AHURAMAZDA’S MESSAGE

“Zend Avesta” is Iran’s first sacred book!
Seek the root of the word “religion” in this “book”!

In Zend Avesta, Haqq (Lord) is named Ahura Mazda!
He says to His messenger Zoroaster: “Remember your essence in prayer!

For the essence of every human being is equal to Mine!
Whoever finds their origin comes to maturity!

A flood is coming! Build a windowless vessel, like your heart!
It shines with its own light! For it bears the soul!

My name means ‘Without a Copy!’ That is, ‘Pure light’!
Strive to keep your shadow from falling upon the earth!

For earth is matter without a soul! Iblis! His name is Ahriman!
He is My enemy! He has neither religion nor faith!

We both came forth from Allah! We are true brothers!
I am Rahman, and he is Satan! Have compassion for the blind!

My ‘six twin rays’ are the architects of this world!
That is why its construction took ‘six days’!

Three days earlier, the realm of souls emerged from them!
These are ‘Mitra’ and the ‘Twenty-Eight Glories’! Love them!

The essence of ‘Michael’ and the ‘Twenty-Eight Prophets’!
These ‘Exalted Ones’ gave light! You opened your eyes to Me!

‘Michael’ is Mitra! The Lord of Glory of Life (body)!
From the Glories came angels! The Revered Ones of Life (body)!

‘Daena’ is the name of these innocents! Why?
Because they promised to save matter!

They are ‘My helpers’ against Satan!
They declared war on matter! They bear the Throne above their heads!

Thus, one half of Daena descends to earth!
The other half settles in the heart as conscience!

The descending Life (body) swears fidelity to its mate!
Life (body) takes its place in the brain; its mate, in the chamber called ‘Fuad’!

The one who descends from Daena is named ‘Fravarti’!
It means ‘one who chooses the struggle on earth’! The image of a knight!”

Life (body) defeated by matter becomes a human devil!
The one who defeats it is called Adam! Now know yourself!

As blind matter is overcome, it opens its eyes and becomes transparent!
Satan bows before Adam! Forgiveness comes from Me!

“Thus My mercy prevails over My anger!”
If you wish to be saved, seek to save others!

Satan is alluring! His symbol is the peacock!
Free yourself from “gravity”! Do not climb the steep slope!

The matter you embrace will embrace you in return!
You will be imprisoned in the body, having pledged yourself to Satan!

“Even in the womb, the unbeliever is an unbeliever; the believer, a believer!”
I do not write this fate! Believe in what is written on your brow!

Fate is what is written on the brow! Behind the brow lies the brain!
For right and wrong, say, “I did it”!

Rahim is the body! If the departing Life (body) is a believer, it is cleansed!
If an unbeliever, it sees a pitch-black witch and hides!

Conscience does not darken! The “dark self” comes between!
“The Sun is eclipsed!” The “animal” goes into exile on the Moon!

If faithful, it sees a “Houri” at the head of the bridge!
She resembles its own self! She, too, is exactly fourteen years old!

“O ‘virgin maiden’! Who are you?” it asks her.
When she says, “I am your mate,” it embraces its Daena!

It asks again: “You are even more beautiful, girl! Why?”
She says: “Because you always listened to the voice of your conscience!

I am your honor! Your dignity! Your covenant!
Your fortune! Your faith! In short, your ‘Hanif Religion’!

You cannot destroy me, even if you betray me!
You yourself will perish, along with all your desires!”

Becoming “one Life (body)” again, it crosses the bridge with its mate!
Three days after death, it chooses its dwelling in paradise!

But it cannot rejoice in paradise before the “war” is over!
While matter awaits the Mahdi, chained in madness!

Daena divides and descends to earth once more!
Service to My servant is the finest praise offered to Me!

Its consciousness thus grows clear!
Each time it becomes whole, it draws closer to Me!

When it wins the victory, it enters another state!
It becomes a radiant, indivisible halo!

“It becomes the true heir of the earth restored to paradise!”
Now it is “Jesus the Messiah”! Every particle is its “disciple”!

Every particle asks, “What am I?” when it first brings them to life!
The Mahdi says: “You are a pure angel, searching for your identity.

To find yourself, you must descend to an earth!
One approaches the ‘Haqq (Lord) essence’ by becoming polarized and attaining maturity!”

Now let us return to our bridge of Sirat, Zoroaster!
For maturity is gained by crossing the bridge again and again!

The bridge! The Supreme Court! Mitra is the judge’s name!
Only the image of your face guides his judgment!”

The bridge! The “straight path”! There, good and evil part!
“The one whose face shines crosses!” “The one whose face darkens” falls!

Mitra! The Sun! It distinguishes the Black person from the blond!
For “twenty-eight” lunar days, it casts rays of “glory”!

“Saoshyant!” That is, the “Mahdi”! He will descend from the Sun!
The darkness called “matter and the self” will subside!

“The Mahdi is the twelfth Imam!” Let Me tell you why:
Because the Sun rules over twelve months!

“At twelve, they overlap!” “The hour hand and the minute hand!”
“On the Day of Resurrection, the Sun enters the Moon!” The court convenes!

That is why the Qur’an calls the Resurrection “the Hour”!
Fasting is tied to the Moon; “salat” to the Sun!

“Twelve!” It is both the beginning and the end of the clock!
Understand it like “the dot beneath the B”!

I, too, like everything else, have a Lord! He is My first essence!
Through My Lord’s lens, My eyes look toward Allah!

Though the first essences dwell in Allah’s presence,
They long to descend as “mercy” and become Khidr!

“Allah is the veil of the Divine Essence!” Infinite space and time!
Its name is Zurvan! Do not try to lift the veil—beware!

When you come for the last time, your name will be “Mahdi,” O Zoroaster!
The world will become transparent, and every human being will attain maturity!

In salat, we always make the earth be kissed! Why?
We call Sekine (Shekinah) “Spenta Armaiti”!

“The virgin soul of the earth!” For she bears this name!
The earth is her nine-layered, folded body!

We bring forth “Sekine (Shekinah)”! Angel! Glory! Mitra! I!
Bring forth your Sekine (Shekinah), so that your body may become your Kaaba!

Call upon your own essence, Zoroaster! Not Me!
For I am your essence! Bow toward the realm from which you came!”

Thus did Ahura Mazda address Zoroaster!
In the Qur’an, Zend Avesta is the fifth sacred book!

Know that Jesus calls Ahura Mazda “My Father”!
For Rahman has become the father of “Jesus the Messiah”!

“Daena” is “Den” in Pahlavi and “Dîn” in Arabic!
It is the “Hanif religion of innate nature”! Now surrender!

Zend Avesta holds the Qur’an’s “secret of Adam”!
Find your Adam and remember Me with mercy!

The final couplet is called the “royal couplet”! Uluğ, be silent here!
The royal couplet belongs to the Revered Shah born in the “House”!

“Pray to Ahura Mazda at every moment!
Haqq (Lord) is Muhammad Ali! For He is Ahura Mazda!”

M.H. ULUĞ KIZILKEÇİLİ

ANKARA – 11 November 1998

(The section written after this point has no connection with the author, and the author cannot be held responsible for any errors made in it!)

AHURAMAZDA’S MESSAGE: AN ESOTERIC INTERPRETATION OF LIGHT, CONSCIENCE, AND COSMIC RETURN

Introduction: The Text’s Hermeneutic Position

M. H. Uluğ Kızılkeçili’s “Ahuramazda’s Message” is more than a poem explaining Zoroastrian concepts within the historical religion of Iran. The text reinterprets the Avesta tradition, the Qur’an’s understanding of humanity and the world, Islamic Sufism, Shi‘i and Alevi-Bektashi symbolism, the Christian teaching of the Messiah, Jewish mysticism, and the opposition between light and darkness in ancient cosmologies within a single metaphysical framework. The work should therefore be read as an original esoteric interpretation that brings together symbols from different religions around the concepts of “essence,” “light,” “conscience,” “matter,” “purification,” and “return.”

It would be inaccurate to attribute every statement in the text directly to the Avesta, Zoroaster, or historical Zoroastrianism. The poet takes names from different traditions and makes them concepts within his own metaphysical system. Iranian terms such as Ahura Mazda, Mitra, Daena, Fravarti, Ahriman, Saoshyant, and Spenta Armaiti are paired with Islamic concepts such as Rahman, Adam, Iblis, Michael, the Mahdi, Sekine (Shekinah), Sirat, salat, and the Resurrection. These pairings are a method of interpretation based on esoteric similarities rather than a claim of historical identity. The text seeks to reveal what it regards as a shared spiritual truth behind the religions’ outward forms.

In this approach, religions are not disconnected systems of belief. Each describes humanity’s return to its origin in its own symbolic language. The truth called Daena in the Iranian tradition may find a counterpart in religion and innate nature in Islam; humanity’s origin in God in Christianity; the divine archetype in the Platonic tradition; the truth of Atman in Hindu thought; and awakened consciousness freed from attachment to the self in Buddhist teaching. Historically, these are distinct concepts. The text’s interpretive method seeks to bring out similarities in the roles they play.

The central teaching of “Ahuramazda’s Message” is this: A human being is more than a body. Within each person is an essence that does not belong to matter and remains connected to a transcendent source. This essence descends into the world to bring consciousness to matter, purify it, and make it transparent. The human struggle does not begin with an external enemy; it first takes place within one’s own self, mind, and conscience. Darkness is understood less as an absolute, independent second principle of existence than as a state of unconsciousness that light has yet to penetrate. Salvation means raising matter and other beings along with oneself.

I. Zend Avesta and the Idea of Primordial Revelation

The text opens with this couplet:

“Zend Avesta is Iran’s first sacred book!
Seek the root of the word ‘Dîn’ in this ‘book’!”

Here Zend Avesta is presented as more than an ancient sacred corpus belonging to Iranian history: it is a source carrying an ancient memory of religion. Historically, “Avesta” is the name of the corpus of Zoroastrian sacred texts, while “Zend” refers to the tradition of explaining and interpreting them. In an esoteric reading, however, Avesta is the “divine word that is heard,” and Zend is that word’s unfolding in human consciousness. Sacred text and interpretation thus cannot be separated: revelation comes from beyond the individual, but its meaning arises within the human inner world.

A comparable relationship appears in other religions: between the written and oral Torah in Judaism; scripture and the Spirit’s disclosure of it in Christianity; tanzil and ta’wil in Islam; and śruti and the interpretive tradition built upon it in Hinduism. The sacred word retains a stable core while continuing to unfold in human consciousness. From this perspective, revelation is not a statement uttered once in the past and then closed. It is a living address, read anew in every consciousness prepared to receive it.

The phrase “first sacred book” expresses an originating place within Iranian spiritual understanding rather than a scientific claim about chronology. Each tradition takes its own sacred word as a point of beginning. The Vedas are understood in the Indian world as eternal knowledge that was heard; the Torah, in Jewish thought, as an expression of the divine order of creation; the Gospel, in Christianity, as testimony to the incarnate Word; and the Qur’an, in Islam, as the Arabic address of the eternal Word. In Iranian spirituality, the Avesta carries the call to truth, righteousness, and cosmic order.

The text assumes that one truth lies behind these different forms of revelation. This unity does not mean that the religions’ historical teachings are identical. It lies in their shared orientation toward calling human beings to truth. Languages, concepts, forms of worship, and theological understandings differ, but the call to transcend oneself—to turn from falsehood to truth, from fragmentation to unity, and from darkness to light—runs through them.

II. Ahura Mazda: The Wise Lord and Pure Light

The text gives Ahura Mazda these words:

“In Zend Avesta, Haqq (Lord) is named Ahura Mazda!
He says to His messenger Zoroaster: ‘Remember your essence in prayer!’”

The name “Ahura Mazda” generally carries the sense of “Wise Lord.” The text interprets this name through the concepts of Haqq (Lord), Rahman, and “pure light.” Here Ahura Mazda is presented as a luminous principle of lordship that mirrors humanity’s divine essence.

In Islamic Sufism, “Lord” is a divine name associated with nurturing each being according to its capacity. While the name Allah expresses absolute divinity, “Lord” describes the relationship through which the Absolute nurtures a particular being. In this sense, the text’s Ahura Mazda may be read as a merciful manifestation of divine truth that brings the human being to maturity, rather than as an identification with the absolute essence of Allah.

The words “Remember your essence in prayer” also make prayer an act of inward remembrance that reaches beyond outward movements. In Islam, dhikr is the human being’s renewed remembrance of a forgotten covenant. The Qur’anic command to “establish prayer for My remembrance” places remembrance at the center of worship. In the Zoroastrian tradition, the principles of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds likewise aim to establish a conscious bond with cosmic truth. In Hindu traditions, yoga seeks to unite individual consciousness with its source; Buddhist meditation aims at awakening through recognition of the mind’s illusions. Different forms of worship can thus be compared as disciplines that turn people toward their own truth.

According to the text, in prayer a person does more than turn toward a distant being. The person remembers the divine trust held at the deepest center of their existence. A distinction must nevertheless be maintained between the human essence and the absolute essence of Allah. The human essence comes from and reflects the divine source, but the source cannot be reduced entirely to an individual human being. A mirror reflects the Sun, but it does not become the Sun. Esoteric prayer is the cleaning of that mirror.

III. “The Essence of Every Human Being Is Equal to Mine”

“For the essence of every human being is equal to Mine!
Whoever finds their origin comes to maturity!”

This couplet contains one of the text’s strongest claims about human nature. “Equality” here does not mean that a person’s historical identity is absolutely identical to Ahura Mazda. It means that the human essence comes from a luminous source and has the potential to reflect its qualities.

