this week's writing sample
Jan. 14th, 2007 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerHarder to do than some of the other recent bits, because it was basically a "what doctrines/practices of the heretical sects did you find unexpected or unusual?" question. And after you've said "Well, this one and this one," what more is there to say? Anyway...
One of the most unexpected beliefs of the Ghulat sects for me was what Moosa refers to as the Ghulats' 'Trinity', the equation of Muhammad and Ali with God. Moosa explains how some Shi'ite scholars have sought to express the special nature of Muhammad and what he bequeathed to his family not explicitly as godhood but a light, a special nature to be the guide and prophet, the first man, the first intellect, the first creation. While this deviates from more mainstream beliefs in which Muhammad, while special, is the last in a line of human prophets, it could perhaps be described as mystical but not totally heretical. As an explanation for the 'specialness' that dwells in the family of the Prophet and is passed down by him through the imams, it seems consistent with more mainstream Shi'ite beliefs. But when the Bektashi describe Muhammad and Ali as alternate names of the same person and as being of one substance as God, the belief has gone from adulation and idealization of a perfect human to what would seem to be a much more forthrightly heretical belief that contradicts one of the basic tenets of Islam, that there is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet. And this is carried further by those who impute divine attributes to Ali, describing him as capable of miracles, of citing the Qur'an while an infant, before Muhammad had preached it, of calling thunder and lightning, and of numerous other fantastic feats of strength and wisdom.
Another curious and unexpected belief described by Moosa is the belief in reincarnation found among the Sarliyya and Kakaiyya and the Ahl-i Haqq (and, later described in considerable detail, among the Nusayri). Many of the oddities of belief found among the different sects of Ghulats can easily be seen to have carried over through syncretism from Judaism, Christianity, or older local religions of the Middle East such as Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, or Manichaeism (which also influenced Christianity). But belief in reincarnation either came from much further afield (contact with either ancient Greek philosophy or South Asian religions) or arose independently--as Moosa suggests--as a way of addressing the eternal questions of fairness and suffering. It is worth noting that these beliefs are 'full-blown reincarnation'--a belief in the transmigration of souls from one body to another body and recurrent reincarnation as a means (and a demonstration) of spiritual progression/regression--rather than just the 'single reincarnation on one's original body at the end of time' that occurs in some variations of Jewish and Christian belief. Again, this seems an odd accretion to the monotheistic progression of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, none of which seem to have an immediate place in their traditional and mainstream structures for a belief in a continual cycle of death and rebirth. These monotheistic religions are all more usually focused on adherence to a legalistic structure of regulations through the course of a single lifetime than on the evolution of a soul's moral capability through trial and error.
One of the most unexpected beliefs of the Ghulat sects for me was what Moosa refers to as the Ghulats' 'Trinity', the equation of Muhammad and Ali with God. Moosa explains how some Shi'ite scholars have sought to express the special nature of Muhammad and what he bequeathed to his family not explicitly as godhood but a light, a special nature to be the guide and prophet, the first man, the first intellect, the first creation. While this deviates from more mainstream beliefs in which Muhammad, while special, is the last in a line of human prophets, it could perhaps be described as mystical but not totally heretical. As an explanation for the 'specialness' that dwells in the family of the Prophet and is passed down by him through the imams, it seems consistent with more mainstream Shi'ite beliefs. But when the Bektashi describe Muhammad and Ali as alternate names of the same person and as being of one substance as God, the belief has gone from adulation and idealization of a perfect human to what would seem to be a much more forthrightly heretical belief that contradicts one of the basic tenets of Islam, that there is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet. And this is carried further by those who impute divine attributes to Ali, describing him as capable of miracles, of citing the Qur'an while an infant, before Muhammad had preached it, of calling thunder and lightning, and of numerous other fantastic feats of strength and wisdom.
Another curious and unexpected belief described by Moosa is the belief in reincarnation found among the Sarliyya and Kakaiyya and the Ahl-i Haqq (and, later described in considerable detail, among the Nusayri). Many of the oddities of belief found among the different sects of Ghulats can easily be seen to have carried over through syncretism from Judaism, Christianity, or older local religions of the Middle East such as Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, or Manichaeism (which also influenced Christianity). But belief in reincarnation either came from much further afield (contact with either ancient Greek philosophy or South Asian religions) or arose independently--as Moosa suggests--as a way of addressing the eternal questions of fairness and suffering. It is worth noting that these beliefs are 'full-blown reincarnation'--a belief in the transmigration of souls from one body to another body and recurrent reincarnation as a means (and a demonstration) of spiritual progression/regression--rather than just the 'single reincarnation on one's original body at the end of time' that occurs in some variations of Jewish and Christian belief. Again, this seems an odd accretion to the monotheistic progression of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, none of which seem to have an immediate place in their traditional and mainstream structures for a belief in a continual cycle of death and rebirth. These monotheistic religions are all more usually focused on adherence to a legalistic structure of regulations through the course of a single lifetime than on the evolution of a soul's moral capability through trial and error.
