This is the second volume of Amin Ramin’s “Man in Islam”. The first volume can be purchased on Amazon at this link.
This part of the series is called “Modern Western Civilization.” It may seem strange that we have jumped straight from ancient religions and myths to modernity with its technology, “progress,” and all such things. After all, how do dualistic myths relate to modern rockets and computers? No way, it seems. But there is an inner connection and a very close one. From the inside, things don’t look the same as the outside. Most people live in external reality, in a “matrix,” without seeing the inner connections between things. It’s like when a person looks at a car and thinks it moves because of the hood or the roof. He does not understand that it has a motor inside that moves the whole structure. This will gradually become clearer, and we will put everything in its place so that there will be complete clarity about what the modern world is, where it came from, and how it functions. But in order to do that, we’ll have to clarify many things, which is what we’re going to do now.
We said “West.” What is the West? What associations are born in us when we hear this word? Let’s leave out some complicated concepts and talk about clichés – simple clichés that arise in the mind of the average person… The first thing he imagines when he hears about “the West” is probably the well-known clichés of “progress,” “development”… That is, the West is a kind of benchmark for progress. What kind of progress? It is clear that this is not spiritual progress. On the contrary, there are clichés about the “soulless West.” It is clear that the West is not very spiritual.
The West is the benchmark for material progress. In this civilization, material progress is realized in the perfect way, to the extent that this civilization is now practically a world civilization. It has no alternatives, precisely on the material, the real plane. Everyone who challenges the West, including the defunct Soviet Union, wants to be like the West but more successful. They just want to produce these material samples, gadgets, programs, guns, tanks, etc. – that is, some purely material things that give… give what? POWER. This is what we are talking about. It’s about power in this world. It’s about the same thing that was talked about in Adam’s Tree story. “Shall I direct you to the Tree of eternity and enduring power?” (20: 120).
The essence of the West is the will to power, as Nietzsche defined it. It is the will to power over this world, expressed in a movement of material progress, a permanent material expansion. Western civilization has succeeded in the perfect way in realizing humanity’s dream of power over this world.
And therefore, there can be no alternative to the West on the plane of this Dunya. Either you join the race of material achievements, or you are destroyed. There is no third option here. You can’t stand up to missiles and tanks, especially if they are improving day by day. But if you enter this race, you inevitably become the West. You simply have to build your society in such a way that it produces all these technological specimens. You have to make it a machine for producing technological efficiency. And if you have built your society in this way, then you have taken the West inside you and ceased to be yourself. You have become the West yourself, and any question of opposition to the West is removed.
And so, Western civilization has eschatological significance. It is thrown into history to destroy this history and bring it to an endpoint. I mean the history of humanity in Zaman, going from Adam to Imam Mahdi, after which there will be a transition to a new earth and a new world with different laws.
Even the word “West” itself is de facto a thing of the past. Since this civilization is already global, its significant clusters are not located in Western countries but rather in China, Japan, etc. Japan is not geographically Western; instead, it is in the Far East, but it certainly belongs to the West today in terms of civilization. The competition in the world is not to defeat the West or offer its own way of development. The competition has long been going on only to become an alternative to the West or to take higher places in the system that the West leads.
So, Western civilization has become planetary; it even dreams of going beyond the planet. It is the last civilization before the arrival of the Imam – the civilization of the end of time, the civilization of apocalypse. It seemed to realize all the possibilities of humanity and nullify them, destroy history, and bring it to its final, full realization, which will also be a complete bankruptcy – so to speak, a bankruptcy of all the possibilities of human existence. And then the Imam will appear in all his power and glory. Then it will be said, “Come and see,” because everything you people have been going for has turned out to be nothing, has become ashes scattered in the wind.
The Quran says in surah “The Romans”: “The Romans have been defeated in the nearer land, and they after their defeat will be victorious” (30: 2-3). It is usually said that what is meant here is the story of the Byzantine-Iranian war when the Iranians defeated the Byzantines, but they took their revenge a few years later. This is true. But the ayats of the Quran have many levels of understanding. They are ciphers that contain the entire history of mankind, all the meanings from top to bottom. We are used to the idea that every sentence has only one meaning. But the Quran is not like that. Each ayat has many layers of meaning, one under another. And they speak not only of the past but also of the future.
