The particular characteristics of the two kinds of human victim already sacrificed under civil law are also considered, and it is said, What is the life of a criminal or an enemy?

It is very likely that the first human victims were criminals condemned by the laws, for every nation believed what the Druids believed according to Caesar, [De bello gallico, vi, 16.] that the punishment of criminals was highly pleasing to the Divinity. The ancients believed that every capital crime committed in the state bound the nation and that the criminal was sacred or consecrated to the gods till, by the spilling of his blood, he had unbound both himself and the nation...

Unfortunately, once men were possessed with the principle that the effectiveness of sacrifices was proportionate to the consequence of the victims, it was only a short step from the criminal to the enemy. Every enemy was a criminal, and unfortunately again every foreigner was an enemy when victims were needed...

It seems that this fatal chain of reasoning explains completely the universality of so detestable a practice, that it explains it very well, I insist, in human terms: for I by no means intend to deny (and how could good sense, however slightly informed, deny it?) the effect of evil that had corrupted everything.

Evil would have no effect at all on men if it involved them in an isolated error. This is not even possible, for error is nothing. If every previous idea was left out of account, and a man proposed to slaughter another in order to propitiate the gods, the only response would be to put him to death or lock him up as a madman. Thus it is always necessary to start from a truth to propagate an error. This is especially striking if one thinks about paganism which shines with truths, but all distorted and out of place in such a way that I entirely agree with that contemporary theosophist who said that idolatry was a putrefaction. If the subject is examined closely, it can be seen that, among the most foolish, indecent, and atrocious opinions, among the most monstrous practices and those most shameful to mankind, there is not one that we cannot deliver from evil (since we have been granted the knowledge now to ask for this favor), to show then the residue of truth, which is divine.

It was thus from the incontestable truths of the degradation of man and his original unity, from the necessity of reparation, from the transferability of merits and the substitution of expiatory sufferings that men were led to the dreadful error of human sufferings...

But we, who blanch with horror at the very idea of human sacrifices and cannibalism, how can we be at the same time so blind and ungrateful as not to recognize that we owe these feelings only to the law of love which watched over our cradle? Not long ago a famous nation, which had reached the peak of civilization and refinement, dared formally to suspend this law in a fit of madness of which history gives no other example: what happened? - in a flash, the mores of the Iroquois and the Algonquin; the holy laws of humanity crushed underfoot; innocent blood covering the scaffolds which covered France; men powdering and curling bloodstained heads; the very mouths of women stained with human blood.

Here is the natural man! It is not that he does not bear within him the indestructible seeds of truth and virtue: his birthrights are imprescriptible; but without divine nurture these seeds will never germinate or will yield only damaged and unwholesome fruits.

It is time to draw from the most undeniable historical facts a conclusion which is no less undeniable.
From four centuries' experience, we know that wherever the true God is not known and served by virtue of an explicit revelation, man will slaughter man and often eat him.

Lucretius, having told us of the sacrifice of Iphigenia (as a true story, that is understood, since he had need of it), exclaimed in a triumphant tone, How many evils can religion spawn!

Alas, he saw only the abuses, just like all his successors, who are much less excusable than he. He was unaware that the scourge of human sacrifice, however outrageous it was, was nothing compared to the evils produced by absolute godlessness. He was unaware or he did not wish to see that there is not and even cannot be an entirely false religion, that the religion of all civilized nations, such as it was in the age when he wrote, was no less the cement of the political structure, and that, by undermining it, Epicurean doctrines were about to undermine by the same stroke the old Roman constitution and substitute for it an atrocious and endless tyranny.

For us, happy possessors of the truth, let us not commit the crime of disregarding it...

Chapter III. The Christian Theory Of Sacrifices

What truth is not to be found in paganism?...

How then can we fail to recognize that paganism could not be mistaken about an idea so universal and fundamental as that of sacrifice, that is to say, of redemption by blood? Humanity could not guess at the amount of blood it needed. What man, left to himself, could suspect the immensity of the fall and the immensity of the restoring love? Yet every people, by admitting this fall more or less clearly, has admitted also the need and the nature of the remedy.

This has been the constant belief of all men. It has been modified in practice, according to the characteristics of peoples and religions, but the principle always remains the same. In particular, all nations are agreed on the wonderful effectiveness of the voluntary sacrifice of the innocent who dedicates himself to God like a propitiatory victim. Men have always attached a boundless value to the submission of the just to sufferings...

As has been said in the Dialogues, the idea of redemption is universal. At all times and in all places, men have believed that the innocent could atone for the guilty, but Christianity has corrected this idea as well as a thousand others which, even in their unreformed state, had in advance borne the clearest witness to it. Under the sway of this divine law, the just man (who never believes himself to be such) still tries to draw near to his model through suffering...


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Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Science and Civilization in Islam, (excerpt)

In the Name of God Most Merciful and Compassionate


The Principles of Islam

The history of science is often regarded today as the progressive accumulation of techniques and the refinement of quantitative methods in the study of Nature. Such a point of view considers the present conception of science to be the only valid one; it therefore judges the sciences of other civilizations in the light of modern science and evaluates them primarily with respect to their "development" with the passage of time. Our aim in this work, however, is not to examine the Islamic sciences from the point of view of modern science and of this "evolutionistic" conception of history; it is, on the contrary, to present certain aspects of the Islamic sciences as seen from the Islamic point of view.

To the Muslim, history is a series of accidents that in no way affect the nontemporal principles of Islam. He is more interested in knowing and "realizing" these principles than in cultivating originality and change as intrinsic virtues. The symbol of Islamic civilization is not a flowing river, but the cube of the Kaaba, the stability of which symbolizes the permanent and immutable character of Islam.

Once the spirit of the Islamic revelation had brought into being, out of the heritage of previous civilizations and through its own genius, the civilization whose manifestations may be called distinctly Islamic, the main interest turned away from change and "adaptation." The arts and sciences came to possess instead a stability and a "crystallization" based on the immutability of the principles from which they had issud forth; it is this stability that is too often mistaken in the West today for stagnation and sterility.

The arts and sciences in Islam are based on the idea of unity, which is the heart of the Muslim revelation. Just as all genuine Islamic art, whether it be the Alhambra or the Paris Mosque, provides the plastic forms through which one can contemplate the Divine Unity manifesting itself in multiplicity, so do all the sciences that can properly be called Islamic reveal the unity of Nature. One might say that the aim of all the Islamic sciences and, more generally speaking, of all the medieval and ancient cosmological sciences is to show the unity and interrelatedness of all that exists, so that, in contemplating the unity of the cosmos, man may be led to the unity of the Divine Principle, of which the unity of Nature is the image.
To understand the Islamic sciences in their essence, therefore, requires an understanding of some of the principles of Islam itself, even though these ideas may be difficult to express in modern terms and strange to readers accustomed to another way of thinking. Yet a statement of these principles is necessary here, insofar as they form the matrix within which the Islamic sciences have meaning, and outside of which any study of them would remain superficial and incomplete.

Islamic civilization as a whole is, like other traditional civilizations, based upon a point of view: the revelation brought by the Prophet Muhammad is the "pure" and simple religion of Adam and Abraham, the restoration of a primordial and fundamental unity. The very word islam means both "submission" and "peace" or "being at one with the Divine Will."

The creed of Islam "there is no divinity other than God and Muhammad is his prophet" summarizes in its simplicity the basic attitude and spirit of Islam. To grasp the essence of Islam, it is enough to recognize that God is one, and that the Prophet, who is the vehicle of revelation and the symbol of all creation, was sent by him. This simplicity of the Islamic revelation further implies a type of religious structure different in many ways from that of Christianity. There is no priesthood as such in Islam. Each Muslim being a "priest" is himself capable of fulfilling all the religious functions of his family and, if necessary, of his community; and the role of the imam, as understood in either Sunni or Shia Islam, does not in any way diminish the sacerdotal function of each believer. The orthodoxy based on this creed is intangible, and therefore not so closely bound to specific formulations of dogmatic theology as in Christianity. There have been, to be sure, sectional fanaticism and even persecution, carried on either by rulers or by exoteric theologians, against such figures as al Hallaj and Suhrawardl. Yet the larger orthodoxy, based on the essential doctrine of unity, has always prevailed and has been able to absorb within the structure of Islam all that is not contradictory to the Muslim creed.

In its universal sense, Islam may be said to have three levels of meaning. All beings in the universe, to begin with, are Muslim, i.e., "surrendered to the Divine Will." (A flower cannot help being a flower; a diamond cannot do other than sparkle. God has made them so; it is theirs to obey.) Secondly, all men who accept with their will the sacred law of the revelation are Muslim in that they surrender their will to that law. When 'Uqbah, the Muslim conqueror of North Africa, took leave of his family and mounted his horse for the great adventure which was to lead him through two thousand miles of conquest to the Moroccan shores of the Atlantic, he cried out: "And now, God, take my soul." We can hardly imagine Alexander the Great having such thoughts as he set out eastward to Persia. Yet, as conquerors, the two men were to achieve comparable feats; the "passivity" of 'Uqbah with respect to the Divine Will was to be transmuted into irresistible action in this world.

