The Deontology of Archetypes

This is the second piece in a two-part series. Part 1 laid out the underlying method — how judgement works as a simultaneous act of generalising and specifying, drawn out through two legal cases, a puzzle about birds, and a thought experiment about blood and metal. Here, we put that method to work on the Quran itself.

From Judgement to Archetype

How does any of this — law, mathematics, ornithology, metallurgy — correlate to the analysis of archetypes?

Simply this: an archetypal situation, though a single, unique event, is elementally pregnant with all of those situations for which other prophets are uniquely known. Take Joseph's imprisonment. The Quran wants us to think relativistically about it — to see that moment not as an isolated incident, but as only a single shade of a color wheel, equivalent to every other situation in the Quran involving a prophet's desertion of his people, a corrupt system, an institution, an injustice, an atrocity.

Joseph prays:

قَالَ رَبِّ ٱلسِّجْنُ أَحَبُّ إِلَىَّ مِمَّا يَدْعُونَنِىٓ إِلَيْهِ ۖ وَإِلَّا تَصْرِفْ عَنِّى كَيْدَهُنَّ أَصْبُ إِلَيْهِنَّ وَأَكُن مِّنَ ٱلْجَـٰهِلِينَ

"My Lord! I would rather be in jail than do what they invite me to. And if You do not turn their cunning away from me, I might yield to them and fall into ignorance." (12:33)

This is identical to — concordant with — a cluster of other prophetic statements scattered across the Quran. Lot says:

وَأَعْتَزِلُكُمْ وَمَا تَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ وَأَدْعُوا۟ رَبِّى عَسَىٰٓ أَلَّآ أَكُونَ بِدُعَآءِ رَبِّى شَقِيًّۭا

"As I distance myself from all of you and from whatever you invoke besides Allah, I will continue to call upon my Lord alone, trusting that I will never be disappointed in invoking my Lord." (19:48)

Moses pledges:

قَالَ رَبِّ بِمَآ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَىَّ فَلَنْ أَكُونَ ظَهِيرًۭا لِّلْمُجْرِمِينَ "

My Lord! For all Your favours upon me, I will never side with the wicked." (28:17)

The Queen of Sheba submits:

قَالَتْ رَبِّ إِنِّى ظَلَمْتُ نَفْسِى وَأَسْلَمْتُ مَعَ سُلَيْمَـٰنَ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ "

My Lord! I have certainly wronged my soul. Now I fully submit myself along with Solomon to Allah, the Lord of all worlds." (27:44)

And the magicians, forced into sorcery by Pharaoh, declare:

إِنَّآ ءَامَنَّا بِرَبِّنَا لِيَغْفِرَ لَنَا خَطَـٰيَـٰنَا وَمَآ أَكْرَهْتَنَا عَلَيْهِ مِنَ ٱلسِّحْرِ ۗ وَٱللَّهُ خَيْرٌۭ وَأَبْقَىٰٓ

"Indeed, we have believed in our Lord so He may forgive our sins and that magic you have forced us to practice. And Allah is far superior in reward, and more lasting in punishment." (20:73)

These aren't separate instances that just so happen to be thematically equivalent. Or rather — we need to define what "theme" actually means. A theme is what binds an experience together: the device that takes a tangle of complex, intertwined details, each serving its own specific end, and gives that multiplicity a single, unified expression. The details would seem unrelated — and in a sense, fundamentally are — yet the injection of "theme" singularizes them, draws them into one voice.

This is exactly what's happening across these five verses. But with a twist: the theme here is distinct enough that it earned its own name among the Quran's deontic concepts. Awab.

What are 'deontic concepts'?

In general, those are concepts that imply, denote, connote or suggest 'human nature', or rather, concepts that evoke in us a 'moral reaction', e.g 'paramoralism', 'connivance' etc.., or 'Benevolence', 'Courteousness', or 'Altruism', or anything that might cause you to stop and reflect as you read Marcus Aurelius Meditations, or, better yet, Kant's second and third critiques, written specifically to systematize them.

"Practical principles are propositions that contain a general determination of the will, having under it several practical rules. They are subjective, or maxims, if the condition [under which they apply] is regarded by the subject as valid only for his will; but they are objective, or practical laws, if the condition is cognized as objective, i.e., as valid for the will of every rational being. (Kant 'Critique Of Practical Reason, Chp 1, §1)

In the Quran however, we get a distilled list of them, here;

The Praised Categories

Al-Muslimeen (ٱلْمُسْلِمِين), 2. Al-Mu'mineen (ٱلْمُؤْمِنِين), 3. Al-Muhsineen (ٱلْمُحْسِنِينَ), 4. Al-Muttaqeen (ٱلْمُتَّقِين), 5. As-Saliheen (ٱلصَّـٰلِحِين), 6. As-Sabireen (ٱلصَّـٰبِرِين), 7. As-Sadiqeen (ٱلصَّـٰدِقِين), 8. Al-Khashi'een (ٱلْخَـٰشِعِين)

The Condemned Categories

Al-Kafireen (ٱلْكَـٰفِرِين), 2. Al-Munafiqeen (ٱلْمُنَـٰفِقِين), 3. Al-Mushrikeen (ٱلْمُشْرِكِين), 4. Az-Zalimeen (ٱلظَّـٰلِمِين), 5. Al-Fasiqeen (ٱلْفَـٰسِقِين), 6. Al-Mujrimeen (ٱلْمُجْرِمِين)

Approach these as a 'formal system' in which the rule of modus ponens applies; any one of them implies the rest. e.g You cannot be 'Muslim'. مُسْلِم without being 'Mu'men' مُؤْمِن, and also, you cannot prove your 'Mu'men' status without exercising 'Sabre' صَـٰبِر, which is 'patience', loosely, but in in the Quranic sense of 'resolve' or 'resilience' in the path of God. The same logic applies to the second category.

