07.26.08
Posted in Religion, Philosophy at 3:23 pm by Dan Jensen
Since Iran deteriorated into Islamic fundamentalism in 1979, and the Ayatollahs resurfaced to rid Iran of unclean things such as infidels, heretics, and homosexuals, we haven’t heard much from the starry-eyed orientalist; that scholar who tires of the daunting empiricism, formal scientific process, excessive prosperity, and agnostic materialism of the West, and turns to the Orient of whirling dervishes and flying carpets for a renovation of romance.
It’s rather like stepping back in time.
I can understand the need, but I cannot bear to conflate a feline curiosity for the exotic with the transparently negative escapism of these naive daydreamers.
The last of these gullible scholastic tourists was perhaps Henry Corbin, who died in his native France in October 1978, while Ruhollah Khomeini was living in exile in the very same land. I recently read Corbin’s book Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth (1960), hoping to educate myself further on the thought and culture of ancient Iran.
One of the dominant themes of the book is its continual denigration of the West and its loss of faith. Complementing that theme is the book’s air of absolute certainty with regard to the author’s own gnostic and theosophical doctrines. Fair enough: it would do Corbin no good to appear uncertain or impartial, for it is clearly just that impartiality and “pious agnosticism” of the West that he yearns to forsake.
Corbin’s primary need, next to a general desire to believe and to be a Persian, appears to be to find a foundation for immortality. He finds his beloved eternity in a sort of a world of forms—or images, or more: it’s a world of dimensions, sights, smells, and tastes just like our own—very real. The only difference is that his world of images has no death or deterioration.
Let me guess what you’re thinking: in a world full of unchanging, immortal images, can anything or anyone ever be truly alive?
To each his own. Some people simply cannot see the forest for the trees. They cannot see that a living world exists right before their eyes. All they need do to attain immortality is to loosen their grasp on their idols and let the changes flow. But they refuse to acknowledge the rules of the game, though it be the only game in town.
“Through my meeting with Suhrawardi, my spiritual destiny for the passage through this world was sealed.”
—Henry Corbin, Jambet, 1981, pp. 62-3
Corbin, purportedly following the lead of his idol, the Islamic mystic Suhrawardi, made a fundamental misjudgment of the character of Zoroastrian thought. There appears to be a consensus among scholars of Zoroastrianism that it is a life-affirming religion of this world. It is, in fact, quite the opposite of Suhrawardi’s mysticism. Suhrawardi may have revived a form of ancient thought—Manichean thought perhaps, but his efforts only served to increase the distance between Islamic and Zoroastrian Iran.
I would venture to claim that mainstream Shi’ism is closer to Zoroastrianism than the abstract, world-denying asceticism of Suhrawardi (and Sufism in general). This may possibly discredit Zoroastrianism in the eyes of Western admirers of Sufism, but it remains a fact—for better or for worse—that Zoroastrianism is not a mystical, ascetic religion. It is a religion of community and engagement with the world; in no danger of the solipsism and amoral disengagement that Sufi practitioners have always been hazardously near. Not to discredit Sufism: it offers a lot to admire, but it has little in common with the religion of pre-Islamic Iran.
Now’s it’s peculiar, though not surprising, that Corbin has ample indignation reserved for the religion of most Muslims. Attempting to distance his thinking from the suffocating legalism and orthodoxy of the dominant institutions of Islam, Corbin continually refrains the abyss between “legalistic Islam” and what he calls “spiritual Islam.”
“spiritual Islam, to be sure, … is profoundly different from the legalistic Islam, the official religion of the majority.” —page 52
The majority of Muslims, of course, lack the capacity to appreciate spiritual Islam:
“he who does not possess the inner ear cannot be made to hear …” —page 54
This kind of elitist end-run around reason leads one to wonder whether the rest of us ought to simply take his word for all his gnostic, theosophical mumbo jumbo.
One of the first tasks of this “spiritual Islam” is—of course—to recast the Qur‘an as a spiritual book:
“the ta‘wíl is preeminently the hermeneutics of symbols, the ex-egesis, the bringing out of hidden spiritual meaning.” —page 53
Corbin goes on to assert that it was by means of this methodology that Shí‘a mystics transfigured “the meaning of Islam.”
“In the Qur‘an there are verses whose complete meaning cannot be understood except by means of the spiritual hermeneutic, the Shi’ite ta‘wíl. —page 66
I suppose it would charitable of the Shí‘a to let the Sunni use their ta‘wíl, just so they can understand their own scripture? Of course, that will only benefit those with an inner ear, but it’s worth a shot.
