In the Absence of the Face

Social Research, Spring, 2000 by Hamid Dabashi

... There is no God save Him. Everything will perish save His Face.

Surah al-Qasas Chapter "The Story" -- The Qur'an

... Because Utterance is not like Visual Observation: ... So that when the Prophet described the blessings of the Paradise and the torments of the Hell he would be able to say, "I Saw it," and not just "I heard it." Because that is logically more persuasive, it convinces more effectively and powerfully.

-- Abu al-Fadl Rashid al-Din al-Maybudi Sixth/Twelfth Century Qur'anic Commentator Kashf al-Asrar wa `Uddat al-'Abrar (composed in 520/1126) Explaining the Nocturnal Journey (mi'raj) of the Prophet to the Heavens to visit God the Unseen

... Calling them [the idols] gods is not but a meaningless name. The reason is that the Name is not the Named. Because if the Name were the Named, then by virtue of calling them god they would be god and it would be proper to worship them, and they would have been god by attributes, and yet that is impossible....

-- Shaykh Abu al-Futuh al-Razi Sixth/Twelfth century Qur'anic Commentator Ruh al-Jinan wa Ruh al-Janan Explaining why Joseph smashed the idols in his prison

1. The Unseen Face of the Unseen

I WILL speak. I will inevitably speak--as I will have to write: In the absence of the Sign, and of the absence of the Face. All in the presence of the Unseen, and thus in the Name of the Unseen.

   In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful --The Qur'an 1:1(1)

Presuming and resuming the Biblical, the Qur'anic narrative begins in the "Name," absenting the Face.

It is impossible to commence in the "Face." The Face is forbidden, concealed, absent, thus absented. In the absence of the Face of the Invisible, the Unseen, the Qur'an begins in the Name. In the absence of the Face, the Name casts a long and enduring shadow on the literariness of the Faith, on the concealing of the Face, on the substitution of a collection of Sacred Signatures for a constellation of Signs, on the collapsing of the Sign into the Signifier, so that it can point, ipso facto, to a Signified, and thus to implicate One Final Transcendental Signified, the Hermeneutic Center and Circle that hold the universe of the Qur'anic imagination together. The Qur'an, from qr', is to Re-Cite, the Citation presumed, the Sightation denied, the Sign suppressed--closing the eyes, opening the ears.

I will thus speak, inevitably, as I write, of an absence: The absence of the Face, to face up to the absence of the Face, where the Faith will have to begin.

Where the Face is de-Faced, the Sacred Signature sealed, the Sign mutated, the Signifier born, the Signified suggested, and the Transcendental Signified implicated: There is a story, inevitably in a Signed Language, waiting, inevitably, to be told.

The inaugural moment of the absence of the Face is in the inaugural Text of the Faith, the Sacred Constitution and the aggressive repression of the absence, of and in the word ghayab (the Unseen, the Absent).

   Alif. Lam. Mim. This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt, a guidance
   unto those who ward off (evil). Who believe in the Unseen, and establish
   worship, and spend of that We have bestowed upon them; And who believe in
   that which is revealed unto thee (Muhammad) and that which was revealed
   before thee, and are certain of the Hereafter.

   -- The Qur'an 2:1-4

... "Who believe in the Unseen": Who believes in the Unseen? Do you believe in the Unseen?--The Birth of a Face-less Faith. Remembering a Faith-less Face.

The Inaugural Moment. The Ground Zero. The Primal Pause. The Unmoved Mover. In the absence of the Face is the commencement of the Faith. The Name cannot be Seen. It is the Unseen. In the absence of the Face, we have to begin the Faith.

The inaugural moment of the Qur'an, of Re-Citation, is alphabetical. Audible, inarticulate, visible, meaning-held-at-bay, alphabet: Alif. Lam. Mim mean nothing. Signatures, though, authoritative. Letters coagulating to no word. Pseudo-Signs announcing themselves. Signifiers signifying nothing beyond their visuality. Signifiers feigning the Sign. Alif. Lam. Mim are the optical illusions of Signs precisely at the moment when they are about to suppress the visible absence of the Sign and mutate that absence, and thus that in/ability, into the instrumentality of the Signifier, the Sacred, the alphabetical ordering of access to Truth Manifest. The Truth is about to be Manifest-ed right here where it cannot be Manifest and it must hide its in/ability to be Manifest. Signatures of the Unseen: Alif. Lam. Mim are neither Signs nor Signifiers. They are both Signs and Signifiers. In that disabling contradiction is the enabling configuration that makes the Sacred, the aggressive substitution of the suggested Signification for the suppressed Sign, of the meaning of the Name for the shape of the Face, of the Hermeneutics of postponement for the Semiotics of the present, of the Metaphysics of fear for the Aesthetic of pleasure, possible.

"This is the Scripture" (Dhalik al-Kitabu) delivers the promise of that visible substitution of the invisible Sign by determinedly collapsing it into a pregnant Signifier. "the Scripture" is actually "the Book," or even more accurately "that which is written," or a collection thereof, and this time has a meaning, the coagulation of a word, The Word. In this inaugural moment of the Faith, in two strategic moves, is hidden the supreme anxiety of the Faith, in the absence of the Face, of the Supreme Transcendental Signified, actively implicated, emplotted, by the mutation of the absent Sign into the present Signifier. The Book is one colossal Signifier, having just successfully concealed its otherwise paralyzing anxiety of lacking a Face, pointing to a Transcendental Signified. Faith is thus "having no doubt," (la rayba fihi), "whereof there is no doubt," that the Book is "a guidance unto those who ward off (evil)." In two moves, in the first two verses of the inaugurating moment of the Faith, the opening gambit of the optical illusion of alphabetical Signifiers masquerading as Signs while not relenting their Signifying claims deliver the Faithful to the Book, the Written, the Transcendental Signifier, delivering the Truth Manifest at the very throne of the Transcendental Signified, the Truth Manifest, decidedly un-manifestable, the condition of having Faith in the un-Face the very condito sine qua non of Revelation, revealing what cannot be seen, what is un-see-able.