Question on Heaven and Hell according to the Bayān

 https://www.reddit.com/r/BAYAN/comments/rlu7po/heaven_and_hell/

Question: Allahu Akbar!

Greetings from Colombia,

I was watching your last podcast with Salman Sheikh about Islamic Occult Theurgy of the Báb, and by the end of it you quickly mentioned that as bayanis we believe in hell. Is the idea of heaven and hell in the bayan the same as in Islam? Or are these states of the soul -remoteness/proximity to Allah (SWT)?

Thank you!

 

Allahu Aʿẓam!

It is similar (but in augmented and expanded fashion) to how the question is unpacked in Twelver Shi'ism in the ḥadīth attributed to the Imāms (ع). There is an 'as above, so below' dynamic and dialectic that runs through this entire topic in both the writings of the Point and the Mirror. Just as with the Imāms (ع) there is a Paradise (janna) or heaven of this world and a Paradise of the hereafter, in the same fashion there exists a hell (jahanam) of this world and a hell of the hereafter. Obviously the Paradise of this world is connected to the postmortem one of the hereafter just as the hell of this world is connected to the postmortem hell of the hereafter. Neither the Primal Point or Ṣubḥ-i-Azal attempted to rationalize away or make empty metaphors over this question in the manner the bahaim have. The paradise of this world is recognition of the Manifestation of the Age, allegiance to His or Her designated successors which constitutes the Covenant (ʿahd) and Pact (mithāq) of that dispensation, and scrupulous adherence to the Book and its tenets, i.e. the teachings. Obviously this paradise is individuated in the bāṭin (interior) of each subject within this world just as it individuates in the bāṭin as hell among those other subjects here. Conversely, Paradise manifests in the ẓāhir (appearance) in the afterlife for its inhabitants as it manifests in the ẓāhir as hell for the denizens of hell in that realm of the afterlife. The hell of this world is the rejection of the aforementioned Manifestations of the Divine Command -- esp. violent rejection -- which then reconstitutes and resurrects the souls of the rejecting subjects in the hereafter in the infernal realms. All are responsible for their own salvation or damnation based on the ontological facticity of acceptance or rejection, with each individual reenacting the pre-eternal in illo tempore Day of Alast within themselves upon its basis. Those who accept become, for lack of a better designation, the Radical Subject which Azeri-Russian philosopher Geydar Dzhemal wrote about whereas the rejecters are the opposite. As such faithful acceptance of the Manifestation of the Age in this world establishes proximity (qurb) to the All-High relative to the station of that soul in the hereafter whereas rejection establishes remoteness (buʿd) and so torment relative to the station of that soul in the hereafter. One is Light (nūr) with the other one being fire (nār). However, the Bayān also recognizes that during the period of the Manifestation when the Sun of Reality shines in the terrestrial firmaments that many a fire can become Light whereas many a light can fall into and become fire. In His treatise of the 7 Worlds, which I have translated in three drafts (and will eventually publish in a final draft with commentary), Ṣubḥ-i-Azal details very graphically the geosophical terrain of the Paradise of this world and the hereafter. He also details the dynamic and dialectic of the two Lights and the two fires in His Ethics of the Spiritually-Minded (akhlāq al-rūḥānīyyin).

On a Facebook list, the question of angels came up recently and I pointed out the esoteric commentary of the Imāms (ع) regarding angels, and the specific meaning of  'fallen angels' where esoteric Twelver Shiʿism is concerned. The way this issue is unpacked by the Infallibles (ع) is how the Bayān delineates all of these questions in expanded and augmented theosophical fashion. Briefly, cosmic angels do not fall because cosmic angels are individuated theophanies of the All-High and so extensions of the infinite Divine Light. However, the meaning of angels in the terrestrial context indicates the believers who are like the cosmic angels circling around the Divine Throne. So according to some Shiʿi ḥadīth, the fallen angels of the dispensation of the Furqān where those ṣaḥaba who initially left kufr for Islam but later turned their backs on the Providential Guidance (walāya) of the Ahl al-Bayt (ع) and even became the staunchest of enemies to the Infallibles (ع), oppressing and even murdering Them and Their believers, and thereby became those who rejected one of the pillars or weights of the Two Weighty Matters (thaqalayn) that was supposed to be the balance (mizān) for that dispensation and the mechanism of its Covenant and Pact. Note that in the Persian Bayān the Point very clearly states that (from the locus of the unseen) angels and demons embody within (i.e. possess) human beings in this world as a simultaneous consequence of their acceptance or rejection. In turn, rejection and acceptance are the reality of negation (nafy) and Affirmation (ithbāt), fire and Light, which is the manifestation of the mystery of the tahlīl (i.e. lā ilāha illa allāh 'there is no god but God') upon which all things throughout all the created realms of God revolve.

In several places the Point of the Bayān indicates that the souls of violent rejecters and oppressors of the Manifestations of Truth (which includes both the points and mirrors of all dispensations) will be consigned to the infernal realms of hell for 20-22 thousand years, the torments of which are indescribable, and that they will only leave it by the Command of the Manifestation of the Primal Will. Likewise the delights of the infinite paradises of the hereafter for those who have accepted the manifestations of the Divine Command for each age will be such that no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no pen has written.

ولا حول ولا قُوّة إلّا بِالله العلى الحميد وثُمّ الفريد الوحيد ولعنة الله على قوم المؤتفكين وثُمّ قوم الهبائيين إنّا لله وإنّا بِالله حائيون في الجنّة أو فانيون في الجهنّم لا إله إلّا هو وكلّشيء إليه يرجعون سواء في اعلى الرّضوان أو ادنى السّقر