Une absence remplie de présences. Herméneutiques de l'occultation chez les Shaykhiyya (Aspects de l'imamologie duodécimaine VII)

Abstract

This study concerns the hermeneutics of the occultation of the twelfth imam through the immense literature of the Shaykhiyya of Kirman (Iran). Generally speaking, the different masters of the Order used two main hermeneutical ‘axioms’: 1) all reality is composed, at least, of two levels: the manifest/exoteric and the hidden/esoteric; 2) the notion of the universe as macrocosm, man as microcosm and the correspondence between them. For this reason, the article is divided into two parts. First, the esoteric aspect of ‘the Occultation in the world’ is an analysis of the principle of the Fourth Pillar (rukn rābi) and its three fundamental components: the ‘invisible’ Friends of the hidden imam, Unicity of the Speaker and Alliance/Dissociation. The second part concerns the esoteric meaning of ‘the Occultation within man’ and examines symbolic and theological hermeneutics, respectively through the work of Sayyid Kāzim Rashtī, the second master of the Order (d. 1259/1843) and the commentaries on the famous hadith ‘Who knows himself, knows his Lord’.