The Cave Sleepers (Chp 18); an interpretation using 'Systems theory'

The Meaning Of The Number 7

Seven, one of the numbers postulated in verse 22 or Surah 18, is abundantly explained in the Quran, we find here seven heavens and earth, seven ears of grain, seven gates, seven years, seven cows, etc.. 

If we take the example of the heavens and earth being seven, we find that seven is used in rather ‘interesting’ ways in the Quran, ‘seven slim cows eating seven fat ones’ or in Joseph’s interpretation of the king’s dream (12:46-49, or the ear that sprouts into seven ears, each of which bearing a hundred grains (2:261), or, the verse that narrates how God created seven heavens (67:3), and following that his work has no privations or incoherences, and consummating with the rhetorical question ‘do you see any ‘inconsistency’?. Clearly, this has to do with the stated fact that there are seven heavens. So what does seven mean?. The easiest way to understand it is by reference to the system of number. Now, does not the idea of number 4 for instance imply 1,2,3,6,7,8, i.e the whole system of number? Inasmuch as any other particular imply all the others?, and that given the number, we know what comes before and after. We know that any selection from out the series returns the same result, i.e, the numbers are so interconnected that any one of them means anything when all the others are involved. 

We repeat this exercise with the rest of them to find a uniquely commutative relation subsists between them, as if, it doesn’t matter where we start, the order is always distributive insofar as one and the same system of number, in this case, is invoked. Seven, as used in the Quran is far from the esoteric thing that it’s thought to be, it’s everywhere, as a matter of fact it’s a state of consciousness and rule of the mind, without which not a single thought is possible. We recognize it, particularly in systems and constructs that involve different modules working together, or when writing laws, or in architecture, how we strive to make it so that every part depends on the next and the whole. 

Strange as this next example might come across, the notion of collective defense as codified in the fifth article of the North Atlantic treaty organization, aka NATO, ‘An attack on one is considered an attack on all’, is a direct invocation of the number seven. Or, how Monday, for instance, automatically implies that tomorrow is Tuesday, or that yesterday was Sunday. In the Quran, we see a more structured use; how a grain produces seven ears, each of which contains a hundred grains; here we begin to wonder if the original grain was really original or was one of the hundred produced by the ear, or of one of the hundred of the hundred etc.. The impression which hereby forms is that of infinity. Thus when it’s said that there are seven heavens and earth(s), we understand by it not so much seven single, countable planes or fields, but rather, a compact system, where each component, has a unique function, and shades off or disappears into another, by accessing one, the rest fall behind it, in such a way that each position is a superposition of sorts, where any state is somehow all possible states, from any component can be mapped a one to many and many to one relation. 

Joseph’s interpretation of the king’s dream (above) portrayed seven years of culture succeeded by seven years of austerity, and so on in a cyclic rhythm, meaning that the economy of Egypt will be thrown into what’s called an economic cycle, a period that typically involves phases of expansion (prosperity), peak, contraction (austerity), and trough, a cycle that, historically speaking, is quite common, but we must take note that the cycle will span every aspect of the society that forms its economy, not just its food production which we may say is the Arsh of the society over which joseph and his parents were later to assume command (12:100), thus joseph solves a perennial problem by understanding the symbolic import of the number 7, and devises a strategy that draws directly upon it. 

This bundle of examples gives us a better sense of what the postulate of seven being the number of cave dwellers means. In the example of collective defense, we can say that NATO is 7, thereby describing a mereological aspect of the organization, namely, how one member is somehow all members, or is a synthesis of all the others. If we instead assign to it the number 1 we point to the context, which in this case is ‘defense’, we don’t cancel out seven, but it remains as one of the perspectives of the entity ‘Nato’. It can be said here that number, this type of number, symbolizes the different perspectives of one process or entity. 

Archetype vs Leitmotif

Much like how the Mosaic motif can be found embodied by persons who are not the historical Moses, we see it, for example, in Abraham’s desertion of his hometown and their ways, knocking down their idols, the young men of the cave. God, for didactic purposes, introduces a personality in whom this motif is personified in its purest form- Moses, and it just so happens that this personality is a Nabi. 

As applies to personalities and their vicissitudes, i.e. archetypes, so does it apply to leitmotifs. Leitmotifs, such as ‘the cave’, or ‘the cow’,  transcend archetypes like those of the Mosaic or Abrahamic. They are the contexts in which those archetypes unfold, in fact, if a chapter (or concinnity) is found to be named after a prophet, like Noah, Hud, Muhammad, or Abraham, it means that said personalities are not just personalities, but also themes, extrapersonal phenomena, i.e they span a wider area than archetypes, and can thus be applied to events. Thus Noah, being the name of a whole chapter points to the whole spectrum of events as unfolds in the chapter, which we see, for instance, in films and stories depicting disasters, extinction events, and so on, the whole sequence of alerting against an impending disaster, then taking survival measures, show Noah, but not Noah the archetypal personality, the alarmist and prophet, but Noah the apocalyptic times in which he lived. Here more than the character is defined, but the leitmotif, the times. The subject, the protagonist Noah is the person who anticipates and alerts humanity against an imminent crisis. 