Finally, we have the level of pure knowledge and understanding. It is that of the contemplative, the gnostic ('arif), the level that has been recognized throughout Islamic history as the highest and most comprehensive. The gnostic is Muslim in that his whole being is surrendered to God; he has no separate individual existence of his own. He is like the birds and the flowers in his yielding to the Creator; like them, like all the other elements of the cosmos, he reflects the Divine Intellect to his own degree. He reflects it actively, however, they passively; his participation is a conscious one. Thus "knowledge" and "science" are defined as basically different frorn mere curiosity and even from analytical speculation. The gnostic is from this point of view "one with Nature"; he understands it "from the inside," he has become in fact the channel of grace for the universe. His islam and the islam of Nature are now counterparts.

The intellective function, so defined, may be difficult for Westerners to grasp. Were it not for the fact that most of the great scientists and mathematicians of Islam operated within this matrix, it might seem so far removed as to be irrelevant to this study. Yet, it is closer in fact to the Western tradition than most modern readers are likely to realize. It is certainly very close to the contemplative strain of the Christian Middle Ages a strain once more evoked in part, during the modern era, by the German school of Naturphilosophie and by the Romantics, who strove for "communion" with Nature. Let us not be misled by words, however. The opening of the Romantic's soul to Nature even Keats's "negative capability" of receiving its imprint is far more a matter of sentiment (or, as they loved to call it then, "sensibility") than of true contemplation, for the truly contemplative attitude is based on "intellection."

We should be mindful here of the changing usage of words. "Intellect" and "intellectual" are so closely identified today with the analytical functions of the mind that they hardly bear any longer any relation to the contemplative. The attitude these words imply toward Nature is the one that Goethe was to deplore as late as the early nineteenth century that attitude that resolves, conquers, and dominates by force of concepts. It is, in short, essentially abstract, while contemplative knowledge is at bottom concrete. We shall thus have to say, by way of reestablishing the old distinction, that the gnostic's relation to Nature is "intellective," which is neither abstract, nor analytical, nor merely sentimental.

Viewed as a text, Nature is a fabric of symbols, which must be read according to their meaning. The Quran is the counterpart of that text in human words; its verses are called ayat ("signs"), just as are the phenomena of Nature. Both Nature and the Quran speak forth the presence and the words of God: We shall show them Our portents on the horizon and within themselves until it will be manifest unto them that it is the Truth (41, 53).

To the doctors of the Law, this text is merely prescriptive, Nature being present in their minds only as the necessary setting for men's actions. To the gnostic or Sufi, on the other hand, the Quranic text is also symbolic, just as all of Nature is symbolic. If the tradition of the symbolic interpretation of the text of the Sacred Book were to disappear, and the text thereby reduced to its literal meaning, man might still know his duty, but the "cosmic text" would become unintelligible. The phenomena of Nature would lose any connection with the higher orders of reality, as well as among themselves; they would become mere "facts." This is precisely what the intellective capacity and, indeed, Islamic culture as a whole will not accept. The spirit of Islam emphasizes, by contrast, the unity of Nature, that unity that is the aim of the cosmological sciences, and that is adumbrated and prefigured in the continuous interlacing of arabesques uniting the profusion of plant life with the geometric crystals of the verses of the Quran.

Thus we see that the idea of unity is not only the basic presupposition of the Islamic arts and sciences: it dominates their expression as well. The portrayal of any individual object would become a "graven image," a dangerous idol of the mind, the very canon of art in Islam is abstraction. Unity itself is alone deserving of representation; since it is not to be represented directly, however, it can only be symbolized and at that, only by hints. There is no concrete symbol to stand for unity, however; its true expression is negation, not this, not that. Hence, it remains abstract from the point of view of man, who lives in multiplicity.

Thus we come to the central issue. Can our minds grasp the individual object as it stands by itself? or can we do so only by understanding the individual object within the context of the universe? In other words, from the cosmological point of view, is the universe the unity, and the individual event or object a sign (''phenomenon,'' "appearance") of ambiguous and uncertain import? Or is it the other way around? Of these alternatives, which go back to the time of Plato, the Muslim is bound to accept the first -- he gives priority to the universe as the one concrete reality, which symbolizes on the cosmic level the Divine Principle itself, although that cannot truly be envisaged in terms of anything else. This is, to be sure, an ancient choice, but Islam does inherit many of its theories from preexisting traditions, the truths of which it seeks to affirm rather than to deny. What it brings to them, as we have already said, is that strong unitary point of view that, along with a passionate dedication to the Divine Will, enabled Islam to rekindle the flame of science that had been extinguished at Athens and in Alexandria.

We have seen that the sacred art of Islam is an abstract art, combining flexibility of line with emphasis on the archetype, and on the use of regular geometrical figures interlaced with one another. Herein one can already see why mathematics was to make such a strong appeal to the Muslim: its abstract nature furnished the bridge that Muslims were seeking between multiplicity and unity. It provided a fitting texture of symbols for the universe -- symbols that were like keys to open the cosmic text.

We should distinguish at once between the two types of mathematics practiced by Muslims: one was the science of algebra, which was always related to geometry and trigonometry; the other was the science of numbers, as understood in the Pythagorean sense. The Pythagorean number has a symbolic as well as a quantitative aspect; it is a projection of Unity, which, however, never leaves its source. Each number has an inherent power of analysis, arising out of its quantitative nature; it has also the power of synthesis because of the inner bond that connects all other numbers to the unit. The Pythagorean number thus has a "personality": it is like a Jacob's ladder, connecting the quantitative with the qualitative domain by virtue of its own inner polarization. To study numbers thus means to contemplate them as symbols and to be led thereby to the intelligible world. So also with the other branches of mathematics. Even where the symbolic aspect is not explicitly stated, the connection with geometric forms has the effect upon the mind of freeing it from dependence upon mere physical appearance, and in that way preparing it for its journey into the intelligible world and, ultimately, to Unity.

Gnosis in the Alexandrian world had used, as the vehicle for the expression of its doctrines, a bewildering maze of mythology. In Islam, the intellective symbolism often becomes mathematical, while the direct experience of the mystic is expressed in such powerful poetry as that of Jalal al-Din Rumi. The instrument of gnosis is always, however, the intellect; reason is its passive aspect and its reflection in the human domain. The link between intellect and reason is never broken, except in the individual ventures of a handful of thinkers, among whom there are few that could properly be called scientists. The intellect remains the principle of reason; and the exercise of reason, if it is healthy and normal should naturally lead to the intellect. That is why Muslim metaphysicians say that rational knowledge leads naturally to the affirmation of the Divine Unity. Although the spiritual realities are not merely rational, neither are they irrational Reason, considered in its ultimate rather than its immediate aspect, can bring man to the gateway of the intelligible world rational knowledge can in the same fashion be integrated into gnosis, even though it is discursive and partial while gnosis is total and intuitive. It is because of this essential relationship of subordination and hierarchy between reason and intellect rational knowledge and gnosis, that the quest for causal explanation in Islam only rarely sought to, and never actually managed to, satisfy itself outside the faith, as was to happen in Christianity at the end of the Middle Ages.

This hierarchy is also based on the belief that scientia -- human knowledge -- is to be regarded as legitimate and noble only so long as it is subordinated to sapientia -- Divine wisdom. Muslim sages would agree with Saint Bonaventure's "Believe, in order to understand." Like him, they insist that scientia can truly exist only in conjunction with sapientia, and that reason is a noble faculty only insofar as it leads to intellection, rather than when it seeks to establish its independence of its own principle, or tries to encompass the Infinite within some finite system. There are in Islamic history one or two instances when rationalist groups did attempt to establish their independence of and opposition to the gnostics, and also to set themselves against other orthodox interpreters of the Islamic revelation. The spiritual forces of Islam were always strong enough, however, to preserve the hierarchy between intellect and reason, and thus to prevent the establishment of a rationalism independent of the revelation. The famous treatises of al-Ghazzali, in the fifth/eleventh century, against the rationalistic philosophers of his time mark the final triumph of intellection over independent ratiocination a triumph that did not utterly destroy rationalistic philosophy, but did make it subordinate to gnosis. As a result of this defeat by al-Ghazzali and similar figures of the syllogistic and systematic Aristotelian philosophy in the fifth/eleventh century, the Islamic gnostic tradition has been able to survive and to remain vital down to the present day, instead of being stifled, as elsewhere, in an overly rationalistic atmosphere.