The Islamic concept of fitra, or innate nature, is close to this interpretation. Fitra is the capacity, present from creation, to turn toward truth. In Sufism, the human heart is regarded as a mirror in which the divine names are manifested. The saying “Whoever knows himself knows his Lord,” although its historical attribution is disputed, summarizes a central idea of Sufi thought about the human being: when a person passes beyond the outer layers of the self, they come to know the divine manifestation that makes their existence possible.

In Christianity, the creation of humanity “in the image of God” opens a comparable field of meaning. The Eastern Christian teaching of theosis concerns participation in divine life through grace, rather than transformation into God’s essence. The idea in Jewish Kabbalah that humanity bears the image of the higher worlds; the Hermetic view that the microcosm reflects the macrocosm; and Vedanta’s inquiry into the relationship between Atman and Brahman express, in different terms, a connection between the human essence and a cosmic source.

“To come to maturity” in the text does not mean reaching biological or legal adulthood. Maturity means recognizing one’s essence and accepting spiritual responsibility. A person no longer does good solely because of an external command; they see the root of goodness within their own being. Ethics then becomes an expression of fidelity to one’s existence.

In this sense, maturity corresponds to initiation in esoteric traditions. A person begins to experience within themselves a truth previously heard from others. Belief becomes knowledge; knowledge becomes a way of being; and that way of being becomes ethical conduct. Finding one’s origin is less a matter of discovering a separate identity from the past than of bringing the scattered powers within oneself together around one truth.

IV. The Flood and the Windowless Vessel

“A flood is coming! Build a windowless vessel, like your heart!
It shines with its own light! For it bears the soul!”

Here the text brings together the Zoroastrian account of Yima, Noah’s flood, and the symbolism of the heart. It draws an esoteric parallel between the protected vara of Iranian tradition and Noah’s ark. Both are sacred spaces that preserve the essence of life in an age of destruction. In Kızılkeçili’s interpretation, however, the vessel ceases to be a wooden craft in the outer world and becomes a symbol of the heart.

The vessel has no windows because it does not depend on light from the outside world. The world perceived by the senses changes continually: visible forms arise, develop, and dissolve. The heart’s true light does not come from outside. In the language of Sufism, the heart is illuminated by an inner Sun distinct from the Sun perceived by the senses. The Qur’anic metaphor of light suggests a spiritual principle that gives existence meaning and direction, as well as physical illumination.

In Judaism, Noah’s ark is a space of renewed creation in which order is preserved amid the waters of chaos. In Christian interpretation, the ark has become a symbol of the community of salvation or the Church. In Islamic Sufism, Noah’s ark may be read as the guide’s teaching, the prophetic path, or consciousness of divine unity. In the Indian account of Manu, the seed saved from the flood likewise becomes the beginning of a new age of humanity.

The windowless vessel does not mean shutting one’s inner world off from everything outside it. What is challenged here is the belief that truth can come only from outside. When people remain dependent on external approval, outward appearances, and another person’s light, they cannot make contact with the light within their own essence. The heart’s lack of windows signifies the birth of an independent inner witness.

The flood signifies psychological and cosmic dissolution as well as a historical catastrophe. There are times in a person’s life when an old identity breaks apart and familiar supports disappear. Without a sound vessel built in the heart, a person may fall apart amid this dissolution. Once the heart’s center has been found, however, the flood becomes a rebirth instead of an end.

V. Being “Without a Copy” and Pure Light

“My name means ‘Without a Copy!’ That is, ‘Pure light’!
Strive to keep your shadow from falling upon the earth!”

In esoteric terms, “without a copy” expresses an original existence that needs no borrowed identity. A copy is an incomplete repetition of an original. Pure light does not borrow its identity from another being; it shines from its own source. A person enters the world with the capacity for this light, yet may become estranged from their essence amid social expectations, fears, desires, and imitation.

The distinction between tahqiq and taqlid in Islamic thought becomes relevant here. Taqlid means accepting a truth solely on another person’s word. Tahqiq means verifying that truth in one’s own consciousness. To be “without a copy” in the text is to realize inwardly the truth toward which a tradition points.

Zen Buddhism’s call to “see one’s own nature,” knowledge of the self in the Upanishads, Socrates’ call to “know yourself,” and the Sufi teaching of ma‘rifat al-nafs, or knowledge of the self, can be read along a similar line. Each emphasizes the need to move beyond a borrowed identity. A person matures when belief becomes a transforming truth within them, rather than remaining words repeated from others.

The “shadow falling upon the earth” signifies light being veiled by the weight of matter. A shadow is not wholly evil; it arises where light meets form. But if a person mistakes the shadow for their whole self, they forget their source. In Jungian psychology, the shadow refers to rejected aspects of the personality. In this text, the shadow is broader: it encompasses the material, passionate, and dark aspects of the self. The task is to recognize its source and bring it under the guidance of light.

VI. Ahriman and the Darkness of Matter

“For earth is matter without a soul! Iblis! His name is Ahriman!
He is My enemy! He has neither religion nor faith!”

Drawing on the conception of an evil spirit in historical Zoroastrianism, this couplet interprets Ahriman as “matter without a soul.” That phrase should not be taken to mean that the physical world is wholly evil. Later sections of the text say that matter can be saved, become transparent, and eventually turn into paradise. The problem, then, is not matter’s existence, but its condition before it has acquired consciousness and light.

In some forms of Gnosticism, matter is regarded as the result of a fall from the divine realm and as a prison for the spirit. Mainstream Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, by contrast, do not regard the created world as evil at its root. Creation is good, though it can become subject to corruption, injustice, and heedlessness. Kızılkeçili’s text establishes its own path between these approaches: matter is initially blind and heavy, yet it can take part in salvation.

Ahriman thus ceases to be an independent, eternal rival god and becomes a principle of unconsciousness, separation, and rigidity. Iblis, too, is not only a being outside the human person; he represents the hardened self that refuses to bow before the person’s own essence. Iblis’s refusal to bow before Adam expresses matter’s resistance to the human being who bears a divine essence. According to the text, however, that resistance does not last forever. As matter becomes transparent, Satan is transformed and bows before Adam.

This thought can be compared with tamas in Hinduism. Tamas is the quality of heaviness, darkness, and inertia; rather than simply being annihilated, it is to be transformed into higher qualities of consciousness. In Buddhism, avidyā, or ignorance, is fundamental to the suffering of existence. Evil in this account is not an absolute essence, but a failure to see reality correctly. In Sufism, the commanding self, or nafs al-ammāra, may likewise pass through higher stages as it is disciplined.

The text’s Ahriman is the hardening within the human being. When people define themselves solely by their bodies, interests, and worldly identities, the Ahrimanic sphere gains strength. Yet the body is not an enemy; it is a sanctuary to be illuminated by consciousness. Salvation is therefore not an escape from the body, but the body’s transformation into a Kaaba.

VII. The “Brotherhood of Essence” Between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman

“We both came forth from Allah! We are true brothers!
I am Rahman, and he is Satan! Have compassion for the blind!”

This is one of the text’s boldest metaphysical interpretations. Good and evil are not presented as two absolute sources wholly independent of one another. Both emerge within the encompassing order of existence established by Allah. Coming from the same source, however, does not make them ethically equal. Light represents conscious closeness to that source; darkness represents the veiling of that closeness.

Their “brotherhood of essence” means that opposites exist on the same underlying plane of being. Heat and cold, light and darkness, movement and stillness make one another perceptible within the same universe. The human ethical task is to transform this opposition within a higher unity.

In Taoism, yin and yang are not absolute good and absolute evil; they are two aspects of cosmic complementarity. Kızılkeçili’s text nevertheless retains an ethical distinction: the Rahman-oriented aspect raises beings, while the Ahrimanic aspect binds them. In Kabbalah, the right pillar represents mercy and the left pillar judgment; balance is established in the middle pillar. In Christian mysticism, even the fall may become a possibility transformed within the plan of salvation. In Islamic Sufism, the divine names of majesty and beauty are different manifestations of one divine truth, while the servant’s task is to turn toward beauty and perfection.

The command “Have compassion for the blind” is not a call to remain passive in the face of evil. Blindness here means a consciousness unable to see truth. In struggling against evil, one should not regard the person who commits it as an absolute and unchanging devil. Within that person, too, is an essence that has yet to unfold. Compassion does not mean declaring wrongdoing right; it means acknowledging the wrongdoer’s capacity for change.

VIII. The Six Twin Rays and the Six Days of Creation

“‘My six twin rays’ are the architects of this world!
That is why its construction took ‘six days’!”

The six twin rays suggest a twelvefold order of creation. The word “twin” may indicate that every cosmic force has two poles: one transcendent and the other immanent; one active and the other receptive; one spiritual and the other concerned with form. Six creative principles thus bring the world into being through twelve manifestations.

The six days of creation are a familiar motif in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In esoteric interpretations, a “day” often means a cosmic stage or level of being rather than a period of twenty-four hours. Kabbalah explains creation through the gradual unfolding of divine attributes; Islamic cosmology speaks of the descent through levels of being; and Indian thought describes the emergence of the tattvas.

The number twelve also symbolizes a complete cosmic order in many traditions: the twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve months of the year, the twelve tribes of Israel, Jesus’s twelve apostles, and the twelve imams in Shi‘i tradition. The text reads these twelvefold systems as manifestations of the six pairs of rays. It establishes a symbolic pattern rather than a mathematical proof.

The image of a “ray” allows the source to appear in many forms without being diminished. Countless rays come from the Sun, yet the Sun does not break apart. Likewise, the divine source manifests in many beings without losing its unity. People may appear to be different rays, but they remain connected to the same center of light.

IX. The Realm of Souls, Mitra, and the Twenty-Eight Glories

“Three days earlier, the realm of souls emerged from them!
‘Mitra’ and the ‘Twenty-Eight Glories’—these are they!”

Here the text imagines an order of souls preceding the visible world. The “three days” can be understood as three earlier stages of creation rather than a span measured in physical time. In many esoteric teachings, the visible world is the final condensation of subtler levels of existence.

In Neoplatonism, Nous emanates from the One, the universal soul from Nous, and the material world from the universal soul. In Kabbalah, divine light passes through different worlds and grows denser. Islamic Sufism speaks of levels such as lahut, jabarut, malakut, and mulk. Hindu cosmology likewise places subtler levels of existence before the coarse physical world. The realm of souls in this text is a level at which matter has not yet hardened and the principles remain in the form of pure light.

In the historical Iranian tradition, Mitra is a powerful sacred being associated with covenants, agreements, watchfulness, and light. The text brings Mitra close to the symbols of Michael and the Lord of Glory. This pairing rests on a similarity of roles rather than historical identity. Mitra watches over covenants; Michael is associated with cosmic order and provision; and the Lord of Glory signifies divine power and majesty. The text gathers them around a luminous center that gives Life (body) vitality and order.

The “twenty-eight glories” are associated with the Moon’s twenty-eight stations, the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet, and the symbolism of twenty-eight prophets. Letters are visible forms of invisible meaning. The lunar stations reflect sunlight through time. Prophets, in this interpretation, are different expressions of one truth throughout human history. Letter, Moon, and prophet thus meet within the same symbolic structure: the source is one, while its light appears in different forms as the receiving surfaces multiply.

X. Daena: Religion, Conscience, and the Heavenly Mate

“‘Daena’ is the name of these innocents! Why?
Because they promised to save matter!”

Daena is a central concept in the text. In Iranian religious thought, the word is associated with meanings such as religion, vision, conscience, spiritual perception, and the heavenly form shaped by a person’s actions. Retaining this range of meanings, the text interprets Daena as the human being’s transcendent essence, as conscience, and as the form of truth encountered after death.

Every human action creates an invisible form. Goodness appears before a person in a beautiful form, while evil appears in a frightening one. This idea is not confined to Zoroastrianism. In Islam, the belief that deeds take form in the afterlife, that people encounter what they have done, and that their bodily organs bear witness expresses a comparable understanding of the moral structure of existence. In Tibetan Buddhism, peaceful and wrathful forms seen after death may be interpreted as manifestations of the contents of consciousness. In Christianity, the final judgment brings a person face to face with their own life before the truth.

Daena’s “promise to save matter” explains the purpose of the soul’s arrival in the world. The soul does not descend to earth solely to preserve itself. It bears a responsibility to illuminate what is dark and unconscious. Embodiment is therefore a task as well as a descent.

A strong parallel can be drawn here with the bodhisattva ideal. A bodhisattva vows not to withdraw into final peace until all beings are liberated. In Christianity, the incarnation of the Messiah is the descent of divine love into fallen creation. In Islam, humanity’s role as steward on earth expresses a responsibility to care for existence as a trust. Similarly, Daena in this text is light descending to serve matter instead of abandoning it.

XI. Daena’s Division in Two: Life (body) and Conscience

“Thus, one half of Daena descends to earth!
The other half settles in the heart as conscience!”

Daena’s division explains a fundamental duality in human existence. One aspect becomes embodied and enters worldly experience; the other remains in the heart as a transcendent measure. The aspect that descends into the world becomes Life (body), while the aspect that remains in the heart becomes conscience. The human being therefore belongs to both earth and heaven.

In Plato’s accounts of the human soul, the soul enters the body having forgotten the truth of the realm of Forms, yet retains the possibility of recollection. In Gnostic traditions, a spark belonging to a higher realm exists within the human being. In Islamic teachings on the soul and fitra, a person is born into worldly circumstances without entirely losing the capacity to recognize truth. In the Upanishads, the essence within the heart is described as a witness untouched by the changes of individual life.

Conscience in the text is more than a set of moral rules learned from society. It is the inner voice of humanity’s heavenly half. Social conscience may vary with history and culture; conscience understood as Daena is a deeper witness that alerts a person when they move away from their origin.