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07.24.08
Posted in Personal, San Joaquin Valley, Hockett Trail at 7:23 pm by Dan Jensen
I returned to Lewis Camp Trailhead by way of Trout Meadows—about 16 miles with 3800 feet of gross elevation gain. Clouds had gathered overnight, so the weather was mild, with only occasional direct sunlight. I would not have minded being rained upon, as it was still possible to overheat. It’s not a bad idea to keep one’s hat wet.
There are plenty of livestock gates along the way.
As I ascended out of Kern Canyon, I spotted my second pack train of the trip in the distance. I was taking the steep, rocky shortcut out of the canyon, and I could see the packer leading his animals down the longer, earthy and less strenuous branch. There was something mystical in the silence of that Mexican horseman lazily leading his train down into the canyon.
That train was the beginning of a number of encounters with equestrians—perhaps a half dozen, during which I spooked a dog and a horse, and caused several horses to freeze up with my mere presence. In all my backpacking days, I cannot recall ever having been such a haunting presence on the trail. It’s not that I don’t have the sense to get out of the way. Some animals seem to trust me less for every step I take away from the trail. Perhaps it’s the big heavy ceanothus walking stick that’s spooking them, if not my size 7-3/4 head and size 13 boots.
When I finally got to the trailhead, the SAR base camp was still there. Orders had just gone out to some of the workers to go get some dinner. Two days after I returned home, the Visalia Times-Delta reported details on the missing man.
This trip, I entered and exited the Sierra by way of Frazier Valley—a personal first. When I drive to or from the southern Sierra, I love to see the sinking Sierra foothills jut out of the Valley like surfacing whales. Someday I would like to try doing a photo essay on this beautiful local phenomenon. Somebody ought to!
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Posted in Personal, Hockett Trail at 3:31 am by Dan Jensen
Just after six in the morning, just as the moon set over the Western Divide, I left the Jordan Trail, taking the Cutoff Trail that heads over the tail of the Great Western Divide toward Willow Meadows and the Hockett Trail. I followed the trail and a single set of fresh boot tracks, wondering if they might lead me to a stranded hiker. I stumbled across a dozing rattlesnake, camouflaged in the sand of the trail, who barely moved in the cool dawn air.
As I descended over the hump, a helicopter began passing up and down the Trout Meadows kerncol (a kerncol is a type of saddle unique to the Kern Canyon), presumably looking for the missing man.
The luxury campsite at Willow Meadows Junction.
The mosquitoes also appeared in force as I neared Kern Canyon. I first noticed them at the Trout Meadows spring, a couple of meadows above Willow Meadows Camp. There were several guys preparing to break camp and continue into the canyon as I was, but I didn’t see any sign of them afterward. I’m guessing they turned back when they got to the bottom of the canyon.
I might have turned back at canyon bottom if I hadn’t been familiar with the route, as the trail had been washed out for about a mile along the canyon bottom, from Leggett Creek all the way to the foot of the ascent to the next kerncol. There were no tracks whatsoever, there was saturated mud everywhere, and the flooding—though subsiding—was not completely over. It wasn’t hard hiking if you had some idea about the general route, that is, if you knew the trail generally keeps away from the river, and had faith that it would eventually reappear. I did a fair bit of
There’s a good campsite just downstream of Legget Creek that looks like it’s about to be washed into the river, and then there’s the site in the heart of Grasshopper Flat, where Juan and I camped five years ago. I like to refer to that camp as “Scorpion Camp”, in honor of a little critter I uncovered while starting a fire back in 2003.
I veered off the main trail at Little Kern Lake to follow a camp trail that wraps around the lake’s north shore, visiting some nice beaches, and a great campsite at the northwest corner of the lake.
A lovely campsite on the northwest shore of Little Kern Lake.
After Little Kern Lake, I beat feet up to the point where the old trail once followed a kerncol that delivers the traveler directly down to Coyote Creek and the Kern Canyon Ranger Station. It may have been a theoretical shortcut, but there was no trail to follow, so I had to apply a couple corrections to my route finding. Though these kerncols can keep the trail safe from the ravages of rock falls and snowmelt, it seems to me that the old route over this particular kerncol was abandoned for good reason. What a workout! The current trail takes advantage of a lower, less strenuous kerncol which I have sworn fealty to in the future.
