Wa Bismi Rabbi ãl-Husayn (Ṣ)
Dear Friends in Walāyaḧ,
Ał-Salāmu ʿalaykum wa raḥmaẗu Ãllāhi wa barakātuhū.
One of the brothers and sisters asked me to comment on the merits of the famous Ziyāraḧ Jāmiʿaḧ Kabīraḧ, the Great Comprehensive Visitation. This long prayer of visitation is narrated from Imām ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Hādī (Ṣ). I’ll make a brief comment, and expand on it as needed in the coming days, inshaaAllah.[1. The last previous edit of the original draft of this note was published privately on Facebook on Sunday, January 23, 2011.]
Know that every ziyāraḧ or visitation of the Imams (S) that has been narrated from them (S) constitutes a worthy and complete visitation. Each has its audience, its time, and its immense value. At the same time, some are outwardly more comprehensive than others with respect to the themes discussed and elaborated. In terms of comprehensiveness there are two of these visitations which constitute the Gospel of Tashayyuʿ so to speak:
- Ziyāraḧ ʿĀshūrā
- Ziyāraḧ Jāmiʿaḧ Kabīraḧ
The questioner asked specifically about the second. What we know is that the Imām of the Time (Ṣ) has, on at least two separate occasions, appeared to some of the Shīʿaḧ and commented on this. On one occasion, the Imam told one of them that Ziyāraḧ Jāmiʿaḧ Kabīraḧ is
نعمت الزيارة!
or Most bountiful of visitations!
On another occasion the Imam (Ṣ) paired it with Ziyāraḧ ʿĀshūrā in worthiness. Now we know that Ziyāraḧ ʿĀshūrā is worth one million Ḥajj, one million ʿUmraḧ, and one million battles fought with the Messenger (Ṣ). Given the pairing on this occasion, and the description of it as the “most bountiful of visitations!” on another, we can confidently trust that Ziyāraḧ Jāmiʿaḧ Kabīraḧ has similar merit at least. And Allah knows best.
The questioner asked a bit more than this, and inshāAllah I will return to this topic and follow up with more comments. For now, I’ll leave you with the following thought:
Ziyāraḧ Jāmiʿaḧ Kabīraḧ encapsulates everything that the seeker of Truth, Reality, Yaqīn,[2. The word ‘yaqīn’ means “certainty” in the sense of knowledge. It does not mean “certitude” in the sense of faith or self-assurance.] and ʿIrfān needs on the journey by way of Cosmological and Spiritual Walāyah. In conjunction with Ziyāraḧ ʿĀshūrā, we have a veritable Gospel of Walayah, of Dynamic Love. Full acceptance — taslīm — of these two are the benchmark or furqan for entering the ocean of the Ṭarīqaḧ of AhlulBayt (Ṣ).
Yā ʿAlī!
Some Comments Based on Earlier Reader Feedback
I. A Question from a reader.[3. There were many interesting comments in the original post. For reasons of privacy I will not mention the names of the authors of those comments without explicit permission, nor will I post the content except where especially needed.]
Muʾminīn do complete taslīm to the Qurʾān, and who can claim to completely comprehend the Qurʾān (except Them (S))?
An Answer
The word ‘taslīm’ in the microcosmic sense just means accepting that it comes from AhlullBayt (Ṣ), and accepting everything that AhlulBayt (Ṣ) has said.[4. The difference between macrocosmic and microcosmic taslīm is discussed in detail in Islam, Station and Process, Chapter 2.]
Taqwa (awareness), Yaqin (certain knowledge), and Bayan (Clarity/Enlightenment) come later.The point is to apply the Supreme Principle of Spiritual Walayah:
بِالْعَقْلِ اسْتُخْرِجَ غَوْرُ الْحِكْمَةِ وَ بِالْحِكْمَةِ اسْتُخْرِجَ غَوْرُ الْعَقْل
Through consciousness the depths of reason are fathomed; through wisdom the depths of consciousness are fathomed.
So read and meditate on the Ziyāraḧ (consciousness); then do the Ziyāraḧ (wisdom), then meditate upon it again (consciousness); then do it again (wisdom)…
…and the meanings will open. But taslīm is the principle that lets you get on the ship of Najāḧ (salvation), the ship of Imām Ḥusayn (Ṣ) that leads to Najāḧ; to dynamic awareness (*taqwā*), certain knowledge (*yaqīn*), and finally clarity (*bayān*).