The reaction against the rationalists, of which the writings of al-Ghazzali mark the high point, coincides roughly in time with the spread of Aristotelianism in the West, which led ultimately to a series of actions and reactions: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Counter-Reformation such as never occurred in the Islamic world. In the West, these movements led to new types of philosophy and science such as characterize the Western world today, that are as profoundly different from their medieval antecedents as is the mental and spiritual horizon of modern man from that of traditional man. Europe in that period began to develop a science of Nature that concerns itself only with the quantitative and material aspects of things, meanwhile, the tide of Islamic thought was flowing back, as before, into its traditional bed, to that conceptual coherence that comprises the mathematical sciences.

Today, as in the past, the traditional Muslim looks upon all of science as "sacred," and studies this sacred science in a well-established threefold articulation. First, within the reach of all, is the Law, contained in essence in the Quran, elucidated by tradition and jurisprudence, and taught by the doctors; it covers every aspect of the social and religious life of the believer. Beyond that lies the Path dealing with the inner aspect of things, which governs the spiritual life of those who have been "elected" to follow it. This has given rise to the various Sufi brotherhoods, since it is actually a way of life built upon communication at a personal, nonsystematic level. Finally, there is the ineffable Truth itself, which lies at the heart of both these approaches.

According to a still-current simile, the Law is as the circumference of a circle, of which the Path is the radius, and the Truth the center. The Path and the Truth together form the esoteric aspect of Islam, to which Sufism is dedicated. At its core lies a metaphysical intuition, knowledge such as comes only to the right "mode in the knower." From this spring a science of the universe, a science of the soul, and the science of mathematics, each of them in essence a different metaphorical setting for that one science that the mind strives after, each of them a part of that gnosis that comprehends all things.

This may help explain why the mathematician, who was something of a displaced person in the West right up to the late Middle Ages, plays a central role in Islam from the very start. Two centuries after the establishment in the Near East of Christianity (in A.D. 313), the Christian-dominated West was still sunk deep in barbarism. Yet two centuries after Muhammad, the Islamic world under the Caliph Harun al Rashid was already far more active culturally than the contemporaneous world of Charlemagne even with the latter's earlier start. What reached the West from Islam at that time was little more than dark tales of incredible wealth and wondrous magic. In Islam itself, however, the mathematician's craft, having "found its home," was already able to satisfy the civilized man's desire for logical subtlety and for intellectual games, while philosophy itself reached out into the mysteries beyond reason.

This early stabilization of the theoretical outlook of Islam extended also to the type of man who embodied it. Whereas the role of intellectual leadership in the West devolved upon several different figures in turn the Benedictine monk, the scholastic doctor, the lay scientist, the central figure in Islam has remained almost unchanging. He is the haklm, who encompasses within himself some or all of the several aspects of the sage; scholar, medical healer, spiritual guide. If he happens to be a wise merchant too, that also falls into the picture, for he is traditionally an itinerant person. If his achievements in mathematics are extraordinary, he may become a figure like 'Umar Khayyam. It is clear, moreover, that such a man be his name even Avicenna will never be able to develop each of his several attainments in the same fashion as the single-faceted specialist may. Such specialists do exist in Islam, but they remain mostly secondary figures. The sage does not let himself be drawn into the specialist's single-level "mode of knowing," for then he would forfeit the higher knowledge. Intellectual achievement is thus, in a sense, always patterned upon the model of the unattainable complete, that "total thing" that is not found in the Greek tradition. Ptolemy's Syntaxis becomes in the Muslim world the Almagest or Opus Maximumeven as Aristotle is purely and simply al-failasuf (the philosopher).

The title of Avicenna's great treatise, Kitab al-Shifa, which rivals in scope the Aristotelian corpus, means The Book of Healing. As the title implies the work contains the knowledge needed to cure the soul of the disease of ignorance. It is all that is needed for man to understand; it is also as much as any man need know. Newton's work Principia has an obviously far different ring: it means a foundation essentially, a "beginning" rather than a knowledge that is complete and sufficient for man's intellectual needs as the titles of so many medieval Islamic texts imply.

Islam came into the world at the beginning of the seventh century A.D., its initial date (the journey of the Prophet from Mecca to Medina) being 622 A.D.; it had spread over all of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain, by the end of that same century. Just as the Islamic religion is one of the "middle way," so too did its territory come to occupyin fact, it still occupies the "middle belt" of the globe, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In this region, the home of many earlier civilizations, Islam came into contact with a number of sciences which it absorbed, to the extent that these sciences were compatible with its own spirit and were able to provide nourishment for its own characteristic cultural life.

The primordial character of its revelation, and its confidence that it was expressing the Truth at the heart of all revelations, permitted Islam to absorb ideas from many sources, historically alien yet inwardly related to it. This was especially true in regard to the sciences of Nature, because most of the ancient cosmological sciences -- Greek, as well as Chaldean, Persian, Indian, and Chinese -- had sought to express the unity of Nature and were therefore in conformity with the spirit of Islam. Coming into contact with them, the Muslims adopted some elements from each most extensively, perhaps, from the Greeks, but also from the Chaldeans, Indians, Persians, and perhaps, in the case of alchemy, even from the Chinese. They united these sciences into a new corpus, which was to grow over the centuries and become part of the Islamic civilization, integrated into the basic structure derived from the Revelation itself.

The lands destined to become parts of the medieval Islamic world -- from Transoxiana to Andalusia -- were consolidated into a new spiritual universe within a single century after the death of the Prophet. The revelation contained in the Quran, and expressed in the sacred language (Arabic), provided the unifying pattern into which many foreign elements became integrated and absorbed, in accordance with the universal spirit of Islam. In the sciences, especially those dealing with Nature, the most important source was the heritage of Greek civilization.

Alexandria, by the first century B.C., had become the center of Greek science and philosophy, as well as the meeting place of Hellenism with Oriental and ancient Egyptian influences, out of which came Hermeticism and Neoplatonism. The Greek heritage, itself to a great extent an assemblage of ancient Mediterranean views, systematized and put into dialectical form by the peculiar discursive power of the Greeks passed from Alexandria to Antioch, and from there to Nisibis and Edessa, by way of the Christian Monophysites and Nestorians. The latter were particularly instrumental in the spreading of Greek learning, chiefly in Syriac translation, to lands as far east as Persia.

In the third century A.D., Shapur I founded Jundishapur at the site of an ancient city near the present Persian city of Ahwaz, as a prisoner-of-war camp, for soldiers captured in the war with Valerian. This camp gradually grew into a metropolis, which became a center of ancient sciences, studied in Greek and Sanskrit and later in Syriac. A school was set up, on the model of those at Alexandria and Antioch, in which medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and logic were taught, mostly from Greek texts translated into Syriac, but also elements of the Indian and Persian sciences were included. This school, which lasted long after the establishment of the Abbasid caliphate, became an important source of ancient learning in the Islamic world.

Aside from those more obvious avenues, there were also lines of communication with more esoteric aspects of the Greek sciences, particularly the Pythagorean school, through the community of Sabaeans of Harran. This religious community traced its origin to the Prophet Idns (the Enoch of the Old Testament), who is also regarded in the Islamic world as the founder of the sciences of the heavens and of philosophy, and who is identified by some with Hermes Trismegistus. The Sabaeans possessed a remarkable knowledge of astronomy, astrology, and mathematics; their doctrines were in many respects similar to those of the Pythagoreans. It was probably they who provided the link between the Hermetic Tradition and certain aspects of the Islamic esoteric doctrines, into which some elements of Hermeticism were integrated.

On the Oriental side the Indian and, to a lesser degree, the Persian sciences came to have an important bearing upon the growth of the sciences in Islam, a bearing far greater than is usually recognized. In zoology, anthropology, and certain aspects of alchemy, as well as, of course, in mathematics and astronomy, the tradition of Indian and Persian sciences was dominant, as can be seen in the Epistles (Rasail) of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwan al-Safa') and the translations of Ibn Muqaffa'. It must be remembered that the words "magic" and Magi are related, and that, according to the legend, the Jews learned alchemy and the science of numbers from the Magi, while in captivity in Babylon.

There are most likely elements of Chinese science in Islam, especially in alchemy, pointing to some early contact between the Muslims and Chinese science. Some have even gone so far as to claim without much proof, to be sure -- that the word al-klmiya' from which "alchemy" is derived, is itself an arabization of the classical Chinese word Chin-l which in some dialects is Kim-Ia and means "the gold-making juice." The most important influence from China, however, was to come in later centuries, particularly after the Mongol invasion, and then primarily in the arts and technology.