“The Romans have been defeated” – that is, Islam has defeated them. The civilization of Islam did defeat Rome for a time. But then Rome took revenge. And then the Quran says, “To Allah belongs the command before and after. And that day, the believers will rejoice.” What is that day in which the believers will rejoice? The Imams say: what is meant here is the arrival of Qaim (al-Mahdi).
That is, the domination of Rome (and Western civilization is the heir of Rome) will continue until the arrival of the Imam, who will establish the world kingdom of true Monotheism and implement the program of all the prophets and successors. Lil batyli jawla wa lil haqqi dawla – “lies have their own period, and truth has its own realm.”
We said that everything in this world has a counterpart or similarity in other worlds. Imam Reza (A) says, “The indication of what is there is what is here.” And we mentioned that the Almighty set the Sun in our world as an indication of the Light of Muhammadan Reality, which is the Sun of the higher worlds. Our planet is arranged so that the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West. That is, the West is a country of sunset, the night of history, the end of the historical cycle. In German, the West is called Abendland, meaning “the evening country” or “the sunset lands.” Oswald Spengler’s famous book, which made a lot of noise at the beginning of the 20th century, was called “Der Untergang des Abendlandes.” They usually translate it as “The Decline of the West.” However, a literal translation would be “The Death of the Sunset Lands,” which already gives a different connotation to the title.
The hadith says that before the Imam comes, “the Sun will rise from the West.” That is, as we have said, the Sun of the hidden Imam will rise where this world will sunset. The West is the land of the sunset. As this world approaches sunset and Barzakh becomes manifest behind it, the Sun of the Imam will rise.
The hadiths talk a lot about the decline of humankind before the arrival of Qaim. So, the mission of battering ram or bearer of this decadence belongs to the “sunset lands,” the West, the land of historical night. The land where the Black Myth has triumphed.
The invention of the experimental-mathematical method was perhaps the most important know-how of Western civilization in the modern age, which gave it enormous power. What does this mean? In the past, power was based on magic. In pagan traditional society, magic was the metaphysical basis of power. If you look at the rationale of the monarchical system (which was the main model of power widespread almost all over the world), you see that it boiled down to the fact that the monarch is the embodiment of the cosmic order, connecting between the “upper” and the “lower.” Above all, the monarch was a great magician – a being who embodied a pagan principle, that is, who had tasted of the Forbidden Tree. This belief legitimized the monarchy.
For example, in China, the emperor functioned as a pole of society that should not be preoccupied with the ruling as with contemplation. In the Min-Tan palace, he moved from the winter wing to the spring wing, from the spring wing to the summer one, depending on the season, like the Sun. His function was to maintain a certain magical order by his very existence. Each day, the Egyptian pharaoh went through a special ritual during which he was washed and fumigated in a way that matched the rising of the Sun from the Nun.
Modern Western civilization abolishes this magical picture of the world as something primitive and irrational and replaces it with a modern scientific worldview based on the experimental-mathematical method. That is, roughly speaking, nature begins to be tortured in order to elicit its secrets. A modern scientific laboratory is similar to an inquisitional torture chamber, an operating room, or a morgue. White doctors’ coats, syringes, test tubes, clamps… Here they torture nature, dismembering it like a corpse to see what’s inside.
In the experiment, artificial conditions are created to quantify the results. Then, based on what appears to be the result, theories are built. All of this leads to new technical inventions that give material power over the world – all those rigs, communications systems, missiles, new murder weapons, etc.
Initially, the result was so overwhelming, opening up so many possibilities that they began to try transferring it everywhere – to people, to the social sciences, to psychology… Everything became subject to experiment and calculation. It was a new picture of the world and a form of power, replacing the traditional magical one. Accordingly, the spread of this thinking was accompanied by the destruction of the monarchical system so that by the second half of the 20th century, there was nothing left of it. It was impossible to legitimize the power by the old magical picture of the world, which was not taken seriously anymore and was treated as a superstition of the past.