From Them (Ṣ):
You will not be righteous until you acknowledge; you will not acknowledge until you believe; and you will not believe until you submit and fully accept (*taslīm*). These are four doors; none will work without the other.”
This beautiful ḥadīth takes us from entering Islām, to dynamically believing in it (*īmān*), to fully assenting and submitting to the Thaqalayn (Ṣ) and what they have brought.
II. A Note on an aforementioned ḥadīth
Ḥusayn (Ṣ) is the Lamp of Guidance and the Ark/Ship of Salvation.
The Lamp is the lamp of meditation; the ship is the ship of movement. There is nothing static here; it’s all dynamic. Staying on the ship is not always easy. A ship goes through long and rough seas, one is far from the shoreline during most of the journey, and we ask Allah not to let us fall off!
Taslīm gets us onto the Ark, but the ship is moving, we even get seasick sometimes, but the point is to hang on. Enjoy the calm waters, and weather the storms, through the Ark of Ḥusayn (Ṣ).
The Lamp of Guidance (meditation) is what keeps us on the ship, from falling off. So again:
Through consciousness the depths of reason are fathomed; through wisdom the depths of consciousness are fathomed.
Related to the distinction between microcosmic and macrocosmic taslīm:
- Microcosmic taslīm is the shore of the beach from whence we are allowed to get on the boat;
- Macrocosmic taslīm is the shore on the other side of the waters, the next shore to which the Ark of Ḥusayn (Ṣ) takes us.
Through microcosmic taslīm our actions become righteous or صالح; through macrocosmic taslīm our actions become beautiful or محسن.
Let’s reflect on this!
III. From a dear Sister
One of the sisters mentioned the following quote from Henry Corbin:[5. See Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis, pp. 143-144.]
The story comes to us from a familiar of the Imam, Jabir ibn Zayd al-Ju’fi. Entering the Imam’s house, he finds him in a state of meditation, his rosary in hand, reciting these verses: “Glory to Him before whom every Veil that I lifted discovered a closed Door to me. Every closed Door that I encountered discovered to me a Veil!”
A transmission of thought occurs. Mentally addressing his Imam, the visitor thinks: “Yes, thou art a sublime being.” And the Imam raises his head and says: “The Sublime is he who has constituted the sublime. He who knows is he who has constituted someone who knows, through what emanated from Him into me. I am the serf of God, to whom he revealed himself. Worship no one but God.” Jabir thinks inwardly: “This man is the Veil. What then will be he whom he veils?”
Having mentally heard this question as well, the Imam raises his head again:
I saw an extraordinary splendor gleaming in him, a dazzling light that my eyes could scarcely sustain or my intelligence contain. And the Imam said: “Here is one of Thy Saints whom thou hast heaped with thy favors.” And to me he said: “Should I show thee still more?” “No,” I said, “that is my measure.”
My Reply
The above is a translation of a text by the Ismāʿīli missionary Idris Imaduddin (d. 872AH/1468CE). He was the first to write a comprehensive history of the Ismāʿīlis, including the Fatimid dynasty.
This particular ḥadīth is clearly Ismāʿīli. This is an early work of Corbin, and he mistranslates the Arabic. Where Corbin has
The Sublime is he who has constituted the sublime.
He who knows is he who has constituted someone who knows, through what emanated from Him into me.
a better translation would be
The magnificent (ʿAẓīm) is the one whom a Magnificent One has appointed; the knower is one whom a Knowing One has appointed; through that which has begun with me from Him. I am a servant of Allah. It has been revealed to me (*waḥy*) that you adore and serve none but Allah in His Might and Majesty.
Now the Ismailis consider the Imams to be basically prophets in the sense that they receive waḥy or revelation. So the Imam Bāqir (S) is quoted as saying
It has been revealed to me
quoting the Qurʾān, last āyah of Sūrah Kahf.
This is unacceptable to the Twelver School of Tashayyuʿ. In our ahadith the Aʾimmaḧ (Ṣ) generally do not speak speak this way.
