Steve Watson

A Note on a Second Doctrine of Worlds

The Koran can be used to support the claim that there are multiple worlds – but only if we take the language extremely literally (e.g at [1:1],) and it gives no real indication of how these worlds should be understood. There are several distinct cosmologies that have currency in different branches of Islamic thought; the cosmology inherent in the chart of the tazkiyat an nafs is just one of them. There is also a ‘gnostic’ cosmology that is also included in the Sufi manuals but seems to fit only uneasily into the other cosmological views. It seems, however, that Sufis were urged to at least to bear in mind this version of the progression of the soul through the various worlds. In essence it is simple enough: the aspiring gnostic travels by means of the bridges from lower to higher worlds – but I cannot find how it was made consistent with the ‘seven stages’ cosmology given earlier. A very rough outline of the shape of the gnostic universe can be seen in this chart below.

* From an extract of Tanzih al-Awliya by Shaikh Abu’l-Qasim Khan Ibrahimi in Corbin op. cit. p. 240 ff.

This is mostly a diagram of information from J. Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in Islam (OUP, 1971) pp.159ff but it is very difficult to discover anything further on the matter. And what one does find is often contradictory. The information diagrammed is referred to Isma’il ibn M. Sa’id (ed.) Al-Fuyadat ar-Rabbaniyya, Cairo: 1354/1935 quoting ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, but the same pages of Trimingham describe a version in which shari’a is the path followed in Nasut, tariqah is the path by which one reaches Malakut, Ma’rifa (Gnosis) is the path by which one reaches Jabarut, and one then falls into the state Fana’or ‘Alam al Ghaib (Mystery.) According to H. Corbin Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth (NJ: Bollingen (PUP), 1977) p. 59 the schema according to Suhrawardi consisted of just three worlds, the highest of which was Jabarut, taken to be the celestial Earth Hurqalya. The next higher world (here, Lahut) is introduced by the Shaikhites, recapitulating a speculation of ibn ‘Arabi (p. 59.)

The ‘Worlds’ above do feature very prominently in Shi’ite ‘Imamology’, a structural homologue in Shi’ite gnosticism to the Christology of the Christian gnostics. To speak much too briefly, the worlds are a feature of a cosmology that creates the grounds for the possibility of earthly imams. How this can be of any significance to Sufic doctrine or practice remains a mystery to me, though the commonality of inspiration and initiation and ‘wilayat’ in the two branches of Islamic mysticism must be involved.