Power has begun to legitimize itself not through a magical picture of the world but efficiency and expediency. If you look at contemporary politicians, they all talk day and night about “economic development,” “progress,” and the like. That is, they’re not addressing society through the discourse that I’m your God-given monarch, I maintain the cosmic order, and you have to obey me… Instead, they are saying: I bring you efficiency, I help you develop in terms of control over this world, I make you more advanced, progressive, I give you an economic growth of 5 percent annually… And so, vote for me. They all end up saying the same thing, with slight variations. Because the sphere of action in our world, shaped by science and technology, has come down to effective management.
In the old world, a monarch was replaced when he lost the sacred trust of the otherworldly powers, a certain magical charisma. In China, if there were earthquakes, epidemics, pets giving birth to ugly creatures, people thought: “Oh, that’s it, it means our monarch has become something different. The gods don’t like him anymore, it’s time to overthrow him.” And they revolted, overthrew that dynasty, installed another one, and thought that the cosmic order had been restored. Back in the Middle Ages, a special council of bishops gathered in Europe to investigate what crimes or misdeeds had been committed by the authorities if there was any natural disaster.
And when some president or prime minister leaves power today? When economic growth drops by so many percent. And then people think, “Oh, so our prime minister is not efficient enough, we won’t vote for him anymore. He didn’t do his calculations right. So let someone else come in.”
In the last century, there was the French thinker Michel Foucault. He described the technologies of New Age power very well – this paradigm shift in power that we are now talking about. In traditional society, the monarch was the apex of the social pyramid, illuminated as much as possible by the sun. The king always stood in plain sight, society in the shadows. No one was interested in the countless peasants, artisans, poor people who swarmed somewhere at the bottom of the social pyramid. No one studied them, no one was interested in their lives. The spotlight was turned on the life of the monarch.
In Egypt, it led to the fact that the whole society built a pyramid for the next pharaoh. Due to his magical charisma, the king symbolized society as the whole and was its high point, end, and telos. And therefore, as the same Foucault notes, the limit of criminal justice under the monarchical regime was the endless dismemberment of the body of the kingslayer. Hence the scenes of elaborate and agonizing executions of those who infringed on the person of the monarch or his position, since the infinite significance of what was infringed had to correspond to the infinite punishment.
Now, what happens in the New Age? A new model of power is born, which Foucault calls “power-knowledge” or “disciplinary power,” where, on the contrary, the top of power is made impersonal and retreats into the shadows. At the same time, society becomes illuminated and falls under the spotlight — the exact opposite of the monarchical system. “Power-knowledge” is the kind of power that needs to gather information about the object of domination constantly. It cannot exercise itself unless it constantly rationalizes social “flesh” through the multiplication of knowledge about it.
Power in the traditional absolutist society demonstrated its brilliance and splendor. In the modern era, this relationship is reversed: the authorities now retreat into the shadows, forcing the subjects to demonstrate themselves. This is the model of the “panopticon,” universal surveillance. Once, the subjects had to know power – now power wants to know the subjects. Formerly, the owners of power possessed individuality – now, it is given to those who are dominated. Power becomes invisible, impersonal, and therefore much more effective. Modern society is ruled through constant inspections, checks, observations, examinations, statistical and sociological studies, the results of which are registered, recorded, and stored in detail. The objectifying rationality of “power-knowledge” manifests itself in all this ramified toolkit. That is why all modern institutions – factories, schools, barracks, hospitals – are essentially like prisons.
However, Foucault does not talk about the reasons for the emergence of such a model. And the reasons are clear – the experimental-mathematical method is gradually being transferred to the entire society. Not only nature but also people become the subject of study, observation, careful classification, measurements, and calculations. Everything in society is built according to a certain laboratory model: input material at the entrance, the result at the exit, and, in between, measurements, observations, and calculations.
