Ahanu
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Here I will discuss the meaning of rising from the dead from the Baha’i perspective.
From what I understand, Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i taught the teachings of the Ishraqi school of Shi'i Islam. The Arabic term Ishraq means "rising from the sun." It is also known as Illuminationist philosophy, which will be important for the study of the resurrection. Illuminationist philosophy began with Al-Suhrawardi, who was born in 1155. I still do not fully understand it. The following links are good reads for those unfamiliar with Illuminationist philosophy, like me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminationist_philosophy
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H054.htm
http://www.reference.com/browse/Illuminationist+philosophy?jss=1
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H031.htm
http://www.ismaili.net/mirrors/Ikhwan_05/h004.html
From what I understand, Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i taught the teachings of the Ishraqi school of Shi'i Islam. The Arabic term Ishraq means "rising from the sun." It is also known as Illuminationist philosophy, which will be important for the study of the resurrection. Illuminationist philosophy began with Al-Suhrawardi, who was born in 1155. I still do not fully understand it. The following links are good reads for those unfamiliar with Illuminationist philosophy, like me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminationist_philosophy
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H054.htm
http://www.reference.com/browse/Illuminationist+philosophy?jss=1
http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H031.htm
http://www.ismaili.net/mirrors/Ikhwan_05/h004.html
"Perhaps the most enduring and influential school of mystical philosophy in Islam came into being in the sixth century ah (twelfth century ad) with Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi, who founded the school of ishraq or Illumination. Al-Suhrawardi's basic premise was that knowledge is available to man not through ratiocination alone but also, and above all, through illumination resulting from the purification of one's inner being. He founded a school of philosophy which some have called theosophy in its original sense, that is, mystical philosophy through and through but without being against logic or the use of reason. In fact, al-Suhrawardi criticized Aristotle and the Muslim Peripatetics on logical grounds before setting about expounding the doctrine of ishraq. This doctrine is based not on the refutation of logic, but of transcending its categories through an illuminationist knowledge based on immediacy and presence, or what al-Suhrawardi himself called 'knowledge by presence' (al-'ilm al-huduri), in contrast to conceptual knowledge (al-'ilm al-husuli) which is our ordinary method of knowing based on concepts (Ha'iri Yazdi 1992)."
Anyway, there is an Imaginal World or World of Image in the Ishraqi school.
"About half a century earlier than Ibn ‘Arabi (d.1240), Suhrawardi introduced his own independent ‘imaginal world’, what Corbin has called the mundus imaginalis, a fourth ‘imaginal’ world, alongside the intelligible, the spiritual and the material. This imaginal world, a substance made of shadows, operates like an ‘isthmus’ or an intermediary realm between the world of pure light and the physical world of darkness, lying somewhere between this physical world and the world of the species and of Platonic Forms (the horizontal lights), perhaps at the lower threshold of the world of souls.
In the imaginal world, entities somehow possess an existence of their own (some, prior to their coming into existence in this world). The imaginal world contains images that are not embedded in matter, a plane of “ghosts, of the forms in mirrors, dreams, and worlds of wonder beyond our own” which light can existentiate (Walbridge 2000: 26). The imaginal world provides the material for the miraculous. It is where the ‘metahistorical’ (Corbin's term) visions of Imams occur, where eschatological forms and images will perhaps be existentiated for the souls of the deceased, so that they may continue to perfect their souls (PI, 148.29-150.17), as well as where elements not fitting conveniently into the Aristotelian scheme of forms in matter are found. Suhrawardi did not, however, systematically develop the concept. This was left to his followers."
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suhrawardi/
It is in the Imaginal World that Joseph, for instance, receives the images he REALLY saw in his dreams (Genesis 37: 5-7; 9). Later, this reality was reflected in the physical world. The book of Matthew records an event in which Jesus led his disciples up a mountain, where the three disciples had an epiphany. Moses and Elijah appeared before them. Shall they stay? It is Peter who wished to build a shelter for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah (Matthew 17:14). Suddenly, a cloud “enveloped them,” and then Moses and Elijah disappeared (Mark 9:7-8). While coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them not to tell anyone what they had seen until Jesus “has been raised from the dead” (Matthew 17: 9). Perhaps Moses and Elijah are in the World of Image, and then Moses and Elijah were reflected in the physical world through Jesus, a Moses-figure, and John, who they now believe to be Elijah? If so, we have the resurrection of Moses, as the Baha'i Faith teaches. Ah, it is sketchy, but you see where I am going with this one!In the imaginal world, entities somehow possess an existence of their own (some, prior to their coming into existence in this world). The imaginal world contains images that are not embedded in matter, a plane of “ghosts, of the forms in mirrors, dreams, and worlds of wonder beyond our own” which light can existentiate (Walbridge 2000: 26). The imaginal world provides the material for the miraculous. It is where the ‘metahistorical’ (Corbin's term) visions of Imams occur, where eschatological forms and images will perhaps be existentiated for the souls of the deceased, so that they may continue to perfect their souls (PI, 148.29-150.17), as well as where elements not fitting conveniently into the Aristotelian scheme of forms in matter are found. Suhrawardi did not, however, systematically develop the concept. This was left to his followers."
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suhrawardi/
