Sayyeda Zaynab (sa):

Preserving a Gift of the Ahl al-Bayt (as): Seeing the Inward Reality of
Things
by Rebecca Masterton, Director of Online Shia Studies
8-05-14
Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim
All praise goes back to the One that is beyond conception, definition or
description, who endowed humanity with consciousness, and salutations
to the best of that humanity, Prophet Muhammad and his purified
progeny.
I send a humble greeting to the Lioness of Islam, Lady Zaynab, the
Adornment of Her Father, who died so soon after the massacre at Karbala
and acknowledge that it is an honour to know about her. Dont take
knowing about Lady Zaynab (sa) for granted and dont take it for granted
that your descendants will know about her, unless you make a point of
letting them know.
We say that Lady Zaynab (s) upheld Islam in the face of oppression, and
there is an important component of Islam that I would like to reflect upon
today: the apprehension of the inner reality of things. Her famous words
about Karbala: I saw nothing but beauty point to this essential
component of Islam that is all too easily forgotten, but which is a gift for
humanity, if only they could realise it.
People often ask how they are to obtain guidance in the Age of
Occultation. Why is it so difficult to find consistent guidance towards
knowledge? Imam al-Baqir (as) said that, were the Shia able to keep their
mouths tied, then he would have told them everything that is to their
advantage and disadvantage. (Chapter 51, p. 278) If the Shia had been
able to maintain loyalty to the Imam by not revealing certain types of
knowledge to potential enemies, then they would have received guidance
in everything that they needed. This guidance includes seeing and
apprehending the inner reality of the apparent reality that is in front of us.
It is narrated in al-Kafi that a companion, Abu Basir, came to Imam alSadiq (as) and said, If the companions of Imam Ali (as) knew when and
how they were going to die, why did they not avoid it? The Imam replied
with words to the effect of Because they accepted it. In other words, out
of surrender, submission, acceptance and apprehension, they embraced
the Decree. The Abu Basir says What prevents you from telling your
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companions their future? The Imam replied, This door has been closed,
except that al-Husayn ibn Ali (as) opened it a little for his companions on
the Eve of Ashura. In other words, because he could trust their loyalty
and steadfastness, he told them when and how they were going to die.
And the Imam added, O Abu Basir! They were people whose mouths were
tied. (Chapter 51, p. 279)
As the scholars teach, the haqq has a zahir and a batin. Prophethood is
the vehicle of the zahir, and imamah is the vehicle of the batin, bearing in
mind that the Prophet (s) was both nabi and Imam. To have marifah of the
Imam is therefore to have marifah of the batin or at least to
acknowledge that there is a batin. There is an inner reality, and still
another inner reality beyond that. The narrations in the Shii collections
note that opponents to the batin are not members of other religions, such
as Jews, Christians or Hindus; but rather, opponents to the batin are found
within Islam itself.
This is what we find happening in the history of Islam. Those who took
over governorship of the umma still prayed, fasted and declared the
shahadah; but they categorically denied Imamah, and it can safely be said
that they had no apprehension of the batin. The ones who took over
power did not leave any books of guidance towards the batin, although
eventually, towards the latter Imamates, batini teachings began to be
spread from the teachings of the Imams among the followers of the ahl alzahir.
The knowledge of the btin was inherited, from heart to heart, by one
Imam to the next, and undoubtedly being of the House of Ali, and
witnessing her role at Karbala, and hearing her words I saw nothing but
beauty, Sayyeda Zaynab (sa) possessed marifah of Imamah and marifah
of the btin. She was preserving a perception of reality. She was of those
about whom Imam Ali (as) says:
The awliyallah are those who look at the inward side of the world while
others look at its outward side, they busy themselves with its remoter
benefits while others busy themselves in the immediate benefits. [].
(Bihr al-Anwr, Vol. 66; Nahj al-Balgha, Saying no. 441, pps 688-689).
It could be argued that it is this loss of perception of an inner reality
one of the greatest tragedies for the ummah. A loss of perception
inner reality of things means that we no longer understand what we
hear before us. We suffer, because we no longer understand why
happen in the way they do and what is their real significance.