What about Awab, the aforementioned 'deontic concept'?

I'd rather show you than tell you.

Respice post te. Hominem te esse memento. Memento mori!

"Look behind you! Remember that you are but a man! Remember that you will die!"

"You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.

The Man & The Throne

The exemplar the Quran builds this concept around is Solomon — the figure God explicitly addresses with this term. To see why, picture the scenario.

A man has every prospect of becoming heir to a throne. Not a minor seat, either — this is dominion over a civilization, in the broadest sense. No one else is remotely qualified. Every other candidate is unequipped, inexperienced, objectively unfit for the role — and everyone knows it. If the elders chose anyone but him, the outrage would be entirely justified.

And yet the elders — the council, the senate, whatever body holds that authority — decide not to choose him.

What would you expect this man's reaction to be? Puzzlement, certainly. Indignation, perhaps. This wasn't some possibility floated to him yesterday — he'd been groomed his whole life to be the unequivocal heir. And we all know the saying: absolute power corrupts absolutely. What wouldn't a man in this position be tempted to do? History is full of answers. Alexander turns on his own brother. Brutus turns on his mentor.

This is a position so difficult that it would test even the most rational of people — it does something to a person, almost inevitably. But our man accepts the elders' verdict. Perhaps he recalls how the elders of Israel once objected to the idea of an ordinary man being made king over them, and thinks to himself: perhaps this other person they're appointing is a Talut — perhaps God has His reasons I can't yet see. Resignedly, he accepts.

At that exact moment, God inscribes a single sentence over him: thumma anāb ثُمَّ أَنَابَ — "then he turned back, resigned." (38:34)

And then — shortly after — the man discovers that the "other person" the elders had chosen all along was himself, the language made it seem otherwise; a test by God.

Consider how vast the gulf is between the verb and the agent noun — between someone else will be chosen and I am the one chosen — and yet how immediate, how adjacent, the two turn out to be. And so God grants this resigned man a dominion the likes of which no other man would ever obtain — precisely because no other man was ever meant to, that is, no other man to whom the deontic quality —expressed by the verb- 'أَنَابَ' (and the Agent Noun-form of which is 'Awab') —does not apply. What I mean is, the position (throne), God tells us, is meant for 'The Awab', i.e the 'platonic' form-subject that embodies the quality.

Speaking of 'Agent nouns', those are the precise grammatical class that correspond to 'archetypes', or that describe or define the 'archetypal' status of some 'concept' - which we then call 'deontic'. Soleman here embodies 'Awab', and in doing so archetypally (and quintessentially) embodies it.

'Awab' becomes an 'abstraction' that could describe situations wherein a person behaves like soleman, whatever the context may be. Performing this 'deontic action', elevates the action to the aforesaid 'platonic' status, meriting the definite article 'The Awab' (the class-term -> 'الأوَّابِينَ' ), and by extension, God's allotment for this type:

رَّبُّكُمْ أَعْلَمُ بِمَا فِي نُفُوسِكُمْ ۚ إِن تَكُونُوا صَالِحِينَ فَإِنَّهُ كَانَ لِلْأَوَّابِينَ غَفُورً (17:25)

Your Lord knows best what is within yourselves. If you are righteous, He is certainly All-Forgiving to those who ˹constantly˺ turn to Him.

إِذْ عُرِضَ عَلَيْهِ بِٱلْعَشِىِّ ٱلصَّـٰفِنَـٰتُ ٱلْجِيَادُ (31) فَقَالَ إِنِّىٓ أَحْبَبْتُ حُبَّ ٱلْخَيْرِ عَن ذِكْرِ رَبِّى حَتَّىٰ تَوَارَتْ بِٱلْحِجَابِ (32) رُدُّوهَا عَلَىَّ ۖ فَطَفِقَ مَسْحًۢا بِٱلسُّوقِ وَٱلْأَعْنَاقِ (33)

"Remember when the well-trained, swift horses were paraded before him in the evening. (31) He then proclaimed, 'I am truly in love with these fine things out of remembrance for my Lord,' until they went out of sight. (32) He ordered, 'Bring them back to me!' Then he began to rub down their legs and necks. (33)"

this latter verse shows that 'Awab' had been a 'pattern' in Solomon's general conduct, a habit, an 'ethos'.

Joseph in his cell, Abraham walking away from his people, Moses refusing to aid the wicked, the Queen of Sheba's submission, the magicians' declaration under threat of death, on the surface, entirely different men and women, in entirely different predicaments. But run through the method from Part 1, they resolve into a single recurring shape: a moment of resignation before God that could, in principle, have gone another way, and didn't.

Solomon's case is the most extreme we've looked at so far — which is exactly why it's the one God names in relation to the concept 'Awab'. In Part 3, we'll look at what it actually means for the Quran to do this: why a single, vivid, almost cinematic story can function as a formula, doing the work that an infinite list of similar cases never could.