The totality of the arts and sciences in Islam thus consisted of a synthesis of the ancient sciences of the Mediterranean people, as incorporated and developed by the Greeks, along with certain Oriental elements. The dominant part of this heritage was definitely Graeco-Hellenistic, in translations either from Syriac or from the Greek itself, by such masters of translation as Hunain ibn Ishaq, and Thabit ibn Qurrah. There were numerous translations of Greek authors into Arabic in nearly every domain of knowledge. The ideas and points of views contained in these translations formed a large part of the nutriment which Islam sampled and then assimilated according to its own inner constitution, and the foundation given to it by tke Quranic revelation. In this way there developed, in conjunction with the three basic "dimensions" of the Law, the Path, and the Truth, Islamic schools which were to become an accepted part of Islamic civilization.

With respect to Greek learning itself, Muslims came to distinguish between two different schools, each possessing a distinct type of science: one, the Hermetic-Pythagorean school, was metaphysical in its approach, its sciences of Nature depending upon the symbolic interpretation of phenomena and of mathematics; in the other, the syllogistic-rationalistic school of the followers of Aristotle, the point of view was philosophical rather than metaphysical, and its sciences were therefore aimed at finding the place of things in a rational system, rather than at seeing, through their appearances, their heavenly essences. The first school was regarded as the continuation, in Greek civilization, of the wisdom of the ancient prophets, especially Solomon and Idris; it was therefore considered to be based on divine rather than human knowledge The second school was looked upon, for the most part, as reflecting the best effort the human mind could make to arrive at the truth, an effort of necessity limited by the finite nature of human reason. The first school was to become an integral part of Islam, certain of its cosmological sciences being integrated into some of the branches of Sufism. The second school did have many disciples in the earlier centuries and thus left an influence upon the language of Muslim theology after the seventh/thirteenth century, it lost ground, however and, despite its continuation up to the present day, it has remained a secondary aspect of Islamic intellectual life.

The various levels of reference existing hierarchically within the structure of Islam are presented concisely by a sage who lived in the fifth/eleventh century, and who is probably the one Oriental figure most familiar to the modern Western public: 'Umar Khayyam, extraordinary mathematician and poet. That he should be regarded in the Western world, on the strength of his famous quatrains as a skeptical hedonist is itself a sign of the profound lack of understanding between the two worlds; for he was in reality a sage and a gnostic of high standing. What appears to be lack of concern or agnosticism in his poetry is merely an accepted form of expression, within which he incorporated both the drastic remedy that the gnostic applies to religious hypocrisy, and also the reestablishment of contact with reality. (Late Greeks, such as Aenesidemus, had had recourse to the same skeptical device, and with similar intentions.) In the following passage from a metaphysical treatise, Khayyam divides the seekers after knowledge into four categories:

(1) The theologians, who become content with disputation and "satisfying" proofs, and consider this much knowledge of the Creator (excellent is His Name) as sufflcient.

(2) The philosophers and learned men [of Greek inspiration] who use rational arguments and seek to know the laws of logic, and are never content merely with "satisfying" arguments. But they too cannot remain faithful to the conditions of logic, and become helpless with it.

(3) The Ismailis [a branch of Shia Islam] and others who say that the way of knowledge is none other than receiving information from a learned and credible informant; for, in reasoning about the knowledge of the Creator, His Essence and Attributes, there is much difficulty; the reasoning power of the opponents and the intelligent [of those who struggle against the final authority of the revelation, and of those who fully accept it] is stupefied and helpless before it. Therefore, they say, it is better to seek knowledge from the words of a sincere person.

(4) The Sufis, who do not seek knowledge by meditation or discursive thinking, but by purgation of their inner being and the purifying of their dispositions. They cleanse the rational soul of the impurities of nature and bodily form, until it becomes pure substance. It then comes face to face with the spiritual world, so that the forms of that world become truly reflected in it, without doubt or ambiguity.

This is the best of all ways, because none of the perfections of God are kept away from it, and there are no obstacles or veils put before it. Therefore, whatever [ignorance] comes to man is due to the impurity of his nature; if the veil be lifted and the screen and obstacle removed, the truth of things as they are will become manifest. And the Master [the Prophet Muhammad] -- upon whom be peace -- indicated this when he said: "Truly, during the days of your existence, inspirations come from God. Do you not want to follow them?" Tell unto reasoners that, for the lovers of God [gnostics] intuition is guide, not discursive thought.

Here we have, stated authoritatively, the central perspective of Islamic thought, in which the component parts fall naturally into place. Each one is a different mode of knowing. It is puzzling at first sight to find nowhere in it the mathematicians, of whom Khayyam himself was such an eminent example. Notice, however, that the Ismailis correspond quite closely with what in the early Pythagorean school had been the Akusmatikoi, "those who go by what is told them." It should be noticed, also, that the Pythagorean Mathematikoi, the "expounders of the doctrine," will be found both among the philosophers and again among the Sufis, since systematic theory remains helpless without spiritual achievement, which is precisely what mathematics is intended to lead to, by contrast with syllogistic hair-splitting. This is clearly revealed in later sections of the same work in which Khayyam describes himself as both an orthodox Pythagorean and a Sufi.

Here, too, we see the significant contrast with the Greek world. For the Pythagorean doctrines alluded to had become practically extinct there by the time of Aristotle, and were to be taken up again, and at that only after a fashion, in the Hellenistic revival; in Islam, we see them stabilized and restored almost according to their original pattern through the unitary religious idea. Islam was thus able to hand on to the West, to the extent that the latter accepted the Pythagorean tradition, something more coherent, as well as technically more advanced, than the West's own immediate heritage from antiquity.

There are other lines to be found in Khayyam's spectrum. The "atomistic" school of thought which flourished in Islam after the fourth/tenth century, and which in the Western pespective might be supposed to be scientific, he regards as not belonging to science at all, but to theology, for the Ash'arites who represented this school were exactly the sort of " theologians" he described. In the writings of the followers of this school, especially al-Baqillam, who may be considered their outstanding "philosopher of Nature," the continuity of external forms is broken by an "atomistic" doctrine of time and space, and by the denial of the Aristotelian notion of causality. For the Ash'arites (as also for the Sufis), the world is annihilated and recreated at every moment; the cause of all events is the Creator and not a finite, created agent. A stone falls because God makes it fall, not because of the nature of the stone or because it is impelled by an external force. What appears as "Laws of Nature," i.e., the uniformity of sequence of cause and effect, is only a matter of habit, determined by the will of God and given the status of "law" by Him. Miracles, which seem to break the apparent uniformity of natural phenomena, are simply going against the "habit" of Nature; the Arabic word for a supernatural event means literally that which results from "rupture of habit." We are facing here a strict "consequentiality," which has its parallel in Western thought of the seventeenth century. From Descartes to the Occasionalists, the development presents curious similarities.

In the second grouping on Khayyam's list, the "philosophers and learned men," we would find assembled all the famous names of Islamic science. There is a sharp distinction, however, between two schools of "philosophical" thought, both of which profess to be disciples of the Greeks. The first is the Peripatetic school, whose doctrines are a combination of the ideas of Aristotle and of some Neoplatonists. The representative of this school who was closest to Aristotle was Averroes who, paradoxically, had less effect upon the Islamic than upon the Christian world, and should be studied more as a great member of the tradition of Western philosophy than as an integral part of Islamic intellectual life.

The science of Nature cultivated by the Peripatetic school is primarily syllogistic: it seeks to determine the place of each being, in a vast system based upon the philosophy of Aristotle. The best expression of the doctrines of this school appears in Avicenna's early writings. The Book of Healing is the most comprehensive encyclopedia of knowledge ever written by one person, and undoubtedly the most influential Peripatetic work in Islam.The other Islamic school professing to follow the Greeks was much more sympathetic to the Pythagorean-Platonic than to the Aristotelian tradition. This school, which in later centuries came to be called the Illuminatist (ishraqi) school, asserts that it derives its doctrines not only from the Pythagoreans and their followers, but from the ancient Prophets, the Hermetic Tradition, and even from the ancient Zoroastrian sages. The symbolic works of Avicenna, such as Living Son of the Awake (Hayy ibn Yaqzan) are early expressions of the writings of this school. The greatest Illuminatist philosopher, however, is Suhrawardi, who drew his symbolism from all the many sources mentioned above. The sciences of Nature, as well as the mathematics cultivated by certain adherents of this school, are primarily symbolic, and resemble to a great extent the writings of some Neoplatonists. Nature becomes for the writers of this school a cosmic crypt from whose confines they must seek to escape and on their journey through it, they see in its phenomena "signs," which guide them on the road toward final "illumination." Many Illuminatists, particularly those of later centuries, have also been Sufis, who have made use of the eminently initiatic language of the Illuminatist philosophers to describe the journey of the Sufi toward gnosis. Many members of this school, and in general the learned men whom Khayyam mentions, have also been among the group that have cultivated mathematics, astronomy, and medicine; for these learned men took an interest in all the arts and sciences, and helped to keep alive the traditions of learning in those fields, as an integral part of their studies in philosophy.

