Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam: An Architectural Reading of Mystical Ideas

Chapter 1. Discursive Order

Chapter 1 Discursive Order Cosmology: An Overview A study of cosmology and architecture from a premodern Sufi perspective presupposes some knowledge of the trends in Islamic cosmological thinking, of the sense in which cosmology can be related to architecture and of the terrains of mystical thoughts in which the relationship is grounded. This chapter presents a brief overview of cosmology in premodern Islam, a critical review of symbolism, being the prevailing method of reading cosmological ideas into architectural forms, and a reconstruction of a Sufi perspective on symbolism. Cosmology is the science of the cosmos—its origin, structure, components , order, and governing laws. Its complex and multifaceted inquiry unfolds at the intersection of philosophy, theology, and natural sciences and is sustained by the human curiosity to know how we have come to exist and what happens to us when we die. Until the triumph of modern physics, cosmology was the prerogative of theologians, mystics, and philosophers, forming the core of religious sciences. All world religions provide their followers with a “logical” explanation of the creation, with a description of the cosmic landscape and order, and, most important, with a projection of what is awaiting them in the hereafter. Cosmological doctrines were thus significant not just for their scientific validity but also for the enforcement of moral and religious codes of conduct. Reward and punishment, the potent instruments of religious law and authority, can only work within a current cosmological system of popular appeal; hence the sensitive and volatile relationship religion has often had with science. In Islam, the main sources of cosmological ideas were naturally the Quran and the hadith (prophetic sayings). The Quran presents many references to cosmic elements—the Throne, the Footstool, the Pen, the Tablet, heaven, and earth—to the creation and resurrection, to paradise and hell, and so on, but 1 mostly in an abstract way without weaving a complete and coherent cosmic picture . It is the hadith that provide much of the information needed to piece the Quranic elements together into a coherent architecture.1 In broad terms, two distinct modes of cosmological thinking can be traced in the Islamic tradition: theorized and untheorized. The untheorized mode was concerned with a collected body of statements made by the Prophet and his immediate companions, which provided, as it were, the nonnegotiable Islamic truths, the foundations necessary for cosmological reflections and speculations. The theorized mode was concerned with making sense of the Quranic and prophetic material and was cultivated in three different intellectual spheres: theology and polemics, philosophy and science, and hermeneutics and mysticism. Related though they may be, the two modes of cosmological thinking developed , rather curiously, independent of each other. The untheorized mode, which appealed to mainstream religious authorities, formed part of the hadith reporting science that was concerned with the authenticity of the statements and the credibility of the reporters. In this context, cosmological statements were transmitted and perpetuated in the hadith books alongside statements concerned with daily matters, such as, prayer, ablution, marriage, divorce, pilgrimage , and so on. Early hadith scholarship must have provided an effective way of appropriating and authenticating pre-Islamic cosmological conceptions and popular narratives that seemed to be in harmony with the new religion. Over the history of Islamic cosmological thinking, the hadith corpus proved to be a powerful tool in the hands of clerics, who grew more and more suspicious and intolerant of “foreign sciences,” until they prevailed in the sixteenth century when a hadith-based genre of cosmological writing dominated over scientific and philosophic curiosity. Al-Suyuti’s popular treatise al-Haya alSaniyya f i al-Haya al-Sunniyya, which deals with what would have been perceived and presented as religiously “factual” and “authoritative” cosmological data, is a key text that represents this mode of cosmological thinking.2 The theorized modes flourished in the early periods, producing a rich spectrum of trends and ideas. With the kalam movement, described as Arabic scholasticism, which emerged in the ninth century, we have the early rationalists and polemicists who developed sophisticated cosmological arguments concerning such difficult issues as the existence of God, anthropomorphism, creation, nature of existence, free will, and determinism. This was led by the Mu
tazilites who were challenged and later succeeded by the Hanbalites and Ash
arites. The kalam practitioners were theologians concerned with the understanding and interpretation of the divine revelation within rigorous linguistic context, taking the Islamic truths as the basis of their polemical engagements.3 In this they differed from early philosopher...