Objects Entries, The Moon in Islamic Faith, Science, and the Arts (original) (raw)
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Journal of The Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, Vol. 68, 2020
Awarded a commendation in the international Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society Young Writers Award 2019, this paper examines Ibn 'Arabi's references to the Moon as a metaphor for man becoming illuminated by the light of the God. It compares the astronomical process of the Moon's illumination over the course of twenty-eight days to Ibn 'Arabi's notion of the twenty-eight spiritual waystations, concluding that the Full Moon can be thought to represent the Sufi idea of the 'polished mirror'.
The Prophet Muhammad's ‘Ayn Seal: A Safavid-Period Diagram as Cosmic Vision
The Diagram as Paradigm: Cross-Cultural Approaches, 2022
“The Prophet’s ‘Ayn Seal: A Safavid-Period Diagram as Cosmic Vision,” in The Diagram as Paradigm: Cross-Cultural Approaches, ed. Jeffrey Hamburger, David Roxburgh, and Linda Safran (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022), 515-531. This paper explores a large-scale diagram, measuring 72 x 48.8 cm, most likely made in Iran during the seventeenth century. Among its graphic and textual contents, it depicts the “seal of the Prophet Muhammad” in the shape of the letter ‘ayn, which means both “eye” and “spring.” These sphragistic and lettrist motifs are indebted to earlier Islamic hermetic traditions, including “cosmic order” (ha’ya) maps and mystical letter (hurufi) diagrams, such as those articulated by the “Brethren of Purity,” al-Buni, and al-Bistami. However, in this particular instance the diagram has been expanded in size and visual content. It includes verses by the Persian Sufi poet Sa‘di (d. 1291) and Mir Damad (d. 1632), the latter quoted on the mystical meanings of the letters nun (the “n” of creation) and ‘ayn (the spring of life). The citation of Mir Damad proves of special interest as this Safavid gnostic philosopher, well known as the founder of the “School of Isfahan,” believed that the pondering of abstract concepts could activate spiritual visions—as was perhaps the purpose of this made-for-display diagram, which also encourages mystics to engage in the weekly activities of invocation, fasting, silence, vigil, segregation, cogitation, and repentance. Last but not least, this comic seal diagram also associates the four bodily humors (heat, cold, dryness, and wetness) with ‘Ali, Fatima, Husayn, and Hasan, respectively. Blending lettrist philosophy, occult cosmology, Sufi poetics, and Shi‘i-inflected humor theory, this epistemic image invites its spiritualist beholders to visually imagine and thus access the secrets of God and the cosmos, in the process strengthening the particular beliefs of a Safavid Shi‘i-Sufi brotherhood at a moment of increasing sectarianism across Islamic lands.