The Illumination of Waraka

by A. Human Being (August 2016)

Ali Wheatley of Arkham’s Miskatonic University translated the following manuscript, which was discovered in the remains of the library of King Harshavardhana in Kanauj, The Harsha Empire, Central Bharat, which is now modern India. The manuscript is dated December 21, 633 ad and is ascribed to Waraka ibn Nawfal, who history records as the Nestorian priest who told Muhammad that the person who accosted him in the cave of Hira was the Angel Gabriel. It is worth noting that Waraka never accepted Islam. According to the various notes and lesser writings found with this manuscript, Waraka was blinded and left for dead at the rocky basin of al-Harrah in 629 ad, where a Zoroastrian Persian found him and took him to the Harsha capital at Kanauj, India. Despite his infirmity, Waraka served as a religious scholar in the king’s court and composed the following manuscript. As a scholar of cosmopolitan pre-Islamic Arabia, Waraka’s manuscript demonstrates a knowledge of Greek Classicism, Neo-Platonism, Jewish, Gnostic, and Ebionite Christian traditions. In India, he expanded his knowledge to include the parables and religious metaphors of the Indian tradition. His manuscript, therefore, reflects, not only the historical testimony of the man whose error of judgment had given spiritual authority to Muhammad’s affliction, but also both a cross-cultural evaluation of Muhammad’s pivotal experience in the cave of Hira, and a spiritual and psychological antidote for release from that same affliction.

The Illumination of Waraka:
Being the Identification and Dissolving of the State Known as al-Alaq into the Higher Light

Like Tiresias, like Oedipus, I have been blinded and left to wander the earth. Of the immense curiosity and kindness of those whom would help a blind scholar make safe passage in his exodus and wanderings, I offer blessings of deepest gratitude. Now in gentle India, I have been told that there where a group of blind men who suffered much the same. So an Indian parable, much like the beloved parables of my Ebionite Christian faith, has lifted my consciousness out of morbid darkness, and again, into the Light. My life, my personhood, stands, therefore, at the fallible dawn-lit crossroads of myth, legend, and history.

Be gentle then as I tell the tale of two enigmas:

The voice of al-Alaq had come unto Muhammad. And I was there to give a fools blessing, declaring the words were from the Archangel Gabriel. Would that I had the eyes I have now. At first, al-Alaq was only a nagging voice in a cave where blood had been spilt. “Proclaim!” al-Alaq decreed. “Proclaim the message created — miraculous — from clots of congealed blood spilled in my name. Proclaim and receive my bounty — special dispensation for the one who would make the archetype flesh — whatever you desire in this life and the next!” So Muhammad, red with appetite, a younger cousin whom I had taught in Jewish and Christian ways, cut the blood covenant with al-Alaq.

And therewith, al-Alaq showed his appearance to be great in size, reaching the uppermost horizon. And Muhammad became the vehicle in flesh of the diffusion of his lord’s immutable state. And thus Muhammad preached, “I am a warner in the face of terrific punishment,” and “Unbelievers will be destroyed as whole nations before them were destroyed.” All this Muhammad proclaimed, before he took up the sword against his own. His words, therefore, were a preamble to his deeds. And before his words was his state of awareness, that lesser power that duplicates itself in the spilling of blood.

In the Aesclepion of the ancients, the Greeks used the awareness of a snake’s venom to make an antidote to its poison. And thusly, our detached awareness, abiding in the Higher State, thus identifies the lesser power — the state of al-Alaq — as this:

From Higher Awareness, identify with discrimination the constriction of this state of possession.

Because in full possession by that lesser power that duplicates itself in the spilling of blood, Muhammad left for Medina, and sacrificed his own kin in bloody death to al-Alaq. And from the blood capital of al-Alaq, in Medina (and on to Mecca, I am told), he let loose the reins of war upon all peoples.

This tale of Muhammad (my cousin, who blinded me — his teacher Waraka — in the rocky field of al-Harrah) is the sacred narrative of the second enigma. Remove the first blindfold from your eyes.

“You are hungry,” al-Alaq said, “Turn these stones to bread.”

“Man shall not live by bread alone,” you replied. “But by the Inner Breath that informs both the Teacher and His Word.”

At last, that lesser power (that duplicates itself in the spilling of blood), took you to the highest tower in the mind, and showed you all the kingdoms of the world in the greatness of their splendor. “All these are yours to take,” he said, “If you will bow down and worship me.”

And you replied, “Get behind me, Satan! You tempt not the present!”

Behold now, This — the Greater State — the Kingdom that is within you and outside you, One without a second, which has defeated al-Alaq, the Satan! Hold onto This State. This is the Higher Light!

This State, achieved through your subjectivity mirroring the Virtue Ray of the Higher Light, is the sacred narrative of the second enigma. Remove the second blindfold from your eyes. Rise! Recognize the Verticality of this Inner Dawn and Daylight! Stand up, You — the Victor!

 

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The above short story is a chapter from the novel War Verses: A Jihadist Fairytale by A. Human Being. War Verses: A Jihadist Fairytale: Part One: Muhammad and the Origin of Jihad is now available on Amazon.com.

 

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