Having backpacked fourteen miles since dawn, I was trail weary when I arrived at Coyote Creek. I proceeded across the creek, by way of the huge crossing trunk, and headed down to the river, where I expected to find some backcountry campsites. When I got to the river, I threw off my pack, crossed the bridge into Inyo National Forest, and followed the meandering trail through the manzanita flat above the river. I hadn’t secured my pack against critter depredations, so I soon grew worried and doubled back. I then lugged my pack back to Soda Spring, where I had recalled hearing there was a campground. Soda Spring looked rather murky, and there wasn’t a fire ring in sight, so I decided to return to Coyote Creek. I crossed the creek and unrolled my sleeping bag at the foot of the kerncol that I’d taken in. It would work as a campsite, but I felt a little nervous being so close to the ranger station (no permits).
I had walked around with a bag of M&M trail mix in my hand too long. Many of the M&Ms had melted, leaving the mix resembling a loose, nutty stool.
As I collected my things to filter some water and head down canyon to camp, I was hailed by a young biologist, who directed me to the spot I had just forsaken as a good place to camp. She said she was part of a team that is tasked with removing “invasives”. Feeling a bit like an invasive exotic myself in this restored territory behind enemy lines, I told her “I just want to hug my kids.” She offered me an OREO for comfort, but I told her honestly that I was already full of M&Ms. I was dizzy from fatigue, which is the condition that generally leads me to hiking even more. She headed down trail with her fishing pole. I finished the M&M trail mix and headed down the canyon as soon as the coast was clear.
I camped that night at a nice campsite two miles down canyon, just north of the creek that feeds into Big Kern Lake, which is a humorous euphemism for a huge mud hole and would-be malarial swamp. I prepared to keep a companion fire going, and hoped it would repel the West Nile hummingbirds, as I had no tent to hide in. I saw one playing in the smoke and wondered whether smoke repels them or merely distracts them. No dead crows in sight, though I had seen a silly crow on my way down canyon.
I don’t know what the stars were like that night. I let the little fire smolder, read a bit from the Zoroastrian Journal, took two aspirin for my knee, and fell asleep quite effortlessly.
I did have to stir enough to pump the heat out of my wife’s fancy North Face sleeping bag. I might have done better with a bed roll.
Continue to Sunday
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07.23.08
Posted in Personal, Sierra Nevada at 6:09 pm by Dan Jensen
This last full moon, I backpacked up to the Kern Canyon stock bridge in Sequoia National Park. I started at Lewis Camp Trailhead, in Sequoia National Monument, just outside the southern boundary of the Golden Trout Wilderness. This trailhead sits near the top of the Western Divide, on the historic Jordan Trail. For many trips that begin there, the trailhead is the highest point of the trip (7600 feet).
Tulare County Sheriff SAR Jeep
I pulled into the part of the dirt lot reserved for foot-bound travelers and parked, only to be directed by a Sheriff’s deputy to another spot, to make room for the SAR (search and rescue) workers expected to arrive soon. There was already quite a showing of force: a trailer, a jeep, a couple ATVs, and several other vehicles. Word had it that a man who had been suffering from seizures was lost on the nearby slopes.
About 15 minutes down the trail, I realized that I’d left my wilderness and fire permits in the car. That seemed rather ironic, after having driven four hours to get to the ranger station just before closing time, only to leave the permits in the car. Oh well. Never fails. I always forget something. I decided to take my chances with the rangerfolk, rather than add 30 minutes to my evening hike.
I few minutes later, I encountered a group of cattle, who spooked with no more than a mutual glance, and kicked up a cloud of dust in their panic.
I bounded down the 1900 foot descent, past Jerky Meadow and Jug Spring (a watering hole for animals and the desperate), and arrived at the Little Kern horse bridge just after 8pm, with an hour of dusk to spare. I suffered from a typical spell of outback anxiety along the way, which means I missed my wife and kids terribly and felt guilty about being so selfish as to take this time to myself. Perhaps the evening shadows settling over the mountainside were affecting me. There is something ominous about the onset of nightfall when one has not reached one’s destination, though the night itself can seem quite comforting. Almost predictably, the anxiety disappeared as I settled in for the night.
The bridge over the Little Kern. Note the granite and basalt layers.
Two of the three campsites were occupied by SAR folk, so my choice was easy. I filtered some river water, had some trail mix for dinner, and unrolled my sleeping bag. I enjoyed the warm light of the fire at the camp across the river, laid back, and watched the stars appear one by one.
Antares—the heart of the Scorpion—flared red, like a campfire in the sky, not so remote as the astronomers calculate. I spotted a falling star, and watched a dim, red satellite make its way around and around the planet, first past Lyra toward the pole, then past Cygnus a little while later. Jupiter peeked through the ridgetop trees across the river. The full moon didn’t rise over the tail of the Great Western Divide until I had fallen asleep. I would waken occasionally, as see the Moon chasing Jupiter from west to east.
