08.30.08
Posted in Baha'i, Our Daily Bread at 10:37 pm by Dan Jensen
Today’s slice is from Bahá’u'lláh’s Persian Hidden Words:
O YE PEOPLES OF THE WORLD! Know, verily, that an unforeseen calamity followeth you, and grievous retribution awaiteth you. Think not that which ye have committed hath been effaced in My sight. By My beauty! All your doings hath My pen graven with open characters upon tablets of chrysolite.
This passage guided much of my world view as a child. It played well with Cold War fatalism, and gave me a dim outlook on the future, though great things were promised for the people who would survive this “unforeseen calamity”.
Note that this is all about punishment for sin, and it is a worldwide punishment for the accumulated crimes of humanity. Though Bahá’ís claim to have an elevated, sublime notion of God, this God is none other than the jealous, vengeful Yahweh, who has no regard for the deeds of one man in his private moments of conscience, but only of humanity en masse. This is a God of hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, and Assyrian armies.
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08.29.08
Posted in Baha'i, Our Daily Bread at 9:59 pm by Dan Jensen
Today’s slice from the loaves of religious harmony was gleaned from Gems of Divine Mysteries, a work that—as a young Bahá’í studying Arabic—I dearly hoped to read someday. My prayers were answered in 2002, when it was finally published in English.
The Christian and Jewish peoples have not grasped the intent of the words of God and the promises He hath made to them in His Book, and have therefore denied His Cause, turned aside from His Prophets, and rejected His proofs. … as they have refused to see with the eyes wherewith God hath endowed them, and desired things other than that which He in His mercy had desired for them, they have strayed far from the retreats of nearness, have been deprived of the living waters of reunion and the wellspring of His grace, and have lain as dead within the shrouds of their own selves.
Wow. I sure am glad I’m not one of those!
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08.28.08
Posted in Baha'i, Our Daily Bread at 5:51 pm by Dan Jensen
Today’s white slice of wisdom comes from The Tabernacle of Unity, a compilation of works of Bahá’u'lláh published in 2006. It advises Bahá’ís on the extent to which they ought to value human life:
O servants! This nether world is the abode of demons: Guard yourselves from approaching them. By demons is meant those wayward souls who, with the burden of their evil deeds, slumber in the chambers of oblivion. Their sleep is preferable to their wakefulness, and their death is better than their life.
What value, then, should be put on human life? It is well-known that Bahá’u'lláh was not against the death penalty, or even cruel punishment:
Should anyone intentionally destroy a house by fire, him also shall ye burn; should anyone deliberately take another’s life, him also shall ye put to death. —Kitáb-i-Aqdas
There’s no deterrent like execution, or better yet, a painful execution.
It seems fair to suggest that Bahá’u'lláh adopted the Islamic standard with regard to corporeal punishment, but would Bahá’u'lláh also advise that anyone authoritatively judged as a “demon” (say, a covenant breaker) be put out of their misery? Would Bahá’u'lláh also adopt an Islamic standard in that regard?
After all, their death is better than their life. Right?
To address this question, we might inquire whether Bahá’u'lláh might have ever ordered the assassination of an enemy. He had certainly been accused of such an act, but—not surprisingly—he claimed to be innocent of the crime.
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08.27.08
Posted in Baha'i, Our Daily Bread at 8:08 pm by Dan Jensen
I’ve got a pile of quotations that I don’t know what to do with, so I’m going to attempt to process them by means of a new quote of the day feature.
Let’s start with one from Baha’u'llah’s Sura of the Temple (Suriy-i-Haykal), a sura that was not published in English until 2002, about 133 years after its final revision (that’s right, this scripture underwent a revision process).
Today’s slice is a passage that made the final cut, concerning the personification of Good and Evil.
“The Evil One hath appeared in such wise as the eye of creation hath never beheld. He Who is the Beauty of the All-Merciful hath likewise been made manifest with an adorning the like of which hath never been witnessed in the past. The Call of the All-Merciful hath been raised, and behind it the call of Satan.” —Baha’u'llah
I wonder how one is expected to interpret the closing sentence. Is the call of Satan behind the call of God, such that it might be thought to be coming from the same direction? From the same source?
I doubt that any Baha’i would interpret the phrase He Who is the Beauty of the All-Merciful as anything but an explicit reference to the author, Baha’u'llah. Thus God is once again made flesh, but that’s nothing new.
What’s also interesting about this passage is that Baha’u'llah is juxtaposed against the Evil One. Is Satan also manifested as is God?
I know. I know. Baha’is say they don’t believe in Satan. Perhaps, but I have no doubt that Baha’is are taught to be wary of dark, dangerous, and infectiously evil souls. So is it not likely, then, that one soul in particular has come to manifest a Satanic spirit? If so, who is this masked man?
Could it be … Baha’u'llah?
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08.04.08
Posted in Religion, Politics at 7:11 am by Dan Jensen
This is a continuation of our discussion on ketman.
I just read a well-timed feature article on Iran in the August 2008 issue of National Geographic Magazine, which emphasizes yet another social practice used by Persians for self-preservation through self-concealment: tárof:
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Tárof is an Arabic word, writes author Marguerite del Giudice, that represents a Persian “system of ritual politeness”, typically manifested as an artful but predictable practice of self-deprecation and modesty. Del Guidice cites anthropologist William O. Beeman, who characterizes the practice as “fighting for the lower hand.”
It’s essentially the Persian equivalent for the American
“you da man!” “no, you da man!” protocol.
Curiously, del Guidice contends that the height of tárof is to conceal one’s true feelings, beliefs, and identity:
Being smooth and seeming sincere while hiding your true feelings—artful pretending—is considered the height of taarof and an enormous social asset. “You never show your intention or your real identity,” said a former Iranian political prisoner now living in France. “You’re making sure you’re not exposing yourself to danger, because throughout our history there has been a lot of danger there.”
It’s a peculiar practice for a nation that is thought to have once valued honesty and trustworthiness as much as anything. Were the Persians like this before the Arab Conquest? Did they practice ketman, taqiyya, and this form of tárof before Islám made these practices so necessary?
Exceptions to this rule do remain in Iran, though they remain under substantial pressure to relent. The Bahá’ís and the few remaining Zoroastrians come to mind.
Incidentally, for you cartophiles out there, the issue comes with a beautiful two-sided map of modern Iran and ancient Persia. The latter side is noticeably lacking in detail, but features a depiction of the route of the Royal Road.
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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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07.17.08
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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07.08.08
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 Religion, Politics at 3:19 pm by Dan Jensen
As if the federal government weren’t already big enough. As if the moral domain of the federal government weren’t already broad enough.
Federal government?
More like Central government.
We now have both so-called-liberals and so-called-conservatives supporting the use of tax dollars to fund religious organizations.
I suppose this means I can save a check. Rather than donating to the church of my choice, I can simply direct all my donations to the IRS, and I can rest assured that Mr. Obama will direct my earnings to the most deserving causes.
Well now, isn’t that special.
WSJ: Obama’s Faith-Based Mission
CNN: Crime on McCain agenda, while Obama focuses on religion
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