A Critical Comparison of Cosmic Hierarchies in the

Development of Christian and Islamic Mystical

Theology
R E B E C C A M A S T E RTO N
The Islamic College, London, UK

ABSTRACT: The envisioning and use of cosmic hierarchies can be traced back to ancient
times. Such hierarchies have been fundamental to the theologies of the Egyptian, Greek,
Christian and Islamic traditions, although their actual structures have been adapted to each
tradition’s concept of God. It is by means of the cosmic hierarchy that God manifests His
presence and it is by means of it that the soul descends from God and ascends back to Him,
the nature of that journey depending upon whether the hierarchy reflects a cataphatic or an
apophatic theology. Through comparing how prominent mystical theologians and
philosophers have incorporated the cosmic hierarchy into their vision of the journey of the
soul, it is possible to discern the elements of each tradition which have been interwoven
with the next.

KEYWORDS: cosmic hierarchy; mystical theology; apophatic; cataphatic; hypostasis.

Introduction
In certain strands of early Catholic mystical theology and Islamic mystico-philosophical
thought, scholars have utilised the visionary conception of a cosmic hierarchy in order to
elucidate the relationship between God and creation. Hierarchical models of the manifestation
of the Divine can arguably be traced back to ancient Egypt (Sayce, 1902), where tripartite
hypostases consisted of the hidden and unknowable aspect of the Divine: the aspect that is
manifested in the spiritual realm and the aspect that is manifested in the material realm. These
tripartite hypostases appeared in Platonic thought, and passed through into Christian mystical
theology in various forms of the Trinity, consisting of the Father (the unknowable aspect), the
Son (pertaining to the spiritual realm, but also becoming incarnate in human form in the
material realm), and the Holy Spirit (manifested in the material realm). The interrelation of
these three hypostases in the first four centuries of Christian mystical theology became the
subject of bitter debate and political tension, some views retaining a descending hierarchical
order, where the status of the Son is a degree below that of the Father; others declaring such
descending hierarchies to be heretical and asserting that all three hypostases are equal aspects
of the one God. Islam is well known for having done away with Christology altogether,
particularly as it rejected the idea of God becoming incarnate as a human being, and the
theory that God relates to Himself in the form of a ‘Father’ and a ‘Son’. However, this is not
to say that the very conception of a cosmic hierarchy was removed; rather, it was utilised
based upon the foundation of tawhid: the absolute oneness of God and His manifestation in
the angelic and material realms.
The term ‘mystical theology’ first needs some clarification. In the early centuries of
Christianity there was no sharp division between mysticism and theology, and indeed the very
definition of mysticism has changed over the centuries up to the present day. Similarly, in
Shi‘a Islam, the teachings of the Imams of the ahl al-bayt (A) could be considered to be both
‘proto-theological’ and ‘proto-mystical’, in that they taught concepts, values and practices that
later came to be more clearly defined by theologians and groups which took a specifically
mystical approach to Islam. In the cases of both Christianity and Islam, with the appearance
of the categories of ‘theology’ and ‘mysticism’, these aspects of both religions gradually

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became alienated from one another, with reformists appearing from time to time seeking to
reintegrate them. Mystical theology in the Christian tradition, then, was a theology that
naturally, and by definition, was ‘mystical’ in that it explored and expressed the living
relationship of the soul with the Divine. Mystical theories could be either objective (as was
more common in the Greek tradition) or personal (as in the Latin tradition); likewise, one
finds in Islam mystical philosophers who theorised the journey of the soul and mystics who
expressed their own internal experiences of the encounter with the Divine presence.
In the Christian tradition, the conception of cosmic hierarchies depended upon the
conception of God Himself, in particular in relation to whether He ultimately was knowable
or unknowable. A cosmic hierarchy affirming that God was knowable was based upon a
cataphatic (positive, or affirming) theology; a hierarchy that held that God was ultimately
unknowable was based upon an apophatic (negative, or negating) theology. Those whose
hierarchies were based upon a cataphatic theology usually held that theoria (witnessing God,
an often ecstatic encounter) was the end of the soul’s journey; those whose hierarchies were
based upon an apophatic theology held that theoria was merely an intermediary stage towards
the ‘Divine darkness’, where the soul entered into a state that was ‘beyond knowing.’ (This
was because they also held that God is ‘beyond being’.)
Another issue related to the conception of cosmic hierarchies which was important in both
Christianity and Islam was that of the theory of emanation. For Greek thinkers such as Plato
and Plotinus, the cosmic hypostases were seen to emanate eternally from the One and were
themselves deemed to be eternal. This included the hypostasis of the material realm. Such an
idea was incompatible with Christian and Islamic concepts of creatio ex nihilo, as well as
with their teachings that time and space are not eternal and will end, leaving only ‘God’s
Face’. On the other hand, for thinkers such as Plotinus, such an idea of ‘creation’ was an
anathema.