A full moon can be useful if one needs to get around camp without a light, or if one needs to travel by night, but it can disturb one’s sleep, rather like leaving the bedroom light on, and a moonless sky is certainly preferred by the stars.
Continue to Saturday
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07.17.08
Posted in Religion, Philosophy at 11:15 pm by Dan Jensen
I’ve been a wilderness lover since the summer my brother David and I first rode our bicycles into the Sierra Nevada, but I never did think much of Henry David Thoreau, until I suddenly fell in love with him.
To me, Thoreau was just some New England liberal garden-naturalist who might have liked to walk Robert Frost’s “Road Less Traveled”. He was no John Muir.
I’m not sure that I ever really read Walden until I was about 40 years old, after I had just read some Nietzsche and some books on Zoroastrianism.
What an eye-opener! The author of Walden was a mystic, a radical individualist, a wit, and a metaphysician. I was most taken by his usage of the word “moral”, and saw in him shades of Nietzsche and Zoroaster, and maybe a touch of Heraclitus.
Since losing my religious faith, I had become more and more convinced that faith must come from within, as asserted by Emerson in his radical essay “Self-Reliance”. This doctrine was clearly something that Thoreau had taken to heart, but there was much more to him than that.
“Our whole life is startlingly moral,” he said. That is just what I had been yearning to hear. I was attracted to the idea of an ethical metaphysics, that is, a way of looking at the world as fundamentally moral, rather than material or “spiritual” (non-material?). I had begun to understand that everything that we observe seems to be perceived aesthetically. Couple that with our ever-present sense of intention, and you might see a world that “is startlingly moral”; both value-laden and intentional.
One of the great expressions of this idea in human culture can be found in Zoroastrianism. This Iranian religion stood out among the classical schools of thought as one that saw the world morally rather than metaphysically. They saw everything composed of good and/or evil. Their metaphysics, if it can be called metaphysics, is usually called “cosmic dualism.” It is based upon the idea that the world is essentially a cosmic conflict between good and evil.
Thoreau often seemed to see the world as a moral landscape, but he did not view Nature as a moral guide. At times, he would confess that his beloved Nature could be quite cruel, and he could sound a lot like a Zoroastrian:
“Are there not two powers?”
—Journal, Jan 9, 1853
Tauber hits upon this aspect of Thoreau:
Thoreau appreciates the terrifying otherness of nature, an insight that McGregor (1997) has argued was pivotal to Thoreau’s existential and literary development.
Walden startled me. I had just read a work by Nietzsche using the character of the Persian Prophet Zoroaster as the protagonist in a modern moral drama, and next thing I know I’m reading from what I thought was an environmentalist who sounds something like a prophet of ethical metaphysics, like an American Zarathustra!
Curiously, it turns out that Zarathustra (AKA Zarathushtra ), little that we know of him, was also an environmentalist. One of the causes closest to his heart appears to have been sustainable agriculture.
Funny that Thoreau features Zoroaster in one of the paragraphs of Walden:
“The solitary hired man on a farm in the outskirts of Concord, who has had his second birth and peculiar religious experience, and is driven as he believes into the silent gravity and exclusiveness by his faith, may think it is not true; but Zoroaster, thousands of years ago, travelled the same road and had the same experience; but he, being wise, knew it to be universal, and treated his neighbors accordingly, and is even said to have invented and established worship among men. Let him humbly commune with Zoroaster then, …”
Thoreau seemed to think of himself as a prophet of sorts, perhaps the Prophet of Concord. I must admit that hadn’t occurred to me, though, until I read a certain book on Thoreau.
It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I was rummaging through a used book store in Berkeley and stumbled onto Alfred I. Tauber’s book Henry David Thoreau and the Moral Agency of Knowing (2001). My eyes must have popped out. If they did, I was too startled to notice. I had found someone who was willing to discuss the ethical metaphysics and epistemology of Thoreau.
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Upon doing the reading, I was not disappointed. The book is difficult at times, but it is generally accessible, and quite thorough. Tauber clearly took great pains to address Thoreau’s philosophy of value in the context of the enlightenment, romanticism, positivism, existentialism and phenomenalism.
Tauber’s central theme is Thoreau’s view of science. Tauber presents Thoreau as a Romantic naturalist confronted by the onset of positivism, and the dualistic subject-object metaphysics that positivism rested upon, both of which dominated science before the advent of Quantum Mechanics, and still have a strong influence on the modern mind. To Tauber, Thoreau is a poet-naturalist attempting to rescue science from the new objectivism of his time.
