Chirology in Islamic Esoterism

La chirologie dans l'ésotérisme islamique, May 1932.

We have often had occasion to point out how the conception of 'tradi- tional sciences' has become entirely foreign to Westerners in modern times and how difficult it is for them to understand its true nature. Re- cently, we have found an example of this incomprehension in a study devoted to Muhyiddīn ibn 'Arabī, whose author was astonished to find therein, besides purely spiritual doctrine, many considerations on astrol- ogy, on the science of letters and numbers, on symbolic geometry, and on many other such things of the same order, which he seemed to regard as unrelated to this doctrine. Moreover, there was a double misunder- standing, for the properly spiritual portion of Muhyiddīn's teaching was itself presented as being 'mystical,' whereas it is essentially metaphysical and initiatic; if it were 'mystic,' it could not have any relation to any sciences whatsoever. On the contrary, since it is a question of metaphys- ical doctrine, these traditional sciences whose very value the author to- tally fails to comprehend, as is ordinary with the modern prejudice, nor- mally derive from its application just as the consequences derive from the principle, and, as such, is far from representing elements that are in a sense adventitious and heterogeneous, they are an integral part of at- tasawwuf, which is to say of all initiatic knowledge.

Of these traditional sciences, most are now completely lost to West- erners, and what they know of others is only a more or less shapeless debris, often degenerated to the point of taking the character of empirical recipes or simple 'divinatory arts,' which is obviously lacking any doc- trinal value. To express clearly by example how such a way of looking at these is so detached from reality, we will give some indications of what, in Islamic esoterism, is chirology ('ilm al-kaf), which constitutes only one of the many branches of what we can call, for lack of a better term, 'phys- iognomy,' although this word does not give the full extant of the Arabic term which designates the entirety of this knowledge ('ilm al-firāsah).

Chirology, as strange as it may seem for those who have no idea of such things, is directly related in its Islamic form to the science of divine names: the arrangement of the main lines traced on the left hand form the number 81, and in the right hand the number 18, i.e. in total 99, the number of attributive names (șifātīyyah). As for the name Allah itself, it is formed by the finger, as follows: the little finger corresponds to the alif, the ring finger to the first lam, the middle finger and index to the second lam, which is double, and the thumb to the he (which, regularly, must be drawn in its 'open' form); this is the primary reason for the usage of the hand as a symbol which is so widespread in all Islamic countries (a secondary reason referring to the number 5, hence the name khums sometimes given to this symbolic hand). By this we can understand the meaning of the words of Sifr Sayyidūnā Ayyūb (Book of Job, 37, 7): “He has placed a seal (khātim) in the hands of every man, that all may know of His work;" and we will add that this is related to the essential role of the hand in the rites of blessing and consecration. Furthermore, the correspondance of the various parts of the hand with the planets (kawākib), which is generally known to have been pre- served in Western chiromancy but in such a way that it is scarcely pos- sible to see anything other than conventional designations, while in re- ality this correspondence establishes an effective link between chirology and astrology. Moreover, as we have indicated in our last article, each of the seven planetary heavens presides over one of the main prophets, who is the 'Pole' (Al-Qutb); and the qualities and sciences which are specifi- cally related to each of these prophets are in relation to the correspond- ing astral influence. The list of the seven celestial Aqtāb is as follows:

Heaven of the Moon (Al-Qamar): Sayyidūnā Ādam. Heaven of Mercury (Al-Utārid): Sayyidūnā Īsā. Heaven of Venus (Az-Zohrah): Sayyidūnā Yūsuf. Heaven of the Sun (Ash-Shams): Sayyidūnā Idrīs. Heaven of Mars (Al-Mirrīkh): Sayyidūnā Dāwūd. Heaven of Jupiter (Al-Barjīs): Sayyidūnā Mūsā. Heaven of Saturn (Al-Kaywān): Sayyidūnā Ibrāhīm.

Sayyidūnā Ādam is linked to the farming of the Earth (Cf. Genesis, 2, 15: "God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and maintain it”); Sayyidūnā Īsā to pure spiritual knowledge; Sayyidūnā Yūsuf to beauty and the arts; Sayyidūnā Idrīs to the 'intermediary' sci- ences, which is to say those of the cosmological and physical order; Say- yidūnā Dāwūd to government; Sayyidūnā Mūsā, which his brother Say- yidūnā Hārūn is inseparably associated, to things of religion under the dual aspects of legislation and worship; Sayyidūnā Ibrāhīm to faith (for which this correspondence to the seventh heaven must be compared to what we recently recalled of Dante, as to his position at the highest of the seven steps of the initiatic ladder). Moreover, surrounding these principal prophets are the other known prophets distributed in the seven planetary heavens (which is to say, of those who are named in the Qur'an, those that number 25) and the un-known (which is to say all others, the number of these prophets being 124,000 according to tradition). The 99 names that express the divine attributes are also distributed according to this septenary: 15 for the heaven of the Sun, due to its cen-tral position, and 14 for each of the six other heavens (15 + 6 × 14 = 99). Examination of the signs on the portion of the hand corresponding to each of the planets indicates in which proportion (or) the subject possesses the qualities related thereto; this proportion corresponds to the same number (s) of divine names among those belonging to the planetary heaven considered; and these names can be determined later, by means of a very long and complication calculation. Let us add that in the area of the wrist, beyond the proper hand, the correspondence of the two superior heavens is located, the heavens of the fixed stars and the empyrean sky, which, combined with the seven planetary heavens, completes the number 9. Moreover, in the different parts of the hand are the twelve zodiacal signs (burūj), in relation to the planets of which they are the respective domiciles (one for the Sun and the Moon, two for each of the five other planets), and also the sixteen figures of geomancy ('ilm ar-raml), because all the traditional sciences are closely linked with each other. The examination of the left hand indicates the 'nature' (at-tabīyyah) of the subject, which is to say the tendencies, dispositions, or aptitudes which constitute in a way his innate characteristics. That of the right hands makes known acquired characters (al-istishab); these are con-stantly shifting, in order for a thorough study, this examination must be repeated every four months. This four month period constitutes a com-plete cycle, in that it brings about the return of a zodiacal sign corre-sponding to the same element as that of the starting point; we know that this correspondence with the elements is done in the following sequence of succession: fire (nār), earth (turāb), air (hawā), water (mā). Therefore it is an error to think, as some may have done, that the period in question should only be three months, since the three month period is only a sin-gle season, which is to say, one part of the annual cycle, and is not in itself a complete cycle. These few indications, however brief they may be, will show how a regularly constituted traditional science is attached to doctrinal princi-ples and depend entirely upon them; and at the same time they will af-firm what we have said so often, that such a science would be utterly useless outside the civilization for which it was constituted according to that form. For example, the considerations here which refer to the divine names and the prophets, which are precisely those on which all else is based, would be inapplicable outside the Islamic world, just as, to take another example, the onomantic calculation, used either alone or as a part of the establishment of the horoscope in certain astrological methods, can only be valid for Arabic names, whose letters have determined numerical values. In this order of contingent applications there is always a question of adaptation which makes it impossible to transport these sciences as they are from one traditional form to another; without a doubt, this is also one of the main reasons for the difficulty in understanding for those, just like modern Westerners, do not have the equivalent in their own civilization.^[262]