The bond between Daena’s two halves is never completely severed. When a person acts rightly, they feel inner peace because Life (body) on earth has drawn closer to its mate in the heart. When they do wrong, an inner division arises. The pain of conscience is the experience of discord between the two halves, rather than a punishment imposed from outside.

Salvation is the reunion of these two halves as “one Life (body).” Yet this union does not occur automatically after death. It is prepared during earthly life by listening to the voice of conscience. With every right choice, a person draws closer to their Daena; with every deliberate wrong, they move farther away.

XII. Fuad: The Dwelling Place of the Heavenly Mate

“The descending Life (body) swears fidelity to its mate!
Life (body) takes its place in the brain; its mate, in the chamber called ‘Fuad’!”

In the Qur’an, fuad is used as a center of deep perception and inward sight beyond ordinary thought. While the heart denotes the spiritual center in general, fuad may be interpreted as its concentrated point, illuminated by the fire of truth. In the text, the heavenly half of Daena dwells there.

Placing Life (body) in the brain and its mate in fuad establishes a polarity between reason and conscience. The brain analyzes the world, makes plans, and directs action; fuad weighs whether those actions accord with truth. A person who lives only by the mind may become calculating, while one who lives only by feeling may lose their sense of measure. Maturity means allowing reason to work in the light of fuad.

In the Christian Hesychast tradition, the prayer of “bringing the mind into the heart” gathers scattered thought in a spiritual center. In Sufism, reason and heart are complementary when placed in their proper relationship. In Kabbalah, wisdom and understanding are balanced in the center of beauty. In Taoist inner alchemy, the mind’s energy is likewise brought into harmony with the centers of the heart and body.

Fidelity to one’s mate here signifies more than fidelity within marriage. It is faithfulness to one’s own heavenly truth. Every betrayal begins as a betrayal of one’s essence. When a person lies, they first try to silence the truthful witness within themselves, before deceiving someone else. When they act unjustly, they darken the face of their Daena. Fidelity means remaining undivided in relation to the truth within, before it means obeying an outward rule.

XIII. Fravarti: Life (body) That Chooses the Struggle on Earth

“The one who descends from Daena is named ‘Fravarti’!
It means ‘one who chooses the struggle on earth’! The image of a knight!”

The text interprets Fravarti, or fravashi, as a warrior soul that accepts descent into the world. Here “struggle” primarily means confronting darkness, ignorance, selfishness, and dependency within oneself. The image of the “knight” likewise evokes a spiritual warrior who defends truth.

The battlefield of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita has the setting of a historical war, yet in traditional interpretations it has also become a symbol of the human struggle to fulfill dharma. In Christianity, “putting on the armor of God” expresses an inner struggle against spiritual evil. In Buddhism, the struggle against Māra is the process of overcoming the mind’s illusions. In Sufism, struggling against the lower self is spoken of as the greatest struggle.

Fravarti’s battle is not a war to destroy matter. It is a struggle to free matter from blindness. The body is disciplined without being degraded; desires are ordered without rejecting life altogether; the world is used without being treated as absolute. The knight’s sword is discernment: it separates right from wrong, need from greed, and love from dependency.

In this sense, Fravarti is the awareness of responsibility within the human being. Entering earthly life means more than living and consuming; it means undertaking the work of transformation. Every person encounters some area of darkness within their body, relationships, and society. Their struggle is to bring that area into contact with light.

XIV. Becoming Adam: Overcoming and Transforming Matter

“Life (body) defeated by matter becomes a human devil!
The one who defeats it is called Adam! Now know yourself!”

In the text, Adam is more than the first ancestor of humanity in the distant past. Adam is a state of consciousness that every person must attain. A person is born biologically human; to become Adam in the esoteric sense, they must recognize their lower self and master the blind pull of matter.

In the Qur’an, Adam’s being taught the names represents his ability to give meaning to beings. The angels’ bowing before Adam shows the cosmic value of the conscious human being. Iblis’s refusal to bow, by contrast, is a failure to see the essence beyond outward form. Saying, “I am made of fire, and he of clay,” Iblis compares material elements and fails to recognize the divine trust within Adam.

The text reenacts this account within the human being. Adam represents awareness of one’s essence, while Iblis represents the part of the self fixated on material origins and personal superiority. Claims of superiority based on race, ancestry, rank, wealth, gender, or knowledge are new forms of Iblis’s assertion, “I am better than he.”

To be defeated by matter does not mean having bodily needs. Needs are a natural part of life. Defeat occurs when a means becomes an end. If money, once a means of supporting life, begins to determine a person’s entire worth; if the body, once a field of experience for the soul, is reduced to an object of pleasure; or if power ceases to serve others and instead inflates the self, then matter has begun to govern Life (body).

Becoming Adam means giving matter its proper place. Clay is not despised; joined with the divine breath, it becomes the human body. The text therefore establishes no absolute hostility between spirit and matter. The question is whether clay will follow the breath or the breath will submit to the weight of clay.

XV. Satan’s Bow Before Adam and Universal Forgiveness

“As blind matter is overcome, it opens its eyes and becomes transparent!
Satan bows before Adam! Forgiveness comes from Me!”

This couplet suggests the possibility of Satan’s eventual transformation. As blind matter gains consciousness, it becomes transparent: it allows light to pass through instead of obstructing it. Satan’s bow before Adam is the final acceptance of a truth rejected at the beginning of creation.

Transparency is an important symbol. Matter does not disappear; it ceases to conceal the light. A windowpane is present, yet what one sees through it is the light it transmits. The human body, personality, and actions in the world can become transparent in this way. When a person does not place the self before divine light, their existence becomes a means of carrying light to others.

The Eastern Christian teaching of transfiguration describes created existence illuminated by divine light. In Buddhism, ignorance may be transformed into wisdom, and passions may take on a different function through right understanding. Vajrayana interpretations emphasize transforming the poisons into wisdom rather than merely casting them away. In Sufism, the lower self is disciplined and brought toward the state of the tranquil self, rather than simply destroyed.

Forgiveness in the text follows transformation. Mercy’s prevailing over anger suggests that the divine purpose is to return beings to their origin. Forgiveness does not, however, remove moral responsibility. Making matter transparent requires struggle, purification, and consciousness.

XVI. The Social and Cosmic Dimensions of Salvation

“Thus My mercy prevails over My anger!
If you wish to be saved, seek to save others!”

These two lines summarize the text’s entire teaching on salvation. A person cannot be saved alone; by serving the salvation of others, they draw closer to their own essence. Salvation is a relational and cosmic process, not an individual privilege.

The bodhisattva of Mahayana Buddhism does not separate personal awakening from the awakening of all beings. In Christianity, the command to “love your neighbor as yourself” connects salvation with a relationship of love. In Islam, service to others is regarded as an expression of devotion to Allah. Zakat, charity, giving, and justice show that spirituality cannot be reduced to inward experience alone. Seva, or selfless service, in the Sikh tradition offers another strong example.

Seeking to save others does not mean looking down on them or forcing them into one’s own mold. Genuine help serves the unfolding of the essence within another person. No one can walk another’s path for them, but one can light their way, ease their burden, and help them remember their own worth.

The text’s spirituality is therefore not a teaching of withdrawal from the world. Having promised to save matter, the human being enters relationships, society, and history. Feeding the hungry, protecting those who suffer injustice, healing the sick, educating those who lack knowledge, and protecting the earth from destruction are not secondary tasks outside spiritual duty. They are Daena’s activities on earth.

XVII. The Peacock, Attraction, and Gravity

“Satan is alluring! His symbol is the peacock!
Free yourself from ‘gravity’! Do not climb the steep slope!”

The peacock brings together beauty, splendor, pride, and seduction in a single symbol. The text particularly emphasizes that Satan appears attractive rather than ugly. Evil often does not present itself openly as evil; it approaches in the form of pleasure, superiority, power, security, or beauty. Discernment is therefore necessary.

The Peacock Angel has a very different and sacred meaning in the Yazidi tradition. The peacock symbol in this text should therefore not be identified with that tradition’s historical teaching. Kızılkeçili uses the peacock’s dazzling tail as an image of worldly attraction.

“Gravity” refers to a weight that pulls the spirit downward, beyond the physical law. Greed, pride, fear, dependency, and excessive possessiveness slow a person’s spiritual movement. The binding force of karma in Hinduism, attachment to desire in Buddhism, worldly passions in Christianity, and the weight of the lower self in Sufism may all be compared with this symbol of gravity.

“Do not climb the steep slope,” however, does not mean making no effort. The insight here is that ascent comes through releasing burdens, not through forceful exertion by the ego. A person does not rise by accumulating more titles, more display, or a greater sense of spiritual superiority. On the contrary, they naturally grow lighter as they let go of their burdens. Sometimes rising means releasing the stone one has been holding, rather than climbing.

XVIII. Fate, the Brain, and Moral Responsibility

“I do not write this fate! Believe in what is written on your brow!
Fate is what is written on the brow! Behind the brow lies the brain!
For right and wrong, say, ‘I did it’!”

The text does not see fate as an unchangeable script arbitrarily written from outside. What is “written on the brow” is linked to the brain behind it. Fate is thus connected with a person’s patterns of thought, tendencies, choices, and structure of consciousness.

This interpretation does not claim absolute freedom. People do not choose the family, body, historical period, or many of the circumstances into which they are born. They do, however, have a sphere of responsibility in how they respond to those circumstances. Fate takes shape where necessity and will meet.

In Buddhism, karma is not punishment imposed by an external god; it consists of the consequences that intentional actions produce in consciousness and life. In Hindu thought, past karma influences present conditions, while new actions can alter the direction of the future. Islamic schools have explained the relationship between destiny and free will in different ways while preserving human moral responsibility. The relationship between divine grace and free will is likewise a subject of debate in Christianity.

The text offers a practical measure: being able to say “I did it” of an action, whether right or wrong. A person should not evade responsibility by attributing every good deed solely to Allah and every wrong solely to Satan. Influences and circumstances may exist, but the choice takes place within the person. Accepting this is also the beginning of repentance. One cannot transform an action one refuses to acknowledge as one’s own.

XIX. The Sun of Conscience and the Dark Self

“Conscience does not darken! The ‘dark self’ comes between!
‘The Sun is eclipsed!’ The ‘animal’ goes into exile on the Moon!”

That conscience does not darken means that Daena remains pure in its essence. However many mistakes a person makes, the truth at their deepest center is not wholly destroyed. The dark self can, however, come between that truth and conscious awareness. The text likens this to a solar eclipse: the Sun has not gone out; it has only been temporarily obscured.

This symbol offers a hopeful view of the human being. Evil is not an original quality of the human essence. A person can be seriously damaged by the wrongs they commit, but the possibility of transformation does not vanish entirely. Repentance does not create the Sun anew; it removes the veil before it.

In the text, the Moon is associated with reflected and changing consciousness. The Sun shines with its own light; the Moon receives its light from another source and appears in phases. The “animal’s exile on the Moon” may be read as sending the instinctive aspect of the human being into a shifting, reflective, subconscious realm. “Animal” here should not be understood as disparaging actual animals. It symbolizes the instinctive layer within the human being that has not yet been integrated with moral consciousness.

In alchemical traditions, Sun and Moon represent pairs such as consciousness and the unconscious, masculine and feminine, and spirit and lower self. The aim is not to destroy one side completely, but to unite the two in a sacred union. The reunion of Daena’s two halves in the text resembles this alchemical integration.

XX. The Beautiful Maiden After Death: Encountering One’s Own Deeds

“If faithful, it sees a ‘Houri’ at the head of the bridge!
She resembles its own self! She, too, is exactly fourteen years old!”

In Zoroastrian accounts of death, a righteous person’s Daena may appear before them as a beautiful young woman. The text joins this figure with the Islamic symbol of the houri. Here, however, the houri is not a reward bestowed from outside. She is the embodied form of a person’s purified conscience and good deeds.

The phrase “She resembles its own self” matters. After death, the person encounters their own truth, not a stranger. Daena’s beauty is the beauty of their fidelity to conscience. A frightening form, likewise, is not an arbitrary punishment created from outside; it is their own inner world made visible.

In the ancient Egyptian scene of the weighing of the heart, the deceased person’s heart is measured against the feather of truth. In Christianity, a person’s works are tested by fire. In Islam, the book of deeds is opened and a person’s own bodily organs bear witness. In Tibetan texts on death, the visions encountered are reflections of consciousness. These symbols all portray death as bringing people into a clarity in which they can no longer evade themselves.

The age of fourteen may be associated with youth, purity, and the full Moon. The Moon reaches fullness around the fourteenth night. Daena’s appearance at fourteen can symbolize a conscience as complete and unblemished as the full Moon. This numerical reading should be considered within the text’s symbolic language, rather than as a historical doctrine.

XXI. Daena Introduces Herself: Honor, Covenant, and Religion

“I am your honor! Your dignity! Your covenant!
Your fortune! Your faith! In short, your ‘Hanif Religion’!”

Daena’s address shows that religion is not merely a set of rules standing outside the human being. Religion is one’s honor, dignity, covenant, and original orientation. “Hanif Religion” is interpreted as the religion of innate nature, turning from multiplicity toward unity.

“Honor” here cannot be reduced to the narrow sense of sexual control. It means fidelity to one’s essence, integrity of being, and loyalty to what has been entrusted to one. Dignity is not social prestige; it is a refusal to sell one’s essence for material ambition. The covenant is the original pledge between the soul and its source. Faith is the remembrance of that pledge during earthly life.

In interpretations of the Qur’anic “primordial covenant,” the souls are understood to have answered “Yes” to the question, “Am I not your Lord?” In Judaism, covenant is fundamental to the relationship between God and the human community. In Christianity, the new covenant renews divine love through the Messiah. In Zoroastrian thought, Mitra watches over covenants. The text brings these traditions of covenant together through a person’s fidelity to their own Daena.