“… a theme explored here, is that objectified knowledge must be made meaningful. This was the program enunciated by Michael Polanyi, and, I have argued, this was also Thoreau’s own project.” —Tauber, Epilogue
The only major theme that Tauber appears to overlook is the central role of simplicity (purity) in Thoreau’s mysticism and philosophy (another peculiar parallel between Zoroaster and Thoreau). This may be because the psychology of simplicity, as important as it was to Thoreau, was off-topic for Tauber as a philosopher of science.
Further Reading:
Robert Kuhn McGregor, “A Wider View of the Universe: Henry Thoreau’s Study of Nature” (1997)
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07.16.08
Posted in The Sink at 9:35 pm by Dan Jensen
Two red-orange and black koi swam in the small, clear pool. Clover burst from the water line, up the artifically naturalistic banks like a miniature rain forest.
The boys dreamed. Their dreams opened in the warm light of the Spring afternoon. The sun warmed the doors of their eyes, and the future was born.
How long would the two koi live?
Were there any other koi quite like them? … anywhere?
Mehrzad reclined amidst the pumpkin and the watermelon, the sunlight soaking into his face, his hands, and his clothes. His spirit looked down into a pool stirring with currents of koi.
He sat up, and turned to his left. “Do you think we could make more koi? … from these?”
“Maybe.” Peter the fisherman laid back behind his eyelids and reiterated, “maybe we could.”
A fish is bound to die sooner or later, but if it has offspring, maybe it lives on through them. Maybe they wouldn’t look exactly the same, but even a single fish can change its colors. Lizards even shed their skin. Parenthood can be like that: like an old, tattered phoenix, rising young and perfect from the ashes of its mortality.
There was a mission at hand for anyone who would seek to deliver the gift of immortality. In that sunny moment, the boys chose to accept it.
At recess, they leaned against one of the elm trees lining the schoolyard, talking shop. How to find out how to breed koi? How to find a koi breeder? Check the phone books at the library. Pet stores. Suppliers. Gardeners.
They soon determined that reproduction wouldn’t be enough. The population would be too much at risk in the boys’ little garden pools, so they hatched a distribution scheme: they would market their hatchlings, and spend the proceeds of their commerce on more fish farming. The spawn would survive beyond the efforts of the boys themselves.
They wouldn’t stop at the sale. They would evangelize the aesthetic, psychological, and spiritual benefits of koi stewardship throughout the Sink, until the line of their two koi would finally sustain itself.
The shade of the old walnut tree crept across the boys’ faces, as the sun drifted into the West. How much time had passed they could only calculate; it could not be perceived.
They rose to their feet and made their ways home, a single future in their eyes as their feet followed their diverging paths into the present.
©2008 Dan J. Jensen
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07.15.08
Posted in The Sink at 9:38 pm by Dan Jensen
The toads moved out across the Sink under the cover of night, crawling left-right-left on their soft bellies like commandos under the cantaloupe and corn and parsley. As they crossed the Maginot Line, one would drop into a trench, then another would fall into a vertical shaft; one not knowing the fate of the next, unable to proceed with the nocturnal assault.
Boys appeared after daybreak, inspecting the shafts and trenches. Five last night. A dozen tonight. Almost a record. The invaders were corralled in the temporary holding pen, teased, sent through obstacle courses, launched in model rockets, set free, and re-captured the following morning, or the morning after.
©2008 Dan J. Jensen
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07.08.08
Posted in Religion at 10:16 pm by Dan Jensen
Continuing from our discussion of ketman …
Some aspects of Islám are reminiscent of Zoroastrianism in ways unique to Islám, for example As-Sirát (Arabic: الصراط), the Bridge of Judgment, which is reminiscent of the Zoroastrian Chinvat Bridge. Other Zoroastrian influences, such as those involving eschatology and angelogy, appear to have entered Islám by way of Judaism and Christianity.
All this pales before the deeper common themes between Zoroastrianism and Shí‘a (شيعة) Islám.
One aspect of Shí‘a Islám that bears a striking similarity to Zoroastrianism is the Shí‘a catalog of najis (ritually unclean) (Arabic: نجس) people and things. Shí‘a Islám has historically singled out non-Muslims and human corpses as unclean, whereas, before the advent of Islám, Zoroastrians had considered foreigners and human corpses as unclean. Even to this day, many Zoroastrians refuse to bury or cremate their dead, for fear of contaminating the elements of nature.