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Henry Corbin, the great French scholar of Shii Islam, talks about this this
loss of perception: We are longer participants in a traditional culture; we
live in a [secular] scientific civilisation that is extending its control, it is
said, even to images. It is commonplace today to speak of a civilization
of the image (thinking of our magazines, cinema, and television). But one
wonders whether, like all commonplaces, this does not conceal a radical
misunderstanding, a complete error. For instead of the image being
elevated to the level of a world that would be proper to it, instead of it
appearing invested with a symbolic function, leading to an internal sense,
there is above all a reduction of the image to the level of the sensory
perception pure and simple, and thus a definitive degradation of the
image. (Mundus Imaginalis, pps 30-31).
Bani Umayya saw only the outer appearance of Imam al-Husayns (as)
sacrifice, and many historians have seen it in the same way, but Sayyeda
Zaynab (sa) saw its inner reality. The slaughtered man on the battlefield,
surrendering to the decree with full knowledge, acceptance and serenity.
A total sacrifice of self, of everything, perfecting his walayah with his Lord;
elevating walayah to a sacred degree that could not be surpassed.
The sons and daughters of Bani Umayya live today: those who say that
the Holy Prophet (s) has no further use for the ummah, as he is dead and
gone. Those who say that the batin cannot be perceived until one is dead
and passed through to it; and they continue to kill those who testify to the
batin, calling them unbelievers. But let us also guard against that
tendency within our own community, and not fall prey to a secularisation
of the consciousness that prevents us, and the generations after us, from
accessing through a higher, more refined sense of perception, the inner
reality of things.
Application: connecting to the Imam of our Time (ajfs)
Sayyeda Zaynab perceived the inner reality of her Imam, and the inner
reality to which his inner reality was connected. She was able to do this
because her inner state corresponded with the state of her Imam (as).
Henry Corbin explains why today we do not see our Imam:
if the Imam is today the Hidden Imam, it is essentially because people
have veiled him from themselves, because the human consciousness has
become incapable of knowing him and recognising him, of perceiving his
mode of being, his mode of action and the place where he resides. []
The Reappearance is not an exterior event that will be imposed one fine
day from outside; it is only the final appointed time of the transformation
of the consciousness. (En Islam Iranien, p. 125)

Today we have more or less entirely absorbed the secular perception of

time that has been propagated by the industrialised world for two hundred
years. It is a perception of time that sees it only as consisting of seconds,
minutes, hours and days passing one after another; but the occultation of
the Imam of our Time, existing, as Henry Corbin says, simultaneously in
the past and in our time, is a hujja, or a proof, of another kind of time: the
time of the soul. As Corbin explains, life is not limited to the conditions of
our visible material world with its biological laws that we know. There are
events in the life of the Hidden Imam (Mundus, p. 23), in his state
occultation.
Qd Sad Qumm refers to these different levels of time:
1) There is an opaque time (obscure, dense, heavy, zamn kathf). It is
the time of material beings, the duration of physical movements, done by
physical individuals and falling within the perception and the control of the
senses. It is measurable time, in one way or another, by the planetary
revolutions.
2) There is subtle time (zamn latf) which is the duration of the spiritual
movements produced by spiritual beings. subtle time is the form of
temporality which comprises all the movements that take place in the
world of the Soul, in the upper malakt which is the world of celestial
Angels (the moving Souls of the Heavens) as well as in the lower malakt,
which is the world of the human souls. These movements encompass the
revelations, inspirations and visions given to the prophets and to the
saints in general, the miracles performed by them; in short, all the events
of sacred-history, everything that takes place neither in the physical
world, nor, therefore, in the time of this world, but in the time and space
of the malakt, the world of the Soul in its entirety. It is the lam al-mithl
about which we translate as mundus imaginalis imaginal world.
3) There is the still more subtle time, or absolutely subtle (zamn altaf).
It is the time of the superior spiritual Entities, of the pure cherubinic
Intelligences (Angeli intellectuals), sacrosanct Lights, the world of the
jabart. It is to that time there that relates the Quranic verse that
speaks of degrees by which the Angels and the Spirit ascend towards Him
in one day, the duration of which is that of 50,000 years (70:4).
..
Cultivating the apprehension and cognisance of the inner reality of things,
including the inner reality of the Imam (ajfs) requires concentration upon
the heart and purification of the intention, and guarding against riy.
Without at least a sense or a trace of a memory of this apprehension, we
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are in danger of losing heart of this religion, for which Sayyeda Zaynab
(sa) sacrificed everything.