Ever since the most pristine times, the forces of nature have been in an eternal conflict, a constant fight between light and darkness, this is exemplified in profane history with the invasions and migrations of ancient Israelites, ancient Aryans, and whatnot.

In profane history, the Maykop, for example, began their migration towards the Eurasian steppes in modern day Russia and Kazakhstan. This culture was very colorful and had not become of the dark herd yet. The Maykop then took the form of the Yamnaya Corded Ware, (Koryos), black hunters, who adorned themselves in black colors, they mixed with the eastern hunter gatherers to create this new fusion, then they charged mercilessly against the pre-Indo-European peoples and their fertility cults, which they replaced for a cult to the Supreme Deity, the Necessary Existent. Similarly, the Ancient Aryan religion was closely related to that of the Vedas with a panoply of gods and spirits. Central to this system of beliefs was the significance of fire and light, Zardoust (Zoroaster) was a priest of the religion and saw himself as a reformer of this complex faith which he believed to have degenerated. His prophetic calling began with the appearance of the angel Vohu Manah, who escorted him on a visionary voyage to the supreme deity, Ohrmazd. An eschatological monotheism based on the primacy of Ahura Mazda over all other entities, establish a cosmology in which the Divine Light engages in a struggle with Darkness, and to purge what he saw as excesses in the religion, such as blood sacrifice and ritual use of intoxicants.

All the Aryan peoples, both Indian and Iranian, and the pre-exilic Israelites, proposed a cosmology based upon the experience of purpose and directionality in the world. In this cosmology Creation is the stage for a divine drama, the struggle between Light and Darkness, which will one day come to an end with the final battle in which the savior Saoshyant will complete the victory of Light. Each human soul is free to choose its own part in this drama, and its fate, in Heaven or in Hell. While, strictly speaking, Mazdeism is neither polytheist nor dualist, it was not a well-preserved tradition, and it led people to associate others to the Necessary Being.

In Mazdean cosmology Ohrmazd created the world for the very purpose of annihilating evil, and so cosmology and eschatology are indistinguishable. Limited or finite, eschatological Time is created for the struggle to take place. This inaugurates the conception of a linear, purposive time, rather than the primordial time of cyclical mythologies.

In the initial event of this drama, and similarly to the Islamic narrative, Ahriman attacks. But Ohrmazd had foreseen this and had produced a concrete but spiritual Creation.  This world was created as the battleground of Good and Evil.

The Majoosi, similarly to the Muslim was "directly and constantly involved" in the processes helping to sustain the order of the world. "All members of the community took part, through the ordinary tasks of everyday life, in sustaining and strengthening the ordered world....". Humans were understood to be active participants during this new sense of history, similarly to the example of profane history, where every man of the Indo-Aryan tribe took part in the physical elimination of the racial enemy, therefore we can say that the ritualistic-religious act and the social-political are identical, this was of great significance to the creation of the despotic theocracies that would rule the oriental world and difference it from the western one, the Israelites say after the Sabbath ends, Blessed art thou Oh God who separates the holy from the profane, but for the Muslim Muwahhid (Monotheist), everything is from the Light of Allah (SWT), both mundane and holy.

“Zina (adultery) is a man, Khamr (wine) is a man, Salat (daily prayer) is a man, Sawm (fasting) is a man, and the Fawahish (abominable acts) is a man.”

The illuminative knowledge that was to be obtained by rites and rituals is thought to have been a visionary illumination and gnosis of initiation in which botanical intoxicants played a small part. This illumination itself, which transfigures the soul, ensures salvation, and at the final Resurrection at the end of limited time, the world itself derives from Ohrmazd who is the source of the divine light, Xvarnah. This transforming light appears as the result of the unmixing of the Ahrimanian pollution with the original pure Creation. It is in the Light of Xvarnah that Suhrawardi will find the Orient of Pure Light of the ancient Iranian sages that he found raised to another level in the Quran:

God is the light of the heavens and the earth. The semblance of His light is that of a niche in which is a lamp, the flame within a glass, the glass a glittering star as it were, lit with the oil of a blessed tree, the olive, neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil appears to light up even though fire touches it not, —light upon light

(Quran 24:35).

Just like Mazdeism, Islam has been characterized from the beginning by rules for right conduct that extend into every sphere of human activity. There is no aspect of life that is not included under God's purview. The compilation of laws is the Shari 'a. An important branch of Islamic learning involves jurisprudence, the study of the required, recommended, indifferent, discouraged, and forbidden practices as laid out in the Quran and the records of the actions and sayings of the Prophet (the Hadith).

Like all Aryan religions, Islam, which is the latest form of all of them, was marked by the constant infighting between factions, after the death of the Prophet in 632. His son-in-law Ali and his daughter Fatimah, along with a small group of their supporters, claimed that Muhammad had chosen Ali to be his successor. But the elders of the community appointed the Prophet's close friend Abu Bakr as the first Imam (leader). Ali agreed to this choice but did not give up his claim. Ali's partisans (the Shi’a, partisans) were not satisfied until 656 when Ali won his place as Fourth Imam after the Battle of the Camel.