A leitmotif thus is something thematic, something that contextualizes, it’s what we mean when we say such, and such is the personification of something. They’re often represented by eponyms, a scenario or event is attached to and becomes inextricably associated with a person. How for instance, a particular environment, say the American West calls to mind the image of a cowboy, or how a typical situation calls to mind a certain figure. For example, Machiavellian, Chauvinist, Darwinian, Newtonian; this way of phenomanalizing or reducing persons into situations is very frequently used in literature and is precisely why we find chapters named after prophets, such that the chapter titled ‘Abraham’ is something like Abrahamism or Abrahamic (14). Approached this way, our mind will begin to use the concept, in this case, leitmotif ‘Abraham’, architectonically as a regulative idea, arranging the component of the chapter in a way that accords with our understanding of Abraham’s story.

You’ll find that the same rule applies to others like ‘Muhammad’, ‘And Joseph’; these names call to our attention story arcs, and these arcs are embodied in personalities that bear their name and vice versa. Thus Abraham embodies the whole theme of discovery, enlightenment access to hitherto obscure knowledge, and the ‘advocative’ and ‘proselytizing (Noah) attitude that spawns from it, the resistance which the new, unconventional, views face; the severe countermeasures, of censorship and/or ridicule that often follows; is this not a familiar pattern?. In short, the Abrahamic leitmotif depicts the dual sides of enlightenment, the ecstatic (Eureka) as well as the suppressive and censorial reaction that often accompanies nonconformist and dissentient ideas, like heat accompanies fire. We’re to take the whole extent of Abraham’s story as our parameter. Spinoza, Galileo, Giordano Bruno, are personalities who’ve all experienced this, the latter of them meeting what would have been Abraham’s fate had God not intervened. 

Note here that the difference between these various personalities and Abraham, is that in Abraham, the leitmotif appears in its purest and most exemplary and successful form, i.e it is justified, as though the leitmotif itself precedes the archetype who here is the historical Abraham. The priority of the leitmotif over the archetype is confirmed in the Quran by the term ‘اصطفى’ which translates to ‘selection’ or ‘handpicking’; it’s often been asked, what exactly it means for God to have picked Adam, Noah, Abraham’s kin, and Alumran’s kin over everyone else, particularly as applied to Adam?

How could he have picked him if he was the first human, which led some to assert that Adam wasn’t the first man, and that he was handpicked from a pool of prehistoric humans, but the answer is that when God created man, he created all men and women at the same time before he inserted him into the world, meaning that the creation of Adam is an event different from the introduction of Adam in which is described in details the physical process of molding and kneading him from clay, and teaching him. His creation predates this, and it’s the same moment that every man was created, what’s meant by selection here, is that Adam was favored for this role of ‘first man’ over all human beings that God had formally created.  This proves that Leitmotifs are founded before archetypes and that the function of archetypes is to consummate the leitmotif, to justify it, and for the character to give reality to the leitmotif. Perhaps, a leitmotif is dedicated to each and every person in existence and success in this life is evaluated on the basis of how close the person in question approximates it.

Notice how the Abrahamic leitmotif, simultaneously includes Noah’s in having a minority view undermined by a hostile majority, Abraham’s desertion or exodus (19:48) is mosaic, but also Noahic, in that he survived the fate which he was condemned to suffer by his people (21:68-70), inasmuch as the Mosaic is Noahic or the Noahic Mosaic, also, we find that the rebellious moments, i.e. the contentious stirs, that punctuate the Abrahamic theme, as shown in the act of knocking down the statues, is Muhammadan, in the latter the revolutionary and militant social reform, the sort of, knocking down so as to build anew (37:93), is implicit in Abraham, but it’s fully expounded in Muhammad’s. Thus every leitmotif is composed of all the others, such that, we can recognize and separate any one of them, and by rearranging the whole series so as to express our choice of selection.

As we said about the concept seven, each number, in this case, leitmotif is a superposition of all the others, a synthesis, physics likes to call this phenomenon ‘singularity’, The mechanics of this principle are explained by Bergson, in the following passage 

“Every number is a collection of units, as we have said, and on the other hand, every number is itself a unity,  insofar as it is a synthesis of the units which composes it. But is the word unit taken in the same sense in both cases?. When we assert that number as a unity, we understand by this that we master the whole of it by a simple and indivisible intuition of the mind; this unity thus includes a multiplicity, since it is the unity of a whole. But when we speak of the units which go to form number, we no longer think of these units as sums, but as pure, simple irreducible units, intended to yield the natural series of numbers by an indefinitely continued process of accumulation. It seems, then, that there are two kinds of units, the one ultimate, out of which a number is formed by a process of addition, and the other provisional, the number so formed, which is multiple in itself, and owes its unity to the simplicity of the act by which the mind perceives it”

H. Bergson 'Time & Free Will, p80

The Cave (parallel universes)

The Cave is a central component of the Quran, particularly because it thematically permeates the whole book. Interestingly enough, it’s modern physics’ foremost occupation, blackholes, we shall find are the analog of the Quranic ‘cave’, being that cave is a place in which a certain spatiotemporal phenomenon take place that’s eerily similar the how these structures of physics are said to operate.  Is this analogy valid? If not then why this similarity?

