Hazar Imam's Horses: Spiritual Symbolism of the Horse in Ismaili Gnosis
Hazar Imam's horse-breeding venture is rooted in Islamic history and symbolizes spiritual realities and esoteric concepts
NOTE: This open source article is a slightly edited excerpt of an earlier Ismaili Gnosis Stacks premium (paid) research article, “Why does Hazar Imam (Aga Khan IV) own race horses? Does this promote gambling?”, which covered the following areas:
horse-racing was practiced by the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and is accepted in wider Islamic law and society;
the Imam’s involvement in horse-breeding is a longstanding family tradition that also benefits wider society;
the Imam’s horse-breeding business has no operational or financial ties to the modern gambling industry; the Imam does not bet on his horses and does not profit in any way from the wagering of others;
riding horses, as a longstanding activity in human civilization, contains a profound spiritual symbolism related to the human soul’s journey towards spiritual perfection.
In this short (non-paywalled) article, we reproduce material only from the section of the original article that addresses the final point listed above.
Spiritual Symbolism of the Horse and Rider
In addition to its historical roots with the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and Islamic civilization, the modern Ismaili Imam’s practice of racing horses and developing the most excellent quality of breeding stock also carries a highly symbolic significance. According to age-old Shi‘i Ismaili teachings, the actions and statements of the Imams contain inner wisdoms and deeper meanings: “For every word he utters is full of wisdom (hikma), full of knowledge and full of sense. The Imam never utters a word which is light, superfluous or meaningless” (al-Qadi al-Nu‘man, Code of Conduct, 115). Even the Imam’s horse-breeding activities carry deeper meanings and allude to esoteric concepts. What follows is a humble attempt to expound some of the spiritual and esoteric symbolism behind horses based on authentic Ismaili teachings.
The horse serves as an important spiritual symbol in the esoteric discourses of Islam and other faith traditions. According to the Ismaili Hujja (proof) and high ranking Da‘i, Sayyidna Nasir-i Khusraw (d. ca. 1070), the horse symbolizes the physical body and the horse-rider symbolizes the human rational soul:
We have established then that the ‘I’ belongs to the soul while the body stands in the relationship of a servant and assistant to the soul. It is on the level of the horse with respect to the rider; the horse is the rider's property: at his command it stops and at his command it goes. Whatever action the horse may perform has its origin in the man who rides it. Likewise, the body has been given to the soul so that through it the soul may acquire knowledge and carry out its duties of devotion and come at last to eternal repose.
Sayyidna Nasir-i Khusraw, Kitab-i Jami‘ al-Hikmatayn, trans. by Eric Ormsby as Between Reason and Revelation: Twin Wisdoms Reconciled, 100.
The rational soul controls and commands the physical body just as the horse-rider controls and commands the horse. This body-soul/horse-rider symbolism goes back to the teachings of Plato and St. Augustine. When explaining why horses and horse-racing are so special to the Imam and his ancestors, the 48th Shi‘i Ismaili Imam, Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah⁽ᶜ⁾ Aga Khan III, once articulated the following in a public interview:
Of all sports of rapid movement the riding of a horse is the best. The legend of the centaur—half man, half horse—was no idle dream; for you and the splendid creature are one. As its limbs gather and stretch out in perfect rhythm, electricity passes from the animal to you. It is a joy of the spirit as of the body. Through us speak the souls of our ancestors, who have ridden horses from the beginning of time. Yes, we may well believe that the horse was with man from the beginning. No doubt we who have ridden horses get a touch of that great happiness when English thoroughbreds, the exiles of Arabia, fly down the course like winged messengers of speed.
Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah, Aga Khan III, “My Personal Life — What a man needs to be happy”, Daily Sketch Interview, November 2nd, 1931.
The Imam here speaks of the mythical symbol of the “centaur”— the half-human half-horse — in which “you and the splendid creature are one”. The myth of the centaur contains a profound spiritual symbolism: the idea of the human rider and his horse being united in action symbolizes the integrative union between the human rational soul and the physical body controlled by the animal soul or lower self (nafs). One of the major stages in the spiritual journey is for the rational human soul to conquer, “convert” and integrate the animal soul. This means that the animal soul — akin to the horse — is fully controlled by the rational soul. The late Imam used this exact symbolism — the human riding a horse — to describe how every person must subdue and reign-in their animal self (nafs):
The practice of doing good deeds should be instilled in your children from an early age; just like a horse-rider who, when he mounts a horse, keeps the reins in his hands and makes the horse turn in any direction he wants it to turn; in the same way, man (insan) is the master of his animal soul (nafs). Therefore, he can lead it to the way which he wishes to take it. If you will not have control of your animal soul (nafs) and restrain your heart (dil) from doing sinful acts, then Satan would get control of you and incite your heart to commit sinful acts.