Have you ever wondered why bloody public executions are no longer practiced today? Instead, convicts are simply imprisoned for various terms, sometimes for life. It’s not about humanism at all. If anything, a quick death by the executioner’s hand can be far more humane than a life sentence. The point is that there was a sacral center in the form of a magic monarch in traditional society. He was considered the source of all law, and in his name justice was administered and execution carried out. And since this center was as sacred, luxurious, and majestic as possible, at the other pole, the punishment that was carried out in his name also had to be as spectacular, public, and sadistic as possible – brilliant in its cruelty, so to speak, demonstrating the power of the monarch. Hence the theater of mass executions, as under Ivan the Terrible – a real spectacle of sadism, where people’s flesh was subjected to all the operations of the imagination. Characteristically, even after death, the body of the executed was not left, but various punishments were performed over it, including dismemberment, burning, and scattering of ash… It was a ritual ceremony symbolizing the triumph of the sovereign. In the New Age, however, when this sacred center disappears, there is no longer one in whose name all this can and should be carried out. Power becomes invisible, retreating into the shadows. Therefore, punishment must also be as invisible and shadowy as possible. This corresponds to imprisonment for various terms, when the criminal hides from the eyes of society.
Another hallmark of modern Western civilization was the rise of capitalism. It is wrong to think that the West invented capitalism. Capitalism has always existed since ancient times, but it was on the margins of society. Now, it has been given a new tool in the form of the science and technology. With this battering ram, it moved to conquer the world. All the old cults, forms of power, social relations, beliefs – all this was chewed up and spat out by this terrible machine, in which ever-advancing technology is linked with money – the perfect machine of power over the mortal material world, the most perfect of all that man has ever invented.
And so it went on until the end of the 20th century when this machine no longer had any organized, strong competitors who could seriously challenge it on the plane of this world. It became a monopolist. The only religion that it has failed to chew up is Islam. But Islam is not an organized competitor to it either. Islam cannot challenge it in terms of power and control; rather, its challenge is spiritual.
And so, when this machine had no competitors left, when it subjugated the entire planet (and even near-planetary space) – then this system began to devour itself. This is the stage in which we are all now living.
The collapse of this system will soon begin, and it will be more catastrophic than anything humanity has known so far. The planet will be bathed in blood before moving on to a new stage. The hadiths are clear about this. Through their desire for unlimited power, which Iblis offers them, men have created forces over which they no longer have any control. But the contract with Satan always ends in failure. All those “scientists” and associated politicians and technocrats only think they control something. They don’t control anything. The system is derailed, like a speeding train. Its collapse will be truly apocalyptic.
And so it will be, until the one who restores humanity to its original form, to its original Haikel, arrives.
One of the major archetypal Western New Age stories is the legend of Frankenstein. In Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, a mad scientist, having mastered the art of life, assembles a monster from pieces of corpses who begins to haunt him. In full accord with this legend, the modern technology created by Western man becomes out of his control. Modern man is already its slave, not its master.
We know that various sci-fi movies and TV series have long played around with this situation, talking about the “rise of the machines” … In fact, right now, the world is on the verge of another technical revolution, when such a terrible thing will determine many things as artificial intelligence. Let’s take just one example – the mechanization of murder. How does it work? A miniature flying machine, a drone, is equipped with a program that recognizes your face. The machine finds you and kills you. You cannot escape from it, you cannot run away from it, you cannot negotiate with it, you cannot destroy it. It is clear that if this is introduced on a wide scale, humanity will move into a new era when it will no longer be humans who kill but machines with their artificial intelligence.
