Master of the cyclical revolutions and the Return
303
No sacred law or divine ordinance revealed by the All-High to humanity at one point in history was ever meant to be immutable or eternal. Only the All-High is immutable and eternal. The biggest flaw with all three of the Abrahamic traditions is that they have been ossified within the belief that their sacred laws and ordinances constitute the true worship of the All-High and that they are immutable from change or alteration. They couldn't be any more wrong, this flaw in itself being a form of shirk/associating partners with God wherein the sacred laws or ordinances of a given revealed religion become idols to which the orthodox religionist bows down as the pagan idol worshipers of old used to bow down to idols of wood and stone. The true Tawḥīd occurs beyond the mitzvot and the stultifying minutia of halakha, the canon laws and sacred injunctions of the Church or the sharī'ā of Islam. Where the Bayān is concerned, these were always meant to be contingent and constitutional to the specific period and specific human temperament of the historically located peoples for which these laws and ordinances were specifically revealed by the All-High through the mouths and pens of the True Speakers (ع) Whose appearance is what was the true intention of all heavenly sent scriptures behind the meaning of the Day of Resurrection (يوم القيامة) or Day of Judgement (يوم الدّين).
Correspondingly, antinomianism for antinomianism's sake is essentially being stuck in an isthmus/barzakh, an interregnum, because given both the ontological and organic make-up of this realm of duality each age requires laws and ordinances specific to its historical condition(s) and temperament(s), hence why one of the Names of God in the Bayān is the Legislator (الشّارع) wherein the All-High via Its Speaker ordains sacred rules and ordinances for one cyclical dispensation and then once these rules are no longer required or have passed their use by date, God Reveals Itself once more, abrogates whatever rules and ordinances are no longer required or necessary and establishes new ones. In essence, the Bayān argues that God always acts for the benefit of Its creation within spatiotemporal history like a democrat (small 'd') with the span of each sacred dispensation being like a term of parliament. 'As Above, so below'!
Myriad of epi-cycles or aeons (kawr) and cyclical dispensations (dawr) have come and gone. Indeed the terrestrial and historical Muḥammad (ص) was the last of the prophets for an epi-cycle/aeon that began with the Adam (ع) of the past epi-cycle/aeon that has been superseded. But as far as the Bayān is concerned, an entirely new epi-cycle/aeon with a new cyclical dispensation, a new Book and new laws began as of 23 May 1844, a dispensation with laws which itself will be superseded by another and one greater in spirit and animation than the last, ad infinitum. Indeed God will never stop Revealing Itself to Its creation. Acceptance and/or rejection of each Divine Manifestation by a collective or individual humanity constitutes the meaning of 'the bridge' or 'path' (صراط) which is finer than a single thread of hair, the difference between Light and fire, Affirmation and negation, hence one of the meanings behind the two phrases of the tahlīl, i.e. 'there is no god but God' (لا إله إلّا الله), between the two clefts of which everything from heaven to earth and all that is in between eternally abides! This is indeed the meaning of ʿAli’s (ع) theopathic statement in the ‘Sermon Between the Two Gulfs’ when He asserts, 'I Am the One standing between the Two Gulfs, and the Observer over the two orients and the two occidents' (أنا واقف على تطنجين وناظر على المشرقين والمغربين); the first orient being the terrestrial orientation of the responder to the divine summons of 'Am I not your Lord' (ألستُ بِربّكم) with 'yes' (بلى) towards the Orient of Light (مشرق النُّور) which is the second Orient in relation to the terrestrial, with the first occident being the terrestrial occident of those responders who have rejected the divine summons and so have relegated themselves to the occident of the hereafter and so to waning and negation.
Salutations be upon Thee, O Master of the cyclical revolutions and the return ~ ʿAli (ع) (my trans.)
السّلام عليك يا صاحب الكرة والرّجعة
