IFAO

Dans l’Orient ancien, les cieux investissent les rois lors de leur avènement. Le roi est alors, comme dans l’Iran préislamique, promu frère des astres, doté de prérogatives qui lui permettent de faire régner sur Terre l’ordre cosmique. Le corps du roi est garant de cette stabilité. Le monde musulman hérite de cette dimension qui assure la promotion du calife ou de l’imam selon les doctrines du pouvoir, comme étant « l’ombre de Dieu sur Terre ». Cet aspect essentiel de l’idéologie politico-religieuse trouve un écho dans la culture visuelle de l’Orient médiéval où, hormis les voûtes palatiales, les monnaies, les métaux, le rituel de cour à partir des Abbassides, les manuscrits enluminés issus de différents corpus, pseudo-scientifique comme la cosmographie, littéraire comme la poésie ou l’épopée, pérennisent à leur tour le souvenir des liens étroits entre les rois et les cieux. En effet, l’une des dimensions de la royauté cosmique repose sur la représentation anthropomorphique des astres, les luminaires en particulier, promus par l’astrologie hellénistique qui symbolisent bien les pouvoirs temporels par le biais des analogies hermétiques tout comme le montrent les thèmes des métaux du XIIᵉ au XVᵉ siècle.

Cet ouvrage invite également le lecteur à découvrir les rêves d’envol et de voyages dans l’au-delà, transposition d’un thème issu des anciennes hiérogamies, désormais abouti dans le Mi‘rāj, le Voyage céleste du Prophète Muḥammad.

The kings of the Eastern Ancient world were invested by Heaven. As in the pre-Islamic Iran, they were thus promoted brothers of the heavenly bodies, and that status allowed them to bring on earth the cosmic order. The king’s body was the guarantor of this stability. The Muslim world inherits the dimension that promotes a caliph or an imam as “the Shadow of God on earth” according to governing doctrines. This main aspect of the religious and political ideology is present in the visual culture of medieval East where, beneath palace architecture, coins, metallic objects and court rituals from the Abbasids, illuminated manuscripts from different corpora – pseudo-scientific for cosmography, literature for poetry and epics – perpetuate the memory of the tight links between kings and heavens. A dimension of cosmic kingship lies on the anthropomorphic representation of the heavenly bodies, especially the luminaries, promoted by the Hellenistic astrology, and well symbolizing temporal powers by the mean of hermetic analogies, as shown on metallic artefacts from the 12th to the 15th c.

The reader is invited to discover the celestial journeys, transposition of the hierogamies of the Ancient world, which the best example is the Mi‘rāj of Prophet Muḥammad.

The kings of the Eastern Ancient world were invested by Heaven. As in the pre-Islamic Iran, they were thus promoted brothers of the heavenly bodies, and that status allowed them to bring on earth the cosmic order. The king’s body was the guarantor of this stability. The Muslim world inherits the dimension that promotes a caliph or an imam as “the Shadow of God on Earth” according to governing doctrines. This main aspect of the religious and political ideology is present in the visual culture of medieval East where, beneath palace architecture, coins, metallic objects and court rituals from the Abbasids, illuminated manuscripts from different corpora – pseudo-scientific for cosmography, literature for poetry and epics – perpetuate the memory of the tight links between kings and heavens. A dimension of cosmic kingship lies on the anthropomorphic representation of the heavenly bodies, especially the luminaries, promoted by the Hellenistic astrology, and well symbolizing temporal powers by the mean of hermetic analogies, as shown on metallic artefacts from the 12th to the 15th c.

The reader is invited to discover the celestial journeys, transposition of the hierogamies of the Ancient world, which the best example is the Mi‘rāj of Prophet Muḥammad.