From the Greek to the Christian and Islamic Traditions

In the Christian tradition, it was a certain theologian named Dionysius ‘the Areopagite’ (date
of death unknown) who developed a highly complex cosmic hierarchy, based upon those of
the Neoplatonists Plotinus (d. 270 CE) and Proclus (d. 485 CE). In the Islamic tradition, there
may also be found evidence of the use of Plotinus’ hierarchies, which were adapted to Islamic
theological principles. Plotinus’ hierarchy consisted of three hypostases: the One, Intelligence
(nous), and Soul (psyche). The One is the unknowable God, nous is the Platonic realm of
Forms or Ideas, and psyche is the material world. Like that of Plato, Plotinus’ conception of
‘the One’ could be compared with the Islamic concept. He says: ‘The name of substance,
properly so called, is not appropriate to Him, but we find no likeness to Him in any of the
things […] He does not admit of multiplicity in any way at all’ (1959: 323); 1 ‘the pure true
One is not one in respect of anything but by itself alone. Apart from the First, there is nothing
purely simple’ (333); ‘Although we mention Him and count Him together with the number of
all things, yet He is above all number and is outside all categories of number’ (345); ‘Nothing
encompasses Him; on the contrary, He encompasses all things’ (353); ‘the amount of His
description that escapes is greater than the amount it obtains of Him’ (355); ‘repose is from
Him, while He does not need repose’ (355).
Plotinus (355) differentiates clearly between the manifested signs of God and God
Himself: ‘If you wish to look at the First Originator, then beware of looking at Him through
the intermediary of things, otherwise you will have looked at His trace and not Himself’.
For Plotinus, the journey through the hypostases to the One was not in the form of an
ascension of the soul out of the realm of matter and through the celestial spheres, but rather an
ascension into the soul and through what came to be called a ‘chain of being’. Material reality
was therefore exterior, and in order to reach immaterial reality one had to turn to the interior.
He (1959: 225)2 writes:
Often have I been alone with my soul and have doffed my body and lain it aside
and become as if I were a bare substance without body, so as to be inside myself,

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 outside all other things. Then do I see within myself such beauty and splendour as I
do remain marvelling at and astonished, so that I know that I am one of the parts of
the sublime, surpassing, lofty, divine world, and possess active life [as opposed to
passive life which pertains to the material world]. When I am certain of that, I lift
my intellect up from that world into the divine world and become as if I were
placed in it and cleaving to it, so as to be above the entire intelligible world, and
seem to be standing in that sublime and divine place. And then I see such light and
splendour as tongues cannot describe nor ears comprehend. When that light and
splendour overwhelm me and I have not strength to endure it, I descend from mind
[nous] to thought and reflection [psyche]. When I enter the world of thought,
thought veils that light and splendour from me.
Thus, one journeys out of the material realm by journeying into the self. In this particular
account, Plotinus does not journey to ‘the One’, but only to nous, the realm of Mind, or Ideas;
however, he saw that it was possible to experience contemplation (vision) of the One, even
though this vision could never ultimately grasp the majesty of God.
A key element of Plotinus can be seen reflected in the work of Qadi Nu‘man with regard
to the relationship between the immaterial and material realms, or the soul and the body. As
Plotinus (1959: 353)3 says:
He [the One] is not a place, because there was no place before the world. […] As
for the soul, she is not in the world; on the contrary, the world is in her, for body is
not a place of soul; rather it is mind. The place of body is soul, and the place of
mind is something else. For the thing containing mind is not in anything else,
because there is nothing else above it for it to be in. […] For this reason the First
Originator is not stable in anything at all, but is stable and existent in Himself.
Henry Corbin (1995: 12) notes this point in his essay Mundus Imaginalis, where he
discusses the way in which Shi‘a mystics such as Qadi Nu‘man have envisioned the laws of
the intermediary realm of al-‘alam al-mithal, which they call Hurqalya:
there is an inversion of the relation of interiority expressed by the preposition in or
within, ‘in the interior of.’ Spiritual bodies or spiritual entities are no longer in a
world, not even in their world, in the way that a material body is in its place, or is
contained in another body. It is their world that is in them.
This conception of the relation between spirit and matter is evident in the last three Enneads
of Plotinus.
While Proclus was a student of Plotinus, he nevertheless developed a considerably
different conception of the cosmic hierarchy, and the precursor to Dionysius’ cataphatic
tripartite cosmic hierarchy can be seen in Proclus’ model, where the One remains the hidden,
unknowable Divine, while the ‘gods’ (or henads) are the first knowable aspect of the Divine,
which they reflect in the ‘form’ of a unity; after the realm of the henads comes that of the
Intelligences and then the Souls. As Corbin (1995: 8) acknowledges, many Muslim mystical
philosophers also adhered to a tripartite hierarchy which excludes the hidden, unknowable
aspect of the Divine, and includes instead three manifest hypostases:
a schema on which all of our mystical theosophers agree, a schema that articulates
three universes or, rather, three categories of universe. There is our physical sensory
world, which includes both our earthly world (governed by human souls) and the
sidereal universe (governed by the Souls of the Spheres); this is the sensory world,
the world of phenomena (molk). There is the suprasensory world of the Soul or
Angel-Souls, the Malakut, in which there are the mystical cities that we have just
named, and which begins ‘on the convex surface of the Ninth Sphere.’ [Otherwise
known as the barzakh] There is the universe of pure archangelic Intelligences. [The
first being al-haqiqah al-muhammadiyyah] To these three universes correspond
three organs of knowledge: the senses, the imagination, and the intellect; a triad to
which corresponds the triad of anthropology: body, soul, spirit

