Islamic State vs Saudi Arabia — Cole Bunzel’s new paper
The Islamic world today clearly anticipates the end times in the future, perhaps near, perhaps far, its date and hour necessarily unknown, and expects it to come upon us after various notable signs of the time have occurred –- the Shia with the return of the expected Twelfth Imam, now in ghayba or occultation, and the Sunni with the coming of the Mahdi and of the Prophet Issa (Jesus).
With regard to those notable signs, at 47.18 in the Arberry translation the Quran asks:
Are they looking for aught but the Hour, that it shall come upon them suddenly? Already its tokens have come; so, when it has come to them, how shall they have their Reminder?
Brown quotes Louis Massignon as calling Sura 18, The Cave, “the apocalypse of Islam” — and further suggests we should not apply enlightenment notions of linear time to a book, the Quran, which is itself both Revelation and Word. The poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal, in a phrase reminiscent of earlier Jewish and Christian texts, says of the Quran, “whole centuries are involved in its moments.”
Brown writes:
There is an apocalyptic or eschatological style: every Sura is an epiphany and a portent; a warning, “plain tokens that haply we may take heed” (XXIV, 1). The apocalyptic style is totum simul, simultaneous totality; the whole in every part. Hodgson on the Koran: “almost every element which goes to make up its message is somehow present in any given passage.”
Mathematicians will no doubt note the resonance here with the principle of holography, Buddhists with the Hua-Yen concept of the Jewel Net of Indra.
Brown, again referencing Massignon, who along with Henry Corbin was one of the major sources of his insight into Islam:
Massignon calls Sura XVIII the apocalypse of Islam. But Sura XVIII is a resume, epitome of the whole Koran. The Koran is not like the Bible, historical; running from Genesis to Apocalypse. The Koran is altogether apocalyptic. The Koran backs off from that linear organization of time, revelation, and history which became the backbone of orthodox Christianity … Islam is wholly apocalyptic or eschatological, and its eschatology is not teleology. The moment of decision, the Hour of Judgment, is not reached at the end of a line; nor by a predestined cycle of cosmic recurrence; eschatology can break out at any moment.
The End is in the Beginning — or as Eliot would have it, “And the end and the beginning were always there. Before the beginning and after the end.”
In the first sura on the Quran, al-Fatihah, The Opening, God is described first as “the All-merciful, the All-compassionate” (1.3), then as “Master of the Day of Doom” (1.4), and only then is there mention of humanity, in the words “Thee only we serve; to Thee alone we pray for succour” (1.5). According to a hadith reported in Tirmidhi, the Prophet said, “I was sent in the presence of the Final Hour.” To be present at the End, to be present at the Beginning — both are reminiscent of Christ’s extraordinary trans-temporal remark — perhaps the deepest teaching in the gospels, a true koan —
Before Abraham was, I am.
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Timothy Furnish, PhD (@Occidentaljihad):
February 26th, 2016 at 4:07 pm
Good for Cole; but I wrote almost the same thing in March 2015, and it’s the first essay in my book “Sects, Lies, and the Caliphate!”
larrydunbar:
February 27th, 2016 at 1:15 am
“One of those territories increasingly in its sights is Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest places and one-quarter of the world’s known oil reserves.”
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Ha! I am sure ISIS is in Saudi Arabia’s sights as well. I mean, considering the amount of resources going towards ISIS from KSA, I would give KSA the advantage in this duality.
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If one has an advantage over another, can it even be said that there is a duality?
Charles Cameron:
February 27th, 2016 at 3:40 am
KSA seems to be far more concerned with Iran than with ISIS.
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And as to asymmetric dyads, there’s always David and Goliath (in the Quran, Dawud and Jalut).
carl:
February 28th, 2016 at 11:00 am
“home to…one-quarter of the world’s known oil reserves.” Why is this a given? Why must the polity that is KSA retain possession of so much that is vital to the world, especially when they cause so much trouble with the money it gives them? That it does is a great problem for us and the world. They have what they have solely because of a Western idea of what is right; they live there, they should benefit. Why should this remain so when their benefits are used to destroy the world order? We should start thinking upon more radical lines when it comes to KSA. Say for example, the US, India and maybe Red China or some combination of powers taking the oil fields back and sacking the House of Saud. Those fops will probably lose it to ISIS anyway and then we will have to take the fields. If that ticks off the jihadi killers who cares? Their physical power comes ultimately from Gulf oil money and if the money goes, they become an oddity.
morgan:
February 28th, 2016 at 12:49 pm
Carl, for your suggestion to occur, wouldn’t that require a complete cleansing of the Western elite establishment? I think neither India or Red China would have a problem with your idea but it would give the current Western elites heartburn that would require barrels of Rollaid to give temporary relief!
carl:
February 28th, 2016 at 4:24 pm
morgan:
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If we could get talk going about this course of action, the Western elite establishment would not faint dead away, they would faint away dead; thereby removing the truly deadly existential threat to Western civilization…or civilization period.
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Those elites have to go,somehow, before we can begin to turn things around by doing sensible things like taking the Saudi oil fields. I fear though that in order for them to be so discredited as to be kicked out, lots and lots of the sons of flyover people who didn’t attend the right colleges will have to die in a dramatic military defeat.
morgan:
February 28th, 2016 at 8:39 pm
Carl, and the rest of Zen’s audience, should read Richard Fernandez’s latest article “How Tyrannies Implode” on the Belmont Club web site. I am such a computer illiterate otherwise I would post a link. It is a very excellent article which I think you, and others, will find interesting. I’m one of those individuals that always looks at the glass as being half-empty instead of half-full–yes, I have a pessimistic view on life. By the way, I tend to agree with your thought expressed above.
larrydunbar:
February 28th, 2016 at 9:20 pm
“KSA seems to be far more concerned with Iran than with ISIS”
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I don’t believe the KSA gives resources to Iran. What’s that, follow the money?
Charles Cameron:
February 29th, 2016 at 5:08 pm
“KSA seems to be far more concerned with Iran than with ISIS”
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KSA isn’t supporting Iran — on the contrary, it is facing off against it, Sunni at its Wahhabist extreme vs Shia at its Vilayat-e Faqih extreme. Although arguably IS is even “more” Wahhabist extreme than KSA, and Iran’s elections seem to be nudging it gently towards moderation.
larrydunbar:
March 5th, 2016 at 2:12 am
“KSA isn’t supporting Iran — on the contrary, it is facing off against it,…”
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Exactly. If it was behind Iran, i.e. giving resources to it, I doubt that Iran would be of much concern. On the other hand, if KSA was going to use its resources against Iran, then it would concern it greatly.
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Unless, of course, you believe KSA has unlimited resources. If that was the case, then Iran would be of limited concern, and ISIS a hiccup.
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“Although arguably IS is even “more” Wahhabist extreme than KSA,…”
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Yes, I would argue that case.
larrydunbar:
March 5th, 2016 at 4:00 am
“Yes, I would argue that case.”
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Nobody from ISIS was involved in the attack of the US on 9/11, while there were many, including OBL, who grew up in the Kingdom who were.
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It seems to me, arguably, that ISIS is still lagging behind those who came before.
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Of course that doesn’t mean that the US has to play catch-up. We have attracted the leadership of those outside the KSA with drones, and now KSA has to deal with Iran on its own, or so it seems. Most likely a Trump POTUS would be most favorable to the Kingdom, as they both seem to love towers.