“Fortune,” too, means more than chance. A person’s greatest good fortune is the ability to find their own truth. Fidelity to Daena opens the way for existence to take on a meaningful order, beyond whatever luck may arrive from outside.

XXII. The Chinvat Bridge, Sirat, and the Supreme Court

“Becoming ‘one Life (body)’ again with its mate, it crosses the bridge!
Three days after death, it chooses its dwelling in paradise!”

There is a clear symbolic affinity between the Chinvat Bridge of Iranian tradition and Sirat in Islam. Both signify a passage after death in which a person faces their moral truth. In the text, the bridge is also the “straight path” and the “Supreme Court.”

A bridge marks the passage between two states of being. On one side is the fragmented self; on the other, an integrated Life (body). The bridge widens for a person united with their conscience and narrows for one divided within. Its nature is therefore not fixed from outside. A person becomes their own path.

The motif of “three days after death” is connected with the soul’s wait of three nights in Zoroastrian death rituals. The Messiah’s resurrection on the third day in Christianity, three-stage passages in various ancient traditions, and the sequence of death, the intermediate state, and resurrection in Sufism strengthen the symbolism of three as a number of transformation. The first stage is the dissolution of the old form; the second is an intermediate state; and the third is birth into a new existence.

Mitra’s role as judge also rests on the idea of a covenant. A person must face whether they have kept their word. Yet the judge is not solely an external being. Daena, conscience, and the light of the face bear witness together. Judgment is the unavoidable disclosure of truth.

XXIII. The Shining Face and the Body’s Witness to Truth

“‘The one whose face shines crosses!’ ‘The one whose face darkens’ falls!”

The face is where a person’s inner world opens outward. The Qur’an describes some faces as bright and others as dark on the Day of Resurrection. The text joins this image with its teaching on Daena: the face becomes a visible record of a person’s inward condition.

This brightness has nothing to do with skin color. The text’s comparison between a Black person and a blond person should not be read as a biological or racial hierarchy. Within its esoteric framework, darkness and light represent states of consciousness. Moral light is not tied to any ethnic appearance.

Moses’ shining face after his descent from the mountain, the light radiating from Jesus at the Transfiguration, halos in images of the Buddha, the “light of the face” attributed to Islamic saints, and the circles of light in Hindu iconography share a symbolic idea: inward truth can become visible through bodily appearance.

This light need not be a physical glow. Even in daily life, the reassurance offered by a compassionate face, the tension visible in a proud face, and the reflection of guilt in someone’s gaze show how an inward state shapes the face. The text proposes that, at the Resurrection, every mask will fall away and the face will speak only the truth.

XXIV. Saoshyant and the Mahdi: The Birth of Saving Consciousness

“‘Saoshyant!’ That is, the ‘Mahdi’! He will descend from the Sun!
The darkness called ‘matter and the lower self’ will subside!”

In Zoroastrian eschatology, Saoshyant is a savior figure who will renew the world. In Islamic traditions, the Mahdi is associated with the restoration of justice. Rather than attempting to prove that they are the same historical person, the text reads them as expressions of a saving archetype in two religious languages.

The savior “descends from the Sun” because the Sun represents light, the center, justice, and the source of life. This descent may be read both as the arrival of a physical being from heaven and as the dawn of new clarity in human consciousness. If the Mahdi is treated only as someone to await from outside, people may become passive. The text, however, emphasizes each person’s responsibility to transform their own matter and lower self.

The Messiah in Judaism, the Second Coming of Christ in Christianity, Maitreya in Buddhism, Kalki in Hinduism, and Saoshyant in Iranian tradition are figures associated with the hope that a damaged world order will be renewed. Their theological meanings differ, but each carries hope for renewal in the course of history.

In an esoteric reading, the savior is both cosmic and inward. At the level of humanity, the figure announces an age of justice; at the level of the individual, it represents awareness of one’s essence gaining mastery over the lower self. A society that preserves darkness within itself cannot change solely through a savior arriving from outside. Each person’s awakening to their Daena is a condition for a collective consciousness of the Mahdi.

XXV. The Twelve Imams, the Sun, and the Cosmic Clock

“‘The Mahdi is the twelfth Imam!’ Let Me tell you why:
Because the Sun rules over twelve months!”

Through the Sun and the twelve months, the text places the teaching of the Twelve Imams within a cosmic symbolism. Here the imams may be read not only as historical figures, but also as twelve manifestations of divine light through time. The return of the twelfth imam comes to signify the completion of a circle and the reappearance of its center.

The number twelve represents cosmic wholeness in many traditions. The twelve months of the year, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve sons of Jacob, twelve tribes of Israel, and twelve apostles of Jesus are examples. In Shi‘i tradition, the line of twelve imams expresses the continuation of prophetic light through spiritual authority.

In the text, the Sun is the center governing all the months. Months are divisions of time arising from movement around the Sun. The Mahdi is therefore imagined as the central Sun behind the twelve links. He is both the final link and the source that gives meaning to them all.

This reading is also related to the unity of Haqq (Lord)–Muhammad–Ali and devotion to the Twelve Imams in the Alevi-Bektashi tradition. Alongside his historical identity, Ali is a manifestation of the light of spiritual authority. The Mahdi is that light’s complete appearance at the end of time or at the maturity of consciousness.

XXVI. The Hour, Resurrection, and the Union of Opposites

“‘At twelve, they overlap!’ ‘The hour hand and the minute hand!’
‘At the Resurrection, the Sun enters the Moon!’ The court convenes!”

At twelve o’clock, the hour hand and the minute hand overlap. The text makes this physical alignment a symbol of cosmic resurrection. Sun and Moon, spirit and lower self, source and reflection, consciousness and the unconscious meet on a single axis.

The Qur’an’s use of “the Hour” for the Resurrection is unfolded through the image of an actual clock. A clock both measures time and points toward the moment when time ends. Twelve is the threshold where beginning and end meet. At midnight, the old day ends and a new one begins; at noon, the Sun reaches its height. Twelve is thus a moment of both death and birth.

In alchemy, the union of Sun and Moon is known as the sacred marriage, or coniunctio. The balance of yin and yang in Chinese thought, the union of Shiva and Shakti in Indian Tantric traditions, and the harmony of masculine and feminine divine aspects in Kabbalah all describe opposites joining within a higher whole.

“At the Resurrection, the Sun enters the Moon” means that reflected consciousness unites with the consciousness that is its source. The Moon no longer presents its borrowed light as though it belonged to a separate self; it returns to its origin in the Sun’s light. Likewise, when a person gives up the illusion that the individual self is wholly independent, they do not lose their truth. They find their proper place.

XXVII. Fasting and Salat: Worship of the Moon and Sun

“Fasting is tied to the Moon; ‘salat’ to the Sun!”

In the Islamic calendar, fasting is determined by the Moon’s movements, while prayer times are related to the Sun’s position. The text turns these practices into esoteric symbols. Fasting is the discipline of the Moon: the lower self, change, and receptivity. Salat is the worship of the Sun: essence, center, and direct light.

In fasting, a person limits bodily desires. This disciplines lunar consciousness. The Moon waxes, wanes, and changes continually; the lower self likewise moves between desire and satisfaction, joy and sorrow. Fasting trains a person to observe and guide these fluctuations.

Salat, in turn, is participation in the solar order of the day. Morning, noon, afternoon, evening, and night organize the relationship between consciousness and light. A person joins their individual time to a cosmic rhythm. Standing, bowing, and prostration may be interpreted as the body’s entry into a Sun-centered orbit.

Daily prayer times in Judaism, the canonical hours of Christian monasticism, Hindu sandhya observances, and Buddhist monastic rhythms also connect human time to a sacred cosmic order. Worship gives time meaning rather than merely using it up.

XXVIII. “The Dot Beneath the B” and the Secret of Unity

“‘Twelve!’ It is both the beginning and the end of the clock!
Understand it like ‘the dot beneath the B’!”

“The dot beneath the B” is an important symbol in Islamic letter mysticism. The basmala begins with the letter ba, and the dot determines that letter’s identity. This has inspired the idea that multiplicity unfolds from an unseen center. In Alevi-Bektashi and Sufi accounts, the dot is associated with the secret of Ali’s spiritual authority.

A dot appears to have no dimensions, yet all lines arise from it. It is the beginning of letters, the source of geometry, and the silent core of writing. The number twelve, in turn, marks a complete division of the circle. The text uses the dot as both the beginning and the end of the circle of time.

Bindu in Indian metaphysics is the concentrated seed of the universe and the source of sound. In Kabbalah, the first concentration of infinite light is a starting point for cosmic unfolding. Christian mysticism has compared God to a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. These examples show how widely the symbols of dot and circle appear.

The dot beneath ba is the meaning hidden beneath the visible text. The letter is the outward form; the dot is the essence. Religious rituals resemble the letters, while their shared truth resembles the dot. Yet the dot cannot become visible without the letter, and the letter loses its identity without the dot. Outward form and inward meaning thus complete one another.

XXIX. Ahura Mazda’s Lord and the Levels of Being

“I, too, like everything else, have a Lord! He is My first essence!
Through My Lord’s lens, My eyes look toward Allah!”

This couplet places Ahura Mazda as a manifestation, or first essence, connected to a higher divine truth, rather than as the absolute and ultimate Allah. In the text’s metaphysics, no particular name or appearance can wholly encompass the essence of Allah. Ahura Mazda turns toward Allah as a lens of Rahman’s light.

This view can be compared with the distinction between essence, attributes, and names in Islam. The essence of Allah cannot be grasped, while the divine names are manifested in the created world. Rahman, Haqq (Lord), Light, Lord, and other names disclose absolute truth through particular relationships. Human beings cannot encompass the limitless essence directly; they turn toward it through the lens of the divine names.

In Neoplatonism, the One lies beyond intellect; Nous and soul are stages of its manifestation. In Kabbalah, Ein Sof cannot be grasped, while the sefirot are paths of manifestation. Hindu thought considers nirguna Brahman beyond qualities and saguna Brahman as the divine appearance with qualities that can be contemplated and worshipped.

The text applies this view of levels to Ahura Mazda. It regards Ahura Mazda as sacred while remaining connected to a higher source. This approach allows divine names from different religions to be read as different lenses of absolute truth. The lenses may show different colors, but the source of the light is one.

XXX. Zurvan: The Veil of Time and Space Before the Divine Essence

“‘Allah is the veil of the Divine Essence!’ Infinite space and time!
Its name is Zurvan! Do not try to lift the veil—beware!”

Zervan is the form the text gives to Zurvan, a concept in Iranian religious history. Associated with infinite time, this principle is interpreted here as a cosmic veil before the essence of Allah. Human beings perceive everything within time and space, but the essence of Allah lies beyond both.

In Kantian philosophy, time and space are fundamental forms of human experience. People find it difficult to conceive of appearances outside them. Similarly, the text regards time and space as a veil that makes absolute reality perceptible.

In Islamic Sufism, Allah is “the First,” “the Last,” “the Manifest,” and “the Hidden”; Allah cannot be conceived as a being contained within time. Ein Sof in Jewish mysticism is limitless and beyond comprehension. In Christian theology, God is beyond created time. In Hinduism, Brahman is the absolute reality unaffected by the changes of time.

The warning “Do not try to lift the veil” teaches metaphysical humility. A person may recognize divine manifestations but cannot claim to encompass the absolute essence in concepts. Every definition draws a boundary, while the limitless lies beyond definitions. Esoteric knowledge means recognizing the limits of knowledge rather than believing one knows everything.

XXXI. Becoming Khidr: Mercy’s Return to the World

“They long to descend as ‘mercy’ and become ‘Khidr’!”

In the text, even when the first essences are in the presence of Allah, they do not wish to remain in their own happiness alone. They long to return to the world as mercy. Khidr symbolizes this return. He knows the water of life, guides those who have lost their way, and bears the inward wisdom of events that appear incomprehensible.

Khidr’s role can be compared with the bodhisattva, the help of unseen saints in Christianity, and the motif of Elijah appearing in times of need in Jewish tradition. These figures express the idea that consciousness reaching a transcendent realm does not abandon the world, but returns to serve it.

Descending as mercy is a stage beyond possessing knowledge. Knowledge may lead to a sense of superiority; mercy turns knowledge into service. Khidr’s teaching is not always plain or easy to understand. As in the account of Moses and Khidr, the wisdom behind visible events may become clear only when the process is complete.

The true saint in the text is not someone who boasts of personal salvation, but someone who quietly guides others through darkness. Becoming Khidr is a function, not a title. Wherever life is protected, hope is given to the despairing, and withered consciousness grows green again, Khidr-like mercy becomes manifest.

XXXII. Spenta Armaiti and Sekine (Shekinah)

“In salat, we always make the earth be kissed! Why?
We call Sekine (Shekinah) ‘Spenta Armaiti’!”

In the Zoroastrian tradition, Spenta Armaiti is a divine quality associated with sacred devotion, humility, and the earth. The text joins it with the Islamic concept of Sekine (Shekinah). Sekine (Shekinah) is peace, security, and divine reassurance descending into the heart. A connection is thus made between the earth and peace of heart.

When the forehead touches the ground in prostration, a person remembers their material origin. Yet earth is not merely lowly or worthless. It is the sacred womb that carries life, grows seeds, and provides the substance of the human body. Spenta Armaiti represents this receptive, nurturing, and devoted sacredness of the earth.

