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Small Introduction to the Hermeneutical Contributions of Muhammad al-Baqir and the Monism of Ontological Dispersionsby AurélioImam Muhammad al-Baqir (ع) speaks to us about an interpretative trinity: the Zahir (the outward/exposed), the Batin (the inward/hidden), and the ta’wil (the hidden of the hidden; allegorical). He refers to these states by directing them to the Qur’an. Yet, in Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib (ع) we see that the Qur’an condenses all of reality.¹ Thus, the Baqirian triad could be extended to encompass all reality.² The anthropology taught by the Imams sustains a pre-Cartesian ontology. Imam Ali (ع) speaks of a body of light, his body of light, to which Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم refers as a “pillar of light.” Muhammad al-Mustafa صلى الله عليه وسلم is the first light,³⁴ the first logos, the Universal Intellect (Isma‘ilism). From him emanated Ali (ع), the light of the Batin,⁵ the Universal Soul (Isma‘ilism). From this perfect union (Ibn al-‘Arabi), Fatima al-Zahra (ع), al-Hasan (ع), and al-Husayn (ع) were emanated. In al-Farabi, Avicenna, Suhrawardi, and others, we find the idea of a succession of lights, in an angelic (though perhaps veiled) context: angels deriving angels, angels bursting forth into multiplicity, angels bestowing forms, angels to whom all existing souls owe their being. Ali (ع), when speaking of the members of his Ahlul Bayt, says: “All of us are Muhammad,”⁷ just as he also says: “Muhammad and I are One. Our difference lies in our dispersion through the worlds.”⁸ All of them are one, but the Qur’an sustains the thesis of the unity of the human soul.⁹ The Shi‘a Imams traverse the Baqirian triad, sometimes simultaneously (as in the seventy meanings spoken of by al-Sadiq).¹⁰ Thus, sometimes Ali himself is Zahiri (returning to Allah and Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم as His messenger); at other times Batin (referring to the Ahlul Bayt, veiled and hidden in the Qur’an: “I am the meaning of prayer, of fasting, and of the sacred days”¹¹); and finally, the ta’wil, which will be discussed in the next section. Heidegger Goes to Najaf: Existential Ontology in Shi‘i BatinismThe Heraclitean Aletheia, revealed through an un-concealment, with its different forms of concealment derived from the flux of becoming—something Heidegger would interpret by drawing upon the notion of Aletheia’s un-concealment through the Logos (in Heraclitus)—led Heidegger to reflect on Being and its veiling through alienation, at the midnight (Mitternacht) of the decline of Western metaphysics. In the Shi‘i worldview, Aletheia is Haqiqat (truth-in-itself), and Haqiqat is Allah, who cannot be unveiled. In the Qur’an itself, it is stated that: “It is not for a mortal that Allah should speak to him, except by revelation, or from behind a Veil, or by sending a Messenger [...]”¹² Veils of light, veils of darkness. In Islamic grammatical scope, there are several words that may signify something akin to the idea of “Being.” Yet, the one we may consider closest in this matter is ʿAql (Intellect). Imam Ja‘far al-Sadiq says that the extension of man is his intellect¹³, that man’s intellect comes from Allah¹⁴, and that through the intellect Allah remains self-reflective.¹⁵ The Intellect is pre-existent and post-finite¹⁶, it was with Allah¹⁷ and a part of it comes directly from Allah. The intellect is not a receptacle of memories; rather, it is active, an active agent of reality. In the Qur’an, intellect possesses religious authenticity: *“There is no compulsion in religion! Truth stands out clearly from error.”*¹⁸ The intellect is the receptacle of general immanence. What the Qur’an does not state directly is whether intellect is something purely human. However, it does affirm that Allah inspired the bees¹⁹, and likewise that animals form communities like ours.²⁰ Finally, ta’wil will then be laid bare, with an ontological formulation where Imam Ali even goes beyond Heidegger himself. In Heidegger, Being is understood as the possibility of all that exists, of all beings, where Being is attained through reflected life and finitude, reaching and influencing its world, crossing the threshold that separates unreflectiveness and non-agency, demonstrated in static character. In Nahj al-Balagha, Imam Ali tells us: “Your illness comes from within you, but you do not perceive it, and your remedy is within you, but you do not sense it. You presume you are a small entity, but within you is enfolded the entire Universe.” You are, in fact, the evident book, through whose letters the hidden becomes manifest. Therefore, you have no need to look beyond yourself. What you seek is within you, if only you reflect.There is concordance with Heideggerian ontology when observing Being as both dormant and as multiple possibilities. Yet in Heidegger there is finitude, whereas in Shi‘i thought, all of reality is nothing but the total experimentation of the Intellect with itself. In Spinoza’s immanence, there is the notion of Being transforming into distinct states of existence, through its conatus, but Spinoza did not think of the Batin, the microcosm of the human being. In this matter, there is a much greater dialogue with Deleuze and Guattari. Cosmo-Technics of Noo-Poiesis: The Intellect as Creator“There are many ways to reach God, but I chose God’s favorite way: the love of creation!” — Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Rumi Imam Ali tells us: “Outwardly, I am an Imam; inwardly, I am the Invisible, the Unknowable.”²¹ Imam Ali reveals the schizo-subject of Deleuze and Guattari. The full schizophrenic deterritorializes the symbolic system, connecting one end of the universe to the other, grounding himself in the “I feel” in order to configure new becomings, lines of flight. In his dissipation of the self as normative subject, the schizophrenic truly says (before being categorized on a couch) that he is the Mongol king, or the greatest criminals that ever lived. Imam Ali, in turn, declares himself to be the first Adam, the first Noah; he says he is David and Solomon, Jesus and Simon Peter. He is always new and always pre-existent. His beginning does not lie in the form he assumes at that precise moment; he has always been there, but has always been hidden.