Fazlallah Astarabadi (Naimi) - Sahib-i Ta'vil: The Master of Esoteric Interpretation

Sahib-i Ta'vil: The Master of Esoteric Interpretation

According to Encyclopedia of Islam, one of the key tenets of Ḥurūfism is that God reveals himself in the Word and that words (ḥurūf) are composed of sounds that are associated with letters. The total number of letters (and their numerical value according to the abjad) is the total of all emanating and creating possibilities of God and is God himself made manifest.

Fażlullāh made his way to Isfahan in central Iran. Unused to walking, he suffered a leg injury by the time he arrived. Here he found a variety of religious seekers many of whom shunned contacts with wider society and often flouted religious convention. However, Fażlullāh never joined any of these groups. He began to experience a series of dreams which he came to regard as prophetic. He then made Hajj to Mecca before moving to Kunya Urgench, the capital of Khwarazm. He decided to make another Hajj, but only got as far as Luristan when he had a dream in which a man told him to go to Mashhad. Concluding the man was ‘Alī ar-Riḍā (d. 818) - who is buried in Mashhad - he made a detour to ar-Riḍā's shrine before completing a second Hajj and returning to Urgench. Here he practiced sufi religious practices and continued to have a number of dreams. In one Jesus told him that four sufis - Ibrahim Bin Adham, Bayazid Bistami, Al-Tustari and Bahlul - were the most sincere religious seekers in the history of Islam. In another, Muhammad appeared to him explaining to an old man that dream interpretation was very hard as the surface identities of characters in dreams were stand-ins for others and that dreams involved far deeper meanings than their apparent concern. Then Muhammad turned to Fazlallah and said that true dream interpretation was like a rare star that becomes visible every 30,000 years and encompasses seven thousand worlds. He told Fazlallah that he could see it if he stood under an orange tree, This Fazlallah did and saw seven stars one of which was bigger than the rest. And the luminous star emitted a ray of light which entered his right eye conveying a special intuitive knowledge to him. This fealt like a pearly light which enabled him to understand the hadith. After this dream Fazlallah claimed he could understand dreams and the language of birds. His followers called him sahib-i ta'vil - the master of esoteric interpretation following this. He rapidly attracted a crowd of people seeking explanations of dreams drawn from all walks of life. However, he preferred the company of religious aescetics and eventually decided to leave Urgench.