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Jaai dekhyaa agam tamaashaa.64
The skies in the West glow
And one witnesses a unique and unparalleled show of Light – Nur.
(Brahm Prakash v. 64)
The mysterious illumination of the western heavens is held to be a symbolic rendition of a spiritual experience. The 150-verse Brahm Prakash composed by Pir Shams relates the gnostic ascent of the mystic.
The Sun has for long been a primary symbol of divinity in man’s religious consciousness. … The Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Hindu, Aztec, Navaho, Wachagga, and Shinto traditions are a few of the many who have granted prominent roles to solar figures in their respective pantheons. In Islam, the Qur’an-e Shariff contains numerous references to the Sun as one of the ayat of Allah’s presence in the universe…”
And of His signs (ayat)
Are the night and the day,
the sun and the moon” (41:37)
In the Shi’i tradition, the Sun was generally a symbol of the Imam. Sufi writings also used the Sun “as a major mystical symbol; this is especially apparent in the poetry of Jalal al-Din Rumi” (Karim, The Significance of the ‘Western Sunrise’ in the Isma’ili Tradition, Hikmat p 12). The Ikhwan al-Safa, a tenth century brotherhood, who wrote an encyclopedic work (Rasa’il) “gave a prominent place to the sun in their scheme of the universe. S.H. Nasr paraphrases the Ikhwan’s conception of the Sun’s place in the physical universe:
God has placed the Sun at the centre of the universe…. Below it stands Venus, Mercury, Moon, the sphere of air, and the earth and above it there are another five spheres, those of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the fixed stars …. The Sun is thus ‘the heart of the universe’ and ‘the sign of God in the heavens and the earth.’ It is also the source of light for the whole Universe, light which in its most direct way symbolizes the effusion of Being” (An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines p 77).
“The vital nature of the Sun and its light in the material universe of the Ikhwan’s geocentric cosmology can be said to parallel the indispensability of the Imam and his nur to the spiritual world. Hence, the Ikhwan employed the symbol of the Sun in the cosmos to portray the Imam as the existential hub of the universe” (Karim, Hikmat p 12).
Spiritual Geography
The four cardinal points – east, west, north, and south – are directions which orient oneself geographically in the world in relation to the geographic north.
“The organization, the plan, of this network has depended since time immemorial on a single point: the point of orientation, the heavenly north, the pole star” (Corbin, Man of Light p 1).
The rising of the Sun in the east refers to the light of the day as it succeeds the night. “Between the two, there is “a two-fold twilight: the crepusculum vespertinum, no longer day but not yet night; the crepusculum matutinum, no longer night but not yet day. Daylight breaks in the middle of the night and turns into day a night which is still there but which is a Night of light.” Iranian Sufi masters refer to the Night of light… as the black Light.”(Corbin, Man of Light p 4).
In Sufi literature, the Orient, a mystical east, is not a geographic direction, but rather the realm of light, “the place of the Origin and Return, the object of the eternal Quest” (Corbin, Man of Light p 2). ‘Black light’ is not a colour, but the lack of it. “It is light in its purest, most ‘unmaterial’ sense, that is, spiritual light. Therefore ‘black light’ does not exist in the material universe but can be gnostically perceived by the mystic when he stands witness to ‘the dawn in the west.'” (Karim, Hikmat p 12).
“Isma’ili tradition traces the earliest-known mention of the mystical illumination of the western sky to a [saying] of Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq:
“From amongst us (the Imams) shall come…salvation (hadi) and the Mahdi, the rightful Guide (muhtadi) and the one by whom people shall be led … From amongst us shall be the one over whose head the sun shall come down, and then rise from the place where it sets.”
In the zaheri (exoteric), historical terms, this “has been seen as a prophecy of the establishment of the Fatimid Empire in the [10th century]… However, the esoteric (batini) interpretation … transcends history and stands as a spiritual metaphor of the awakening of mystical enlightenment in the followers of the Imam…. it goes far beyond the confines of the terrestrial concepts of history and geography” (Karim, Hikmat p 12).
Spiritual North Pole
In spiritual geography, “the North, the Orient, and the Occident are not situated on our terrestrial maps. They have a vertical, heavenly orientation as opposed to the usually-understood horizontal directions. The rising of the Sun from the west, the side of the night, denotes a mystical ‘midnight sun,’ a symbol which has appeared in the esoteric literature of various traditions. The Mathnavi of Jalal al-Din Rumi devotes several lines to the experience of witnessing ‘a sun at midnight.’ And the Ishraqi school of Sufism, which is well-known for its concepts of spiritual lights perceived in gnostic experience, also speaks of the ‘midnight sun.'” (Karim, Hikmat p 14).
“The journey toward the Orient of pure light is a journey without return. Once the gnostic has become divorced from the world of matter and is allowed to enter the realm of pure forms, the domain of the angels, he does not fall back into the darkness of this world, just as in alchemy once the gold is made it cannot be unmade into a base metal” (Nasr, Islamic Cosmological Doctrines p 266).
“This is the place of its origin. North in this heavenly dimension is the location of paradise and the closer one approaches its pole (qutb) the freer is one of the dark shackles of materialism. It is the place where spiritual light (nur) shines brightest. In the Indian (Hindu) mystical tradition the northern Sun is referred to as Uttara-kurus” (Karim, Hikmat p 15). Corbin states that the souls of the people of Uttara-kurus, have “reached such completeness and harmony that it is devoid of negativity and shadow; it is neither of the east nor of the west” (Man of Light p 40).
Pir Sadr al-Din tells his converts:
The Light of the Lord will shine brightly
in the Northern Continent (Uttar-khand)”
Uttar khand mahe Shah ni jot jaageva
(tr. M. & Z. Kamaluddin, Ginan Central University of Saskatchewan)
“In Isma’ili belief the northern spiritual pole is the heavenly symbol of the Imam. Professor Henri Corbin interpreted the Ismai’ili concept of the ‘western sunrise’ as referring “specifically to the Imam who is the pole (qutb), the keystone and axis of the esoteric hierarchy” (Man of Light p 40). The Imam is the personal guide (murshid) of the murid in the spiritual endeavours of the latter.. .Light dispels darkness as the gnostic moves further away from the Occident and rises to the northern qutb by means of dhikr [the murid’s link with the murshid]. When he ultimately attains the dawn of spiritual recognition (shinakht) of his Imam the sky is said to be mystically illuminated in the west” (Karim, Hikmat p 15).
The ‘midnight sun’ therefore corresponds directly to the Ismai’ili gnostic’s relation with his Imam. Its manifestation occurs with the culmination of his mystic quest. He now experiences spiritual realization of the Imam who he hitherto knew only in exoteric terms. Every Imam as the Mahdi and the Qa’im of his followers makes possible the ‘western sunrise’ as he guides them to spiritual enlightenment” (Karim, Hikmat p 15).
He brings them forth from the shadows into the light.
Qur’an 2:257
Adapted from The Significance of the ‘Western Sunrise’ in the Isma’ili Tradition by Karim H. Karim, published in Hikmat, July 1984
Henry Corbin, Man of Light in Iranian Sufism translated from French by Nancy Pearson, Omega Publications, New York, 1971
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