The Peripatetics were very strong during the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries, but their influence weakened during the succeeding period. The Illuminatists, on the other hand, became strong after the sixth/twelfth century and al-Ghazzah's triumph. They have had a continuous tradition down to the present day, chiefly because of the metaphysical (as against rationalistic) emphasis in their doctrines, and also because of the use of their language by certain Sufi masters. One of the greatest exponents of Illuminatist doctrines, as interpreted and modified by the Safavid sage Mulla Sadra, was Hajil Mulla Hadi Sabziwari who died in Persia less than a century ago.

The Ismailis, to whom Khayyam next refers, are a branch of Shia Islam, which was very powerful in his time, and also played a considerable role in the cultivation of the arts and sciences. Ismaili doctrines are fundamentally esoteric, being based on numerical symbolism and the symbolic interpretation of the "cosmic text." The symbolic interpretation of the Quran, which is basic in Shia Islam as well as in Sufism, was made the basis for the symbolic study of Nature. Moreover, such sciences as alchemy and astrology became integrated into their doctrines, and such texts as the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity, and the numerous writings of Jabir ibn Hayyan, the alchemist, were to have their greatest influence upon this group. The development of what has been called "Oriental neo-Pythagoreanism" is found most clearly in the treatises of the Ismailis. They were very much interested in the sciences of Nature; in integrating the rhythms and cycles of Nature with the cycles of history and with the manifestations of various prophets and imams, their works rank among the most important Islamic writings on Nature.

Khayyam mentions, finally, the Sufis or gnostics, the group to which he himself belonged. It may seem surprising that a man so well versed in the arts and sciences of his day should consider the "way of purification" of the Sufis as the best way of acquiring knowledge. His language in this regard, however, is not merely theoretical, it is almost operational: one cleanses and focuses the instrument of perception, i.e., the soul, so that it may see the realities of the spiritual world. Aristotle himself, the great rationalist, had once said that "knowledge is according to the mode of the knower." The gnostic, in employing the "right" mode of knowledge ensures that Intellection takes place in him immediately and intuitively. In this regard, Khayyam's statement becomes clearer when seen in the light of a doctrine that we shall discuss later: the doctrine of the universal man, who is not only the final goal of the spiritual life, but also the archetype of the universe.

To the extent that the gnostic is able to purify himself of his individualistic and particular nature, and thus to identify himself with the universal man within him, to that same extent does he also gain knowledge of the principles of the cosmos, as well as of the Divine realities. For the gnostic, knowledge of Nature is secondary to knowledge of the Divine Principle; yet, because of the rapport between the gnostic and the universe, Nature does play a positive role in guiding him to his ultimate goal. The phenomena of Nature become "transparent" for the gnostic, so that in each event he "sees" the archetype. The symbols of substances -- geometric forms and numerical quantities, colors, and directions -- these and many other such symbols are aspects of the being of things. They increase in their reality -- a reality independent of personal taste or of the individual -- to the extent that the gnostic divorces himself from his individual perspective and limited existence, and identifies himself with Being. For the gnostic, the knowledge of anything in the universe means ultimately knowledge of the relationship between the essence of that particular being and the Divine Intellect, and the knowledge of the ontological relationship between that being and Being itself.

Kayyam's classification did not take into consideration certain writers of great importance, who did not follow any particular school. There are also many Islamic writers, hakims, including Khayyam himself, who possessed a knowledge of several disciplines, and in whom two or more levels of his hierarchy of knowledge may be found. Some of the most outstanding of these men will be discussed in the next chapter.

As much as the hierarchy of knowledge in Islam, as it has existed historically, has been united by a metaphysical bond much as a vertical axis unites horizontal planes of reference the integration of these diverse views "from above" has been possible. Historically, of course, there have been many conflicts, sometimes disputes leading to violence and occasionally to the death of a writer. Such conflicts are not, however, as elsewhere, between incompatible orthodoxies. They are regarded by most Islamic commentators as due to the lack of a more universal point of view on the part of those who have only embraced a less universal one. Only the gnostic, who sees all things "as they really are," is able to integrate all these views into their principial unity.

Regarded from their own point of view, each of these schools may be said to possess a certain "philosophy of Nature, and, in conformity with it, to cultivate the sciences dealing with the universe. Some of their writings, primarily those of the Peripatetics, were to be translated into Latin to help form that Western scholasticism which was later to give way to seventeenth-century "natural philosophy." Other writings, such as those of the alchemists, were to flourish in the Western world for several centuries, only to wither away in its atmosphere of rationalistic philosophy. There were still other works, especially those of the Sufis and Illuminatists, which were to have an influence on certain Western circles such as that of Dante, and yet for the most part to remain almost unknown in the Western world, down to comparatively recent times.

In this brief introduction, it has been necessary to cover much ground that is unfamiliar and often quite difficult for a Western reader to grasp. But we felt that we had to dispel the common conception of the Muslims as merely Puritan warriors and merchants, whose strange bent for the "subtleties" of algebra and logic somehow also enabled them to become the transmitters of Greek learning to the West. As against that all too current notion, we have tried to present a brief picture of a culture whose spiritual values are inextricably tied up with mathematics and with metaphysics of a high order, and which once again fused the constituent elements of Greek science into a powerful unitary conception, which had an essential influence on the Western world up to the time of the Renaissance.

Strangely enough, it is this latter conception, half unknown at best, and then quickly forgotten in the West, which has remained, up to the present Western impact upon the Islamic world, the major factor in the Islamic perspective determining its attitude toward Nature and the meaning it gives to the sciences of Nature; conversely, it is those very elements of the Islamic sciences, most responsible for providing the tools with which the West began the study of the already secularized Nature of the seventeenth century, that became secondary in the Islamic world itself and had already ceased to occupy the main intellectual efforts of that civilization by the ninth/ fifteenth century.

The Western world has since concentrated its intellectual energies upon the study of the quantitative aspects of things, thus developing a science of Nature, whose all too obvious fruits in the physical domain have won for it the greatest esteem among people everywhere, for most of whom "science" is identified with technology and its applications. Islamic science, by contrast, seeks ultimately to attain such knowledge as will contribute toward the spiritual perfection and deliverance of anyone capable of studying it; thus its fruits are inward and hidden, its values more difficult to discern. To understand it requires placing oneself within its perspective and accepting as legitimate a science of Nature which has a different end, and uses different means, from those of modern science. If it is unjust to identify Western science solely with its material results, it is even more unjust to judge medieval science by its outward "usefulness" alone. However important its uses may have been in calendarial work, in irrigation, in architecture, its ultimate aim has always been to relate the corporeal world to its basic spiritual principle, through the knowledge of those symbols which unite the various orders of reality. It can only be understood, and should only be judged, in terms of its own aims and its own perspectives.


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Radu Iliescu, Profetul Muhammad, avatar al divinitatii, (text integral)

Sunt de acord cu faptul cã Profetul Muhammad este foarte greu de înteles pentru un european, fie el si crestin dedat în ale teologiei (darãmite un modern). Majoritatea constatã acest lucru, si, fie cã se limiteazã la a-l compara pe Iisus cu Muhammad, fie pur si simplu nu pricep si sunt atât de mândri de nepriceperea lor cã nu fac nici un efort s-o depãseascã, dar în ambele situatii se situeazã de la început la sfãrsit în afara problemei.

Am spus cã pentru un crestin (cum sã zic… practicant si studios, nu sociologic, nu mã intereseazã ciorile vopsite) figura profetului Muhammad este dificil de înteles pornind de la comparatia cu Iisus Christos. Si asta, din pãcate, pentru cã nici întelegerea acestuia din urmã nu este facilã, o fi el o figurã familiarã, dar din nefericire i se asociazã de ceva sute de ani o anumitã exegezã nefastã. Pornind în bunã mãsurã de la protestanti, la care se adaugã o anume flescãire a clerului catolic/ortodox, Iisus este din ce în ce mai mult vãzut ca un adolescent cool si destul de high, care mergea în gascã cu apostolii ca sã le spunã oamenilor sã fie si ei cool si s-o lase mai moale cu pãcatele, ba mai si stãtea la masã cu parasutele si valutistii, pentru cã, de ce nu? astia erau deja cool si dezinvolti, nu mai era nevoie de nici o schimbare în ceea ce-i priveste. Doar cã în final tipul ãsta haios a fost martirizat de niste adulti care calculau pervers evenimentele, un fel de inchizitori avant la lettre, care nu erau suficient de lejeri ca sã sesizeze faptul cã un tip atât de misto era neapãrat divin în felul lui. Drept care “bunul Dumnezeu” (alta erezie de largã circulatie!) l-a fãcut pe hippiotul nãzdrãvan cel mai cool tip din partea asta de galaxie, iar celor care l-au rãstignit le-a dat eternele griji ale Hollywoodului si ale Bãncii Mondiale.