In Judaism, the Shekhinah is the divine presence dwelling among people. The comforting presence of the Holy Spirit in Christianity, Shakti’s life-giving energy in Hinduism, and the view of Prajñāpāramitā as the mother of all Buddhas in Mahayana are different forms of sacred feminine symbolism. They are not the same theological beings, but each expresses receptive, encompassing, generative, and comforting aspects of divine truth.

Bringing forth Sekine (Shekinah) from the body means awakening the sacred earth within oneself. Sekine (Shekinah) appears when a person regards the body as a trust and a place of worship. The earth is kissed because human pride descends to the ground and meets the shared root of life there.

XXXIII. The Earth’s Virgin Soul and Its Nine-Layered Body

“‘The virgin soul of the earth!’ For she bears this name!
The earth is her nine-layered, folded body!”

The “virgin soul” signifies an original capacity that remains uncorrupted. Despite all the wars, injustices, and destruction that have taken place upon the earth, the purity of creation endures in its deepest essence. Human beings can pollute the earth, but they cannot wholly destroy the fundamental potential it receives from its divine source.

Here virginity is less a biological condition than the essence’s belonging to no other and remaining faithful to its source. In Christianity and Islam, Mary’s virginity is associated with a miraculous birth; in an esoteric reading, it can also symbolize a heart whose purity has not been occupied by alien passions. Spenta Armaiti likewise represents this pure, receptive, and fertile aspect of the earth.

The symbol of nine layers suggests cosmic levels. Parallels can be drawn with the layered heavens of ancient cosmologies, Dante’s nine heavens, various Sufi stages, and the inner layers of the human being. Nine is the last single-digit number and symbolizes wholeness just before completion. Ten begins a new cycle.

The earth’s nine-layered body also suggests that the human body has layers. Beyond the physical body lie emotional, mental, moral, and spiritual dimensions. Earth and humanity mirror one another: the earth is the greater body, while the human being is a small world. As people purify their own bodies, they serve the earth’s purification; as they protect the earth, they serve the balance of their own souls.

XXXIV. The Body’s Transformation into a Kaaba

“Bring forth your Sekine (Shekinah), so that your body may become your Kaaba!”

This line expresses the text’s view of the body especially clearly. The body is not a prison to be abandoned, but a structure to be purified and transformed into a sacred center. Just as the Kaaba is the center toward which prayer is directed in the outer world, the human body can become a point of orientation toward the essence within.

In Sufism, the heart is sometimes considered more precious than the Kaaba: the Kaaba is associated with Abraham, while the heart is regarded as a place upon which Allah looks. This saying does not diminish the outward Kaaba. The sacred place outside is a symbol that awakens the center within. As a person turns toward the Kaaba, they also gather their scattered orientations around one center.

In Christianity, the body is called a temple of the Holy Spirit. In Hindu Tantric traditions, the body is a microcosm containing chakras and centers of sacred energy. In Taoist inner alchemy, the body is the laboratory of the work of immortality. In Buddhist practice, the body is a foundation of awareness. All these traditions show the limits of viewing the body merely as an inferior shell.

For the body to become a Kaaba does not mean that every impulse is sacred. The Kaaba was first cleansed of idols. The human body, too, must be cleansed of the idols of greed, pride, hatred, and dependency. After this purification, it becomes a center around which the powers of the person move in harmony with the essence.

XXXV. Zoroaster’s Call to His Own Essence

“Call upon your own essence, Zoroaster! Not Me!
For I am your essence! Bow toward the realm from which you came!”

This address interprets the relationship between a prophet and the source of revelation on an esoteric level. Ahura Mazda tells Zoroaster to make contact with the light in his own essence instead of remaining dependent on a being outside himself. This does not deify the individual ego. “Your own essence” is a divine core deeper and more transcendent than the everyday self.

The Upanishadic teaching “You are That” expresses a connection between the deepest human essence and absolute reality. Christian mystics speak of the kingdom of God within the human being. The Qur’an says that Allah is nearer to a person than their jugular vein. Sufism emphasizes that the truth being sought is manifested in the human heart.

Calling upon one’s own essence does not mean treating arbitrary desires as sacred. The ego says, “Whatever I want is true”; the essence draws a person beyond selfishness. Mercy, truthfulness, humility, and service are measures of contact with the true essence. If an inner voice calls someone toward superiority, hatred, and limitless pleasure, that voice is an imitation produced by the lower self, not Daena.

“Bow toward the realm from which you came” means honoring the level of light from which one originates. Prostration is the dissolution of the false self before the source of the essence. A person bows toward the highest truth within themselves.

XXXVI. Reading Zend Avesta as the “Fifth Book”

“Zend Avesta is the fifth sacred book in the Qur’an!”

From the standpoint of classical Islamic scholarship, this statement is not a direct and explicit ruling of the Qur’an. The Qur’an does not name a book called the Avesta. Rather than citing a historical statement, the text offers an inclusive interpretation based on the possibility that Zoroaster, too, received revelation.

The Qur’an says that some prophets have been named while others have not. It also states that a warner was sent to every community. On the basis of these principles, some interpreters in the history of Islamic thought have considered whether wise founders from India, Iran, and other civilizations might have been prophets or bearers of revelation. This remains an area of interpretation, not a definitive article of faith.

By placing the Avesta alongside the Torah, Psalms, Gospel, and Qur’an, the phrase “fifth book” emphasizes the universality of revelation. Its purpose is to avoid confining divine guidance to a single geography.

This approach can be compared with progressive revelation in the Bahá’í Faith, avatars appearing in different ages in Hinduism, and the Sufi understanding that every people has received guidance. Although revelations take distinct historical forms, humanity is understood as being taught by one truth.

XXXVII. Ahura Mazda, the Father, and Rahman

“Know that Jesus calls Ahura Mazda ‘My Father’!
For Rahman has become the father of ‘Jesus the Messiah’!”

The text compares the Christian concept of the Father with the Iranian Ahura Mazda and the Islamic name Rahman. These are not exact equivalents in historical theology. In Christianity, the Father is a distinct hypostasis within the Trinity; in Islam, Rahman is a name expressing the all-encompassing mercy of Allah; and in Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda is the Wise Lord. The text brings them together through their roles as merciful and luminous sources of existence.

Jesus’s address “Father” does not mean biological fatherhood. It expresses source, closeness, love, and divine relationship. The Qur’an, however, emphasizes that Allah neither begets nor is begotten. An esoteric comparison should preserve this theological distinction. “Father” here should be read as a source of existence and a spiritual nurturer.

The word Rahman is connected with the root of mercy; the word Rahim also evokes the womb. Divine mercy can thus be imagined as a cosmic womb encompassing existence. When this image of mercy is placed alongside the Christian symbol of the Father, masculine and feminine symbols of divinity meet within a higher unity.

Reading Ahura Mazda through Rahman also supports the idea that evil is ultimately to be healed rather than made eternal. Rahman gives life to the whole of existence, not only to the good. This encompassing mercy does not equate right and wrong; it gives what is wrong time and opportunity to be transformed.

XXXVIII. Daena, “Den,” and Dîn

“‘Daena’ is ‘Den’ in Pahlavi and ‘Dîn’ in Arabic!
It is the ‘Hanif religion of innate nature’! Now surrender!”

The text proposes an etymological connection between Daena and the word dîn. Such linguistic connections require careful assessment in academic etymology: a resemblance in sound does not always establish a common origin. The esoteric text, however, is more concerned with closeness of meaning than with the words’ historical ancestry.

Daena concerns vision, conscience, religion, and a person’s spiritual form. Arabic dîn carries meanings associated with judgment, recompense, obedience, a path, and an order of belief. Both concepts can describe a person’s orientation toward truth and their encounter with the consequences of their actions. This similarity of roles is sufficient for the text’s synthesis.

To be hanif is to turn away from a multiplicity of idols toward unity. The religion of innate nature is not an alien identity forcibly imposed from outside, but the unfolding of an inclination toward truth already present in human creation. In this sense, Daena is a person’s inner religion.

Religion may move away from Daena when it becomes solely an institution, a legal system, or a marker of belonging. Conversely, an individual interpretation involving conscience and ethics does not automatically become a true religion. The text’s measure is the unity of essence and action: when a person turns toward truth, purifies the lower self, serves others, and makes matter transparent, the religion of innate nature becomes active within them.

XXXIX. The Secret of Adam and Humanity’s Shared Teaching

“Zend Avesta holds the Qur’an’s ‘secret of Adam’!
Find your Adam and remember Me with mercy!”

The secret of Adam is the human capacity to bear the divine names and bring consciousness to matter. The text proposes that this secret is present not only in the Qur’an, but also in the Avesta’s teachings on Daena, fravashi, right choice, and cosmic renewal.

The “first human being” appears under different names and in different accounts across traditions. There is Adam in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; Gayomart in the Iranian tradition; Manu in the Indian tradition; Pangu or the first ancestors of humanity in Chinese myths; and the symbol of the cosmic human in Hermetic thought. These are not historically the same figures, but they can be compared as archetypes expressing humanity’s cosmic origin.

According to the text, each person must find their own Adam. Learning the story of one’s ancestors alone will not accomplish this. Adam is the center within the person that knows the names, orders instinctive impulses, receives the angels’ bow, and overcomes the resistance of Iblis.

The words “remember Me with mercy” also ask that Ahura Mazda be understood as a principle of mercy rather than an object of fear. To remember truth is not merely to repeat its name, but to bring its qualities into life. One who remembers Rahman should be merciful; one who remembers Haqq (Lord) should be truthful; one who remembers Light should bring light to others.

XL. The Royal Couplet, the House, and the Revered Shah

“The final couplet is called the ‘royal couplet’! Uluğ, be silent here!
The royal couplet belongs to the ‘Revered Shah’ born in the ‘House’!”

In its final section, the text incorporates its own poetic form into its symbolic system. Beyit means both a two-line unit of poetry and a house in Arabic. The “royal couplet” is the poem’s strongest couplet, while the “House” is the sacred house. In Alevi-Bektashi language, the “Revered Shah” points to Ali.

The poem’s final couplet is thus associated with Ali, who is said in tradition to have been born in the Kaaba. Here Ali symbolizes spiritual authority, inward knowledge, courage, and fidelity to truth. The poem’s words finally reach the seal of spiritual authority, because spiritual authority unfolds the inner meaning of the word brought by prophecy.

In Sufi traditions, Muhammadan truth and Ali’s spiritual authority may be seen as complementary aspects. The expression Haqq (Lord)–Muhammad–Ali is also a symbolic formula joining divine essence, prophecy, and spiritual authority around one truth. It should be read as distinct levels of manifestation of one truth.

The poet’s command to “be silent here” signals that words have reached their limit. In esoteric texts, silence does not indicate ignorance; it points to meaning that expression cannot contain. Just as the dot is the silent root of all letters, silence is the source to which all words return.

XLI. “Haqq (Lord) Is Muhammad Ali; For He Is Ahura Mazda”

“Haqq (Lord) is Muhammad Ali! For He is Ahura Mazda!”

The final line gathers the text’s synthesis across religions into a single sentence. Ahura Mazda is a name for Iranian wisdom and light; Haqq (Lord) signifies absolute reality; Muhammad represents its prophetic proclamation; and Ali symbolizes inward spiritual authority and knowledge.

This formula should not be taken as a simple identity that erases every difference between historical religions. The text considers the roles behind the names. Haqq (Lord) is the source, Muhammad the word, Ali the meaning, and Ahura Mazda the light of wisdom. When the source speaks, revelation appears; when revelation unfolds in the heart, spiritual authority appears; and when that authority illuminates the world, wisdom emerges.

From a Christian perspective, a comparable threefold structure might be discussed through the language of Father, Word, and Spirit; in Hinduism, through the relationship between absolute reality, divine manifestation, and inward understanding; and in Kabbalah, through levels of infinity, wisdom, and understanding. Such similarities do not make the traditions theologically identical. Esoteric interpretation brings their differences into conversation within a wider horizon of meaning.

The text’s final claim seeks to end conflict over names. People may use “Haqq (Lord),” “Ahura Mazda,” “Rahman,” “Father,” “Brahman,” or other sacred names. The esoteric measure is not only which name is used, but what moral transformation it brings about in a person. If a name leads someone toward mercy, truthfulness, conscience, and service, it conveys light. If it produces pride, hostility, and oppression, its essence has been veiled, however correctly the sacred name is pronounced.

Conclusion: Matter’s Transparency and Humanity’s Return to Its Own Daena

“Ahuramazda’s Message” sees the human being as a bearer of light who has descended into the world to save matter. The soul’s task is to bring consciousness to the world. The body must be transformed from a prison into a Kaaba; earth from blind weight into Spenta Armaiti; and conscience from an ordinary feeling of guilt into Daena.

In the text’s cosmic drama, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, light and blindness, spirit and matter, Sun and Moon, and Daena’s two halves face one another. Yet endless conflict is not their final purpose. Darkness must become transparent, matter must bow, divided Life (body) must reunite with its mate, and mercy must prevail over anger.

Sirat, or the Chinvat Bridge, is first present in the choices a person makes each day. Every right action widens the bridge; every deliberate betrayal narrows it. The beautiful or frightening form encountered after death is the shape those choices have taken in Daena. In the end, a person comes face to face with their own conscience.

The symbols of Saoshyant, the Mahdi, the Messiah, Khidr, and Adam show different stages of this transformation. Adam is the person who knows their own essence. Khidr is the guide who brings the life he has found to others. The Mahdi is the center that establishes justice. The Messiah is the spirit that brings lifeless matter to life. Saoshyant is the saving consciousness that calls all creation to renewal. While retaining their historical and theological meanings, these figures also represent states that must arise within the human being in the text’s esoteric world.

The text’s message across religions does not declare all beliefs superficially identical. It proposes that behind different sacred languages lies a shared orientation capable of transforming the human being: truthfulness, conscience, mercy, fidelity to a covenant, purification of the self, and service to existence.