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 Proclus (1963: 109) also describes the One in a way that correlates closely to the Islamic
understanding of God:
All that is divine is itself ineffable and unknowable by any secondary being because
of its supraexistential unity, but it may be apprehended and known from the
existents which participate in it: wherefore only the First Principle is completely
unknowable, as being unparticipated.
Furthermore, Proclus (113) says ‘All that is divine is primordially and supremely simple, and
for this reason completely self-sufficient’; ‘Being a pure excellence, deity needs nothing
extraneous; it is not dependent upon its own elements’. According to him (107), divine
knowledge ‘transcends the sum of things; it is not intellective, and still less is it any of the
modes of cognition posterior to Intelligence, but it is enthroned above Intelligence according
to the distinctive character of the godhead’.
Where he differs, particularly from Plotinus, is in his conception of the way in which the
hierarchy ‘functions’. He does not see the soul ascending through an internal chain of
hierarchies to the One as it journeys towards perfection; instead, each component of the
hierarchy finds its perfection in fulfilling its divinely ordained rank and mode:
For all procession, operating through remission, multiplies its first characters in
declining to derivative terms; but these latter receive a rank in their own order
determined by their likeness to their producing causes. So that the entire procession
is in a sense one and identical, although that part which proceeds is distinct from
that which remains steadfast, appearing to differ from it in kind because of the
remission, but continuous with it and therefore not losing its identity with it,
existing as its analogue in the derivate order and so maintaining the unbroken bond
of common quality which links the series. Each of the gods reveals himself in the
modes proper to those orders in which he makes the revelation, and thence
proceeds even to the last region of being – such is the generative power of the first
principles.’ (113)
Dionysius, likewise, agreed with, and developed, the idea that the soul does not attain
perfection by ascending through the hypostases to God, but by fulfilling its designated place
in the hierarchy:
It would be quite wrong for those granting initiation in the sacred things, as indeed
for those sacredly initiated, ever to do anything or even to exist against the sacred
orderings of him who is after all the source of all perfection […] If one then talks of
hierarchy, what is meant is a certain perfect arrangement, an image of the beauty of
God which sacredly works out the mysteries of its own enlightenment in the orders
and levels of understanding of the hierarchy, and which is likened toward its own
source as much as is permitted. Indeed for every member of the hierarchy,
perfection consists in this.’ (1987: 154)
Dionysius the Areopagite (the ‘judge’) was supposed to have come from what is now
Syria, and to have lived in the fifth century CE. According to Paul Rorem (1987: 1), it was
Dionysius who actually invented the term ‘hierarchy’ in order to ‘describe the relationship of
the hierarch to those below him’. Dionysius is most well-known for his development of an
apophatic theology, but necessary to this was his conception of a cataphatic hierarchical
model. The apophatic journey only begins after the cataphatic journey to perfection within the
hierarchy. He adapted Proclian Neoplatonism to a Christian context and established his own
cataphatic cosmic hierarchy by replacing the gods (or henads) with the Trinity; the realm of
Intelligences with a celestial hierarchy of angels and spiritual beings; and the realm of Souls
with what he called an ‘ecclesiastical hierarchy’, meaning the Christian Church (from which
nonbelievers were excluded):
In sharp contrast with most visions of the world, that of Dionysius includes only
those intelligences able to be divinized [i.e. perfected by the Divine light], and

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 excludes anything that may be closed to divinization. This explains why the
stability, the movement, and the efficacy of the Dionysian hierarchy are entirely
dependent upon the divine ‘Thearchy,’ the source and goal of all divinization.’
(Roques, in 1987: 6)
‘Thearchy’, for Dionysius, is the ‘divine hierarchy’ that is the Trinity, beyond which is the
absolutely transcendent aspect of God: ‘we must not dare to apply words or conceptions to
this hidden transcendent God. We can only use what scripture has disclosed’ (1987: 50).
In both Proclus’ and Dionysius’ hierarchies, each level corresponds to the one above and
below it. This is why Proclus says that each declining level of the cosmic hierarchy receives
its rank according to the degree to which it is similar to its cause. In explaining Dionysius’
theory of correspondences, Andrew Louth (2007: 157) uses the word ‘replica’ for each
declining level. This finds its equivalent in Henry Corbin’s essay Comparative Spiritual
Hermeneutics, where he uses the Arabic term hikayah, meaning a mimesis of something.
Corbin (1995: 97) explains that Isma‘ili cosmological thought consists of ‘a hierarchy of
being, and the springboard of its spiritual hermeneutics is essentially the strict correspondence
between the degrees of the celestial hierarchy and the degrees of the earthly hierarchy’. An
example of this can be found in the circumambulation (tawaf) of pilgrims around the Ka’bah,
which is seen as a hikayah of the angels encircling the Bayt al-Ma’mur. Thus, the tawaf
enacted at a human level in the material realm is a symbolic and corresponding enactment of
the tawaf made at the angelic level in the celestial realm (Corbin, 1995: 36).
With regard to the nature of the relationship between the corresponding hypostases,
Dionysius affirms a similar theory: knowledge and activity of the hierarchy are ‘assimilated’
to a likeness with God and imitate Him in accordance with the degree to which they receive
illumination from Him (Dionysius’ illumination replacing Proclus’ determining causes).
Similarly, Proclus (1963: 161) writes ‘For if participation assimilates the participant to the
participated principle and causes it to have the same nature, it is plain that a soul which
participates and is annexed to a divine intelligence is itself divine.’. Corbin (1983: 88-89)
notes that the tripartite structure of the early Isma‘ili cosmic hierarchies may be compared
with that of Dionysius:
The First of all (Sabiq) is both the supreme Veil and the supreme Name of the
godhead, and this name is none other than la Ilaha illa’l-Lah […]. It is, then,
through knowledge of the spiritual hudud – that is, of the Archangelical hypostases
which are theophanies – that the worship of the unique Worshiped One (ma‘bud) is
accomplished; it is by knowledge of their correspondences, the terrestrial hudud,
that knowledge is gained of these spiritual hudud. Hence the importance of the
fundamental angelology that determines the succession and correspondence of
these hierarchies, which find their closest Christian analogy in the work of
Dionysius the Areopagite, though Dionysius cannot be said to have carried the
parallelism between celestial and earthly hierarchies as far as, for example,
Hamidaddin Kermani..
While Twelver Shi‘a mystical theology has not incorporated these kinds of parallel
correspondences within its cosmic hierarchies, nor been quite so numerically specific with
regard to their internal structures, nevertheless, such hierarchies are an integral part of
apprehending the meaning of prophethood and imamate. Commenting on verse three of Surah
al-Hadid, Ayatollah Khomeini (1939: part 42) writes:
The following part of the noble verse, in His words, ‘He knows what penetrates
into the earth, (and what comes forth from it, what comes down from heaven, and
what goes up unto it)’ refers to God’s knowledge of the particular details of the
planes of existence through the hierarchies of the Hidden and the manifest (ghayb
wa shuhud), the ascent and the descent.’.
This descending structure, crucially, is what differentiates tawhid from shirk; Islam from
Christianity. The Imam, whether in his exoteric or esoteric manifestation, always remains

