A kabbalistic commentary on the bismillah
Praise
be unto God Who at each moment reveals the logoic mysteries of the Book of Its Cosmos via the science of the numbers
and letters. And salutations and blessings be upon the pentagrammic loci of Its
continual Theophanic Manifestations from before and after! Amen!
In Arabic
the abjad numerical value of “In the Name of God the Compassionate,
the Merciful!” (بسم الله الرّحمن الرّحيم) is 786. First note that 7 + 8 + 6 = 21 = אֶהְיֶה (ehyeh) ("I AM"). In the operation of AIQ
BKR (i.e. the gematria of the nine chambers) this number is reduced to 3.
3 is gimel
(ג) in Hebrew
and jīm (ج) in Arabic. The number three on the metaphysical plane in
itself represents the i. the Divine world (العالم
الإلهية), ii. the world
of the divine Command (العالم الأمر) and iii. the creation (الخلق). Gimel is claimed by some kabbalists to be derived from
the word "gemul", which in Hebrew means both the giving of
reward as well as the giving of punishment. Gimel (גִּימֶל) also means action and is a word for "camel."
The camel, according to some sources, is the animal associated with the Asherah
(אֲשֵׁרָה), i.e. a sacred tree or pole wherein the descent of the Shekinah
is held to occur. The individuals responsible for writing the books of Deuteronomy
and Leviticus were against the Israelites worshiping God at trees or
sacred groves, due to the obvious pagan Canaanite-Assyrian pedigree of such a
practice.[1]
Nevertheless, and even though derived from an originary Assyro-Babylonian
nexus, this was a common practice of the ancient Israelites in reverence to
Moses' (ع) experience at the Burning Bush at Sina’i where the Shekinah
of the Name (HaShem) descended and gave Him His mission to save the
children of Israel from Pharaoh while revealing the Law of Heaven to this
chosen humanity for that specific period in history -- which, per the Bayān, was a rank, together
with its Law, which was altogether abrogated in the succeeding divine
dispensation -- and with it bringing these Israelites back to the land of their
forefathers, Jacob (ع) and Abraham (ع). The "I Am" (ehyeh) as such is the theophany
of the archangel Metatron who is the Supreme Manifestation of the Shekinah
and the Voice Moses (ع) conversed with on Sina’i Who is the gimel/jīm –-
and thus the manifestation of God’s action (gimel) as the
dispenser of divine legislative rewards and punishments (gemul) in the
spatiotemporal world -- which is the number 3. Note also how in the
Tarot the letter gimel is associated with the Major Arcana card (ATU
II) of the High Priestess Who is the physical embodiment or
spatiotemporal manifestation of the Shekinah on earth.
As
for the seven letters of the bismillāh (“In the Name of God”) (بسم
الله): each of these letters
represents one of the seven divine creative attributive imprints (خصال
السبعة). The letter Bāʾ
(ب) represents the Divine Will (المشيئة) which is the locus for the manifestation of the Divine Name
‘the Originator’ (al-bārīʾ) (الباريء). The letter Sīn (س) is the Divine Volition (الإرادة) which is the locus for the manifestation of the Divine Name
‘the Peace’ (as-salām) (السّلام) that is the sakīna (السّكينة) -- or Shekinah. The letter Mīm (م) is the Divine Determination (القدر) which is the locus for the manifestation of the Divine Name
‘the Sovereign Owner’ (al-mālik) (المالك). The letter Alif (أ) represents the Divine Authorization (القضاء) which is the locus for the manifestation of the Divine Name
‘the First’ (al-awwal) (الأوّل). The first Lām (ل) is the Divine Realization (الإمضاء) which is the locus for the manifestation of the Divine Name
‘the Magnanimous’ (اللطيف). The second Lām (ل) is the Allotted Time (الأجلّ) which is the locus for the manifestation of the Divine Name
‘the Irradiator’ (al-lamīʾ) (اللميع); and the Hāʾ (ه) is the cosmic Book (الكتاب) which is the locus for the
manifestation of the Divine Name ‘the Guide’ (al-hādī) (الهادي).
Now,
the two attributes following the bismillāh (“In the Name of God”) (بسم
الله) –- that is, ar-raḥmān
(“the Compassionate”) (الرّحمن) and ar-raḥīm (“the Merciful”) (الرّحيم) -- both are related by their etymological root/maṣdar to
raḥim (رحم) which means ‘womb’. As such one of the denotations of ar-raḥmān
ar-raḥīm (“the Compassionate, the Merciful”) (الرّحمن الرّحيم) indicates the All-High in the station of the Mother
of all creation. Ar-raḥmān (“the Compassionate”) (الرّحمن)
represents the Divine Womb and all things in their potential state[s] gestating
within this Divine Womb as the immutable archetypal forms (عيان
ثابتة) “…which have [as
yet] not whiffed from the taste of existence…”[2] Ar-raḥīm (“the
Merciful”) (الرّحيم)
represents their state of actualization and existentiation, the substrate upon whose
actuality and existence continually depends the influx of the Divine Mercy (رحمة
الإلهية). The twelve letters of ar-raḥmān
ar-raḥīm (“the Compassionate, the Merciful”) (الرّحمن الرّحيم) (ا ل ر ح م ن ا ل ر ح ي م) are associated with the twelve
letters of the tahlīl (i.e. “there is no god but God” lā ilāha illā
allāh) (ل ا ا ل ه ا ل ا ا ل ل ه) which in the realm of the Theophany
of Persons are associated with each of the Twelve Imāms (ع) Who are, as it were, the mothers of the true initiates.