A more fundamental similarity can be found in the dualism of Good and Evil common to Zoroastrianism and Shí‘ism:
Concurrent with this dual vision [of exoteric and esoteric], Shi‘ite doctrine is based upon another fundamental belief: a dualistic vision of the world. According to this, the history of creation is a story of a cosmic battle between the forces of Good and Evil, between light and darkness. Given the vital role of initiation and knowledge, as we have just seen, one might say that Good is knowledge and Evil is ignorance. The battle between these respective forces, of these universal antagonistic powers, is woven into the fabric of existence. According to cosmogonic traditions, what marks creation ever since its origin, is the battle between the armies of cosmic Intelligence (al-‘aql) and those of cosmic Ignorance (al-jahl), …
—Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Encyclopedia Iranica
As in Zoroastrianism, we see that Shí‘ism associates light with the Good. Furthermore, the struggle is metaphysical, that is, “is woven into the fabric of existence”.
“Zoroaster was the first to discover in the fight of good and evil the very wheel in the machinery of things: the transposition of morality into the metaphysical, as a force, cause, and end in itself, in his work.” —Friedrich Nietzsche
The cosmic aspect of this struggle cannot but remind one of Zoroastrianism, presuming that one knows anything at all about Zoroastrianism. How much, I wonder, was Zoroastrianism conquered, subjugated, and humiliated, but how much did it survive in new garments?
What then follows from this cosmic struggle is a worldly, political struggle between the forces of good and evil that culminates in the return of the Shí‘a saoshyant, the Imam Mahdi:
According to theories of cycles, which are far from being clear, ever since creation, the world has known two kinds of government (dawla): of God in which prophets and imams, as guides of light and justice, are able to openly teach esoteric truths, and that of Satan in which these truths can only be transmitted and practiced secretly, as the world in this case is under the influence of the guides of darkness and injustice. Satan having been the adversary (zµedd) of Adam, the history of adamic humanity is marked by adversity and violence by demonic forces of Ignorance; during the adamic cycle, these forces will remain dominant–a majority driving the minority of persecuted initiates towards marginality and isolation. Thus it will be until the End of Time and the advent of the Mahdi, the eschatological savior, who will definitively conquer the forces of Evil.
—Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Encyclopedia Iranica
Closely related to this struggle between Good and Evil is the Shí‘a belief that God does no evil, which is quite similar to the Zoroastrian idea of a Good Creator (Ahura Mazda).
Also tightly bound to moral dualism is a belief in freewill, as a distinguished from the Quranic doctrine of predestination (for example: the Qur‘án says in many places that God misleads men into evil). The Semitic God of the Qur‘án is truly, consistently omnipotent; the Shí‘a and Zoroastrian Gods are not, but benevolent instead.
What does this mean? Shí‘ism is certainly a form of Islám, in spite of all its esoterism, secrecy (ketman), and moral dualism. It has been a de facto division of Islám too long to be cast aside as heresy, regardless of what the Wahabis assert. Shí‘ism’s submission—however twisted by esoteric interpretations—to the God of Islám makes it irrevocably Muslim, yet it seems quite clear that Shí‘ism shows in its very soul the signs of Iran’s Zoroastrian past.
Further Reading
Encyclopedia Iranica:
Najis Stuff:
- The Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s Unclean infidels page.
- Majalla’s list of Unclean Things
- Bernard Lewis, “The Jews of Islam” (1984). See pages 33-34 in particular.
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Posted in Religion at 3:18 pm by Dan Jensen
“There is not a single true Moslem in Persia.”
—Reported statement by a Persian to Arthur Comte de Gobineau
(cited in “Versions of Censorship”, by McCormick & MacInnes)
One of the great accomplishments—or offenses—of Islám was in conquering and subjugating the Persian Empire. Alexander had conquered the Persian Empire a millennium earlier, but it hadn’t been very long until another Iranian empire had taken the place of Alexander’s Hellenistic successors. Even during that short Hellenistic era, Iranians were disenfranchised but they were not so subjugated and humiliated as they would be under Islám.
Classical Islám is known for having been somewhat tolerant of the “people of the Book” (Arabic: أهل الكتاب, Ahl al- Kitâb), but it was far from certain whether Persians qualified as People of the Book at the time of the Arab conquest. Zoroastrianism, as it was practiced, was an oral tradition. The high priests of Persia used books as archives, not as liturgical aids.
It couldn’t have helped that Zoroastrians were generally seen as idolators, because of their use of fire in worship.
Modern Shí‘a (شيعة) Muslims—at least those of Iran—do generally consider Zoroastrians People of the Book, but that is more likely due to the influence of Zoroastrian apostates on the development of Shí‘a Islám than any early Arab view.
It is no secret that one of the closest companions of Muhammad and ‘Alí was a Persian, but that Persian (Salmán) was a Christian. The Arab conquerors had little reason to show tolerance to Zoroastrians, except that the latter were the citizens of a great empire, and may have had a thing or two to share with the Arabs, if only the Persians could be converted.