²² Imam Ali was a becoming-bee, for he described his Shi‘a as being like bees,²³ who seem to be easy prey but have something immensely precious concealed within. In Nusayri catechism this is described about Imam Ali himself, who was nicknamed as bald and obese—yet in Batin meaning: bald of attributes (outwardly, an Imam), obese with knowledge (inwardly, the Unknowable). On this rests Noo-Poiesis: the comprehension of the supreme veil (the Imam) in order to go against the false inner veil (the nafs, the ego). The Shi‘a sins, yet has no sin;²⁴ the Shi‘a dissimulates, yet carries the meaning;²⁵ he stands beyond the rules of religion, for nothing of the Shari‘a is imposed upon him,²⁶ since he connects himself to the pre-beginning and the unending. Post-EndIt is the post-end. He is like Allah, for Imam Ali is like Allah.²⁷ Reality configures itself as light upon light; thus it is unveiled—there is a “ground,” there is haqiqat, there is aletheia. The Intellect is an agent force, producing intensities through its cosmo-technology. Allah says that He will make us to be like Him, even in creative power,²⁸ or, in other narrations, that He will make “of our hands, His hand; of our eyes, His eye.” In Shi‘i batinism there is great importance given to letters: hurufiyya, alphabetic codes that shape the noo-poietic, operating through technical beams distinct from khôra-poiesis, where Haqiqat tears through the Zahir—an intensive gradient, a graduation of being (Mulla Sadra)—where an indeterminate monist ontological reality unfolds into different states²⁹, into unknown forms³⁰, where the finitude of Dasein is denied, as well as the geometric teleology of Descartes and Spinoza. Imagination is part of the active Intellect: it connects physical reality to sensible and possible realities. Suhrawardi explained how imagination could connect man to the realm of Malakut (cited in the Qur’an), where one encounters the Tree of Tuba, wherein resides the Simorgh, pure light descending to earth (an analogy to the Imam). Active imagination is also part of noo-poiesis; it connects the different states of the soul. It is a subtle journey, commonly experienced. No God — Allah = 0Muhammad ibn al-Hassan narrated from Sahl ibn Ziyad from Hamzah ibn Muhammad, who said: “I wrote to Imam Abu al-Hassan [Ali al-Hadi] (ع), asking about the body and form (of Allah). He replied: ‘Glorious is He; nothing is like unto Him. He is neither a body nor has any form.’” (al-Kafi II, 277) In al-Kafi, Imam Ali al-Hadi speaks of Allah as formless. It is no surprise: Allah is emptiness, He is void, He is without form. He is not Allah = 1, He is Allah = 0. He is not the One, as inscription, as structure, as the Father of all essence. He is the Zero, the possessor of all intensity.³² He bestows the One and the Multiple. He is the One by whom all is brought into existence, yet where nothing exists. He provides all possibilities. He is the ground, like the ground of a canvas (blank), where everything takes form, where the One is self-differentiation (noo-poietic). Light upon light, succession of veiling, where this one-validity is not static but produces lines of flight—thus configuring Shi‘i Cosmo-Technics: the Preserved Tablet comes with differentiation, the Pen with the repetition of signs. Among the signs mentioned in the Qur’an is the functioning of Being itself. Of the Cosmos, Nature, and Animals…still subjected to differentiation³³, to transitoriness³⁴. Sufism speaks of fanāʾ fī al-wujūd (annihilation in Being). In the Khutbah al-Bayan, Imam Ali speaks of our becoming one with the Qaʾim³⁵. It is the aporetic annihilation that connects Ibn al-ʿArabi to Derrida, where onto-cosmo-poiesis requires both erasure and plenitude. Shi‘i Islam carries with it an invitation to anti-structure: X > Y must become X ≠ Y The Theory of Difference in Shi‘i Islam, and the General Resurrection as the Triumph of Pluralist Anti-StructureNasir al-Din Tusi, in his treatise, envisions the resurrection as an event in which the Zahir form of religion will be abolished, and in the unveiling of the universal taʾwil, the whole of humanity will be united. The Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم said: “Islam began as something different and will return as something different; blessed are the different.” For this reason, we will use “different” as the concept of difference, which arises solely from categorization: the recognition of something X as not equal to the rest (X ≠ Y). Meanwhile, “differentiated” will signify the narcissistic category, the sin of Iblis³⁶, in which the “other” becomes “other” only through the qualitative self-valorization of the “I” over against the “other” (X > Y). After the Qiyamah, we will still be different, but we will no longer be differentiated—something already articulated by Imam Jaʿfar al-Sadiq when speaking about the nature of his faithful gnostics (for Qiyamah is gnosis). He described them symbolically through thirteen names, corresponding to peoples that represented the totality that an average Shiʿa of that time could hold in his memory:
— Shaykh Maymun ibn Saʿid Abu l-Qasim al-Tabarani (ق), Kitab al-Maʿarif wa-tuhfat li-kulli ʿarif TerminusIn the end, the Shiʿa is one with the whole, and the whole is everything that has been and everything that will ever be. The unique reality contains all; even what is thought is real. For it is not like the Platonic duality of the Phaedo; rather, it is the phenomenal observation as observation of the real. Hence Imam Jaʿfar al-Sadiq speaks of himself as “the Aristotle of this nation”³⁷—but here, the peripatetic act extends throughout the entire cosmos and worlds (yes, worlds)³⁸ that exist. Notes and References
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