Another example of this is the social rating program. It’s already working in China. Every person there is given a number, and the program collects all the information about him according to hundreds of parameters and gives him a rating. If the score falls below a certain point, restrictions are placed on the person: he or she cannot go abroad, cannot get a good job…
In fact, this is a horrible situation, when a person will simply become a slave to some machines and programs that perform total control and accounting…
And, by the way, these two things can be combined well. That is, some program keeps universal records based on a huge array of data, analyzes statistical patterns, and makes decisions to kill you. When your scores fall below a certain point, the decision is made to kill you. This decision is also performed by the machines. The picture looks like footage from another sci-fi movie. But we are talking about things that are technically quite feasible now; it’s no longer science fiction. The only question is whether it will be introduced and whether there are forces that can prevent this. Maybe we are now living out the last years of the familiar human world, after which humanity will enter a kind of transhuman era.
All of this is just one of the enormous problems of the modern world. We are not talking about the fact that resources will someday run out, that there will soon be a global shortage of freshwater, that we are practically deprived of normal food without some chemicals, that even clean air is problematic today…
Modern science and technology have become a monster, a Frankenstein, turned against its creator. Man has once again reached for the Forbidden Tree, possessing neither the right to it nor the dignity to bear the burden. Do you remember how in the last part we talked about the “blind demiurge,” Yaldabaoth, who, according to Gnostic legend, created our world? Well, the Western man best fits the role of such a “blind demiurge.”
And in fact, creating an artificial world of computers and robots is a repetition of the ancient magical dream of imitating God. Not only does the magician control the world – the top class would be his creation of the world. Indeed, modern science can create things that do not exist in nature, like new chemical compounds or genetic modifications. Thus, modern Western civilization has not so much abolished magic as it has transformed it, giving it a new form.
It is no coincidence that another basic plot of this civilization is the legend of Faust. Spengler even called this civilization “Faustian,” and Thomas Mann chose Faust as its symbol in his major late novel. Faust is a black magician who sold his soul to the devil for the sake of power in this world. According to legend, he gets the opportunity to rise to unprecedented heights at the price of a bargain with Satan.
The homunculus or golem is a common character in magical mythology. A homunculus means literally “a little man” born in a flask of an alchemist or magician. Medieval Jews had a legend of a golem, i.e., a clay doll brought to life by a Kabbalist with his spells. And interestingly enough, the golem, like Frankenstein, also turns against his creator. He revolts, smashing everything around him, and the Kabbalist manages to stop him only by ripping the pentagram out of his mouth. Falling apart, the golem also buries its creator beneath the rubble.
In this regard, one can also pay attention to the reverse process. In the story of the golem, something dead comes to life. And there is a plot where, on the contrary, something alive is put to death. This is also a very typical magical plot. The tradition of creating different zombies and capturing a man’s soul illustrates this. Currently, it is being implemented very successfully, based on the latest scientific research. The brainwashing technologies are all the same magical procedures; we just don’t understand it. The inanimate is brought to life in our world, while the living is put to death.
On the one hand, a parallel reality of robots, machines, and artificial intelligence – those modern golems – is being created. On the other hand, living people are being deadened and turned into zombies through brainwashing and manipulation. The media propaganda aims to develop people as golems, as living machines controlled by spells and unable to think for themselves. The world we live in is magical but completely different from the world of traditional pagan magic.
In what sense? The basis of the modern picture of the world, called “science,” is not a magical multilevel cosmos but an intuition of the infinite world night. I’m not just talking about modern astronomy with its endless cold spaces in which all these particles, rays, and galaxies are running around, and man is just a tiny speck of dust. Doesn’t modern so-called “developed” society, with its division of people into atoms-particles in a cold stream of money, present a similar picture?
The “metaphysics” of the modern world is that life and man are some meaningless bubbles on the surface of nothingness. This whole world is somehow dead; we live as if in a graveyard. Doesn’t all these idiotic offices, companies, managers reek of some deadness, some heavy stench? The only thing extra here is the man himself. Maybe this world is, in fact, “progressive” and “developed,” but it is built for someone else, not for man. It is good for machines, bad for people. This one-dimensional world, cut off from the highest good, seems to have been really designed by some “blind demiurge,” Yaldabaoth. As if this world began to embody the worst fantasies of Gnostics and Manicheans.
How did it come to be? How was this world born? What brought it into existence? To answer these questions, we need to step back again and look at such a thing as Christianity.
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