Observations placeholder

Shaikh Muhammad Karim Khan Kirmani – Irshad al-‘awamm [translated by  Henry Corbin and Nancy Pearson]

Now Paradise includes eight degrees; Hell contains seven.  Each of these stages contains several enclosures; however, there is one degree of Paradise that does not include a plurality of enclosures.  All the abodes of the other world together number twenty nine; fifteen are primary, fourteen derived from these.

In analysis of this theme, we will say that for the human being there are fifteen degrees or planes; eight of them belong to the dimension of light, which is called Illiyun; seven others are in the dimension of darkness which is called Sijjin.

One of the eight degrees of planes which are in the dimension of light is the abode of that handful of heaven in man belonging to the eighth heaven (Kursi, the Firmament), from which the heart of man was created. 

The second is the abode of that handful of heaven which, in man, belongs to the heaven of Saturn, from which man’s intellective power was made. 

The third is the abode of that handful of heaven in man which belongs to the Heaven of Jupiter, from which his cognitive power was made.

The fourth is the abode of the handful of heaven belonging to the heaven of Mars, from which his representative faculty was made.

The fifth is the abode of the handful of heaven in man belonging to the heaven of the Sun, out of which his subtle consubstantial matter was made.

The sixth is that of handful of heaven belonging to the Heaven of Venus, from which man’s imaginative power was constituted.

The seventh is the handful of heaven belonging to the Heaven of Mercury and from it his meditative power was constituted.

And finally, the eighth is the handful of heaven which belongs to the Heaven of the Moon and from it his spirit was created.

These are the eight degrees which are the Abodes of Light of man; these abode are his luminous and divine dimension; they form the inner heaven, they are Heaven in man.