When a person finds their Daena, religion ceases to be a foreign burden imposed from outside. It becomes their innate nature, honor, dignity, and inward covenant. Prayer becomes remembrance of the essence; fasting, purification of the lower self; prostration, the body’s transformation into a Kaaba; and service, participation in cosmic salvation.

Ahura Mazda’s words, “Call upon your own essence, not Me,” are therefore among the deepest keys to the text. The light being sought lies not in the arbitrary ego, but in the pure essence behind it. Finding that essence does not lead a person to deify themselves. Rather, they recognize their limits, responsibilities, and kinship with all beings. True knowledge of the self gives rise to humility and mercy.

Ultimately, salvation is the earth’s transformation into paradise. When the earth becomes transparent, every particle asks about its identity, and messianic consciousness reminds it of its pure source. Stone, plant, animal, human being, and all matter then cease to be enemies of light and become its disciples. The Resurrection is the lifting of veils as well as the end of a world. The Hour is the meeting of Sun and Moon, essence and conscience, spirit and body at the center of truth, as well as the end of time.

The text’s final call can be summarized as follows: Awaken the Ahura Mazda within you—the light of wisdom and Rahman. Recognize your own blindness before seeking Ahriman outside yourself. Listen to Daena’s voice. Purify your body without despising it. Regard the earth as a sacred trust. Do not separate your salvation from the salvation of others, and turn your face toward the light with every choice. A person’s true religion is shown first in the form sacred names take in their conscience and life.

Original Glossary of Terms

This glossary distinguishes historical Zoroastrian concepts from M. H. Uluğ Kızılkeçili’s interpretations specific to the text. Rather than presenting definitions as direct accounts of historical religious doctrine, it explains their meanings within the “Kızılkeçili metaphysics” established by the poem.

Covenant

The pledge of fidelity that Life (body) gives to its divine essence, conscience, and truth before descending to earth. In the text, the covenant is the unbreakable bond between Daena’s two halves, as well as a pledge between God and the human being. Acting against one’s conscience violates this covenant.

Ahura Mazda

The supreme divine being whose name means “Wise Lord” in historical Zoroastrianism. In the text, Ahura Mazda is interpreted as a divine manifestation connected with Rahman, pure light, wisdom, cosmic intellect, and the human divine essence, rather than as the absolute essence of Allah. He is the luminous guide whom Zoroaster seeks outside himself but encounters in his own essence.

Ahriman

The name for Angra Mainyu, the destructive spirit, in later Iranian languages. In the text, Ahriman signifies matter without spirit, unconsciousness, rigidity, separation, and resistance to divine light. Rather than an independent absolute god, he represents the dark pole of existence before it becomes transparent.

Six Days

A symbol expressing creation through six cosmic stages or six fundamental manifestations, rather than ordinary calendar days. In the text, the six days are connected with the “six twin rays.” Each day unfolds a creative principle with two poles, one spiritual and the other concerned with form.

Six Twin Rays

Six pairs of cosmic forces radiating from Ahura Mazda and establishing the order of the spiritual and material realms. Their “twin” nature indicates that each ray has an unseen and a visible, active and receptive, or spiritual and material aspect. The six pairs form the foundation of a complete twelve-part cosmic order.

What Is Written on the Brow

The direction of a life, associated in the text with the brain behind the brow—with thoughts, choices, and patterns of consciousness—rather than with an unchangeable fate written from outside. A person cannot determine every circumstance but remains responsible for choices between right and wrong.

Adam

A state of the perfected human being who has found the divine essence within and established conscious mastery over matter, as well as the first ancestor of humanity. One who is defeated by matter becomes a “human devil”; one who transforms matter through consciousness becomes Adam. Adam is the earthly mirror of the divine names and knowledge of the essence.

The Secret of Adam

The human capacity to bring together matter and light, body and spirit, individual existence and the divine trust within oneself. Finding the secret of Adam means awakening the center of consciousness that knows the names within oneself.

The Throne

A symbol of divine sovereignty, cosmic order, and the highest state of consciousness. When the Daena beings “bear the Throne above their heads,” they carry divine order and the trust within their awareness as they struggle with matter.

Earth

The cosmic field into which the soul descends, encounters matter, and carries out its work of transformation, as well as the physical Earth. Though it initially appears dense and dark, it bears the spirit of Spenta Armaiti and can therefore be saved and transformed into paradise.

The Struggle on Earth

Fravarti’s spiritual struggle with matter, the lower self, ignorance, and selfishness after descending to earth. It is a task of transforming the unconscious aspects of existence, rather than a war against other people. Its purpose is to make matter transparent.

The Virgin Soul of the Earth

The pure, receptive, divine substance preserved in the earth’s deepest being, however much the world is polluted. In the text, it is connected with Spenta Armaiti and Sekine (Shekinah). “Virginity” refers chiefly to the essence remaining uncorrupted and faithful to its divine source.

Moon

A symbol of reflected, changing consciousness that appears in phases. It is connected with the lower self, emotions, instincts, cycles of time, and the receptive feminine pole. Because it reflects the Sun’s light, it is a changing mirror of the source.

The Dot Beneath Ba

The secret of unity and spiritual authority expressed through the dot beneath ba, the first letter of the basmala. The dot is the center without dimensions from which all letters and multiplicity emerge. In the text, it is where beginning and end, Haqq (Lord) and Ali’s spiritual authority, and visible speech and hidden meaning meet.

The Body as Kaaba

The purified body becoming a sanctuary and point of orientation toward the divine essence. The body is not a worthless shell to be discarded. It must be cleansed of the idols of the lower self and made into a sacred center where Sekine (Shekinah) can dwell.

One Life (body)

The reunited state of Daena’s aspect that descends into the world as Life (body) and its aspect that remains in the heart as conscience. Inner division ends, and thought, conscience, and action come together in one truth. This wholeness is the essential condition for crossing Sirat safely.

Life (body)

The active half of Daena that descends to earth and takes its place in the body and brain. Life (body) participates in worldly experience, choice, and trial. It preserves its wholeness insofar as it remains faithful to its heavenly mate, who represents conscience.

The Chinvat Bridge

The bridge of separation or judgment in Zoroastrian teachings about death. The text joins it with Islamic Sirat, the straight path, and the Supreme Court. Its width or narrowness is the visible outcome of a person’s actions and relationship with conscience.

Daena

One of the text’s central concepts. It brings together the meanings of religion, conscience, inward vision, heavenly mate, moral identity, and the form shaped by a person’s actions and encountered after death. Half of Daena descends to Earth as Life (body); the other half remains in the heart as conscience.

Daena’s Division in Two

The separation between transcendent essence and embodied consciousness when a person enters the world. The descending half is tested within life, while the other watches over it as conscience. The spiritual journey is complete when the two halves become one Life (body) again.

Religion

In the text, religion is more than an institutional system of belief or a set of external rules. It is a person’s Daena, covenant of creation, conscience, and path to their essence. True religion is fidelity to the truth present in one’s creation.

Fuad

The heart’s level of deep perception beyond ordinary feelings and thoughts. It is the inner dwelling place of Daena’s heavenly mate and of conscience. While the brain analyzes the world, fuad knows whether an action accords with truth.

Fravarti

The aspect of Daena that accepts descent to Earth and the struggle to save matter. The text defines it as a “spiritual knight who chooses the struggle on earth.” Drawing on the historical concept of fravashi, it gives the term the meaning of a personal, protective, and striving essence.

Shadow

The dark aspect that arises when the human essence is reflected in matter, the self, and outward forms. The shadow is not an independent being; it emerges where light meets dense form. The human task is to recognize its source and transform it.

Sun

A symbol of the essence that shines with its own light, the spiritual center, truth, justice, and saving consciousness. It is associated with Mitra, Michael, Ahura Mazda, Saoshyant, and the Mahdi. Where the Moon changes and reflects, the Sun is a stable source.

Solar Eclipse

The dark self’s passage before conscience or the light of the essence, preventing it from reaching awareness. The light is obscured, not destroyed. The eclipse is temporary; the Sun endures. Repentance and awareness of one’s essence lift the intervening veil.

Haqq (Lord)–Muhammad–Ali

Three functions of one truth in Kızılkeçili’s metaphysics: Haqq (Lord) is absolute reality and source; Muhammad is its prophetic word; and Ali is the word’s inward meaning and the light of spiritual authority. They are presented as levels of essence, proclamation, and inward understanding of one truth.

Hanif Religion

The path of innate nature that turns a person away from the deceptive pull of multiplicity and toward unity. Before any particular historical institution, it is the inclination toward truthfulness, conscience, and divine unity present in human creation. In the text, it is one of the ultimate identities through which Daena appears to a person.

Khidr

Merciful consciousness that returns to the world to help created beings even after reaching the divine presence. To become Khidr is to use spiritual knowledge to guide those who have lost their way. In the text, he symbolizes salvation becoming service.

Houri–Daena

The form of purified conscience and good deeds that appears before a person after death as a beautiful young woman. Rather than a reward bestowed from outside, she is the visible form of that person’s spiritual life. Her beauty reflects the degree of their fidelity to conscience.

Ray

The way the light of the source appears in many forms without diminishing itself. Like rays from the Sun, beings remain connected to one source while bearing different colors, tasks, and vibrations. A ray links the absolute essence with created multiplicity.

Iblis

The formalistic, proud aspect of the human self that refuses to bow before the truth of the essence. In the text, Iblis is associated with Ahriman and blind matter. His bow before Adam signifies the end of matter’s resistance to consciousness and the transparency of existence.

Twin Ray

Two complementary poles of a force emerging from one source. They appear in the pairs spirit–matter, active–receptive, Sun–Moon, and Life (body)–conscience. Their purpose is to complete one another within a higher unity.

Glory

A manifestation of divine light as greatness, power, and honor. The text’s “twenty-eight glories” denote the multiplied appearances of one light through lunar stations, letters, prophets, or angelic forces.

Fate

An existential direction formed where given circumstances meet conscious choices, rather than a rigid script determined without human participation. People do not choose every condition of their lives, but they bear the spiritual consequences of their right and wrong actions.

Vessel of the Heart

The windowless spiritual refuge illuminated from within that preserves a person’s essence during the flood. It brings the symbolism of Noah’s ark and the protective structure of Iranian tradition into the human heart. It represents the preservation of awareness of one’s essence when the outer world falls apart.

Dark Self

The selfish and impulsive layer of the self that cannot destroy conscience but can come between conscience and awareness, veiling its light. The dark self does not extinguish the Sun; it causes an eclipse. It is purified by being brought under the guidance of truth.

Without a Copy

Pure and original existence that does not imitate another form and remains directly connected to its source. The text uses it as an attribute of Ahura Mazda. For a human being, it means realizing truth in one’s own conscience instead of mechanically repeating the beliefs of others.

Bridge

The passage between two states of existence and a place of moral distinction and inward reckoning. It gathers Chinvat, Sirat, the straight path, and the Supreme Court into one symbol. A person does not first see the bridge after death; they build it during life through every choice.

Seeking to Save Others

Refusing to separate personal salvation from the salvation of other beings. It means declining to seek a private paradise while leaving matter, people, and the world in darkness. In the text, it is an essential condition for mercy to prevail over anger.

Matter

Dense existence that has not yet gained consciousness, rather than absolute evil opposed to spirit. While it remains blind, it is Ahrimanic; when it begins to transmit the light of the essence, it becomes transparent and sacred. The spiritual path aims to transform matter.

Matter’s Transparency

The transformation of body, world, and personality into means that allow divine light to pass through. Matter does not disappear, but loses its rigidity and claim to independence. Satan’s bow before Adam is the symbolic result of this transformation.

The Mahdi

The cosmic and inward counterpart of the Islamic expectation of a savior in the text. The Mahdi is the solar center, the consciousness of justice, and the twelfth completing principle that ends the darkness of the lower self. Alongside the expectation of a historical savior, the figure represents an awareness of rightful guidance that must arise within every person.

Messiah

Saving consciousness that breathes spirit into lifeless or unconscious matter and revives it. In the text, this is the state attained by Daena after victory, when it can no longer be divided. The Messiah’s making every particle a disciple means that all matter gains consciousness.

Michael–Mitra

A shared luminous principle that brings together the functions of life, order, provision, covenant, and solar justice in the text. The pairing concerns similarities in their roles in two traditions; it does not claim that Michael and Mitra are historically the same being.

Mitra

A sacred being associated with covenant, truthfulness, watchfulness, and light in the Iranian tradition. The text interprets Mitra as the Sun, Michael, a judge, and the Lord of Glory of Life (body). At the Chinvat Bridge, Mitra is a cosmic witness who reads the light on a person’s face to determine their fidelity to the covenant.

Honor

In the text, honor is not limited to a social or sexual meaning. It is a person’s fidelity to their Daena, conscience, and original covenant. It means refusing to sell one’s inner truth for personal gain.

Fourteen Years of Age

The age of purity and completeness at which Daena appears as a young woman. It is a symbolic point of maturity connected with the Moon’s becoming full around the fourteenth night. It refers to the spotless, full-Moon state of conscience rather than bodily age.

Twelve

A number marking the completion of a cosmic cycle. The twelve months, zodiac signs, imams, apostles, and divisions of a clock are considered within the same symbolism of completion. Twelve signifies the meeting of beginning and end at one center.

Essence

The core of divinely sourced truth behind a person’s everyday self, social identity, and desires of the lower self. The essence is not the entirety of Allah’s absolute being; it is a divine light manifested in human existence. To know oneself is to recognize this essence, rather than enlarge the ego.

