Dugin Against Islam — Part IV

History not a determinant of the Unity of God

Charles Upton [Sidi Akram]

Sha'ban 25, 1440 2019-05-01

Book Review

by Charles Upton [Sidi Akram] (Book Review, Crescent International Vol. 48, No. 3, Sha'ban, 1440)

This article is based on excerpts from Dugin against Dugin: A Traditionalist Critique of the Fourth Political Theory by Charles Upton (published Dec. 2018).

And who might the figure be that Alexandr Dugin identifies with Edom and addresses as “Sire”? Edom is a kingdom, not a king. In Judaism, Edom is another name for Esau, the earthly, material man, brother and opponent of Jacob who was to become Israel, the spiritual man; this seems in line with Dugin’s rejection of Logos in favor of Chaos in his essay “The Metaphysics of Chaos” from The Fourth Political Theory. But who is the King, who is the Sire, of Edom? Who would Edom be if it were a king?

In the Rabbinical writings the guardian angel of Esau and the angelic patron of the Kingdom of Edom is Samael, the Angel of Death and Destruction, who is identified with Satan and sometimes called by that name. In Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer from the Midrash, dated to the period of the spread of Islam, Samael appears as both Satan and the Serpent in Genesis; he bears an obvious similarity to Iblis, since Samael — like Iblis, who is made of fire and proud of it — disapproves of God’s creation of Adam from the lowly dust of the earth (compare with ayat 7:11–18 in the Qur’an). Dugin also remarks, quite suggestively, in the same chapter,

This is very important knowledge, but negative knowledge, general demonology, if you prefer. After all, not only Satanists studied the names of demons; abbots, respectable Catholic theologians, were also interested in this question.

Such references and allusions may in fact be signs of recognition clandestinely offered to Dugin’s fellow-travelers and potential followers among the Satanists, or at least to those who see Satan as an intriguing figure if not inspiring figure. The Romanian researcher known on the web as Freedom Alternative, in a YouTube video entitled “What Duginism is and Why it Matters,” makes the claim that a number of Russian Orthodox hierarchs accused Dugin on one occasion of attempting to introduce Paganism and Satanism into the Russian Orthodox Church — after which all of them either died or were defrocked.

In view of this charge we need to pay special attention to any evidence of Satanism in Dugin’s writings on religion. Furthermore — all Satanism apart — no “prophet” can prophesy to a narod (nation; ethnic group) in the name of that same narod. The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) prophesied to the Arabs in the name of, and by the actual words of, Allah (swt), not in the name of the Arabs themselves, or their ancestors, or their gods; if he had done so he would have been nothing but a pagan preaching to pagans. Likewise, Dugin places the folklore and folkways and collective psychology of the Russian narod above any religion, even the religion he pretends to profess, Eastern Orthodox Christianity. To him, following Martin Heidegger, the eternal principle of things is not God, but Chaos. In “The Metaphysics of Chaos” from The Fourth Political Theory he says,

It is not correct to conceive of Chaos as something belonging to the past. Chaos is eternal, but eternally coexisting with time. Therefore, Chaos is always eternally new, fresh and spontaneous. It could be regarded as a source of any kind of invention or freshness because its eternity has, in itself, always something more that was, is, or will be in time.

In identifying Chaos instead of Allah (swt) with Eternity — one of Allah’s 99 Names being al-Samad, the Eternal — he directly contradicts the noble Qur‘an, which affirms, “If there were in them [the heavens and the earth] other gods besides Allah, there would have been chaos. Glory be to Allah — the Lord with absolute authority. He is high above their claims” [21:22]. By the same token, anyone who takes Chaos as his Absolute will inevitably be attracted, consciously or unconsciously, to the worship of other “gods” — and who is better suited to play the role of a “god” of Chaos than Shaytan? And beyond his references to Edom, that Dugin explicitly declares the praxis of his Neo-Eurasian movement and his Fourth Political Theory to be — magic,

Nietzsche said, “Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow the seeker of knowledge steps reluctantly into its water.” According to this, how can we try to form a clear conception of what Fourth Political Practice is?… What is Fourth Political Practice? It is contemplation. What is the manifestation of the Fourth Practice? It is a principle to be revealed. In what aspect is the myth realised as ritual? It becomes theurgic fact (let us recognise that Neoplatonic theurgy is the reanimation of statues). What is activity as mentality? It is the idea that thoughts are magic, that thoughts can change reality; it is a suggestion that thoughts replace reality as fact.

The majestic Qur’an says the following about the practice of magic,

…those demons were the ones who denied [the truth about Allah], by teaching people magic — and [they follow] that which has come down through the two angels in Babel, Harut and Marut, although these [two] never taught it to anyone before declaring, “We are but a temptation to evil: do not, then, deny Allah [His truth and justice, His power and authority]!” And they learn from these two how to create discord among a man and his wife… (2:102).

