by Nima Hazini (Sufi Babi)

The Babi-Bayani tradition, founded by Sayyid \u02bfAli-Muhammad Shirazi (the Bab, 1819\u20131850), produced a body of esoteric art and scripture that draws simultaneously on Isma\u02bfili gnosis, Sufi metaphysics, Neopythagorean number mysticism, and Islamic Hermetic occultism. Among its most striking artifacts is a composite talisman-mandala combining a five-pointed haykal (star-pentacle) of prayers, a da\u02bfira (concentric-circle mandala) encoding the divine names, and a magic square of the sevenfold letters of the Bab\u02bfs own name.

Nima Hazini\u2014who posted to alt.religion.bahai and talk.religion.bahai as \u201cSufi Babi\u201d\u2014was a practitioner and scholar of the Bayani tradition, the heterodox Babi lineage that refused to follow Baha\u02bfu\u02bcllah after the Bab\u02bfs martyrdom. In this 2004 post, Hazini decodes each layer of the talisman with meticulous care: the Quranic Throne Verse in the outermost ring, the permutations of the Bismillah into nineteen divine epithets, the esoteric Greatest Name symbol transmitted by Imam \u02bfAli, the alchemical symbols derived from al-Buni\u02bfs Shams al-Ma\u02bfarif, and the sevenfold magic square whose numerology resolves to the oneness of the Godhead.

At the heart of the analysis is the Bab\u02bfs Neoplatonist metaphysics: the First Primal Volition (al-mashiyyat al-\u016bla) as the Plotinian Nous, the first emanation from the unknowable One, animating all prophets and saints as successive and increasingly perfect theophanies. The post is a rare English-language guide to this almost entirely untranslated body of Babi esoteric thought.

This Talisman is a mandala not unlike the famous Kalachakra mandala of Tibetan Buddhism or the Sephirotic Tree of Life of Jewish Kabbalah, and others similar, and so therefore it is one of many priceless heritages of sacred art belonging to all humanity. It has a dual function as both a metaphysical protection (Arabic: hirz, pl. ahraz) as well as a mandala to be meditated and contemplated upon. In it the entire Babi/Bayani metaphysical cosmology and theology is contained in a nutshell.

The Haykal (Pentacle)

The first element of this Babi/Bayani talisman-mandala is a series of prayers by the Bab shaped in the form of a five pointed star known as a pentacle or pentagram (Arabic: haykal, which means both form and temple). In agreement with all occultists and esotericists the world over, the pentacle is a symbolic representation of the archetypal human being who is the microcosm mirroring both the macrocosm of the totality of the universe and the Metacosm which is the divine world(s). Each point of the pentacle represents each of the four traditional elements (fire, air, water and earth) plus the fifth super element (symbolized by the first point), i.e. ether or Spirit. Note that the pentacle has a long history in occultism, gnosticism and esotericism everywhere from China to even Meso-America and is today predominantly worn as a pendant medallion or talismanic charm by Neo-Pagans and Wiccans. It is also the symbol of the gnostic Bayani religion which I follow.

The Da'ira (Circular Mandala)

The next figure below the pentacle is the circular mandala (Arabic da'ira). The first element of this da'ira is a series of 7 concentric, equidistant circles divided into 19 sections.

From the top, within the first circle the Ayat Kursi/Throne Verse of the Quran (2:255) is written in full.

In the second circle the Bab has permutated each of the 19 letters of "In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful / Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim" into 19 individual phrases denoting what he calls the luminous names or aspects of the Godhead beginning with "He is" or "O possessor of" (i.e. 1. huwa'l-birr, 2. huwa's-salam, 3. huwa'l-mutakabir, 4. huwa'Llah, 5. huwa'l-latif, 6. huwa'l-latif, 7. ya dha'l-hibat'ullah ta'ala, 8. huwa'Llah, 9. huwa'l-latif, 10. huwa'r-rahim, 11. huwa'l-hayy, 12. huwa'l-ma'bud, 13. huwa'n-nur, 14. huwa'Llah, 15. huwa'l-latif, 16. huwa'-r-rahman, 17. huwa'l-hakim, 18. ya dha'l-ayadi'l-basit [?], 19. huwa'l-maqsud).

The third circle contains 19 reproductions of the traditional esoteric Islamic Greatest Name Symbol (apparently transmitted by the first Shi'ia Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib) which is held to symbolize the highest, yet unknown and unpronounceable, name of the Godhead (in this regard it is much like how Jewish Kabbalists hold their Tetragrammaton Y H V H). However, this Greatest Name is not a word or letter but symbols.

The fourth circle contains 19 different reproductions of what the Bab calls the words of creation. They are also symbols and are derived from texts of Islamic Hermetic occultism and alchemical magick. A full explanation of what they are and where they come from can be found in Shaykh Ahmad al-Buni's famous 11th-12th C. text on numerology, gematria and talismans entitled Shams'ul-Ma'arif (The Sun of Knowledge).

