Yarsani^ (S`i<a) geography of heavens

"The "emerald cities" of Jabarsa and Jabalqa are discussed in the writings of the Iranian mystic Suhrawardi (1153/5-1191) and his followers. More information about them can be found in Henry Corbin's "Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth"." http://www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/Cities-of-Mystery-187845.html

"... symbolically represents the Orient and the Occident by the cities of Jābalqā et Jābarsā respectively, the two emerald cities" An End to Ordinary History: Comments on a Philosophical Novel by Michael Murphy

Elizabeth Peña-Velasco http://www.amiscorbin.com/textes/anglais/congres%20An%20End%20to%20Ordinary%20History%20Pena-Velasco.htm

" 17. Corbin, Henry.

Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn'Arabi

(trans. by R. Mannheim; Princeton, NJ, 1969), cloth, $50; Pb, $20

One of the few books mentioned by title in the Catalogue of the Inst. of Chaos Studies & Imaginal Yoga (see #9 in this list). The "mundus imaginalis", also called the World of Archetypes or the "Isthmus" (Arabic, barzakh), lies in between the World of the Divine and the material World of Creation. It actually consists of "many worlds", including two "emerald cities" called Jabulsa and Jabulqa" http://deoxy.org/inc1.htm

"the Persian concept of Hurqalya, with its "mundus archetypus" (alam-al-mithal), a realm of archetypal images and forms. In the Sufi tradition the imaginal realm of mundus archetypus is the interworld (barzakh) or bardo between the physical world and the world of soul or imaginative forms (Malakut). The Hurqalya are the heavens of this interworld and the cities of Jabalqa and Jabarsa exist in its lower regions to the East and West (Corbin, 1966)." http://www.sourceintegralis.org/Worlds.htm

"the Golden Masjid, on the Green Island (Jazeeratu-l-Khazhra), within the White Sea beyond the seas of the elements, then you find the true Shaykh, the true Guide, the true Mahdiy. This is the true Imaam of your own being. It is from the "true" West, the "Celestial West" of the abode of Jabarsa that the Imaam will return" http://www.cyconline.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=470

http://www.shiachat.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t49956.html

the quotations below, found on websites, are from: - Mundus Imaginalis, or the Imaginary and the Imaginal by Henri Corbin http://www.hermetic.com/bey/mundus_imaginalis.htm

"[Corbin]: However, when the term refers to Platonic Ideas, it is almost always

accompanied by this precise qualification: mothol (plural of mithal)

aflatuniya nuraniya, the "Platonic archetypes of light." When the term refers to the

world of the eighth climate, it designates technically, on one hand, the

Archetype-Images of individual and singular things; in this case, it relates

to the eastern region of the eighth climate, the city of Jabalqa, where these

images subsist preexistent to and ordered before the sensory world. But on the

other hand, the term also relates to the western region, the city of Jabarsa, as being

the world or interworld in which are found the Spirits after their presence

in the natural terrestrial world and as a world in which subsist the forms of

all works accomplished, the forms of our thoughts and our desires, of our

presentiments and our behavior. It is this composition that constitutes

‘alam al-mithal, the mundus imaginalis." http://heidegger.an-archos.com/archive/heideggerian-neologisms-18

"... in the "Tale of Western Exile" by Sohravardi. Here, there is something better than a message: it is one of the companions of the Imam in person. Our narrator exclaims movingly: "Upon hearing these words, I was overwhelmed with happiness. Someone remembered me, my name was known to them!" Was his exile at an end? From now on, he is entirely certain that the itinerary cannot be transferred onto our maps.

The crossing lasts sixteen days, after which the ship enters an area where the waters of the sea are completely white; the Green Island is outlined on the horizon. Our pilgrim learns from his Companion that the White Sea forms an uncrossable zone of protection around the island; no ship manned by the enemies of the Imam and his people can venture there without the waves engulfing it. Our travelers land on the Green Island.

