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To: TariqasFrom: Gale Subject: RE: Question on Qabala Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 18:58:23 -0700 Greetings to you Rick, I=92m quite ignorant about classical Qabala, nevertheless your question=20 poses very interesting scenarios. For whatever reason, many scholars and=20 students seem timid to approach this area of Jewish-Islamic-Sufi=20 research (as well as the Christian-Islam-Sufi interactions) =96 as if the= =20 purity of divine revelation will somehow be soiled if we happen to=20 discover some mundane truth in history! Therefore, instead of directly=20 addressing your question on the Sufi-Jewish interactions pertaining to=20 the Tree of Life, I would prefer to offer a collage of information. =20 Although I have always enjoyed Idries Shah=92s works, I am also suspiciou= s=20 of his historical conclusions, re. interreligious influences, because he=20 so rarely supports these with primary and secondary sources. There=92s no= =20 easy way to check his statements=92 credibility. Besides, now with so man= y=20 new pre-Islamic Near Eastern Christian and Jewish documents coming to=20 light, Shah=92s theories as well as other theorists favoring Islam=92s=20 untouchability with earlier traditions, are quite out-dated. A good=20 example: it was the popular view that no precursor for Mohammed=92s five=20 daily prayers existed and thus it was an original revelation; however,=20 now we know that the Christian ascetic communities in the Amid region of=20 Syria indeed practiced the identical prayer regimen much earlier (cf. A.=20 Voobus, History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient, vol. 1), and it was=20 also the Syrian dialect of the Amid that may have been the basis for the=20 Quran=92s Arabic (cf. S. Trimingham, Christianity amongst the Arabs). The= =20 idea of the Qabalistic Tree of Life having any direct relationship with=20 Sufism is one such problem. Of course one finds a kind of=20 proto-sephiroth in the doctrine of logoi in the writings of Philo during=20 the first century, and again in the Sefer ha-Bahir which is purported to=20 be a transmission of teachings that were pre-Islamic. Another=20 interesting historical finding is that images of the Tree of Life were=20 common icons in Syrian Monophysite Christian churches from the late 6th=20 century onwards, and in some of the early Muslim chronicles it was the=20 single image that may be present for Muslims entering a church to=20 perform nimaz =96 before the development of the legalist schools which=20 consequently forbid Muslims from praying in churches altogether. Some=20 enlightened spiritual leaders such as Jaffar Saddiq and Ibn Arabi=20 permitted nimaz in churches without exceptions. (cf. Basham=92s very=20 detailed article on Christian and Islamic qiblas and Muslim prayer in=20 Oriental churches in "Muslim World") I find no problem in asking ourselves questions such as Raqib=92s post=20 offers: did Mohammed (pbh) have a spiritual mentor(s)? If so, was s/he=20 Jewish, Christian, and/or Hanif? And what kind of Judaism or=20 Christianity did s/he represent? For example, Ibn Sa=92d=92s and Ibn=20 Hisham=92s story of the mysterious Christian monk Bahira who recognized=20 Mohammad=92s (pbh) prophetic destiny doesn=92t end there. Debates over=20 Bahira=92s orthodoxy continued into the middle ages, even between=20 Christians and Muslims. A monastery dedicated to him was founded in=20 Basra (I understand it still operates) and a later Syriac text entitled=20 the Apocalypse of Bahira was circulated among the Nestorians. At the=20 Muslim end, Bahira was acknowledged as an associate of Mohammed=92s=20 Companion Salman Farsi. (cf. C. de Vaux, "Legende de Bahira ou une moine=20 chretien autour du Coran" Revue de l=92Orient Chretien, 1897) Specifically in the Jewish arena, we find, for example, Rahman the=20 All-Merciful as an official name of God in the Babylonian Talmud, and=20 was the principal name for God (Rahmanan) used by the Jewish King=20 Dhu-Nuwas from Yemen (who, by the way, was the first to institute an=20 official "Holy War" in South Arabia!) The Quranic references to=20 emphasizing a message given to other peoples, and now the Arabs, is a=20 clear echo of Zephaniah 2:9: "Then I shall turn to the nations a clear=20 language that they may all call upon the name of the Lord." There was a=20 Hebrew scholar in Israel, I believe it was Goiten, who observed that the=20 oldest suras focus on references to Moses, and only the later ones make=20 reference to Jesus, which likewise parallel the earlier suras=92 emphasis= =20 on Rahman and the latter=92s introduction of Rahim (maybe some of the=20 Quranic scholars on-line can verify this). And then the favorite legend=20 amongst Sufis of Khider=92s outrageous behavior during his wanderings wit= h=20 his disciple Moses is found much earlier in the Jewish legend of=20 Elijah=92s rambunctious acts with his disciple Joshua ben Levi, and again= =20 in a popular Mid-East folk legend found in the Alexander Romance cycle.=20 (cf. article on Khider in Encyclopedia of Islam, EJ Brill, Leiden) Wow, and we never got to the Islamic concepts of multiple Messengers=20 during the course of history, the Seal, the prophetic notion of the=20 Gospel=92s Paraclete as a human being instead of an event of the spirit,=20 and the docetic teaching of Jesus=92s illusory death via a substitution a= s=20 finding their closest historical predecessors -- not in Christianity or=20 Judaism -- but in Manicheanism! (Manichean scriptural sources available=20 upon request). What=92s going on here? Blessings to all, Nur
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