The fifth circle contains each individual letter of "In the Name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful" (B S M A L L H A L R H M N A L R H I M).

The sixth circle contains what the Bab calls the letters (not words) of the six names of God which are the single/al-fard, the living/al-hayy, the peerless/al-qayyum, the wise/al-hakam, the Judge/al-qadi, the just/al-'adl and the holy/al-quddus.

The seventh circle consists of 19 letters of a verse in the Quran which I can't quite make out.

The Magic Square

The second element of the circular mandala is a house of magic squares divided into 7 sections of 7. Above each side of the 4 sides of the square a verse from the Quran denoting an attribute of the Godhead is written: i.e. 1. inna rabbi huwa'l-khaliq al-hakim/Verily my Lord He is the Wise Creator, 2. inna Allah 'aliman hakiman/Verily God is the Knower, the Wise, 3. wa kana Allah 'ala kulli shayin qadir/And God is Powerful over All Things, 4. wa kana Allah al-'aliyy'ul-hakim/And God is the High, the Wise. Inside every one of the seven x seven sections of the square a different name and attribute of the Godhead is written, which is difficult to read in this version of the talisman.

Now the reason for the seven sections of seven is very simple. The Bab's name Ali Muhammad contains seven letters ('ayn lam ya mim ha' mim dal) and he calls himself the Essence of the Seven Letters (Dhat Huruf as-Saba'). Seven times seven gives 49 which when individually added gives the number 13 (= al-Ahad/the One) which when added again gives 4 (i.e. the numbers of the sides of the magick square that also symbolize the 4 metaphysical journeys into the Godhead and back). 4 x 7 also yields 29 which when individually added gives the number 11 (= Huwa, He).

The Neoplatonist Metaphysics

The Bab, like all Sufis, Isma'ilis and faylasuf/philosophers before him, is a metaphysical Neoplatonist with heavy Neopythagorean number mysticism thrown in there (in late antiquity the two amounted to the same thing and this is why it became so popular among medieval Jews, Muslims and Christians whom it was transmitted to). The Neoplatonists hold that the world is a series of graded theophanies or emanations from a supreme unknowable first principle, the One, down to the material world and an ascent back to It.

In this talisman-mandala-pentacle the Bab is conveying a unique scheme of Neoplatonic emanatory theophanies of what he calls the First Primal Volition (al-mashiyyat'ul-ula awwali). This First Primal Volition is not the Godhead eo ipse, the absolutely hidden transcendent and unknowable ipseity, but the first effusion or emanation of it in pre-eternity. This Primal Volition is equivalent to the Neoplatonic Nous of Plotinus or the Logos of Christian mysticism and the Gospel of John. It permeates the totality of everything and is the animating force in both the microcosm and the macrocosm.

In his Book of Names (Kitab al-Asma), Temples of the Religion (Hayakil ad-Din) and the Book of the Five Grades (Shu'un Khamsa/Panj Sha'n) the Bab speaks about 7 emanations of the First Primal Will in 19 grades with 4 and 7 tenuities (raqa'iq). He speaks of this Primal Volition eternally effusing Itself and infusing the inner reality of All-Things, and especially animating the inner reality of all holy men and women, saints and prophets who are one with It. It is continually and constantly manifesting itself, ad infinitum.

However the Bab then introduces a novel idea in his scheme, saying that each time the Primal Volition incarnates Itself around a specific person it is more perfectly manifest and attuned than the last time, leading to an idea of an infinite progressive revelation of this Primal Volition (which in itself remains perfectly the same yet more perfectly manifested with each subsequent manifestation). Thus, the Bab proclaims his absolute identity with all the prophets and saints of history, particularly Muhammad and the Shi'ite Imams, while simultaneously asserting his superiority to all of them. But it doesn't end there; while the Bab is superior to Muhammad and the Imams, he says that infinite future manifestations of this first Primal Volition will occur, especially one to follow him whom he calls He whom God shall make Manifest (man yuzhiruhu'Llah) who will appear between 1511 to 2001 (maybe slightly less) years after him.

The pentacle thus represents the infinite human forms which this First Primal Volition takes in this world throughout history; the circle and square the grades and levels of its emanatory theophanies.

Colophon

Written by Nima Hazini, posting as "Sufi Babi," a practitioner and scholar of the Azali Bayani tradition. Posted to talk.religion.bahai and alt.religion.bahai on January 19, 2004. The haykal-da'ira talisman described is a composite sacred art object by the Bab himself; a scanned image was hosted at the Wilmette Institute at the time of posting. Hazini signed his post as "al-Wahid Thalith" (the Third Unit), a Bayani honorific.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

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