The Quran is an unconventional text, by all measures, it’s almost entirely an exploration, rather, exposition of structures that reside in what Jung calls the collective unconscious, in fact, this is what makes it pertinent and, if you will eternal. Blackholes or wormholes are to be treated as a priori structures, they’re not the product of modern man’s genius, rather, they’re articulations in the language of our civilization of deep, largely unconscious structures. It’s less the fact that there are such objects in space, than the fact that certain deep and collectively shared structures within incline us to look for their equivalents without.

A scientist can no more detach themselves from the phenomenon, than the phenomena from one another. While one might attempt to portray their relationship with the phenomenon as impersonal, there comes a point where the scientist must justify their intellectual affinity with the phenomenon and its intricacies, and ask ‘Why do (or should) I find it comprehensible’? And why does this fact which I often take for granted, excite me, and why, uncharted and labyrinthian the territory in which I find myself intellectually, I feel as though I’m getting somewhere? To answer this by saying that I find it fascinating and that’s all would be circular. Thus determining what is intellectually most crucial and urgent, what occupies the forefront of our scientific agenda, demands a principle that goes beyond the scientific phenomenon that we’re studying—a principle rooted neither in the phenomenon, nor the subject, but on something that unites them both. Hence the importance of leitmotifs. 

As said the cave permeates the Quran, there’s not a single story in the Quran that lacks ‘the cave’ as one of its essential ingredients. This chapter contains a variety of stories, all of which are unified by a single theme, if we place these stories side by side and look for their common denominator, what immediately glares at us is something which we find described in its purest form in modern physics. Wormholes, according to Einstein's theory of gravity, are hypothetical structures that could connect two separate points in spacetime, between one spatial point and another which a wormhole connects lies an interval of time that’s almost instantaneous, yet the actual spatial distance couldn’t be covered in a lifetime. In the story of the cave, we meet a similar situation, in every one of the four so stories dominate the image of two parallel timelines or universes, and the transition from one to the other, rather, of time jumps occurring between them. 

The story of the sleepers of the cave for instance, depicts the temporal conundrum that manifests upon entering the cave, we’re told that the young men abnegated their people and their ways, taking refuge in the cave wherein they, apparently take to sleep for a duration which the Quran tells us spanned hundreds of years. 

What’s conveniently given here are the structural elements of the story, there are two distinct timelines and a transition therebetween; their old ways which they’re deserting, their objective, that towards which they’re headed, and the transition which the mechanism housed in the cave is to make possible. If we compare this particular story to the rest of the stories narrated under this chapter, like that of Moses and his mentor, we find that this one illuminates a lot of the nuances that elude us in the others (vice versa), for instance, Moses’ segment, the man of knowledge, who mentors Moses, and who appears at verse 65, 

The man, among other acts, vandalizes a commercial vessel or ship, an act which we later find out is heroic, saving the workers from an extortionist king. 

The mentor here perceives an outcome which, should he not intervene, will be realized, thus preempting a response which diverts the fate of the ship’s workers from a disastrous upshot into safety. 

What’s eerie is the whole temporality of this act, which in this segment is glossed over, but whose full explanation is provided in the cave sleeper’s segment. Why should the cave sleeper’s trip have taken centuries to an outside observer, but to themselves a day or part of a day.  

This can be answered in several ways, firstly psychological time runs differently from objective, measured time, we ourselves regularly experience that when suddenly awoken by the sound of the alarm and thinking less time had passed than actually did, or those who’ve awoken from a coma to find that days or even months had passed, yet in their mind no such interval elapsed. However, this explains time from the subjective, or as Bergson put it, ‘lived’ point of view, whereas the cave sleeper’s narrative seems to objectify this phenomenon, to make it no longer just a subjective assessment, but describes an overlapping of both.

Another aspect pertains to the nature of phenomena in general, and what we said earlier about ‘archetypes’ and leitmotifs’, that for instance, there are situations or occurrences which we may call ‘machiavellian’, or physical mechanics which we may describe as ‘Newtonian’, both of which have a source, namely an individual in whom those ideal structures are best embodied and exemplified, i.e newton and Machiavelli, we may talk about warmth and heat, but there lies out there a substance to which those qualities are native, i.e fire. We can opportunely extrapolate from this pattern that every phenomenon has a paragon, which we interpret as its emanant source. 

The Quran uses inflections to represent this activity, e.g, there’s a state called ‘Reda’ meaning satisfaction or repose, incidentally, the same word for ‘earth’ ‘Ard’ (ارض); here the eponymic function is realized in the tension between the emotion or scenario ‘satisfaction’, and the substance after which this immaterial state is named. Now if we are to interpret this enigmatic, spatio-temporal phenomenon that many people experience, and which we find demonstrated by Moses’ mentor, we can say that the cave in which the sleepers sought refuge, is to this temporal phenomenon what fire is to heat. The cave is an actual wormhole......