Quranic Architecture’s Cosmic Connection: the Zodiac Transformed

Indeed, within the heavens and earth are signs for the believers.

Surah Al-Jathiya 45:3

Before the modern era, “evidence” was usually thought of as something outstanding that showed us a truth, like guideposts. The flights of birds, the way ships float on water, the huge variety of colors and characteristics of plants and animals, all these and more are mentioned in the Quran as “signs,” often “signs for those who reason.” These signs provide evidence of Allah’s relationship with all life, indeed with all creation, and in turn, of the complex interrelationships within creation itself. Such signs are dismissed in today’s dominant culture of empiricism as vague or lacking the rigor of scientific proof; but science by definition avoids the “unscientific” search for meaning as that which gives direction and value to life.

In this PDF download, the Quran’s architecture and its relationship to the Zodiac as a celestial view of the sky as seen from earth and its use for timekeeping is discussed.

the-zodiac-transformedDownload

Drawings of ancient Arabian zodiac figures. Writing is in Safaitic, an ancient Arabian script.

Quranic Architecture as a Calendar

Quranic Architecture as a Calendar with one surah in each chamber.

the-calendar-q-nautilusDownload

Above is an image of the spiral Quranic architecture discussed on this site, where each surah is shown by number in its chamber. Due to size consideration, there’s insufficient room for the surah names; however the first 12 surahs are named, and on the outer edge of the circle are the Hijri calendar names as well as the names of the zodiac constellations.

A full explanation of the calendar design and meaning is above in a downloadable PDF. It shows the exact match between the Quran’s size of 114 Surahs and arrangement here as 9.5 “years” (12-month/ chamber “cycles”) with Noah’s time as prophet of “a thousand years minus fifty years” or 950 years, making this symbolic “calendar” architecture of the Quran an “ark” protecting those who “embark” the Quran’s ark by reading it from the cataclysm of the Day when time as we know it, and therefore the universe as we know it, ceases to exist, that is, the Day of Resurrection or Judgment Day.

Timekeeping is all about changing quite literally “what is between our hands,” the Quran’s expression for the “present”, by increasing its size from a “moment” to “the present day” as it were, and beyond. And the Quran uses this meaning of time in its text and message, so it makes sense that its very architecture would also be a calendar, showing us how to spend our lifetime’s limited term wisely, leading to success outside that lifetime, when this world of time ceases to be.

The Quran’s Architecture as a Calendar, by S. Karami

The Chambered Nautilus and Its Connection to the Quran

X-Ray of a chambered nautilus shell

What is the connection between the Quran and the chambered nautilus shell? The shape fits the gradually descending size of the Quranic surahs, which, unlike chapters in most human-authored books, are each separate self-contained “enclosures” of text — the word “surah” means “enclosure”—, each containing words found only in that surah and nowhere else, yet adjacent surahs are connected by small shared references, all of this being similar to the chambers of the nautilus shell.

For the living nautilus, a cephalopod or “head-foot”, it provides both protection and a system of propulsion capable of “neutral buoyancy,” the same property that keeps the human brain, our “head-foot,” safe from gravity which would otherwise have pulled the brain’s delicate tissue against the skull, damaging our uvery-much-essential neurons. Herein lies a metaphor on many levels.

The downloadable PDF below gives more details of the amazing connections between the Quran and this ancient creature’s shell, long noted for its beauty and inspiring sacred geometry. Beyond that are Quranic and scientific connections which ultimately make this shape the perfect way to present the Quran as a whole, giving us a way to envision and interpret its multiple depths of meaning.

chambered-nautilus-sectionDownload

Also, this link gives a discussion among mathematics and science professors/ scholars on whether or not the chambered nautilus shell is an example of a golden spiral. To which the answer is not precise, but then, life is more complicated than it is precise.

https://114chambers.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/chambered-nautilus-section.docx

Ring Composition in the Quran: Al-Fatiha

An ancient method of literary writing that has (relatively) recently been re-discovered in t ancient and religious texts is Ring Composition, a form of mirror writing called chiasmus, described by the anthropologist and scholar Mary Douglas in her book Thinking in Circles: An Essay on Ring Composition (Yale University Press, 2010) as essentially “a framing device” wherein the first section of a text corresponds in some clearly evident way with the last section, and the middle sections form a mirror pattern around a middle section which is also the central idea or turning point for the entire text. The mirror pattern can be described as ABCBA, expandable to more or fewer (at minimum 3) sections as needed with a center section “C”. This website gives an excellent example from the Quran, analyzing Surat Al-Baqara (the Cow) as well as significant subsections of it, including the famous Ayat al-Kursi (2:255). But for this post I will analyze Surat Al-Fatiha in Ring Composition, which provides evidence of two things: that the first numbered aya must be the Bismallah, which precedes all other Surahs except the 9th (“Repentance”) without being numbered; and that the two great attribute names for Allah the Exalted, Al-Rahman (The Almighty), Al-Raheem (The All-Merciful) express the two polarities of Power/ Yang and Mercy/ Receptivity/ Yin. Below is a graphic of this analysis:

Quranic Architecture in Islam, Nature, and Ourselves

One need only to see an aerial view of the Ka’aba in Makkah with Muslim pilgrims circling the central shrine in tawaf to recall how central the circle is in Islam. This is in effect the center of the Islamic world, and in a form of worship, the pilgrims or Hojjaj must circle it, thus also participating in the making of a circle. Now we recall that the architecture of the Quran is also circle-based, one could even say in three dimensions as in the shell of a chambered nautilus. But the scope of this discussion is so far reaching, the symbolism contained in Quranic architecture so profound, it may be more enlightening to include more graphics to do justice to the idea of dynamic symmetry in relationship to cycles, returning (to our Creator Allah), the creation, the divine Message itself, and last but not least (as you shall see in the Quran), us.  

Notes on Quran Explanations & Translations

Since the Quran is the final Revelation from God in the line of prophets from Abraham to Mohammad, including Solomon, Moses, and Jesus, it would follow that this book, sent with Prophet Mohammad to “al-aalameen” or “all the worlds,” is one we should attempt to understand. And since it is also the only revealed Book that still exists in the original language, in this case Arabic, it is also important to preserve the original and the understanding of its meaning. But there is a conflict here…

A Picture of Time, a Calendar, a Guide

After looking at Al-Fatiha, the first Sura of the Qur’an, it’s time to go back to the overall structure, to see if we can find meaning and purpose in it.