The insanely heroic actions of Imam Ali, his eloquence, his deep spiritual understanding of the world and the love Rasulullah had for him were the sign of continuation and validity of Islam, which had finally become a living religion. The Spirit of prophecy which has been embodied in all prophecies, from Adam to Ibrahim, ended with Muhammad as the highest exponent of this “Prophetic Light”, which is identified as the first intellect by Muslim theosophers. The prophetic light has been passed down to us in the shape of the Imamate, the Imamate does not only represent the continuity the prophetic methodology but also the gradation of being in existence, the Imams are at the top of the existential hierarchy, this in some way can be understood as the continuity of the ancient Priest-Kings of old, reflected in Israelite, Sumerian, and Iranian civilizations. What the 'gnostics' in Islam acknowledge is fidelity to the 'men of God,' to the Imams, (the Guides)." Access to the heart of the religion requires a Guide, but such guides are not primarily purveyors or protectors of public dogma. They are rather the guardians of the secrets of the most personal initiation into the secret core of Revelation.

The Islamic cosmology and cosmogony are rooted in the numerous Imami aḵhbār (reports) in which the origins and structure of the universe are set forth in detail. This cosmology is strikingly like the Mazdean cosmology, and it is a sign that Islam in actuality is the universal religion practiced by multitude of peoples since the beginning of time, we will also expose that the Imams, just like the Prophets, are not simply humans but exist in a higher realm. We will explain the basic concepts of this cosmology according to the science of the Sheikh Ahmad Al Ahsai.

Using standard Aristotelian terminology, Aḥsāʾī described the imams as the four causes of the universe: the active cause (al­-ʿella al-fāʿelīya), in that the world was brought into being through them as the loci of God’s will (or of His actions); the material cause (al-ʿella al-māddīya), in that the universe is constructed from the residue of the rays of their light; the formal cause (al-ʿella al-ṣūrīya), in that God created the forms of all creatures from the lights of their bodies (hayākel); and the final cause (al-ʿella al-ḡāʾīya), in that God created all things for them and will return all to them. The material of the world (māddat jamīʿ boldān al-donyā) is composed of all the elements from the residue (fāżel) of the rays emanating from their physical bodies (ajsād). This residue is itself understood to take the form of additional rays, and the ajsād are themselves rays from their spiritual bodies (ajsām). Similarly, the forms of worldly things are created from the residue of the rays emanating from their phantom images (ašbāḥ); these phantom images are shadows or illuminated corporealities (abdān nūrānīya) without spirits. The souls (nofūs) of worldly things are created from the residue of the rays of the souls of their humanity (nofūs bašarīyātehem). Elsewhere Aḥsāʾī wrote in more conventional terms, describing the material substances (mawādd) of things as having been brought into existence from the light of Mohammad and their forms from that of Ali.
According to Aḥsāʾī, existence is entirely good (enna’l-wojūd ḵayr kolloh). Nevertheless, a sharp division between good and evil, truth and falsehood exists. When God created universal reason (al-ʿaql al-­kollī), the first of the spiritual existences, He immedi­ately brought its opposite, universal ignorance (al-jahl al-kollī), into being. Aḥsāʾī rejected the view that darkness is merely the absence of light and nonexistence, on the grounds that God had created it.

The imams are created from light, their enemies from darkness, and all others from a mixture of the two. Man is formed of reason and ignorance, having two “mirrors” within him, one facing reason, the other ignorance. As representations of good, the imams are in a state of perpetual confronta­tion with their counterparts, the “imams of error”. Heaven was created from love of the imams, hell from hatred of them.

Islam divided the universe into three principal parts: al-donyā or al-molk (the present world), al-āḵera or al-malakūt (the transcen­dent world), and an interworld (barzaḵ) between them.

Similarly, the periods of the world are three: al­donyā (the present period), al-rajʿa (the time of the return of Mohammad and the imams), and al-qīāma (the age of universal resurrection). This periodization corresponds to the parts of the universe, the age of al-donyā being equivalent to the physical realm of al-donyā, the time of the rajʿa to a barzaḵ between al-donyā and al-­qīāma, and the age of al-qīāma to al-āḵera. Within these three periods time (zamān) itself is altered, growing more subtle as it moves from a worldly to an otherworldly state.

To conclude, it must be stated that the paper of the human in all of this is to accelerate the transition between al­donyā and al-qīāma, through the actions described above, each soul comes to this world in order to choose their fate and play his role in the cosmic pathos, the question is, will you side with Ohrmazd or with Ahriman, with Reason or with Ignorance, Masculinity or Femininity, Orient or Occident, Magian Civilization or Faustian Civilization? Since the universe is made from either light or darkness, so is every event that we experience today in our lives, and every historical process can be seen as part of this cosmic pathos, and in my following posts, my goal will be to explain how every single phenomena, from gender to history and politics, is conditioned by this distinction between ‘Aql and Jahl.