There is a city at the edge of the sea; seven walls with high towers protect the precincts (this is the preeminent symbolic plan). There are luxuriant vegetation and abundant streams. The buildings are constructed from diaphanous marble. All the inhabitants have beautiful and young faces, and they wear magnificent clothes. Our Iranian shaykh feels his heart fill with joy, and from this point on, throughout the entire second part, his account will take on the rhythm and the meaning of an initiation account, in which we can distinguish three phases. There is an initial series of conversations with a noble personage who is none other than a grandson of the Twelfth Imam (the son of one of his five sons), and who governs the Green Island: Sayyed Shamsoddin ...

The account of the Green Island allows us an abundant harvest of symbols: (1) It is one of the islands belonging to the son of the Twelfth Imam. (2) It is that island, where the Spring of Life gushes, in the shade of the Tree of Paradise, that ensure the sustenance of the Imams followers who live far away, an that sustenance can only be a "suprasubstantial" food. (3) It situated in the west, as the city of Jabarsa is situated" Imaginal Worlds and Utopia, Henri. Corbin http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/profiles/kamals-u11115.html;sa,showPosts

references to the White Sea from Jabir: Umm al-Kitab ('Mother of Books'), pp. 665-725 of Willis Barnstone & Marvin Meyer: The Gnostic Bible. Shambhala, Boston, 2003.

p. 666 "So the brain is the white sea, and the spirit of speech is the high king found in the medulla."

p. 673 "The spirit of speech ... sits in the white sea on the brain of the believers. His is color of lightning, clouds, and moon."

p. 669 "With a hundred thousand lights and sparks ..., the seven appear in the white sea."

p. 678 "The white sea ..."

p. 692 "cloaked the white sea"

reference to the Emerald:-

p. 680 "Below ... is a sphere the color of emeralds. ... the bright peacocks stand majestically in rows and rows of feathers." [simply as "green birds" in the Qur>an]

p. 694 "the covering of emerald green ... Azazi>il in that emerald realm" [Jabalqa?]

p. 696 "the emerald-green ... paradise named 'the palace of eternity.'"

sequences

p.

heaven

p. 686

p. 696 sea

p. 696 "palace of __"

p. 708 colors from Azazi>il

678

white sphaere

       

679

ruby curtain

rubies

ruby

glory

red

 

fiery curtain

 

fire

dominion

 

680

carnelian sphaere

carnelian

     
   

coral

   

black

   

turquoise

   

blue

 

emerald sphaere

emerald

emerald

aeternity

 
 

violet sphaere

 

violet

paradise

violet

         

indigo

681

sun-bright curtain

 

sun-bright

dominion [again!]

yellow

682

moon-bright curtain

pearls

moon-bright

gardens of refuge

white

 

lapis lazuli sphaere

 

blue

<eden

 

on "black coral":-

http://www.mauidivers.com/overview_1.asp

http://www.arkive.org/coral/Coral/antipatharia_id.html

http://www.oceanlight.com/lightbox.php?sp=antipathidae_sp.

pp. 706-7 another sequence

p.

persons

were converted into __

706

reproachers

clay

 

opponents

bronze

 

soothsayers

iron

 

traitors

mountains

707

magicians

deserts

 

ignorami

fire

 

insulters

gold

 

opponents

money

 

sorcerors

silver

 

quaestioners

copper

 

wonderers

lead

 

contestors

trees

 

assaulters

minerals

 

mockers

beasts

 

tricksters

birds

 

boors

echoes

 

un-aweds

snakes

 

arrogants

fish

 

sarcastics

wolves & hyaenas

 

cruels

swine & bears

the 5

p. 678 creatures perched in the 5 tuba trees

p. 678 radiance of __

p. 718 persons who are the ornaments of +Fat.ima

lion

3. +Fat.ima

5. throne (viz., as al-Lahh)

winged horse Boraq

1. Muh.ammad

1. crown

white falcon

4. H.asan

2. earring

royal phoinix

5. H.useyn

3. earring

white mule Duldul

2. <ali

4. sword

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perhaps the [Daoist] city of the Jade Emperor is to be distinguished from the New Jerusalem with its "rainbow in sight like unto an emerald" :

in the Alethe Diegemata by Loukianos, the twain cities are distinguished as respectively "emerald" & "rainbow"; whereas the S~i<a designate both of them as "emerald".