Brotherhood of Essence

The metaphysical relationship by which Ahura Mazda and Ahriman emerge within the same encompassing order of existence. It signifies that opposites share an underlying plane of being, not that they are morally equal. Light and darkness represent different orientations, but darkness is not an absolute, independent second god.

Windowless Vessel

The heart that receives no light from the outer world and is illuminated from within. It preserves the essence amid the chaos of the flood. Having no windows does not mean withdrawing from the world; it means not making truth dependent solely on the senses or external approval.

Rahman

The principle of divine mercy that encompasses all existence and grants it life and the possibility of transformation. In the text, it is compared with Ahura Mazda’s merciful aspect and with the protecting source Jesus addresses as “Father.” To act in the spirit of Rahman is not to approve of evil, but to refuse to deny any being the possibility of change.

Rahim

In the text, both the place of bodily birth and the cosmic field in which the soul takes shape within matter. The idea of being a believer or unbeliever “while still in Rahim” is interpreted as deep orientations of consciousness becoming visible during embodiment, rather than as an irrevocable condemnation before birth.

Coming to Maturity

Gaining spiritual responsibility by finding one’s essence, beyond reaching adulthood by age or law. A mature person chooses good not merely because of an external command, but because they know it accords with their Daena.

Realm of Souls

A level of subtle beings and principles existing before or behind the physical world. In the text, it is where Mitra, the Glories, angels, and Daena beings first appear. It is a level of pure light before material forms become dense.

Pure Light

Unmixed divine light that casts no shadow and is not borrowed from another source. It expresses Ahura Mazda’s being “without a copy.” It is the original state of truth in which knowledge, mercy, and the energy of existence have not separated.

Salat

Worship linked to the solar order that directs a person toward the center of their essence. It consists of more than bodily movements: it is Life (body) remembering its source and gathering all its powers toward one direction of prayer. Fasting is associated with the Moon; salat, with the Sun.

Saoshyant

The savior figure who will renew the world in Zoroastrian eschatology. In the text, Saoshyant takes on a role equivalent to that of the Mahdi and saving consciousness descending from the Sun. By ending the darkness of matter and the lower self, this figure enables the earth to become transparent.

The Hour

Both the measure of time and the moment of resurrection and completion. The hour and minute hands meeting at twelve symbolize the meeting of Sun and Moon, essence and lower self, beginning and end at one point.

Sekine (Shekinah)

Divine peace, security, and stillness descending into the heart. The text joins Sekine (Shekinah) with Spenta Armaiti, the earth’s virgin soul, and the receptive sacredness that transforms the human body into a Kaaba. It is the settling of scattered powers into stillness at their center.

Sirat

The straight path and the bridge of the afterlife in Islam as interpreted by the text. Joined with the Chinvat Bridge, it becomes the passage at which a person faces their conscience and actions. Sirat is also every right choice made during earthly life.

Spenta Armaiti

A divine quality associated in the Zoroastrian tradition with sacred devotion, humility, dedication, and the earth. In the text, it is identified with Sekine (Shekinah) and the earth’s virgin soul. Kissing the ground in prostration symbolizes reverence for Spenta Armaiti.

Royal Couplet

The couplet that forms the poem’s summit of meaning. The text connects beyt, which also means “house,” with the Kaaba and the secret of Ali’s spiritual authority. The royal couplet is the final statement that seals the inward center of the poem.

The Sun’s Entry into the Moon

The union of solar awareness of the essence with lunar consciousness of the changing, reflective lower self. It signifies the integration of opposites at one center at the moment of resurrection. The Moon does not disappear; it relinquishes its claim to independent light and returns to its true source.

Satan’s Bow Before Adam

The end of blind matter’s resistance to the conscious human being. Once matter becomes transparent, the dark force that initially failed to recognize the essence accepts the divine trust within Adam. It symbolizes cosmic peace and final transformation.

Peacock

A symbol of beauty, display, pride, and seductive worldly attraction. In the text, it shows that Satan may appear alluring. This use should not be identified with the meanings given to the peacock in other religious traditions that regard it as sacred.

Flood

A spiritual crisis in which a person’s familiar identity, thoughts, and worldly supports dissolve, as well as a cosmic catastrophe of the past. Surviving the flood depends on building a vessel illuminated from within the heart.

Conscience

The heavenly half of Daena that does not descend to earth and remains in the human heart. It is deeper than social fear or a learned feeling of guilt. It does not darken, though the dark self may temporarily veil it.

Seven- or Nine-Layered Earth

A symbol indicating that the earth consists of more than its visible material surface and contains interwoven cosmic layers and levels of consciousness. The text’s nine layers describe levels of being approaching completion and the layered structure of the human being.

Gravity

The esoteric counterpart of physical attraction: the force binding a person to matter, greed, fear, pleasure, and the weight of the ego. To escape gravity is to prevent matter from governing one’s spiritual direction.

Twenty-Eight Glories

Twenty-eight appearances of one divine light. They are associated with the stations of the Moon, the letters of the Arabic alphabet, prophetic essences, and angelic forces. They represent one truth appearing in many forms through time, language, and revelation.

Twenty-Eight Prophets

Different prophetic appearances of divine truth throughout human history. The text places them in symbolic unity with the twenty-eight letters and lunar stations. Each prophet is like a distinct letter of the same light, addressing a particular time and community.

Supreme Court

The realm of truth in which a person is wholly revealed after death before their Daena, face, conscience, and actions. It is less a court imposing arbitrary punishment from outside than an absolute encounter in which nothing can be concealed from oneself.

The Darkening of the Face

The reflection in a person’s form of a break between conscience and action. It has nothing to do with race or skin color. It signifies lies, oppression, betrayal, and the density of the lower self becoming spiritually visible.

The Shining of the Face

The reflection of the light of the essence throughout a person’s being when Life (body) and conscience are in harmony. It is the spiritual brightness produced by truthfulness, mercy, and fidelity to the covenant. At the passage across Chinvat or Sirat, it bears witness to the person’s true identity.

Zend

The tradition of explanation and interpretation of the Avesta texts. In the text’s esoteric framework, Zend is revelation unfolding in human consciousness and visible speech yielding its inner meaning. Avesta represents the sacred word; Zend, its living interpretation.

Zend Avesta

A traditional designation for Zoroastrian sacred texts and their interpretations. In Kızılkeçili’s metaphysics, it is the written memory of divine wisdom given to Iran, the teaching of Daena, and the secret of Adam. The text regards it as a link in a universal chain of revelation.

Zoroaster

The historical Iranian prophet and central figure of the Avesta tradition. In the text, he is also a model seeker called to summon his own essence and find Ahura Mazda within. His journey represents every person’s path toward knowledge of their essence.

Zurvan

The veil of infinite time and space. In the text, Zurvan is not the absolute essence of Allah, but a cosmic covering between the unknowable essence and created consciousness. Because human beings think within time and space, they cannot entirely pass beyond this veil; they can only sense the limitless truth behind it.

Integration of Essence and Conscience

The reunion of Life (body), which descends into the world, with Daena in the heart. It is the state of the perfected human being, in which thought, intention, and action are no longer divided. Salvation, passage across Sirat, and the state of indivisible light follow from this integration.

Indivisible Light

The final state of unity reached after Daena’s repeated descents into matter and the completion of purification and integration. Conflict between Life (body) and conscience, Sun and Moon, and spirit and body has ended. The text associates this state with messianic consciousness and true inheritance of the earth.

Bibliography

I. Primary text

Kızılkeçili, M. H. Uluğ. (1998, November 11). Ahuramazda’nın Mesajı [Unpublished esoteric poem]. Ankara.

For an English rendering of the text available online: The Message of Ahura Mazda.

II. The Avesta and Zoroastrian sacred texts

Anklesaria, B. T. (Trans.). (1956). Zand-Ākāsīh: Iranian or Greater Bundahišn. Bombay: Rahnumae Mazdayasnan Sabha.

Darmesteter, J. (Trans.). (1880–1887). The Zend-Avesta (Parts I–III). In F. Max Müller (Ed.), The Sacred Books of the East (Vols. 4, 23, 31). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Especially relevant to the Vendidad, the Yashts, hymns to Mitra, judgment after death, and Iranian cosmology. Online text: The Zend-Avesta, Part II.

Humbach, H. (1991). The Gāthās of Zarathushtra and the Other Old Avestan Texts (2 vols.). Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag.

Humbach, H., & Faiss, K. (2010). The Gāthās of Zarathushtra and the Other Old Avestan Texts. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.

Insler, S. (Trans.). (1975). The Gāthās of Zarathustra. Acta Iranica 8. Leiden: Brill.

Malandra, W. W. (Trans.). (1983). An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion: Readings from the Avesta and Achaemenid Inscriptions. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Mills, L. H. (Trans.). (1887). The Zend-Avesta, Part III: The Yasna, Visparad, Āfrīnagān, Gāhs and Miscellaneous Fragments. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

West, E. W. (Trans.). (1880–1897). Pahlavi Texts (Parts I–V). In F. Max Müller (Ed.), The Sacred Books of the East (Vols. 5, 18, 24, 37, 47). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

West, M. L. (2010). The Hymns of Zoroaster: A New Translation of the Most Ancient Sacred Texts of Iran. London: I.B. Tauris.

For the history and differences among academic translations of the Avesta, see Encyclopaedia Iranica: “Gathas II—Translations”.

III. History of Zoroastrianism and foundational studies

Boyce, M. (1975). A History of Zoroastrianism: Vol. 1. The Early Period. Leiden: Brill.

Boyce, M. (1982). A History of Zoroastrianism: Vol. 2. Under the Achaemenians. Leiden: Brill.

Boyce, M. (1991). A History of Zoroastrianism: Vol. 3. Zoroastrianism under Macedonian and Roman Rule (with F. Grenet). Leiden: Brill.

Boyce, M. (1984). Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Boyce, M. (1992). Zoroastrianism: Its Antiquity and Constant Vigour. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers.

Boyce, M. (2001). Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

A foundational introduction to the historical development, worship, teachings about death, and savior belief of Zoroastrianism. Book information.

Choksy, J. K. (1989). Purity and Pollution in Zoroastrianism: Triumph over Evil. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Choksy, J. K. (1997). Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society. New York: Columbia University Press.

Dhalla, M. N. (1938). History of Zoroastrianism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Later edition: Bombay: K. R. Cama Oriental Institute, 1963. Online access: History of Zoroastrianism.

Hinnells, J. R. (1985). Persian Mythology. London: Hamlyn.

Hinnells, J. R. (2000). Zoroastrian and Parsi Studies: Selected Works of John R. Hinnells. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Rose, J. (2011). Zoroastrianism: An Introduction. London: I.B. Tauris.

Stausberg, M. (2002–2004). Die Religion Zarathushtras: Geschichte—Gegenwart—Rituale (3 vols.). Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

Stausberg, M., & Vevaina, Y. S.-D. (Eds.). (2015). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

A broad reference work covering theology, interpretation, ritual, history, and contemporary Zoroastrian communities. Contents and bibliographic information.

Zaehner, R. C. (1961). The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

For a collective assessment of major academic studies on Zoroastrianism, see Encyclopaedia Iranica: “Zoroastrianism—Historical Review”.

IV. Ahura Mazda, Angra Mainyu, and cosmic duality

Boyce, M. (1975). “On the Zoroastrian Temple Cult of Fire.” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 95(3), 454–465.

Boyce, M. (1984). “On the Antiquity of Zoroastrian Apocalyptic.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 47(1), 57–75.

Duchesne-Guillemin, J. (1962). La religion de l’Iran ancien. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Gnoli, G. (1980). Zoroaster’s Time and Homeland: A Study on the Origins of Mazdeism and Related Problems. Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale.

Herrenschmidt, C., & Kellens, J. “Ahura Mazdā.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. Ahura Mazdā.

Lommel, H. (1930). Die Religion Zarathustras nach dem Awesta dargestellt. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.

Shaked, S. (1967). “Some Notes on Ahreman, the Evil Spirit, and His Creation.” In Studies in Mysticism and Religion Presented to Gershom G. Scholem. Jerusalem: Magnes Press.

Skjærvø, P. O. (2011). “The Spirit of Zoroastrianism.” New Haven: Yale University Press.

These works can help distinguish the text’s statement that “Ahura Mazda and Ahriman are brothers who came forth from Allah” as a metaphysical interpretation specific to Kızılkeçili. Zoroastrian dualism has been explained in different ways across periods and sources.

V. Daena, fravashi, conscience, and judgment after death

Bailey, H. W. (1943). Zoroastrian Problems in the Ninth-Century Books. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Boyce, M. (1975). A History of Zoroastrianism: The Early Period. Leiden: Brill.

Choksy, J. K. (1989). Purity and Pollution in Zoroastrianism. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Corbin, H. (1977). Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth: From Mazdean Iran to Shī‘ite Iran (N. Pearson, Trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gnoli, G. “Daēnā.” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

A principal encyclopedia entry for Daena’s meanings of religion, vision, conscience, and the spiritual form personified after death.

Hultgård, A. (2000). “Persian Apocalypticism.” In J. J. Collins (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism: Vol. 1. The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity (pp. 39–83). New York: Continuum.

Panaino, A. (2013). “The Conceptual Image of the Afterlife in Ancient Iran.” In M. Stausberg & Y. S.-D. Vevaina (Eds.), studies on Zoroastrian eschatology and ritual.

Russell, J. R. (1987). Zoroastrianism in Armenia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Şaki, M. “Dēn.” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

In Zoroastrian teachings about death, the soul’s judgment at the Chinvat Bridge and its encounter with Daena provide a major historical background for the text’s symbols of the “beautiful maiden,” “conscience,” “shining face,” and “one Life (body).”