Yes, in the Ziyāraḧ the Imams are called Maḥbiṭu ãl-Waḥy, the place where revelation descends. So the meaning is legitimate, even if the ḥadīth is not. That is, one can derive or extract a legitimate meaning from the statement, even if the statement is a forgery.
I suspect that this tradition may have an authentic source but it has been edited at Ismāʿīli hands. The rest of the ḥadīth goes into Ismāʿīli gnostic speculations about Salmān (R) which appear to mix fact and fiction.
The problem with the ḥadīth quoted from the Ismāʿīlis is that it — along with others of its ilk — subtly sets the stage for eradicating the distinction between nubuwwaḧ and imāmaḧ:
It has been revealed to me (*waḥy*) that you adore and serve none but Allah
The connotations of the ‘me’ here serves to set the Imām as an independent authority, independent of the Messenger (Ṣ) that is. Hence we find some of the Ismāʿīli “Imams” abolishing the Sharīʿaḧ or abrogating the outer meanings of the Qurʾān.
Within our own tradition the matter is never couched in this way, even by those like Imam Khumayni, Shaykh Aḥmad, Mirza Shahabadi, and other great ʿurafāʾ who come close to ghuluww (extremism) in the eyes of their colleagues. This is a subtlety that is very important.
As for wahy in general, the Qurʾān says explicitly that Imām Ḥusayn (Ṣ) received it so no problem there It’s just that the Imams (Ṣ) did not set themselves up as independent recipients of wahy, the way that ʿĪsa (A) was a recipient of waḥy independent of Musa (A).
So in our tradition, the Imams (S) are very insistent upon the imāmaḧ-nubuwwaḧ distinction — and that they are not Prophets –, whereas the Ismāʿīlis tend to erase the imāmaḧ-nubuwwaḧ distinction. This ḥadīth from the Ismāʿīli missionary Idris Imaduddin fits into this picture.
And Allah knows best !
IV. Our dear Sister responds
Salaam, thank you Shaykh. Fascinating. Regarding ‘it has been revealed to me’ – what is the Arabic? Could it not simply be that veils were lifted and the Imam (as) received this knowledge, similarly to this in al-Kafi by Imam Ja’far (as)?
‘Verily, I know what is in the heavens and what is in the earth. I know what is in Paradise, I know what is in the Fire, and I know what has been and what will be.’ Then he paused for a moment, and then he saw that this was too difficult for those who heard it from him, so he said ‘I have learnt (all this) from the Book of Allah, to Whom belong Might and Majesty. Truly Allah, to Whom belong Might and Majesty, says: “In it is the clarification of all things”. (Al-Kafi, Vol. 1, Part II, The Book of Divine Proof, p. 268)
My reply:
Regarding ‘it has been revealed to me’ – what is the Arabic?
Answer:
یوحى الي
a direct quote from the Qurʾān, where the Messenger (S) is commanded to say this.
Could it not simply be that veils were lifted and the Imam (as) received this knowledge…?
Indeed, and even more: Once the Imam Jaʿfar (S) once fell into a swoon during his nawāfil ṣalāḧ, and his companions asked what happened. He said:
I kept repeating Sūraḧ Tawḥīd until I heard it from its Speaker.
But note that the Imam did not use the word ‘waḥy’ to describe this; rather he said ‘samiʿtu’, “I heard”. Again, it’s a subtle but critical distinction. He did not say, e.g., “Surah Tawhid was revealed (*waḥy*) to me”, although one could argue that the hearing was indeed a branch of waḥy.
Again: The point is that the Imams always couched their knowledge and their “waḥy” so to speak in terms of the Messenger (S), never as independent from him (Ṣ).
These subtleties may seem pedantic, but they are crucial for maintaining the line between ghuluww (*extremism*) and taqṣīr (*not giving the Imams (S) their due*).
‘I have learnt (all this) from the Book of Allah, to Whom belong Might and Majesty. Truly Allah, to Whom belong Might and Majesty, says: “In it is the clarification of all things.”
Again, note that the Imam (S) did not say, “It has been revealed to me from Allah,” [etc.], but that kind of locution is common in Ismāʿīli traditions, for reasons described earlier.