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hierarchically below God. Where this cosmic hierarchy does find its similarity with that of
Dionysius, however, is in its being ultimately based upon an apophatic conception of God.
In reading Dionysius’ treatise entitled ‘The Celestial Hierarchy’, it may be inferred that
there were discussions in both the Christian and Muslim worlds about the legitimacy of the
concept of a hierarchy:
Someone might claim that God has appeared himself and without intermediaries to
some of the saints. But in fact it should be realized that scripture has clearly shown
that ‘no one has ever seen’ or ever will see the being of God in all its hiddenness.
Of course God has appeared to certain pious men in ways which were in keeping
with his divinity. He has come in certain sacred visions fashioned to suit the
beholders. This kind of vision, that is to say, where the formless God is represented
in forms, is rightly described by theological discourse as a theophany. (1987: 157)
In the same way, Corbin (1964: 40) points out that: ‘The Ash‘arites rejected all notion of
tartib – that is to say of any hierarchical structure of the world with mediating causes – and
thereby destroyed the entire basis of prophecy.’ In both cases, it could be argued that it is not
God who needs the mediation of a hierarchy, but man.

The Structure of the Cosmic Hierarchies

Dionysius’ cosmic hierarchy differed from that of Plotinus and Proclus, in that he deemed it to
be created by the hidden, unknowable aspect of God, as opposed to being an emanation.
What makes Dionysius’ hierarchy seemingly complex is its tripartite interdivision. Thus: ‘The
word of God has provided nine explanatory designations for the heavenly beings, and my own
sacred-initiator has divided these into three threefold groups’ (1987: 160). These threefold
groups form their own hierarchy. The highest rank consists of the thrones, cherubim and
seraphim. The middle rank consists of authorities, dominions and powers, and the third rank
consists of angels, archangels and principalities. Dionysius (1987: 161) calls these ‘heavenly
intelligences [that] signify the mode in which they take on the imprint of God’, and discusses
them in detail.
The third level of the cosmic hierarchy, after the thearchy and the celestial hierarchy, is the
ecclesiastical hierarchy (which Dionysius only ever calls ‘our hierarchy’, the term
‘ecclesiastical’ possibly being added by a later editor). Of knowledge of this, Dionysius
(1987: 195) writes ‘Keep these things of God unshared and undefiled by the uninitiated. Let
your sharing of the sacred befit the sacred things.’ He speaks often, in the case of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy, of initiation, and he sees the Church as a hierarchical structure in
which each member is initiated – not into increasingly higher ranks – but more perfectly into
the rank that has been divinely ordained for it. Henry Corbin (1995: 96) traces out a similar
hierarchical structure in Isma‘ili cosmology: first, there is the ‘Principle’ (mubdi’), which is
‘Divine Silence’, and is hidden and inaccessible; then, there is ‘the First Archangelic
Intelligence’ from which proceeds [referring to the Neoplatonic term ‘procession’, meaning
‘descent’] a pleroma ‘formed of hierarchical archangelic Intelligences.’. Next, there is the
physical universe, within which the spiritual world is ‘constituted by the esoteric community
on earth’. The First Archangelic Intelligence is therefore equivalent to the thearchy; the
hierarchy of archangelic Intelligences is equivalent to the celestial hierarchy and the esoteric
community on earth is equivalent to the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The idea of an esoteric
community similarly implies exclusion for those are not initiated.
Dionysius’ ecclesiastical hierarchy is divided into three levels, each with its own tripartite
hierarchy. When a member of the hierarchy has attained perfection, he is called a ‘hierarch’:
the divine hierarch, following upon his consecration, will attend to all his most
sacred activities. Indeed this is why he is called a ‘hierarch.’ Indeed, if you talk of
hierarchy, you are referring in effect to the arrangement of all the sacred realities.
Talk of ‘hierarch’ and one is referring to a holy and inspired man, someone who
understands all sacred knowledge, someone in whom an entire hierarchy is