VI. Mitra, covenant, and judgment

Gershevitch, I. (1959). The Avestan Hymn to Mithra. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hinnells, J. R. (1975). Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies (2 vols.). Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Lincoln, B. (1981). Priests, Warriors, and Cattle: A Study in the Ecology of Religions. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Malandra, W. W. (1983). An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Schmidt, H.-P. “Mithra.” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

Ulansey, D. (1989). The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World. New York: Oxford University Press.

The text’s Mitra–Michael pairing is an esoteric analogy based on their roles in overseeing covenants, cosmic order, light, and judgment, rather than a claim of historical identity.

VII. Saoshyant, resurrection, and cosmic renewal

Boyce, M. “Astvat̰.ərəta.” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

Boyce, M. “Frashō.kərəti.” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

Cohn, N. (1993). Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Hultgård, A. (1998). “Persian Apocalypticism.” In J. J. Collins (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism. New York: Continuum.

Shaked, S. (1971). “The Notions Mēnōg and Gētīg in the Pahlavi Texts and Their Relation to Eschatology.” Acta Orientalia, 33, 59–107.

The text joins the Zoroastrian teaching of frašō.kərəti, the final renewal of existence, with Islamic symbols of resurrection, the Mahdi, and the Messiah. Comparisons should acknowledge both similarities in saving roles and historical and theological differences.

VIII. Zurvan, infinite time, and cosmology

de Jong, A. “Zurvanism.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. Zurvanism.

de Jong, A. “Zurvan.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. Zurvan.

Rezania, K. (2010). Die zoroastrische Zeitvorstellung: Eine Untersuchung über Zeit- und Ewigkeitskonzepte und die Frage des Zurvanismus. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Zaehner, R. C. (1955). Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

The text’s interpretation of “Zurvan as the veil of time and space before Allah’s essence” is not a direct restatement of classical Zurvan teaching. Historical Zurvan is an Iranian principle associated with infinite time; the poem reinterprets it through the Sufi idea that the divine essence cannot be grasped.

IX. Spenta Armaiti, the earth, and the sacred feminine

Boyce, M. (1975). A History of Zoroastrianism: Vol. 1. Leiden: Brill.

Hintze, A. (2014). “Monotheism the Zoroastrian Way.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 24(2), 225–249.

Malandra, W. W. (1983). An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Nigosian, S. A. (1993). The Zoroastrian Faith: Tradition and Modern Research. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Skjærvø, P. O. (2005). “The Avestan Yasna: Ritual and Myth.” In studies of Iranian religion and ritual.

The historical range of meanings associated with Spenta Armaiti includes sacred devotion, right thinking, humility, the earth, and the divine qualities of Ahura Mazda. The pairing “Spenta Armaiti = Sekine (Shekinah)” is the text’s comparative interpretation.

X. Islam, the Qur’an, and Sufi concepts

Primary Islamic sources

The Qur’an. Especially:

• Al-Baqara 2:30–34: Adam, the names, and the angels’ bow

• Al-Baqara 2:115: the face of Allah and orientation

• Al-Baqara 2:255: the Throne and divine sovereignty

• Al-A‘raf 7:11–18: Iblis’s refusal to bow

• Al-Hijr 15:28–43: Adam’s creation and the divine spirit

• Al-Isra 17:70: the honoring of the human being

• Ta-Ha 20:14: salat for the purpose of remembrance

• Al-Nur 24:35: the Verse of Light

• Al-Rum 30:30: Hanif orientation and the religion of innate nature

• Al-Ahzab 33:72: the trust

• Sad 38:71–85: Adam, spirit, and Iblis

• Al-Fath 48:4, 18, 26: the descent of Sekine (Shekinah)

• Al-Qiyama 75:22–25: shining and darkened faces

• Al-Shams 91:7–10: purification of the lower self

• Al-Fajr 89:27–30: the tranquil self

• Al-Ikhlas 112:1–4: divine unity and transcendence

Academic studies of Sufism

Chittick, W. C. (1989). The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Chittick, W. C. (1998). The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Cosmology. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Corbin, H. (1971–1973). En Islam iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques (4 vols.). Paris: Gallimard.

Corbin, H. (1993). History of Islamic Philosophy (L. Sherrard & P. Sherrard, Trans.). London: Kegan Paul International.

Ernst, C. W. (1997). The Shambhala Guide to Sufism. Boston: Shambhala.

Izutsu, T. (1983). Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Knysh, A. (2017). Sufism: A New History of Islamic Mysticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Nasr, S. H. (1993). An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Schimmel, A. (1975). Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Schimmel, A. (1994). Deciphering the Signs of God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Uludağ, S. (1991). Tasavvuf Terimleri Sözlüğü. İstanbul: Marifet Yayınları.

These sources may be used for the text’s symbols of essence, heart, fuad, Sekine (Shekinah), light, innate nature, Hanif orientation, Khidr, Adam, Iblis, Sirat, and the body as Kaaba.

XI. Shi‘ism, the Mahdi, and spiritual authority

Amir-Moezzi, M. A. (1994). The Divine Guide in Early Shi‘ism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam (D. Streight, Trans.). Albany: State University of New York Press.

Arjomand, S. A. (1984). The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shi‘ite Iran. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Corbin, H. (1971–1973). En Islam iranien. Paris: Gallimard.

Halm, H. (2004). Shi‘ism (2nd ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Momen, M. (1985). An Introduction to Shi‘i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi‘ism. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Sachedina, A. A. (1981). Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi in Twelver Shi‘ism. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Tabataba’i, S. M. H. (1975). Shi‘ite Islam (S. H. Nasr, Trans.). Albany: State University of New York Press.

These sources may help explain the historical and intellectual background of the Twelve Imams, occultation, the Mahdi, the light of spiritual authority, and the Haqq (Lord)–Muhammad–Ali formulation in the text.

XII. Alevism and Bektashism

Birge, J. K. (1937). The Bektashi Order of Dervishes. London: Luzac.

Dressler, M. (2013). Writing Religion: The Making of Turkish Alevi Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mélikoff, I. (1998). Hacı Bektaş: Efsaneden Gerçeğe (T. Alptekin, Trans.). İstanbul: Cumhuriyet Kitapları.

Ocak, A. Y. (1996). Türk Sufîliğine Bakışlar. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları.

Ocak, A. Y. (1999). Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Marjinal Sûfîlik: Kalenderîler. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu.

Yaman, A. (Ed.). (2004). Alevilik ve Kızılbaşlık Tarihi. İstanbul: Nokta Kitap.

The text’s “Revered Shah,” “dot beneath ba,” “Haqq (Lord)–Muhammad–Ali,” and account of the human being centered on spiritual authority can be studied in relation to this literature.

XIII. Judaism, Kabbalah, and the Shekhinah

Dan, J. (2006). Kabbalah: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Idel, M. (1988). Kabbalah: New Perspectives. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Matt, D. C. (Trans.). (2004–2017). The Zohar: Pritzker Edition (12 vols.). Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Scholem, G. (1946). Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York: Schocken Books.

Scholem, G. (1965). On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism. New York: Schocken Books.

Tanakh/The Hebrew Bible. Especially:

• Genesis 1–3: creation, Adam, and the Fall

• Genesis 6–9: Noah and the flood

• Exodus 3: the divine name and manifestation

• Exodus 24: the covenant

• Exodus 34: the shining of Moses’ face

• Ezekiel 1: the divine throne and cosmic vision

• Daniel 7 and 12: judgment and resurrection

In examining linguistic and conceptual affinities between the Shekhinah and Sekine (Shekinah), their distinct developments within their respective religious traditions should be preserved.

XIV. Christianity, Logos, and the Messiah

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. (2021). Washington, DC: National Council of Churches.

Especially:

• Matthew 17:1–8: the Transfiguration of Jesus

• Matthew 25:31–46: the final judgment

• Luke 17:20–21: the nearness of God’s kingdom

• John 1:1–18: Logos and light

• John 8:12: the light of the world

• John 10:30–38: the relationship between Father and Son

• John 17:20–23: unity

• Romans 8:18–23: creation’s expectation of salvation

• 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19: the body as a temple

• Revelation 21–22: a new heaven, a new earth, and cosmic renewal

Lossky, V. (1957). The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. London: James Clarke.

McGinn, B. (1991–2020). The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (multi-volume series). New York: Crossroad.

Pelikan, J. (1971–1989). The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (5 vols.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ware, K. (1995). The Orthodox Way. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

The text’s themes of Jesus the Messiah, the Father, light, resurrection, and the salvation of all creation can be considered in light of these works.

XV. Hinduism and Vedanta

Easwaran, E. (Trans.). (2007). The Bhagavad Gita (2nd ed.). Tomales, CA: Nilgiri Press.

Olivelle, P. (Trans.). (1996). Upaniṣads. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Radhakrishnan, S. (Trans.). (1953). The Principal Upaniṣads. London: George Allen & Unwin.

Radhakrishnan, S. (Trans.). (1948). The Bhagavadgītā. London: George Allen & Unwin.

Zaehner, R. C. (1969). The Bhagavad-Gītā, with a Commentary Based on the Original Sources. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

When examining the relationship between the human essence and a transcendent source, the Atman–Brahman teaching may be compared with the text’s call to “summon your essence.” The meanings of “identity,” “participation,” and “manifestation,” however, differ across traditions.

XVI. Buddhism and saving consciousness

Conze, E. (Trans.). (1973). The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines and Its Verse Summary. Bolinas, CA: Four Seasons Foundation.

Gethin, R. (1998). The Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Harvey, P. (2013). An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Śāntideva. (1997). A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life (V. A. Wallace & B. A. Wallace, Trans.). Ithaca: Snow Lion.

Williams, P. (2009). Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

The text’s principle “If you wish to be saved, seek to save others” can be compared, in terms of its role, with the bodhisattva ideal in Mahayana Buddhism.

XVII. Comparative religion, symbolism, and esotericism

Assmann, J. (2001). The Search for God in Ancient Egypt (D. Lorton, Trans.). Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Burkert, W. (1987). Ancient Mystery Cults. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Eliade, M. (1958). Patterns in Comparative Religion. New York: Sheed & Ward.

Eliade, M. (1959). The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt.

Eliade, M. (1964). Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Eliade, M. (1978–1985). A History of Religious Ideas (3 vols.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Faivre, A. (1994). Access to Western Esotericism. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Hanegraaff, W. J. (2012). Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jung, C. G. (1953–1979). The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (20 vols.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Jung, C. G. (1968). Psychology and Alchemy (2nd ed.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Smith, J. Z. (1982). Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Smith, J. Z. (1990). Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

These studies are useful for comparing the text’s symbols of Sun and Moon, light and darkness, bridge, sacred house, death and rebirth, and heavenly mate. The presence of similar symbols should not, however, be taken in itself as proof of direct historical transmission or theological identity.

XVIII. Sources for etymology and linguistics

Bartholomae, C. (1904). Altiranisches Wörterbuch. Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner.

Cheung, J. (2007). Etymological Dictionary of the Iranian Verb. Leiden: Brill.

Durkin-Meisterernst, D. (2004). Dictionary of Manichaean Middle Persian and Parthian. Turnhout: Brepols.

MacKenzie, D. N. (1971). A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press.

Mayrhofer, M. (1986–2001). Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen (3 vols.). Heidelberg: Carl Winter.

Nyberg, H. S. (1974). A Manual of Pahlavi (2 vols.). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Skjærvø, P. O. (2006). Introduction to Avestan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

These dictionaries are particularly relevant to academic analysis of Ahura Mazdā, daēnā, fravaši, aṣ̌a, mainyu, Spəṇta Ārmaiti, saoš́iiaṇt, Miθra, and Zurvān. In assessing a proposed Daena–dîn connection, similarity of sound alone should not be treated as etymological proof.

XIX. Online academic reference sources

• Encyclopaedia Iranica – Ahura Mazdā

• Encyclopaedia Iranica – Zoroastrianism: Historical Review

• Encyclopaedia Iranica – Gathas: Translations

• Encyclopaedia Iranica – Zurvanism

• Encyclopaedia Iranica – Zurvan

• Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology – Zoroastrianism Bibliography

Principal sources matched to concepts in the text

Concept in the text

Principal academic sources

Ahura Mazda

Boyce; Insler; Humbach; Herrenschmidt–Kellens

Ahriman/Angra Mainyu

Zaehner; Shaked; Boyce; Duchesne-Guillemin

Daena

Bailey; Boyce; Gnoli; Corbin

Fravarti/Fravashi

Boyce; Malandra; Bartholomae

Mitra

Gershevitch; Malandra; Hinnells

Chinvat Bridge

Avesta; West; Boyce; Choksy

Saoshyant

Boyce; Hultgård; Cohn; Shaked

Spenta Armaiti

Avesta; Malandra; Hintze; Boyce

Zurvan

Zaehner; Rezania; de Jong

Adam, Iblis, and the bow

Qur’an 2:30–34; 7:11–18; 15:28–43; 38:71–85

Sekine (Shekinah)

Qur’an 48:4, 18, 26; Schimmel; Chittick

The Mahdi and Twelve Imams

Sachedina; Amir-Moezzi; Momen

Haqq (Lord)–Muhammad–Ali

Birge; Mélikoff; Corbin; Dressler

The Messiah and cosmic resurrection

John; Romans 8; Revelation 21–22; Lossky

The bodhisattva and shared salvation

Śāntideva; Williams; Harvey

Essence and divine source

Chittick; Izutsu; Olivelle; Schimmel

Sun–Moon symbolism

Eliade; Jung; Corbin

The body as temple or Kaaba

Qur’an; 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19; Chittick

The flood and the vessel of the heart

Genesis 6–9; Qur’an 11:25–49; Eliade

Light and the shining face

Qur’an 24:35; 75:22–25; Exodus 34; Matthew 17