Sã abandonãm acest umor prostesc pentru a aborda doctrina avatarurilor din hinduism, care contine reperele necesare în aceastã problemã particularã. Recurgem la acest lucru pentru cã orice eveniment trebuie introdus în clasa din care face parte, si, oricat de mult ne place sã credem cã suntem unici, crestinocentristi, Dumnezeu a avut milã de toate neamurile si a trimis mesageri tuturor. Cea mai simplã definitie a notiunii de avâtara este aceea de “coborâre” a lui Dumnezeu pe pãmânt, a întrupãrii Fiintei în planul imediat mundan, a încarnãrii. Între un avatâra si Dumnezeu relatia nu este nici de concurentã, nici de identitate absolutã (Dumnezeu singur fiind Absolut, si nimeni sau nimic altceva), nici de dualism: este relatia dintre picãturã (cantitate precisã, localizabilã) si apã (substantã). Cam asta vizau si aceia dintre Sfintii Pãrinti care spuneau cã Hristos este Dumnezeu, dar Dumnezeu nu este Hristos. Acesta din urmã trebuie vãzut din douã unghiuri, întâi cel al fiului lui Iosif si al Mariei, tâmplar din Nazareth nãscut în Bethleem, asa cum l-au cunoscut toti cei din vremea lui [cei ce au stiut de nasterea din fecioara au fost totusi destul de putini]; apoi ca Verb increat coborât printre oameni. Natura lui dualã nu trebuie niciodatã scãpatã din vedere: dacã Iisus n-ar fi fost om, nu s-ar fi rugat în grãdina Ghetsimani pentru schimbarea rãstignirii; dacã nu ar fi fost concomitent divin n-ar fi putut spune ce a spus. Cei ce au vãzut în el doar tâmplarul din Nazareth i-au respins mesajul, cei care dimpotrivã au vãzut în el doar natura divinã au ajuns la erezii sinistre, care negau de exemplu suferinta fizicã de pe cruce (pentru cã e absurd sã ne imaginãm cã Dumnezeu cel necuprins ar putea încãpea într-un corp omenesc, la fel cum e de neconceput ca Dumnezeu sã îndure vreo durere sau suferintã oarecare).

Acestea fiind zise, e bune de stiut si faptul, prea usor uitat de teologii ultimei ore, cã toate atributele divine pot fi împãrtite în douã grupe aparent distincte. Prima cuprinde tot ce tine de Maiestatea lui Dumnezeu (“jalâl” în araba), a doua tine de Frumusetea Sa (“jamâl”). Maiestatea cuprinde aspectele de rigoare, severitate, justitie, în timp ce Frumusetea sintetizeazã mila, generozitatea, compasiunea si alte calitãti analoge. Aceste calitãti nu sunt absolute, pentru cã nimic nu face concurentã Absolutului, astfel mila este limitatã de justitie, rigoarea de generozitate, severitatea de compasiune - si reciproc. Dumnezeu fiind în afara oricãror excese, calitãtile lui alcãtuiesc un echilibru perfect. Aceastã idee se regãseste în toate religiile, de exemplu în hinduism Shiva (cel ce distruge) si Vishnu (cel ce clãdeste) sunt cele douã aspecte ale lui Atman (trebuie ca cineva sã fie orientalist european de trei parale ca sã-si imagineze cã e vorba de zei diferiti, sau chiar de “zei” antropomorfizati în maniera greco-latinã).

Având deci în vedere cã Dumnezeu are deci douã aspecte, unul riguros si altul compasional, e normal ca si avatarurile sale sã fie asemenea lui, înzestrate cu douã fetze aparent opuse (si asta explicã de ce Iisus este înfãtisat în unele icoane timpurii cu douã fetze, asemeni lui Ianus Bifronus). Numai cã, Absolutul fiind unic asa cum si Dumnezeu este unic, avatarurile sale nu-l recompun în aceeasi mãsurã perfectã (dacã acest lucru ar fi cu putintã, atunci într-adevãr multiplicitatea divinului ar fi posibilã si nu am mai putea vorbi de un singur Dumnezeu). Si nu e vorba nici de neputintã aici, nici de rea-vointã, ci de contactul pe care Fiinta îl are cu manifestarea. Aceasta din urmã fiind polimorfã si relativã, “coborârea” divinului trebuie sã îmbrace hainele unei comune mãsuri, altfel întâlnirea nu s-ar produce sub nici o formã. Paradoxul relatiei noastre cu Dumnezeu e cã ne aflãm enorm de departe si incredibil de aproape. Din aceastã cauzã si avatarurile îmbracã haine paradoxale, asemeni tâmplarului Iisus, care a putut fi pipãit si trãdat cu un sãrut, dar imposibil de contemplat în slava de pe muntele Taborului. Sau Moise, pãstorul bâlbâit care duce cu sine Tablele Legii. Sau Muhammad, care spune primilor musulmani: “Actionati pentru aceasta lume ca si cum ar trebui sa traiti o mie de ani, iar pentru cealalta ca si cum ati muri maine."

Deja lucrurile par sã fie mai precise. E clar cã nu putem sã mai avem pretentia ca douã avataruri sã fie identice, e clar cã dozajul rigoare-compasiune nu se poate întâlni de douã ori în aceeasi formulã (existenta a douã lucruri identice în univers nici nu este imaginabilã altfel decât ca o formã de erezie ce neagã Posibilitatea Universalã, deci Infinitul divin). Tot ce ne mai rãmâne de fãcut e sã analizãm câteva particularitãti si sã încercãm sã vedem dacã totusi Muhammad este avatar sau doar o fraudã de succes (am putea desfãsura un rationament destul de simplu care sã respingã aceastã supozitie, dar preferãm sã trecem întâi prin tipuri de argumentatie mai putin reci, si sã-l expunem pe acesta undeva spre final). Si pentru asta e bine sã aruncãm o privire spre alte avataruri, si unde gãsim cea mai completã colectie dacã nu la hindusi?

Sã spunem succint câteva lucruri: Rama, al saptelea avatar al lui Vishnu, cãruia îi este dedicatã Ramayana, l-a ucis pe Ravana, regele care o rãpise pe sotia lui, Sita. În zilele noastre uciderea lui Ravana este celebratã de hindusi sub numele de sãrbãtoarea Vijaya Dashami. A fost Rama un ucigas? Se sãrbãtoreste o crimã? Nu. A fost fatza riguroasã a lui Dumnezeu exercitând justitia divinã.

În cazul celui de-al saselea avatar, Parashu-Rama (sau Rama cel cu securea), se spune explicit cã a învãtat toate tehnicile de luptã de la Shiva (cu alte cuvinte, cã de la fatza riguroasã a lui Dumnezeu). Printre isprãvile lui, consemnate în Ramayana si Mahabharata, se numãrã omorârea lui Kaartaveerya-arjuna si a armatei sale (distrugerea revoltei kshatriya) si ruperea unuia din coltii lui Ganesha (cel cu chip de elefant). Totusi, este de mentionat faptul cã, spre deosebire de Rama si Krishna acest avatar (considerat avatar de rangul doi, avesha avatar si nu maha avatar) nu este venerat.

Balarama, fratele lui Krishna, cel care este dupã hindusi al nouãlea avatar al lui Vishnu (conform buddhistilor al nouãlea avatar este Buddha), este înfãtisat în iconografia hindusã cu un plug (protector al agricultorilor) si cu o… ghioagã. Si nu ca element de decor, ci pentru cã a fost profesor de ghioagã pentru Duryodhana din neamul Kauravas si Bhima din neamul Pandavas. Si, cum orice mãiestrie se cere si pusã în practicã la un moment dat, Balarama, ultimul avatar cunoscut, si-a folosit mãciuca în chiar lupta dintre Kauravas si Pandavas. Balarama este în egalã mãsurã autorul Ihtihasei Bhagavata Purana, text pentru uzul Kshatriya.

De departe însã, cel mai complex avatar este Krishna, poate si cel mai pregnant în hinduism, cunoscut sub multe nume si erou al multor scrieri si legende (printre care cele mai cunoscute sunt Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavata Purana si Gita Govinda). Printre faptele sale “imorale” se pot enumera: uciderea Putanei (babysitterul demonic ce voia sã-l otrãveascã prin laptele de la sânul ei); incendierea împreunã cu Arjuna a pãdurii Khandava – fãrã îndoialã un mare dezastru ecologic al timpului sãu, care a dus la multe pierderi de vieti omenesti si mamiferesti; lupta alãturi de clanul Pandavas pentru tronul Hastinapura, împotriva fratelui sãu Balarama, care a luat partea clanului Kauravas dupã o lungã neutralitate (rãzboiul Kurukshetra). Este ucis în mod accidental de un vânãtor, iar moartea sa marcheazã sfârsitul epocii Dvapara-yuga si începutul Kali-yuga (în care ne aflãm acum). Ca si Rama, acest avatar este adorat în hinduism si în zilele noastre.