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 completely and perfectly known. (1987: 197)
This hierarchy proceeds from simplicity outwards to multiplicity, and this affects the way
in which the hidden aspect of God is communicated. The closer that one ascends to God, the
more condensed and symbolic becomes the language in which that experience is expressed.
Thus, for Dionysius, the first level in the ecclesiastical hierarchy consists not of its initiates
but of the sacraments which the initiate enacts in order to commune more closely with God by
entering into the meaning of their symbolic language (these sacraments pertained specifically
to the Byzantine Church and not the Roman Catholic Church). He (197) writes: ‘We see our
human hierarchy […] as our nature allows, pluralized in a great variety of perceptible
symbols lifting us upward hierarchically until we are brought as far as we can into the unity of
divinization.’.
The first level of the ecclesiastical hierarchy consists of the rite of illumination (or
baptism), the rite of synaxis (the communion), and the rite of myron (ointment which is used
for sanctification). The second level consists of hierarchs, priests and ministers. The hierarchs
have full power of consecration; the priests guide and illuminate the initiates; and the
ministers ‘make clean the imperfect’ (238). The third level consists of initiates, who are
monks. Of these, the lowest level consists of those who receive instruction; the middle level
those who have been purified and are receiving illumination; and the highest level those ‘who
have been purified of all stain and possess full power and complete holiness’, entering into a
state of contemplation.
One of the key differences between Shi‘a cosmic hierarchies and that of Dionysius is in
the conception of the spiritual community, or ecclesiastical hierarchy. At no point in
Dionysius’ ecclesiastical hierarchy does he consider the esoteric existence of saints. This
hierarchy is strictly earthly, although it corresponds to higher angelic realms. An essential part
of the Shi‘a hierarchy, on the other hand, is the role played by the Hidden Imam, and also the
extensive range of saints, or awliya’. In his exoteric manifestation the Imam is the Prophet; in
his esoteric manifestation, he is the qutb, residing in the barzakh. The Hidden Imam, the qutb,
is at the pinnacle of the esoteric hierarchy, just as Prophet Muhammad is at the pinnacle of the
exoteric hierarchy. The Hidden Imam remains ‘incognito’, and Corbin (1964: 72) says:
By the same token, the members of the esoteric mystical hierarchies (nujaba’ and
nuqaba’, Nobles and spiritual Princes, the awtad and abdal) also remain incognito.
These hierarchies are well-known to Sufism, but it must never be forgotten that,
conceptually and historically, they presuppose the Shiite idea of the walayah; for
hierarchies originate in him who is the pole of poles, the Imam, and they pertain to
the esoteric aspect of prophecy which has its source in the Imam.’
For Dionysius, all hierarchies end in Jesus Christ: ‘Jesus enlightens our blessed superiors,
Jesus who is transcendent mind, utterly divine, who is the source and the being underlying all
hierarchy, all sanctification, all the workings of God, who is the ultimate in divine power. He
assimilates them [the members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy], as much as they are able, to his
own light’ (1987: 195-196). In Shi‘a Islam al-haqiqah al-muhammadiyyah (the Muhammadan
reality), which is the First Intellect, is said to be the underlying reality of the cosmic hierarchy
descending from God, or rather, the reality out of which the cosmic hierarchy is created. Al-
haqiqah al-muhammadiyyah is personified by Prophet Muhammad, who embodies it
perfectly, and his purified progeny:
The spiritual hermeneutics of Imamite theosophy is applied in terms of the
Manifestation of eternal prophetic Reality, that is, of the Fourteen Pure Ones, to the
different degrees of the hierarchy of the spiritual universes preceding our world of
sensory phenomena. This Manifestation is accompanied by a state of the Divine
Word, the Book or eternal Qur’an, varying according to each of these universes.
(Corbin, 1995: 93)
It may be noted that in the cataphatic tripartite hierarchies of Plotinus and Proclus, the
hypostases are clearly differentiated from each other; likewise, in the work of Dionysius, the