Kommagene account

comparative

city of Rhadamanthus: "The city itself is all of gold and the wall around it of emerald. It has seven gates". (TS, p. 313)

streets "paved with gold" : "seven walls" around city on "Green Island" (in Iranian account)

4-gates to city on "Isle of Dreams": " The wall of the city is high and parti-coloured, very like a rainbow in tint." (TS, p. 339)

cf. 4-gated S`ikh temple at A-mr.ta-Sar -- heavens are all described as dream-worlds in Eckankar (S`ikh-derived)

TS = http://sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/true/tru02.htm

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other literary sources of the legend of the 2 cities of emerald are Hellenistic and Yemeni:-

Hellenistic & Yemeni (ASBDhY, p. xi)

comparative

"In the sira of Sayf, ... "The Book of the Nile" possesses talismanic properties, controlling the flow of water in the Nile, and it is guarded by pagan magicians after

cf. Kemetian tale of "Magic Book" of the Nile (AET:PA copied from AHS:TAE:PA)

Jabalqa, a magician of ancient times, hid it from mankind.

Daoist, Bon, rN~in-ma, and Mormon texts were likewise hidden by magicians / angels.

The latter's name recalls that of a city, one of two situated at the end of the earth, which had been founded by Alexander and which is mentioned in Pseudo-Callisthenes".

This would imply the twain cities being in each others' vicinity (much as in the Alethe Diegemata), contrary to the S`i<a localizations.

ASBDhY = PROJECT OF TRANSLATION FROM ARABIC. Lena Jayyusi (translatrix): The Adventures of Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan. 1996.

AET:PA = http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/texts/princess_ahura.htm

AHS:TAE:PA = http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/1100egyptmagic.html

2 cities, of emerald / green, in the Alexandros legend

"the city Areg {= Araq}. ... in it were fourteen {cf. the 14 years for which the king was to rule the Land of Gold (IN, p.33)} towers built of gold and emerald, and each of these had sixty steps." (RAG, p. 146)

60 = 4 * 15 (for 15 "psalms of ascent" sung on the steps to the temple of king S^lomoh on mt. S.iyo^n)

in the city of S^os^ "was the art of Glaukos -- a harmonious lute that played by itself." (RAG, p. 147)

glaukos ('green') is the color of emerald, so that Glaukos may be a Daoist-style "jade youth"; with the lute possibly cf. 24 harps

RAG = RECORDS OF CIVILIZATION, SOURCES AND STUDIES, No. LXXXII. The Romance of Alexander the Great by Pseudo-Callisthenes. Translated from the Armenian by Albert Mugrdich Wolohijian. Columbia U. Pr, 1969.

IN = PERSIAN HERITAGE SERIES, No. 31. Iskandarnamah, translated from the Persian by Minoo S. Southgate. New York: Columbia U. Pr, 1978.

as for connections with the Apokalypsis of Ioannes

Maymun [Mammo^n] weareth a coat-of-mail whereof "the links were like the eyes of the locust", and wieldeth a spear "with the head like the head of a scorpion." (ASBDhY, p. 214)

"And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power." (Apok. 9:3)

Israfil having his "one foot on the Qaf and one foot on the fourth sphere." (IN, p. 59)

mighty angel, "a rainbow was upon his head" (Apok. 10:1): "and set set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth." (Apok. 10:2)

the world-encircling "Qaf mountain is described in the Tafsir, 1:192-93, as a mountain of emerald, joining the first heaven. The color of the sky {viz., that over the 1st heaven, not the one over our world} is said to be from the green light emanating from this mountain; otherwise the sky would be white {as it must be in the next higher heaven -- as reflection off the white sphaere poised over the 'White Sea'?}". (IN, p. 209, n. 39)

"and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald." (Apok. 4:3)

sequence of pretious stones

Yh.ezqe>l 28:13 [according to the Septuagint]

exposition

6th jasper

the body of God is 1/2 jasper (Apok. 4:3)

7th sapphire

"a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone" (Yh.ezqe>l 1:26) -- this is our sky

8th emerald

this would be the sky over the throne of God -- and over the rainbow