Is the Imam Part of the Miracle of The Qur’an? (Tanzil and Ta’wil as The Great Circuit of Revelation)
An Esoteric Reading of Tanzil and Ta’wil in Ismaili Thought: The Imam’s Exegetical Role in Revealing The Revelation
“The Great Circuit of Revelation”
by Khayāl ‘Aly
(April 15, 2025)
Have we grasped the esoteric understanding
of the descent of the Glorious Qur’ān?
Do we acknowledge the Prophet’s miracle?
Does it extend to the Manifest Imām?
The tanzīl and the ta’wīl together
make up The Great Circuit of Revelation.
Transposing the exoteric letters
transforms ‘Revelation’ to ‘elevation’.
The one letter left remaining
serves as symbol alluding to ar-Raḥmān –
The Most Merciful Creator
who taught insān the bayān of the Wise Qur’ān.
The Poem’s Inspiration and Title: The Great Circuit of Revelation
The poem “The Great Circuit of Revelation” was inspired by the following passage by Toby Mayer, which articulates the Ismaili perspective—drawn from Muḥammad al-Shahrastānī’s Ismaili-influenced Qur’anic commentary, Mafātīḥ al-Asrār (Keys to the Arcana)—on the necessity and complementarity of both tanzīl (“sending down” of revelation) and ta’wīl (“tracing it back up”). This perspective emphasizes the hermeneutical process by which the hidden meanings of the Qur’ān are unveiled.
In the commentary’s doxology, Shahrastānī even speaks of the Imams as complementing the angels in their role. If angels are the means of sending down (tanzīl) revelation, then the Imams and their scholar-adherents (al-‘ulamā’ al-ṣādiqa) are the means of tracing it back up (ta’wīl, i.e., ‘hermeneutics’). Both are instrumental for completing the great circuit of revelation, from God to God, and both together exercise a divine function. This is implied for Shahrastānī by Q. 15:9: We sent down the Remembrance [i.e. the Qur’ān] and We are its protector.1 In other words, God is the real agent of the scriptures descent to our world through angels and He [God] is also the real protector of its ultimate significations through the Imamate.
Toby Mayer, “Shahrastānī's Mafātīh al-Asrār: A Medieval Ismaili System of Hermeneutics?”, in The Spirit and the Letter: Approaches to the Esoteric Interpretation of the Qur’an, ed. Annabel Keeler and Sajjad H. Rizvi (Oxford: Oxford University Press in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies 2016), 286.
The following section, excerpted from “The Role of Intellect in the Da‘wat-i Ḥaqq” by Khayāl ‘Aly, provides a helpful introduction to the Ismaili understanding of Revelation and related concepts such as waḥy, ta’yīd, ẓāhir, bāṭin, tanzīl and ta’wīl. In this perspective, both tanzīl—the responsibility of the Prophet—and ta’wīl—the responsibility of the Imam—together constitute the miracle of the Qur’an’s revelation