Many of the Zoroastrian “converts” to Islám were known to be less than dedicated Muslims. There are records of mass apostasies in the years after the Arab conquest. There may have been many Iranians that welcomed Islam, but there were certainly many that did not.
The persecution complex of the Shí‘a is well-known. It is understood to have originated in the persecution and disenfranchisement of the Shí‘a by the Sunni, but I cannot help but wonder whether some of this Shí‘a sense of injustice is rooted in the near-annihilation of Zoroastrian Iran.
The persecution of the Shí‘a apostates of Zoroastrian Iran may have also contributed to the practice of Islam as secretive, esoteric religion that seems rather antithetical to the worldly, practical, and political nature of the Qur‘án.
discretion: … in order to protect one’s own life and security, and those of one’s imam and his companions, as well as the integrity of his doctrine, “secrecy” designated by terms such as taqiyya, ketman and kòab÷ [?] is a canonical obligation for the Shi‘ite.
—Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi
Zoroastrianism, like the Islám of the Qur‘án, is not an ascetic or esoteric faith. Secrecy and esoterism may have been the only means for Iranians (and others) to entertain their heretical epiphanies under the yoke of Islám. If their faith was to survive, it would have to do so in the name of Islám. So I’m not surprised that so many Súfí mystics gave lip service to Islám, or called their heresies “esoteric” readings of Islám. What choice did they have?
Esoterism and secrecy were not Persian passions before Islám. To the contrary, one of the defining characteristics of Zoroastrianism is its aversion to deception. The Zoroastrian notion of Evil, Druj, is typically translated “the Lie”, but alas, it became easier to lie under the shadow of Islamic swords.
It is perhaps best to describe Islamic esoterism as a natural bi-product of Islám. It was probably the might of Islám and its ruthless persecution of heresies (not to be confused with Jews and Christians) that gave rise to Islamic esoterism, so esoterism is an ironic inevitability in the Islamic world. Still, we may yet detect the whisperings of pre-Islamic religion in the orthodox doctrines and esoteric heresies of Islám.
To be continued …
Further Reading
The Divine Guide to Early Shi’ism: Sources of Esoterism in Islam, by Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi.
Encyclopedia Iranica: Shi‘ite Doctrine by Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi (2005)
Christopher Hitchens:
A discussion of chapter three of “The Captive Mind” by Czeslaw Milosz.
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07.01.08
Posted in Hockett Trail at 7:06 pm by Dan Jensen
A couple years ago, my friend Juan and I attempted to follow the route of the old Hockett Trail above Ladybug Camp in Sequoia National Park. We were stopped in our tracks by a wall of brush that has filled in since the maintenance of the trail ceased in 1969. We crawled down some tunnels that wildlife had worn through the chapparral, but the tunnels just kept going and going.
I could well imagine that, had I been a Yokuts or Monache trader a couple centuries ago, I might well have set that thicket on fire, but I wonder whether the Indians of the Sierra had to confront such mature thickets.
In his article Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests: Evaluating the Ecological Impact of Burning by Native Americans, biogeographer Albert J. Parker concludes that Native Americans probably did not have a widespread impact on the ecology of the Sierra Nevada. This goes against a recent trend, largely among social scientists, to propose that aboriginal peoples have actively managed entire landscapes for their economic benefit. The trend appears to be motivated by a desire to represent aboriginal peoples as civilized nations, rather than primitive, passive inhabitants of a natural habitat.
I find the debate interesting. The notion that aboriginal peoples are generally so civilized that they alter entire landscapes does not bring me to any epiphany about the potential of aboriginal peoples for civilization, nor does it improve my opinion of them as naturalists.
No, what strikes me about a mindset that sees all peoples as civilized, and that idealizes the role of aboriginals as stewards of idealized civilizations, is that it appears to see the natural environment as something that ought to be managed. The mindset seems rather biased in favor of civilization itself, and hence, contrary to the idea that people ought to avoid altering their natural environment. The view seems, in a word, anthropocentric.
A sequoia grove — illustration by John Muir.
My respect for aboriginal peoples is generally for their genius for cultural adaptation to a great variety of surroundings; not for altering their surroundings for economic benefit. But, well, they are human after all, so I suppose they’re bound to meddle with things.
More objectively, the basic problem with the landscape-altering aboriginal hypothesis with respect to the Sierra Nevada is that it doesn’t appear to be supported by the facts. There is evidence that indicates that Native Americans did use fire to manage vegetation in the immediate vicinity of villages and summer camps, but the vegetation of the Sierra as a whole appears to have been much more under the influence of climate, topography, geology, and other non-human factors.