The
four words composing the bismillāh, i.e. “In the Name of God the
Compassionate, the Merciful!” (بسم
الله الرّحمن الرّحيم), correspond
to the four phrases of the Tasbīḥ al-Fāṭima (ع) (The Theophanic Praise of Fāṭima), i.e. “Glory be to God
and praise be unto God and there is no god but God and God is the Most Great!”
(سبحان الله و الحمد لله و لا إله إلّا الله و
الله أكبر) subhān’ ullāh
wa’l-ḥamduli’Llāh wa lā ilāha illā allāh wa allāhu akbar! These four words
in turn correspond to the four worlds within the cosmic Tree which are lāhūt
(the Divine realm), jabarūt (the Empyreans of Power), malakūt
(the Angelic world) and nāsūt (the material world) that correspond to
the four worlds of the sephirotic kabbalah which are atziluth
(the World of Emanation), briah (the world of the Creation), yetzirah
(the world of Formation) and assiyah (the world of Action). These in
turn have their archetypal correspondences with the four elements that are Air,
Fire, Water and earth. So the bism (“In the Name of”) (بسم) is ‘glorification’ (تسبيح) and is associated with lāhūt (the Divine realm) that is
the atziluth (the World of Emanation) –- and which the Imāms (ع) designate as being the World of the Mother of the Book
(عالم اُمّ الكتاب) –- and the element Air (= white). This first correspondence is
also associated in the subtle physiology with the Blaze-Flux (فؤاد) that is equivalent to existence (وجود). Next, the word “God” (الله) is ‘praise’ (تحميد) and is associated with jabarūt (the Empyreans of Power)
that is the briah (the world of the Creation) -- and which the Imāms (ع) designate as being the First World of the Primordial
Particles of Light (عالم ذرّات الاوّل) which is also known by its alternative title of the First
World of the Luminous Silhouettes (عالم
الاشباح الاوّل) –- and the
element Fire (= yellow). This second correspondence is associated in the subtle
physiology with the Spirit (روح) and essence (عين/ماهية). Ar-raḥmān (“the Compassionate”) (الرّحمن) is ‘testification
to the divine unity’ (تهليل) and is associated with the malakūt (the
Angelic world) that is the yetzirah (the world of Formation) -- and
which the Imāms (ع) designate as being the second World of the Primordial
Particles of Light which is bifurcated into a celestial heaven (علييون) and a celestial hell (سجّين) –- and the element Water (= green) and prima materia (هيولى). This second correspondence is associated in the subtle
physiology with the soul (نفس). Finally, ar-raḥīm (“the Merciful”) (الرّحيم) is the
‘magnification’ (تكبير) and is associated with nāsūt (the
material world), or the Dominion (mulk), that is the assiyah (the
world of Action) which is associated with the element of the earth (= red), the
composite body (جسد) and form (صورة).
Nineteen
letters in total constitute the bismillāh, i.e. “In the Name of God
the Compassionate, the Merciful!” (بسم
الله الرّحمن الرّحيم). 19 in
Hebrew is the gematria of the name of Eve (chavah) (חַוָּה) which in itself is
derived from em kol chai (אם כל חי), i.e. “the All-Living Mother,” that instantiates the
manifesting power of the cosmos which is cryptically referred to as “the Bride”
that represents the sphere of Malkuth (מלכות = 496 =
19) in the sephirotic Tree of Life. In His commentary on the sūrah
of the Cow (2), the Primal Point indicates that the transfiguration of Eve
(ع) in the Garden of Eden was in fact the Self-Disclosure (تجلّي) of Fāṭima (ع) as the Tree of Reality (شجرة
الحقيقة): Fāṭima (ع) Who is the mother to eleven of the Twelve Imāms (ع) as well as the ‘Mother of Her Father’ (اُمّ
أبيها) and the “Bride” to the
first amongst these twelve vicegerent providential guides (اولياء
الله) Who is ʿAlī (ع). Finally, and most importantly of all, in the dispensation of
the Bayān the nineteen letters of the bismillāh represent the Theophany
of Persons that is the First Unity (الواحد
الاوّل), i.e. the Primal Point
and His Eighteen Letters of the Living Who are the 'Return' to the world of the
Fourteen Infallibles (ع) and the Four Gates together with the Theophanic
Self-Disclosure of the Primal Will within the Celestial Earth of the Pentagrammic
Talisman of ʿAlī Muḥammad Shīrāzī, the Bāb.
2 Mulk (Dominion)
172 BE
413
[1]Note here the rabbinic
corruption of ‘Asherah’ as Astarte and their association of Astarte qua
‘the Morning Star’, i.e. Venus, with Lilith due to Asherah’s original
association with the Sumero-Babylonian-Assyrian mother goddess Ishtar, not to
mention its later Christian association with Lucifer qua satan.