In WALAYAH.
hr /
Why not translate ‘aql instead as Moezzi glosses it as ‘Hiero-Intelligence’?
During some recent commissioned work I had a chance to think more about the translation of ‘ʿaql‘. I get the point of ‘hiero-intelligence’ but the prefix ‘hiero’ comes off too strongly as jargon, and the use of ‘intelligence’ smacks of Neoplatonism.
‘Consciousness-awareness’ is better but too long. So for now I shorten it to ‘consciousness’, a normal English word whose present usage captures enough of the vibrations of ‘ʿaql‘ to be effective to a general audience.
Based on some new insights I may have a fresh translation of the word soon. But still meditating it…
As i understand, the faculty of aql is not the same as the faculty of intelligence. Excuse me sheikh if i’m wrong, but from what I understood from your books/lectures the faculty of aql is the heart and the faculty of intelligence is the brain.
@Ali H.:
This is a delicate topic. dhulfiqar110’s reference was to a usage of ‘intelligence’ that has its origins in Plotinus’s system of Emanation as understood by Muslim philosophers, Ismailis, etc; not the everyday colloquial usage of ‘intelligence’.
In any case: The brain is the seat of “intellecting” or “intellection” per se, which involves analytic and synthetic thought. The heart is the seat of genuine intelligence, as the ancients such as Aristotle also affirmed. Here’s what was said in Chapter 3 of Islam, Sign and Creation
The exact relationship or identity between the heart and ʿaql also needs some discussion, but perhaps another time.
This distinction between Prophethood and Imamate always becomes a game of semantics, and it becomes dependent on what level an individual can cognitively entertain. It can just as well be a case of reducing the Imams to a role of nabis (minor prophets), guardians of a given revelation, to that of a rasul (majority prophet), initiator of a given revelation.
There is a much simpler explanation, which is that Fatimah and the 12 Imams are one Ousia with the Prophet Mohammed. Since they are the very Nafs of Allah, the Immaculate Ones are 14 separate hypostasis’, which both preserves the sanctity of the Seal of Prophethood and simultaneously maintains distinct cosmological roles on equal footing with the Prophet.
@Minato Namikaze:
Interesting and insightful comment…. Allow me to make an observation: The distinction between Imāmah and Nubuwwah is not a “game of semantics” but requires a multi-dimensional and Hermetic semantics. These two expressions, ‘multi-dimensional’ and ‘Hermetic’, are technical terms meant to convey something very crucial, which will take more time than I have at this moment to get into deeply.
In any case, there is no need to conflate Imāmah and Nubuwwah: These are two very distinct appointments with distinct sets of necessary and sufficient conditions. The language of the Imams (S) is quite precise on this score. The problem comes when we don’t place these two appointments in the context of the Four Maqāmāt of AhlulBayt (S). Slightly more explicitly: The relationship between Imāmah and Nubuwwah is horizontal; the relationships between the Four Maqāmāt are vertical.
The use of Pauline/Neoplatonic terms such as ‘homoousia’ or ‘hypostasis’ is interesting and creative. But this kind of approach is much too static (just as Paulinism, Gnosticism, and Neoplatonism are much too static). Mapping the dynamic dialectics of AhlulBayt (S) into such a framework (as the Ismailis did so vigorously) leads to all kinds of problems, such as the ones mentioned by the dear Sister above. Or we end up like the Gnostic Nusayris in both ghuluww (extremism) and taqṣīr (falling short).
Ismailism and Nusayrism both suffer on account of missing the dialectic. The same goes for Paulinism; hence all three fall into the same traps of ghuluww (outwardly) and taqṣīr (inwardly). This is a very crucial point, one that those who try to bridge Paulinism and Walayah always miss.
Indeed, it is one of the purposes of this forum to provide a topos from where we can begin to make the Dialectics of AhlulBayt (S) explicit, based on the first principles that They (S) themselves have given but which are all too often ignored or missed, even by those who dive into the waters of Walãyah Takwīniyyah.
As for the point that They (S) are the Nafs of Allah, this is an allusion to the saying of Jesus (على نبينا صلّى الله عليه و اٰله)
This also needs a separate discussion in its own right.
Yaa Husayn!