The idea that Indians managed the forests of the Sierra Nevada with systematic controlled burns appears to ignore evidence that suggests that the forests of the Sierra Nevada are self-managing:
- The Sierra Nevada is exposed to sufficient lightning, particularly during the dry season, to make naturally-ignited fires frequent enough to avoid excessive build-up of fuel.
- Before fire suppression, fires would often smolder until winter, sometimes sparking other fires.
- Dry conditions in late summer not only dehydrate fuel, but also tend to arrest biological decomposition.
- Preventing the occurrence of hot wildfires might have prevented the establishment of vegetative communities such as Sequoia groves.
- Evidence of Indian burning of lands not adjacent to permanent settlements is scanty to nonexistent.
- Park-like areas of the Sierra so beloved by John Muir, where conceivably man-made, were just as likely a result of the practices of shepherds as that of Indians.
John Muir famously commented on the park-like groves that he witnessed in the Sierra:
The inviting openness of the Sierra woods is one of their most distinguishing characteristics. The trees of all the species stand more or less apart in groves, or in small, irregular groups, enabling one to find a way nearly everywhere, along sunny colonnades and through openings that have a smooth, park-like surface, strewn with brown needles and burs. Now you cross a wild garden, now a meadow, now a ferny, willowy stream; and ever and anon you emerge from all the groves and flowers upon some granite pavement or high, bare ridge commanding superb views above the waving sea of evergreens far and near.
—Muir, The Mountains of California, Chapter 8
Muir was a man of his time. He is known to have been given to exaggeration, and this is no exception. Other accounts that predated Muir clearly indicated that much of the Sierra was covered with vegetative communities other than Muir’s idyllic park lands. I am inclined to believe that Muir’s descriptions of the Sierra often say more about himself; more about his mental landscape than any objective landscape.
It was this same man who likened Yosemite to a cathedral. It sometimes seems he desired that the wilderness should resemble a great stone church encircled by a cemetery of manicured meadows with well-spaced trees for tombstones.
John Muir’s introduction to the Sierra in 1868 was preceded by hordes of sheep, and sheepmen like himself; shepherds who were known to burn out forest floor litter for the benefit of their own activities:
… mill ravages, however, are small as compared with the comprehensive destruction caused by “sheepmen.” Incredible numbers of sheep are driven to the mountain pastures every summer, and their course is ever marked by desolation. Every wild garden is trodden down, the shrubs are stripped of leaves as if devoured by locusts, and the woods are burned. Running fires are set everywhere, with a view to clearing the ground of prostrate trunks, to facilitate the movements of the flocks and improve the pastures. The entire forest belt is thus swept and devastated from one extremity of the range to the other, and, with the exception of the resinous Pinus contorta , Sequoia suffers most of all. Indians burn off the underbrush in certain localities to facilitate deer-hunting, mountaineers and lumbermen carelessly allow their campfires to run; but the fires of the sheepmen, or muttoneers , form more than ninety per cent. of all destructive fires that range the Sierra forests.
—Muir, The Mountains of California, Chapter 8
It appears that Muir was very much in favor of fire suppression!
Hoofed locusts — illustration by John Muir.
This reminds me of Muir’s self-serving but eloquent account of his night in a trunk hollow amidst a forest fire near Paradise Ridge in October 1875 (Our National Parks, Chapter IX), and I am inclined to wonder who it was that started that inspiring fire that Muir made so much literary hay of.
When we read about John Muir’s travels through the Sierra, we find, as we would expect, that sheep were quite commonplace. Muir, at last, was not traveling through a virgin wilderness. In many cases, he was probably following livestock trails.
I don’t doubt that open, park-like groves existed in the Sierra before Europeans arrived, and I do value the spacious silence of a Sequoia grove. I also value a path free of obstacles. I’m sure that Indians sometimes burned out brush and forest litter, but I don’t believe that the Indians managed Sierra forest ecology as a whole with systematic controlled burns. Without the fire suppression policies of the 20th Century, there would have been no need for controlled burns. Fires would have found the fuel, and if they didn’t find it immediately, an occasional hot fire fed by “excess” fuel accumulation may have been ecologically beneficial in some respects.
Kilgore (1973) observed that fire is inevitable in the Sierra Nevada, given the climatically dictated imbalance between biomass production (which can be high in most spring and early summer months) and decomposition (which is arrested by dry conditions during summer).
—A. J. Parker, “Fire in Sierra Nevada Forests”
Related entry: The Devil’s Tinderbox
©2008 Dan J. Jensen
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