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Eternal Cosmos and the Womb of History: Time in Early Ismaili Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Paul E. Walker
Paul E. Walker
Affiliation:
American Research Center in Egypt, Cairo
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Extract

One of the more serious and threatening, yet unsolved, problems in theology is uncertainty about the meaning of time. Clearly, the theologian of an omnipotent and absolute God must reconcile His transcendence with the human worshiper's graphic and personal particularity. To come to terms in the matter of spatial dimension is, moreover, relatively easy when compared with the problem of the temporal dimension. Compounding the woes of the theologian (or perhaps causing them) is the abject poverty of all languages in proper terms for time and aspects of time. In describing time, all theologians resort to the use of an artificial vocabulary – so unfortunate because it makes the communication of already unfamiliar ideas doubly difficult.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , August 1978 , pp. 355 - 366
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 One example is the nearly universal lack of a proper word for the whole twenty-four hour period. The word Nychthemeron, which means exactly that, is rare and obscure. The English word ‘day’, applies, of course, to the hours of sunlight and only by extension to night time.

2 Martin, P. Nilsson, Primitive Time-Reckoning: A Study of the Origins and First Development of the Art of Counting Time among the Primitive and Early Cultural Peoples (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1920).Google Scholar

3 See Louis, Massignon, ‘Time in Islamic Thought’, Papers from Eranos Yearbooks, vol. 3. Man and Time, Bollingen series XXX.3 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1957), pp. 108–109.Google Scholar

4 Le Mythe de l'éternel retour (Paris, 1948); Eng. trans. Willard, Trask, Bollingen series XLVI (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954).Google Scholar

5 Massignon, , ‘Time in Islamic Thought’, p. 108.Google Scholar

6 Arnaldo, Momigliano, ‘Time in Ancient Historiography’, History and Theory, Beiheft 6, History and the Concept of Time (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1966), pp. 1–23.Google Scholar

7 Henry, Corbin, ‘Cyclical Time in Mazdaism and Ismailism’, Papers from Eranos Yearbooks, vol. 3, Man and Time, pp. 144 ff.Google Scholar

8 Physics IV. 10–14. 217b–224a, and Enneads III. vii.Google Scholar

9 The most interesting and perceptive discussion of Aristotle's attempt to define time and the problems it caused Arab and Jewish philosophers is to be found in Harry, AustrynWolfson's Crescas' Critique of Aristotle (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1929 and 1957), pp. 93–98, 283–91, and 633–664. What follows here owes a great deal to Wolfson's brief but complete notes on the philosopher's definitions of time.Google Scholar

10 Ibid.. pp. 289 and 651 ff.

11 Ibid., p. 653.

12 See the discussion,Ibid., pp. 646 ff.

13 Enneads. III. vii, 3.Google Scholar

14 Enneads, III, vii, 7.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., III, vii, 11.

16 Rasā'il Ikhwaān al-Safā, vol. 11 (Beirut, 1957), p. 57. Cf., Wolfson, Crescas' Critique, pp. 635 and 655,Google Scholar and the commentary by Stern, S. M. in Isaac Israeli (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), pp. 74–76.Google Scholar

17 See Ibid., pp. 75–76, and particularly Wolfson, , Crescas' Critique, pp. 638–640. The term mudda, ‘extension’, translates the Neoplatonic term diastyma used, for example, by Plotinus. In view of Aristotle's failure to mention the concept of extension, it assumes extra importance.Google Scholar

18 Abū, Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyā al-Rāzī, Rasā'il Falsafīya, ed. Paul, Kraus (Cairo, 1939), p. 304. This statement is there quoted from Abū Hātim al-Rāzi's A'lām al-Nubūwa.Google Scholar

19 Rasā'i1 Falsafiya, p. 304.Google Scholar

20 Kitāb al-Islāh, MS, Library of Dr. Abbas Hamdani, f. 11a.

21 Jāmi' al-Hikmatayn, ed. Henry, Corbin (Tehran: Institut Franco-Iranien, 1953), p. 118.Google Scholar

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23 al-Maqālīd, MS, Library of Dr. Abbas Hamdani, p. 102.Google Scholar

24 al-Maqālīd, iqlīd 21, Pp. 82–84.Google Scholar

25 Ed. Dodds, E. R., 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 50–53 and commentary, pp. 228–229.Google Scholar

26 Elements of Theology, props. 45–51. See particularly Dodds's commentary on props. 50 and 51, pp. 226–227.Google Scholar

27 Elements of Theology, pp. 52–54, 229–230.Google Scholar

28 al-Maqālīd, iqlīd 35, pp. 124–127.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., iqlīd 41.Google Scholar

30 See, in general, Paul, Walker, ‘An Early Ismaili Interpretation of Man, History and Salvation’, Ohio Journal of Religious Studies, 3 (1975), 29–35.Google Scholar

31 al-Sijistānī, for example, ridicules the idea of human generation from a primal pair. Like the cosmos, mankind was created daf'atan wāhidatan. See his al-Yanābī', ed. Henry, Corbin in Trilogie Ismaelienne (Tehran: Institut Franco-Iranien, 1961), text, p. 56.Google Scholar

32 See his Ithbāt al-Nubūwāt, ed. 'Ārif, Tāmir (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1966), p. 169.Google Scholar

33 Ibid., p. 149.

34 Ibid., p. 144.

35 Ibid., p. 162.

36 Ibid., p. 104.

37 Ibid., p. 188.

38 Ithbāt al-Nubūwāt, p. 168.Google Scholar

39 On this development and the doctrines connected with it, see Corbin, ‘Cyclical Time in Mazdaism and Ismailism’.