Iatã cã alãturi de Muhammad, pe lângã Iisus putem enumera si avatarurile indiene: Rama, Parusha-Rama (sau Rama cel cu securea), Balarama si Krishna. Sã nu ne oprim aici. Iudeii au avut si ei cel putin trei mari avataruri: Moise, David si Solomon. Primul a fost instrumentul prin care divinitatea a coborât plãgile asupra Egiptului, una mai sinistrã si mai sângeroasã ca alta. Tot prin el a fost decimatã armata Egiptului în Marea Rosie, devenitã un inedit cimitir marin. Nu ne hazardãm sã facem estimãri, dar, câte zeci de mii de oameni au murit atunci? Multe… Stim însã cu precizie cã atunci când s-a întors cu Tablele Legii si i-a vãzut pe evrei dansând în jurul vitelului de aur n-a fost nici democrat, n-a rostit nici ceva de genul “vox populi”, n-a fãcut apel nici la tolerantã, ci a omorât, spune Tora, ca la trei mii de bãrbati. Genocid? Nici pomenealã, ci mãsuri severe acolo unde decãderea extremã le justifica, în virtutea rãului cel mai mic. Pãcatul idolatriei este atât de mare, încât extirparea chirurgicalã a celor atinsi de el prezerva sãnãtatea celorlalti. Despre regii profeti David si Solomon, care în viata lor au cunoscut rãzboiul si au purtat campanii, nu mai are rost sã vorbim, sunt foarte cunoscuti.

Iatã acum o listã a celor mai mari avataruri: Iisus, Buddha, Rama, Parusha-Rama, Balarama, Krishna, Moise, David, Solomon. Sunt culesi atât de la semiti cât si de la arieni. Tabloul este departe de a fi complet, ne-am mãrginit doar la cei mai cunoscuti, si e lesne de imaginat cã lor li se adaugã un numãr imens de avataruri avesha, cu impact “local”. Dar, chiar si asa, putem constata cã aproape toti au jucat roluri politice si au fost (si) rãzboinici – exceptie: Iisus si Buddha. Aproape toti au lãsat texte scrise de ei – exceptie: Iisus, Parusha-Rama. Aproape toti au avut foarte multi adepti si au murit la adânci bãtrânete – exceptie: Iisus (care a fost crucificat în tinerete). Aproape toti au arãtat fie si într-un moment al vietii lor fatza riguroasã a lui Dumnezeu – exceptie: Buddha, care a arãtat DOAR fatza compasionalã. Aproape toti au renovat fi puterea politicã, pusã în lumina sacrului – exceptie: Iisus, Buddha. Or, Muhammad le-a fãcut pe toate acestea: a jucat un rol politic foarte important si a fost constrâns sã fie rãzboinic (el fiind, prin educatie si practicã un negustor), a scris un text revelat (Coranul) si viata si zicerile lui fac obiectul Sunnei (colectie de hadith-uri), a avut adepti si a murit la adânci bãtrânete, dupã ce a ilustrat atât fatza compasionalã cât si fatza riguroasã a lui Dumnezeu. A fost, deci, un avatar al divinitãtii.

E interesant sã ne oprim si asupra principalei diferente care este perceputã între Iisus si Muhammad, cea legatã de exercitiul rigorii divine si al mâniei sacre. În ceea ce priveste iertarea si relatia cu inamicii, Iisus a spus, dupã cum bine se stie: cã trebuie sã ne iubim dusmanii, sã ne rugãm pentru ei, si sã întoarcem si obrazul stâng atunci când am fost pãlmuiti pe obrazul drept. Profetul Muhammad a spus într-un hadith cã un musulman trebuie sã-i iubeascã pe cel ce-l iubesc pe Dumnezeu, si sã-i urascã pe cel ce-l urãsc pe Dumnezeu. Sunt cele douã pozitii ireconciliabile? E usor de vãzut cã de fapt pozitia este aceeasi, doar perspectivele diferã.

Iisus s-a adresat urmãrind interactiunea individ-individ si a exteriorizat exact ceea ce lipsea atunci în Israel: cãldura si sfiintenia. În mod absolut corect, atingerea stãrii de sfintenie presupune abandonarea egoului, si identificarea cu Sinele divin. Crestinul pornit pe calea sfinteniei trebuie sã îndure faptele iluzorii ale existentei terestre, si sã se concentreze pe eternitatea din noi. Iubindu-si dusmanii el îl iubeste, în fapt, pe Dumnezeu. Nu cred cã cineva ar putea însã, pe baza acestor spuse, sã concluzioneze cã Iisus intentiona sã ne facã, în cazul în care constatãm o crimã, sã aducem ucigasului o nouã victimã. Iar acest detaliu nu avea cum sã-l retinã, pentru cã era deja bine stabilit în Legea lui Moise, exoterism pe care Iisus nu l-a pus niciodatã la îndoialã: “N-am venit sã schimb Legea, ci s-o împlinesc.” Nu vasul exterior l-a pus el în discutie, ci golirea lui, care trebuia “împlinitã”, re-umplutã cu spiritul care nu mai trãia (vorbim în general) în iudaism.

Injonctiunea lui Muhammad priveste însã relatia dintre ce-i ce urmeazã calea lui Dumnezeu si cei ce se aflã în opozitie cu aceasta (nu pe o cale diferitã! Islamul cunoaste si recunoaste faptul cã drumurile spre Dumnezeu sunt multiple din punct de vedere formal si unul din punct de vedere esential, cum si Dumnezeu este Unic), deci colectivitãti. Individul punând înaintea sa comunitatea se manifestã ostil la tot ce ar putea corupe-o.

Ne putem pune întrebarea dacã vreodatã Iisus si-a manifestat latura riguroasã împotriva celor ce fac rãu comunitãtii. Da, fireste cã a fãcut-o, iar exemplul cel mai cunoscut este biciuirea negustorilor care-si fãcuserã case de schimb valutar în Templu. Este exact episodul care pune în încurcãturã pe cei cãrora le place sã vadã în Iisus un “bãiat cool”. Ar mai fi si atitudinea foarte ostilã împotriva fariseilor, care reprezentau tabãra literalistilor în iudaism, iar pe care Iisus i-a numit “cei ce nu merg pe cale, dar nici pe altii nu-i lasã”, iar în altã parte: “asemenea mormintelor, curati pe dinafarã dar plini de putregai pe dinãuntru”. Nu sunt chiar vorbe împãciuitoare, si n-au fost nici atunci receptate ca niste elogii…

Nu pot sã nu închei plimbarea printre avataruri cu o observatie simplã: faptul cã era în logica functiunii lui Christ sã actioneze asa cum a actionat si nu altfel, precum si în logica misiunii lui Rasûl sã facã exact ce a fãcut si nu altceva, se probeazã prin însusi faptul cã au ales sã facã ce-au fãcut si nu altfel. Un Christ care s-ar fi lãsat confiscat de activitatea politicã sterilã n-ar fi fost decât un rebel local al Imperiului Roman, si noi azi n-am fi vorbit de crestinism. Un Rasûl care s-ar fi lãsat “dus cu presu” de factiunile rivale ar fi fost un simplu diliman de care nici un popor n-a dus lipsã. Cea mai bunã probã a necesitãtii unui tip de actiune al unui avatar rezidã pânã la urmã în actiunea însãsi.

Iisus Christos a trãit într-o religie ortodoxã, revelatã de Dumnezeu, dar care perpetua forma (corectã!) în detrimentul esentei. Rolul lui a fost acela de a restaura esenta. Acolo a fost problema si acolo a actionat, nu avea nici un sens sã fie antrenat într-o luptã sterilã cu Imperiul Roman, care ar fi rãspuns doar orgoliilor câtorva indivizi atât de pãtrunsi de faptul de a fi “neamul ales” încât uitaserã pentru ce fuseserã alesi. În fapt, Iisus si evreii s-au luptat cu Imperiul, fiecare în felul sãu: iudeii au declansat insurectia si au pierdut si au fost împrãstiati în diaspora, pentru cã lupta lor nu mai concepea decât nivelul material, imediat, pe potriva capacitãtii lor de pricepere decãzutã. Cât despre avatarul Iisus – el si-a asezat primul ucenic în Cetatea Eternã si, pe mãsura întelegerii lui înalte, a cucerit lumea.