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celestial and ecclesiastical hierarchies do not overlap. In the work of Plotinus, the human soul
descends through the hierarchy of Intellects and passes straight into the hierarchy of the Soul.
When it ascends, it passes directly from the material realm (psyche) to the realm of the
Intellects (nous), back to the One. In Dionysius’ vision, while Jesus is the underlying reality
of the entire cosmic hierarchy, he nevertheless remains fixed at the level of the thearchy, and
all levels of the hierarchy ascend to him in attaining their perfection. In the case of Shi‘a
cosmic hierarchies, the landscape of the celestial hierarchy is slightly different, as is the
conception and location of the soul. In Shi‘a cosmology the presence of an esoteric hierarchy
which exists beyond, or above, the material realm is of great importance. This hierarchy,
which includes the saints, the awliya’, exists below angelic realm in the barzakh, the isthmus,
between the material realm of the Soul and the angelic realm of the Intellect:
below the pleroma of the Haqiqat mohammadiya, the world of pure Lights (‘alam
al-Anwar), the world of the jabarut [the world of the Cherubim, of the Divine
Names of God], symbolized by white light [is] the world of Spirits (‘alam al-
Arwah), the world of the higher Malakut [the world of the Animae coelestes, the
esoteric aspect of the visible heavens], symbolized by yellow light; the world of
Souls (‘alam al-Nofus), symbolized by green light, and including the mundus
imaginalis, the world of subtle bodies and the emerald cities; and the world of
material bodies (‘alam al-asjam), symbolized by red light.’ (Corbin, 1995: 93)
Here, it can be seen that the soul, in the form of a subtle substance, is placed not in the
material realm, but in the barzakh, the realm between the material and angelic realms. Thus,
when the soul ascends from the material realm, it ‘returns home’ to the barzakh before being
able to ascend to witness the angelic realm and further, the manifestation of God Himself.
Dionysius’ ‘angelic hierarchs’ – those who have attained the highest level of divine
perfection – might be considered equivalent to the Imams and awliya’; however, they do not
reside anywhere in the celestial hierarchy, but rather at the top of the ecclesiastical hierarchy;
they do not exist in the spirit. For Dionysius, then, souls are included in the ecclesiastical
hierarchy, associated with the material realm. In Shi‘a cosmic hierarchies, souls are associated
with a spiritual hierarchy.

Cosmic Hierarchies in Islamic Mystical Theology

However, not all Shi‘a cosmic hierarchies adhere to this. Ibn Sina (d. 428 AH/ 1037 CE)
utilised Plotinus’ internal hierarchical structure and combined it with Aristotle’s ten Intellects.
The first hypostasis in his tripartite cosmic hierarchy consists of the hidden, unknowable
Principle; the second hypostasis consists of the angelic realm, which extends in continuous
effusion over a descending hierarchy of nine Intellects; and the third hypostasis is the
sublunary realm, which is illuminated by the Tenth Intellect. (It has been mentioned above
that Dionysius’ celestial hierarchy also consists of nine ‘heavenly beings’, but they are
divided into three groups of three, each arranged hierarchically.) Although Ibn Sina’s structure
incorporates the concept of correspondences, it is linear rather than pyramidal. Thus, for each
Intellect, there is a corresponding angel, each of which contemplates the Intellect above it and
illuminates the Intellect below it, but the human soul receives illumination only from the final
and tenth Intellect. The structure does not incorporate the concept of any correspondence
within the soul with all ten Intellects, and if the soul is to contemplate the Principle directly, it
must ascend, through means of perfection and contemplation, through the Intellects, one after
another.
In both Dionysius’ and Ibn Sina’s hierarchies there are threefold ‘dimensions of
knowledge’ (Goichon, 1944: 41, in Nasr, 1997: 29). In Dionysius’ hierarchy, these three are
purification, illumination and perfection, and they function within every hierarchical
subdivision. The highest level brings to perfection that which is below it; the second level
illuminates that which is below it, and the third level purifies that which is below it, or is just
purified by the one above it. This occurs within every internal hierarchy of the hierarchy:

8
 Therefore when the hierarchic order lays it on some to be purified and on others to
do the purifying, on some to receive illumination and on others to cause
illumination, on some to be perfected and on others to bring about perfection, each
will actually imitate God in the way suitable to whatever role it has. (1987: 154).
However, the processes of purification, illumination and perfection do not bring into being
the next level below. This implies that the entire hierarchy, with its progression towards
multiplicity, is created by the hidden, apophatic God without any mediating causes, even
though there are mediating levels that transmit God’s light.
In Ibn Sina’s hierarchy, on the other hand, the processes of each level generate the next
below. Each Intellect contemplates the one above it; its own essence as necessary, and its own
essence as possible. In contemplating the Necessary Existent, the First Intellect creates the
Second Intellect; in contemplating its own essence as necessary, it creates the Soul of the first
celestial sphere; and in contemplating its own essence as possible, it creates the body of the
first celestial sphere. Each intellect engages in this process down to the Tenth Intellect. To
each mode of contemplation corresponds a particular manifestation of the celestial hierarchy;
however, the overall structure remains linear. The third hypostasis of Ibn Sina’s hierarchy is
not restricted to a purely spiritual community which must correspond in precise harmony to
the next hypostasis above. Ibn Sina’s hierarchy extends into multiplicity to the point of
including all matter, even in its most potentially corrupted form, although that corrupted
matter must, in the broadest sense, ‘become Muslim’ – i.e. turn to contemplate the divine
essence of the higher level (the Tenth Intellect) – in order for it to become purified and to
ascend the hierarchy. In addition, in order for corrupted matter to become purified, it must in
its own way desire perfection, so that it may be purified and then be receptive to the
illumination bestowed by the Tenth Intellect: ‘Man receives the intelligibles as an illumination
by the [tenth and] Active Intellect; all knowledge in the ultimate sense is in fact an
illumination’ (Ibn Sina, c.1985: 118-119).
It is well known that Ibn Sina sought to harmonise this cosmic hierarchy with the Islamic
concepts of the one God, prophethood, and revelation. With this, he still maintained the
theory of emanation and his conception of the Prophet was not as a manifestation of al-
haqiqah al-muhammadiyyah, but as a purely earthly being, who, like other earthly beings, is
illuminated by the Tenth Intellect (translated into Angel Gabriel), although, unlike other
earthly beings, the Prophet receives this illumination perfectly (Gardet, 1951: ch. IV, in Nasr,
1997: 42). Again, Ibn Sina’s cosmic hierarchy, while incorporating the esoteric dimension of
existence in its theory of intuitional knowledge of the Divine, where the Divine is perceived
through the purified intellect, does not appear to consider the Hidden Imam or his place in the
cosmic hierarchy, although his later treatise Hayy ibn Yaqzan does see the soul guided by an
enigmatic figure on a journey through the hierarchical levels of the intermediary realm, the
barzakh.
Shihab al-Din Suhravardi’s (d. 586AH/1191 CE) approach to the manifestation of the
cosmic hierarchy bears a closer resemblance to that of Dionysius, and he had also travelled to
Syria, where the influence of Dionysius’ mystical theology could still be felt in Christian
circles in the twelfth century CE, although it is not known how well Muslim thinkers were
acquainted with his work. Dionysius begins his discussion of the celestial hierarchy by
quoting the Bible (see Dionysius, 1987: 145): ‘Every good endowment and every perfect gift
is from above, coming down from the Father of lights’ (James 1:17). He continues:
Inspired by the Father, each procession of Light spreads itself generously towards
us, and, in its power to unify, it stirs us by lifting us up. It returns us back to the
oneness and deifying simplicity of the Father who gathers us in. (James 1:17) 4
In his cosmic schema, Jesus is the Light of the Father, just as, in the Islamic cosmic schema,
Prophet Muhammad, is al-haqiqah al-muhammadiyyah, which is also called al-nur al-
muhammadi (the Muhammadan light). For Suhravardi, God is ‘the Light of Lights’, and even
though al-haqiqah al-muhammadiyyah emanates from the Light of Lights, this emanation, as
with Dionysius, is created. To support this view, Suhravardi (1998: 70) quotes the hadith:

9
‘The first thing that God created was the Intellect (awwalu ma khalaqa Allah al-‘aql)’. Thus,
as with Plotinus and Dionysius, Suhravardi follows a cataphatic tripartite cosmic structure:
the Light of Lights, which is equivalent to Dionysius’ ‘Father of Lights’, or thearchy; the first
created Light, which is al-nur al-muhammadi, out of which emanates the entire angelic
hierarchy; and the realm of Soul, which is equivalent to Dionysius’ ecclesiastical hierarchy,
but which, like that of Ibn Sina, includes the darkest and most corrupted levels of matter.
The Father of Lights illuminates the first rank of heavenly beings in the same way that
Suhravardi’s Light of Lights illuminates the first emanated Light. Dionysius (1987: 165)
writes: ‘So, then, the first hierarchy of the heavenly minds is hierarchically directed by the
source of all perfection, because of its capacity to be raised up directly to this source. It is
filled with its due measure of utter purification, of infinite light, of complete perfection.’
Similarly, Suhravardi (Opera 2: 133, in,Razavi, 1997: 80) writes:
Since between the lower light and higher light there is no veil, necessarily the lower
light sees the higher light and the higher illuminates the lower. Therefore, from the
light of lights a beam of light shines upon the lower
Mehdi Amin Razavi (1997: 81) notes how Suhravardi’s angelic hierarchies differ from
those of Ibn Sina:
His view of the function and the role of angels is radically different from Ibn Sina’s
which attributed rotations and many other functions to the heavenly bodies and
astronomical issues. For Suhrawardi, angels are a means through which his
metaphysical doctrine as well as esoteric views can be expressed.
Likewise, Dionysius acknowledges that the language and imagery that he uses to designate
particular hierarchies of angels is symbolic, and can only represent approximately the actual
reality of the celestial hierarchy. For Dionysius (1987: 160) the ‘lights’ or intelligences are
without number: ‘How many ranks are there among the heavenly beings? […] Only the
divine source of their perfection could really answer this.’ Likewise, for Suhravardi ‘the
hypostases of light become countless in number’ (Corbin, 1974: 211). In both cases, it is only
out of the need for man to envision the manifestation of the Divine in a way that may be
grasped by the limits of the intellect that a particular schema is used.
While Suhravardi was not Shi‘a, like many mystics he incorporated elements of Shi‘a
cosmology into his own, in particular the concept of the qutb who lives in a parallel esoteric
realm and who might appear at any time (Corbin, 1974: 217). However, his conception of the
perfection of the soul is much more closely comparable to that of Plato than that of Plotinus.
The soul does not journey inwards in order to ascend the cosmic hierarchy; instead, it ascends
out of the bonds of matter. Furthermore, it is only able to attain perfection and union with the
Divine through initiation by the qutb, as Suhravardi (1982: 107) says:
I ascended the mountain and saw our father, an old man from the brilliance of
whose light the heavens and the earth were nearly split open. I remained perplexed
and amazed by him. I walked toward him. He greeted me, and I prostrated myself
before him [perhaps because he manifests perfectly the divine Attributes] and was
almost obliterated by his radiating light.
As with Ibn Sina, Suhravardi’s cosmic hierarchy includes all degrees of God’s
manifestation, including the lowest realms of matter. Unlike Dionysius, for Suhravardi, the
hierarchy of the material realm includes those who have not been initiated: ‘Those who look
at the heavens and stars can be divided into three groups […] The first group looks with the
physical eye and sees a blue plane with a few white spots. These are the common people’
(1982: 48). Next are the astrologers who ‘see through the eyes of heaven’ and interpret the
signs of the cosmos, and finally there are ‘those who see the secret of the heavens and stars
not with the physical eye or through the eyes of heaven but through the eye of logic [reason?],
they are the people of reality’ (1982: 48).
Mulla Sadra Shirazi (d. 979 AH/1571 CE), coming after Ibn Sina and Suhravardi, also
utilised cosmic hierarchies, but developed them in ways that broke from those of his