In line with this angelic teaching, Dugin, in The Fourth Political Theory, advocates an extremely radical form of this “division between husband and wife,”

Gender in the Fourth Political Theory is the same as sex in Dasein [a Heideggerian concept, roughly meaning “the thing in itself”], that is, we have explained one unknown through another. Dasein can somehow be sexualized, but that sex which it has cannot be either male or female. It may make sense to speak about it in terms of the androgyne. Should we say that the Fourth Political Theory may be addressed to the androgynous being, and its gender is the androgyne? Perhaps, but only if it is possible not to project onto the androgynous the obviously split models of sex as halves of a whole. Sex, according to Plato, is a unity that has been divided…

So, if we understand the androgyne in this way, not as something that is composite, but as something rooted or radical, then we can talk about a radical notion, which is not sex in the sense that it is half of something else. That is, the gender of the Fourth Political Theory is that half, that sex which is simultaneously the whole and does not need its antithesis, and is therefore self-sufficient within itself. We can theorise about this gender that it does not so much come about from an analysis of sexual or gender archetypes, but because of thinking philosophically and politically upon the subject of the Fourth Political Theory. Thus, we change the formulation of the question. We do not ask which sex is Dasein, we answer that the gender of the subject of the Fourth Political Theory is the same as that of Dasein. In this case, we can also talk about the radical (“root”: from the Latin, radicula) androgyne, which exists not as a result of a combination of the man and the woman, but that represents instead the primordial, untouched unity.

In reply to this conception, the Qur’an declares, “Limitless in His glory is He who has created all the sexual pairs, of that which the earth produces, and of themselves, and of that which they know not!” (36:36).

In many places throughout his writings, Dugin casts himself as the archenemy of Postmodernism — yet in The Rise of the Fourth Political Theory, he says,

This postmodern dementia is much like the Fourth Political Theory, and differs from it only in its horizontality and flatness. The main problem of postmodernity is its elimination of any vertical orientation in terms of both height and depth.

Dugin apparently means by this that his problem with Postmodernism has nothing to do with its chaotic quality, its dementia, its acceptance of innumerable contradictions or its hatred of form, but only with its “democratic” horizontality. Chaos and insanity may be good first steps, but they will never reach their true potential until we make a religion out of them. Consequently, we must introduce a new element of verticality into the postmodern chaos, a new “spirituality” that looks down rather than up, one that is oriented not to “ontological heights” but to “ontic roots,” not to the Heights but to the Abyss, not to Allah (swt) but — unless I am mistaken — to the one the Jews call Samael, and the Muslims, Shaytan. But whether or not Dugin is actually a conscious Satanist (which, though likely, is not entirely certain), the final proof of the incompatibility of Islam and Duginism appears in The Rise of the Fourth Political Theory,

The theology of monotheistic religions, which at one time displaced other sacred cultures, will not be the ultimate truth, either (or rather, may or may not be).

Theoretically, nothing limits the possibilities for an in-depth readdressing of the ancient archaic values… Eliminating the need to adjust theology to the rationalism of modernity, the adherents of the Fourth Political Theory are free to ignore those theological and dogmatic elements in monotheistic societies which were influenced by rationalism, especially in their later stages. The latter led to the appearance of deism upon the ruins of Christian European culture, followed by atheism and materialism…

Here Dugin employs his usual ambiguous sleight-of-hand, saying that monotheism resulted in deism, that deism was rationalistic, that rationalism had negative consequences and has been superseded, therefore monotheism now has to be thrown out too — or maybe not, we’ll have to wait and see. It is clear as day, however, that no Muslim can ever accept the notion that the jury is still out on the validity of monotheism!

In the words of the noble Qur’an, “Bismillahi al-Rahman al-Rahim. Qul huwa Allahu ahad: In the name of Allah, the Mercy-Giving, the Very Merciful. Say, ‘Allah is One’” (112:1). The necessary Unity of God and the necessary multiplicity of His manifestation is an unchanging metaphysical principle, unchanging not because it has amassed enough power to maintain its position and defend itself against all rivals, but because it is true. Consequently, anyone who says that monotheism may or may not turn out to be the ultimate truth, depending upon how the winds of history blow, has zero understanding of God, and of His necessary relationship to His creation. In the face of Dugin’s mystifications I am now required to warn, “My fellow Muslims! Brothers and sisters! Be very careful not to follow or partner with Aleksandr Dugin — because if we, as Muslims, believe him when he says that the Unity of Allah is an issue yet to be decided upon one way or the other, our Islam, as well as our destiny in the akhirah, are gravely in doubt.

“Therefore seek refuge in Allah!” (51:50).