În contrapartidã, Muhammad a trãit într-un loc si timp în care sensurile doctrinare erau pierdute, printr-o decãdere care antrena si nivelul exoteric, iar restaurarea trebuia fãcutã în primul rând aici (dar si în interior, fireste). Actiunea politicã era singura în mãsurã sã permitã rãspândirea bunului exemplu si sã-l ocroteascã, începând cu generozitatea arãtatã învinsilor si cu adagiul coranic: “Nu e nevoie de constrângere în religie, Adevãrul se impune singur!” Dacã i-ar fi trecut prin cap sã se jerfeascã ar fi fost ca un strigãt într-o cãldare – nu l-ar fi auzit decât el. Ucenicii lui Iisus au putut rãspândi vestea nestingheriti prin Imperiu, pentru cã exista o minimã sigurantã fizicã de care au avut nevoie. Or, arabii din Peninsulã tocmai la capitolul “civilizatie” sufereau cel mai mult, sahaba (companionii Profetului) ar fi murit în bunã mãsurã datoritã lipsei de sigurantã care exista în conditiile particulare ale lumii în care a trãit Muhammad.

Spuneam undeva spre început cã “Tot ce ne mai rãmâne de fãcut e sã analizãm diferente si sã încercãm sã vedem dacã totusi Muhammad este avatar sau doar o fraudã de succes” si mai afirmam cã aceastã problemã poate fi respinsã chiar si la nivelul logicii bine strunite. O voi face recurgând la o reducere la absurd: ca sã admit cã Profetul Muhammad a fost o fraudã epocalã, ar trebui sã încuviintez concomitent si consecintele ce decurg din ea (fie toate trei, fie una dintre ele):

1) cã a fost un poet de geniu (Coranul este o operã ce la nivel pur formal, stilistic, depãseste asteptãrile si scapã tuturor comparatiilor, si asta o spun prea multi arabizanti ca s-o trec cu vederea), coroborat cu un mare om politic (a pus bazele într-un sfert de veac unui imperiu pe care romanii l-au realizat în câteva secole), un mare sef militar, precum si un descãlecãtor de civilizatie (cine mai e cu adevãrat grecizat sau romanizat azi? Arabizarea, la 13 secole distantã, e aproape aceeasi!). Cu alte cuvinte, as fi nevoit sã admit cã mã aflu în fata unui mare geniu poetic si militar, dar care concomitent este si un mare mincinos. Absurd.

2) cã a construit un text pe marginea cãruia s-au scris sute de mii de pagini de exegexã, metafizicã, filosofie, reflectie, altfel spus cã a produs un text care a pasionat si pasioneazã minti strãlucite, dar care nu are valoare intrinsecã. Cu alte cuvinte, ar trebui sã admit, fie cã foarte multi oameni foarte inteligenti se extazieazã în fata unei prostii, fie cã un om mincinos si redus mintal a putut produce un text foarte inteligent. Absurd.

3) în cele din urmã, ar trebui sã admit cã 1,3 miliarde de persoane, contemporanii mei, trãiesc într-o mare eroare, si cã sunt atât de prosti încât nici acum n-au iesit din ea. Concomitent, ar trebuie sã admit cã eu sunt extrem de inteligent, pentru cã pot sã fac constatarea dinainte. Numai cã premiul de inteligentã ar trebui sã se împartã la toti cei ce gândesc ca mine, adicã toti non-musulmanii. Falsitatea acestui punct de vedere este si ea usor de demonstrat, fiind evident faptul cã se bazeazã pe o premisã sentimentalã. Absurd.

Având în vedere cã 1), 2) si 3) conduc spre solutii absurde, trebuie admis, conform metodei, cã premisa [Muhammad nu este un avatar] este falsã. Adevãrul este cã o civilizatie traditionalã nu poate fi fondatã pe o minciunã, iar secole de cãrturari nu se pot însela si concomitent sã ajungã la întelepciune. Q.e.d.

Acum, cã lucrurile au fost lãmurite, haideti sã vã “traduc” întrebarea dumneavoastrã:

1) Dacã Muhammad a fost într-adevãr trimisul lui Dumnezeu, de ce nu s-a comportat dupã tiparele pe care le am eu în cap despre acest rol? Altfel spus: de ce lucrurile sunt asa cum sunt si nu în functie de criteriul pe care îl impun eu prin prejudecatã?

Sau

2) De ce Dumnezeu manifestat nu-si pãstreazã conditia obiectivã si în cadrul subiectiv general? Altfel spus: de ce are bunãvointa de a se adapta capacitãtii noastre reduse de receptare?

Sau

3) De ce Dumnezeu îmi cere mie un efort ca sã pricep despre ce este vorba, si nu vine pur si simplu ca un imens papagal rosu, sã vadã tot omul negru pe alb (sau rosu pe alb, în fine)? Altfel spus: de ce lucrurile sunt complicate si nu simple?

La aceste întrebãri cred cã am rãspuns deja.


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Article „Image et mythe” dans le Dictionnaire des mythes littéraires, sous la direction de Pierre Brunel, (note de lectura)

Théon d’Alexandrie donne une définition du mythe: „le mythe est un discours mensonger qui exprime la vérité en images” (logos pseudès eikonizôn alêtheian – Progymnasmata, III).
Platon oposait mythos (mensonge) à logos (exprimation du vrai).
L’image (eidolon) est inférieure à l’Idée platonicienne.
Pour Platon toute histoire imagée est un faux.
Pour Plotin l’image et le mythe sont indissolublement liées par leur identité de statut: l’un et l’autre appartiennent à l’ordre du sensible, mais renvoient à l’intelligible dont ils procèdent.
Conception du mythe comme allégorie.
Globalement, l’Antiquité considérait les images mythiques comme des idoles. Elles se nomment aussi icônes, et deviennent symboles controversés dans la tradition chrétienne byzantine.
L’opinion jusqu’au IVe siècle après Jésus-Christ était que la statue représentant un dieu et était elle-même douée d’âme.
Le motif de la ressemblance, qui unit l’image au modèle, est fondamental.
„Les exégètes s’accordent à remarquer que l’invention des mythes est liée à la représentation anthropomorphique des dieux – que les rites archaïques n’individualisaient pas et symbolisaient seulement par des arbres ou des pierres levées -, tandis que la religion hébraïque se distingue des autres par l’absence d’images.” (p. 788)
Plotin définit l’image comme „un miroir capable de saisir l’apparence de son modèle” (Ennéades, IV, 3, 11)
Le problème fondamental de mimésis (ressemblance).
Le poète est un fabricant d’images comme le sculpteur ou le peintre d’idoles.

Peinture et poésie
Très tôt les peintres ont choisi pour modèles les descriptions des poètes, associées à des „tableaux”. „L’énoncé littéraire étant généralement considéré comme l’origine des mythes, l’image est censée reproduire dans l’ordre du visible «l’idée» exprimée par les poètes, dans les récits fondateurs d’Homère et d’Hésiode puis de Virgile, mais aussi dans les gloses successives que constituent les textes de l’Antiquité tardive et du Moyen Age.” (p. 789)
En 1766 Lessing dans Laocoon établit une distinction fondamentale entre les deux arts en prenant en considération le rapport avec le temps. Comme ça la poésie est narrative (fondée sur l’action et le mouvement) pendant que la peinture est statique, se situe dans l’instant, même si cet instant équivaut à une éternité.

La philosophie des images
La peinture comme langage figuré a été comparé au hiéroglyphe égyptien et au pictograme précolombien.
La science emblématique, qui fait autorité jusqu’au XVIIIe siècle, se constitue à partir de trois dictionnaires de figures:
? Les Hieroglyphiques, Horapollo, 1505;
? Les Emblèmes, Alciati, 1531;
? L’Iconographie, Ripa, 1593.
„Cette perception du mythe à travers l’image est littéralement réductrice: elle est issue d’une substitution qui condense la représentation individualisée et dramatisée qui était celle de la fable narrative, pour la codifier en une représentation «morale», plus abstraite et plus générale (plus «éternelle», pour reprendre les termes de Lessing) qui repose sur l’analyse des mythes dont la narrativité n’est plus que référentielle. Les allégories qui prennent la place des dieux depuis les moralisations médiévales, sont toutefois dans une large mesure la schématisation iconographique des attributs des dieux, en même temps que leur exégèse.” (p. 792)

La peinture comme mythe
„L’image étant considérée comme miroir de la vérité, l’art de fabriquer des images se trouve singulièrement valorisé à partir de la Renaissance, que cet art d’ailleurs se nomme Peinture ou Poésie. L’art est d’abord assimilé à la Création pour fonder ce que Curtius nomme la «conception théocentrique de l’art», qui ne va pas sans une certaine divinisation du peintre lui-même en tant qu’interprète et double du Deus Pictor. Dès lors que la Nature entière est un livre enluminé, écrit en lettres hiéroglyphiques, l’art dans sa fonction mimétique ne fait que célébrer en le reproduisant l’acte créateur.” (p. 793)
Leon Batista Alberti voit - Della Pittura (1436) – dans la peinture l’expression du divin, et fait de Narciss son inventeur.


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