10
predecessors, and this too hinged fundamentally upon his conception of God. Sadra is said to
have adhered to the classical Twelver Shi‘a cosmic hierarchy; however, while he sees God as
utterly and absolutely transcendent, in the apophatic sense, God is not ‘beyond being’; on the
contrary, God is absolute and ‘sheer’ existence Who manifests Himself in the form of a
cataphatic hierarchical structure with ever-declining degrees of existence. In one sense, Sadra
does incorporate the concept of hierarchical correspondences in a way that is similar to that of
Dionysius. Like Dionysius, he maintains that God is absolute simplicity, and this affects the
way in which the soul assimilates to Him; thus, just as the sacraments are at the highest level
of Dionysius’ ecclesiastical hierarchy, so Sadra sees prayer as being the closest in essence to
that of the ascending cosmic levels above the material realm:
Between the subtlest and the grossest [levels of existence] there are intermediaries
in array connected to each other according to the divine Decree and His wise
system. It has been argued through indications that the most subtle in essence is
most clear in activity, and the most gross in essence is most clear in passivity. That
is why concerning the prayers, it is recorded that, one should direct one’s face
towards the heaven for seeking (98) the fulfilment of one’s needs, for attracting the
good, for the response to one’s prayers.’ (Sadra, 2008: 412)
However, whereas with Dionysius the soul remains at the level of the third hypostasis, the
material realm, reaching perfection only through attaining the fullest illumination possible at
its divinely ordained level, in Sadra’s schema, the soul potentially exists simultaneously at all
levels of all three hypostases:
just as each being in treading the path of perfection passes through various stages
from the lowest to the highest, so it is necessary that for each imperfect being in
this world there be degrees of being in the higher stages of cosmic hierarchy, since
each being has descended from the Divine Principle through intermediate stages of
being. For example, the being of man on earth in his present state of imperfection
necessitates the being of man in the intermediary world of souls, and the latter the
being of spiritual man in the intelligible world.’ (Sadra, 2008: 436, f.n.)
Sadra himself (2003: part 2, ch. 4, 19) writes:
Know that the divine levels of Kingdom [al-mulk] and Sovereignty [al-malakut al-
ilahiya] that come to be in the two worlds of the horizons and the souls are like a
treasure whose door is locked. The door is opened only with the key of the
knowledge of the Adamic soul, her world, her empire, and the parts of her essence.
This is because […] man does not know anything save by means of that
[equivalent] of it which is found in his own essence and witnessed in his own
world.
The human being at the lowest level of the cosmic hierarchy thus has the potential to become
al-insan al-kamil, and to become like the Imam, but without his divinely ordained authority
and protection from sin. This, in a sense, is a form of assimilation to the Imam, which in turn
is an assimilation to the divine Attributes and ultimately to God.
As has been mentioned above, according to Corbin, within the realm of the First Intellect
exist the Attributes of Allah and the ‘Fourteen Pure Ones’, the ahl al-bayt, who are the
manifested archetypes of some of these attributes; they exist in this form at the highest level
of the angelic realm, but they also exist in different forms at each level of the entire cosmic
hierarchy, including the barzakh and the material realm (in spiritual form and in human form).
While Dionysius’ hierarchs contain within themselves ‘an entire hierarchy’, the ahl al-bayt
(A) contain within themselves all levels of the entire hierarchy.
According to Dionysius (1987: 154), a cosmic hierarchy has a purpose, and that is ‘to
enable beings to be as like as possible to God and to be at one with him’. It can be seen how
he and mystical philosophers such as Ibn Sina, Suhravardi and Mulla Sadra have utilised,
through inspiration, the structure of the tripartite hypostasis in order to express God’s
theophany to the soul, each with their own particular adaptation, which always depends upon

11
their conception of God Himself. God’s manifestation in creation, through the celestial
hierarchy of the angelic realm and into the earthly hierarchy of the material realm is an
overflowing of His love (some Christian theologians say ‘an overflowing of His ecstasy’)
which purifies, illuminates and perfects the soul so that it may ascend to Him; the nature of
that ascension depends upon the conception of the cosmic hierarchy and the soul’s place
within it.

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1
Enneas V, Epistola de Scientia Divina, § 119-138
2
Enneas IV, Theologia I
3
Enneas V, Epistola de Scientia Divina, § 194-202
4
Here we can also see the theory of procession and return.