Islamic Roots of Thelema (first in a series)
https://paradoxosalpha.livejournal.com/79983.html
Aleister Crowley's admiration for Islam is no particular secret. In Magick Without Tears, he wrote:
The most important of all of the efforts of the White School, from an exoteric point of view, is Islam. In its doctrine there is some slight taint, but much less than in Christianity. It is a virile religion. It looks facts in the face, and admits their horror; but it proposes to overcome them by sheer dint of manhood. Unfortunately, the metaphysical conceptions of its quasi-profane Schools are grossly materialistic. It is only the Pantheism of the Sufis which eliminates the conception of propitiation [characteristic of the Black School]; and, in practice, the Sufis are too closely allied to the Vedantists to retain hold of reality.
Crowley identified Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam, as a Saint of E.G.C. and a Magus of A.'.A.'., and Crowley directly compared his own relationship to the "praeterhuman intelligence" Aiwass with Mohammed's relationship to the angel Gabriel. During the Cairo working which resulted in the reception of The Book of the Law, Crowley was of course living in a predominantly Muslim city. During this time, according to his own account, he "had assumed some disguise, probably with the intention of trying to study Islam from within as he had done with Hinduism." With respect to his social circumstances at the time, he relates, "We occasionally hobnobbed with a General Dickson, who had accepted Islam; otherwise we knew nobody in Cairo except natives, carpet merchants, pimps, jewellers, and such small deer." And yet in his Confessions, he offers these details regarding Cairo in early 1904:
As to my study of Islam, I got a sheikh to teach me Arabic and the practices of ablution, prayer and so on, so that at some future time I might pass for a Moslem among themselves. I learnt a number of chapters of the Koran by heart…..
My sheikh was profoundly versed in the mysticism and magic of Islam, and discovering that I was an initiate, had no hesitation in providing me with books and manuscripts on the Arabic Cabbala. These formed the basis of my comparative studies.
Crowley claimed that his sheikh also taught him "many of the secrets of the Sidi Aissawa," a Sufi tariqa or initiatory system. Many of Crowley's examples of the yogic technique of mantra are in Arabic, and his description of them sometimes relates more strongly to the Sufi practice of dhikr. And his A.'.A.'. program recommends to aspirants the study of "Sufi poetry generally."
In fact, the literary form of The Book of the Law has more in common with the Quran than with the Bible or many other religious scriptures. Both Liber Legis and the Quran are very freely structured examples of what Northrop Frye calls the "oracle," which he explains as the "typical episodic product" of the mythical mode of literary composition. Both texts allow for the dominance of the divine voice in what is ostensibly a communication through an angelic intermediary to a human prophet. Both texts presume the existence of a narrative and mythic background which they demonstrate more often through implication than exposition. Each of the two texts professes to be an initial eruption of the prophetic tradition in the particular language of its inscription.
Crowley's "Annihilation" (itself a translation of fana', a Sufi term for a high mystical attainment) occurred during his work with the Enochian Aethyrs in the desert of Algeria, where he consecrated himself daily with a thousand and one recitals of the sura Al-Ikhlas ("Pure Faith") from the Quran. Of course, it is well-known that in his later life, Crowley referred to the successor to his organizing authority as the "Caliph," the Arabic title denoting the successor of Mohammed as the leader of the Muslim community.
The purpose of the forthcoming series of posts is not to reduce Thelema to an Islamic heresy. Instead, they will be an attempt to re-interpret Thelemic practices and concepts through the lens of certain Islamic doctrinal structures. It has become increasingly easy to find comparative expositions of Thelema in terms drawn from Egypto-Hermetic, Christian, Freemasonic, Tantric, or even Voodoo traditions. But Islam, a particularly prominent element in the syncretic origins of Thelema, has been notably under-utilized in interpretations of this material. I will seek to remedy the situationin a small wayover the next few weeks.