Imam Sultan Muhammad Shah, Kalam-e Imam-e Mubin, Farman No. 125, Nairobi, Kenya, October 6th, 1905.
Those human beings who have achieved this feat—bringing the animal soul and the physical body under the governance of the rational soul—have attained the spiritual level symbolized by the “centaur”. The contemporary philosopher and spiritual teacher Ken Wilber refers to this spiritual stage as the “centaur”:
…studies point to this stage as one wherein ‘mind and body are both experiences of an integrated self.’ This integrated self, wherein mind and body are harmoniously one, we call the ‘centaur.’ The centaur: the great mythological being with animal body and human mind existing in a perfect state of atonement.
Ken Wilber, The Essential Ken Wilber: An Introductory Reader, 73.
One of the Arabic words for horse is khayl; this is highly significant because the word khayl is directly related to the Arabic word khayal — which means “imagination, thought, contemplation”. The words khayl (horse) and khayal (imagination) share the same Arabic root according to all of the academic dictionaries. According to the science of ta’wil (spiritual exegesis and esoteric hermeneutics), Arabic words with a shared root indicate symbolic relationships between their referents. In this case, the “horse” (khayl) in the animal realm symbolizes the spiritual faculty of “imagination” (khayal) within the spiritual realm.
The imagination (khayal) is a power of the human soul; the function of the imagination is to extract meanings and ideas from physical sensory experiences, preserve them in memory, and reproduce them in thinking. The imagination occupies a mid-way station between the spiritual human intellect and the bodily-oriented animal soul. This is explained by the Ismaili philosopher and da‘i Sayyidna Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (d. 1274):
The imaginal soul (nafs-i khayali) has an intermediary position between the animal soul and the human soul. It has one face [turned] towards sense perception and perceptibles (mahususat), and another towards the intellect and intelligibles (ma‘qulat). If it unites with the animal soul, it will imagine through a bodily organ, become dependent on that organ, and deteriorate with the deterioration of [that organ]. But if it unites with the human soul, it can retain ideas without a bodily organ and be independent and detached from that bodily organ, becoming co-eternal with the eternity of soul, and sharing in both felicity and misery of the soul.
Sayyidna Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Rawda-yi Taslim, trans. by S.J. Badakhchani, Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought, 34.
The imagination (khayal) of the human being is similar to a horse (khayl). An untamed horse may wander around, get lost, and run wild when there is no rider holding its reigns. Likewise, the human imagination can wander mindlessly, get lost in fantasies, and run wild in fantastic speculations without the supervision of the human rational soul, who functions as the horse-rider. The contemporary Sufi teacher and award-winning author Adam Yahaya Abdurrahman Al-Fulany writes in How to Train Your Soul (translation slightly modified): “The imagination power is seen by the ‘people of openings’ in the form of a horse during manifestation; the word khayl is similar to the word khayal in its letter form and the activities of imagination power in the brain is similar to the behaviour of the horse in the animal world.”
Likewise, when Mawlana Hazar Imam⁽ᶜ⁾ warns the Jamat to “be careful not to let your minds wander to material worldly matters” (Toronto, August 19th, 1992) when practicing the spiritual meditation or ‘ibadat of Bayt al-Khayal, the Imam speaks to the likeness between the horse (khayl) and the human imagination (khayal). It is possible for the human faculty of imagination (khayal) to fully unite with the rational soul instead of succumbing to the animal soul. This requires a long process of spiritual discipline and refinement in which the imagination becomes more subtle and purified of worldly attachment. The centaur, mentioned earlier, symbolizes the union of the horse-rider (symbolizing the rational soul) and the horse (khayl), which stands for the imagination (khayal). In this “centaur” mode, the soul’s power of imagination (khayal) enables the human soul to perceive higher spiritual realities through imaginal symbols and then convey this knowledge to others. According to Sayyidna Nasir-i Khusraw, the highest ranking da‘is of the Imam — who are called Hujjas (proofs) of the Imam — can learn esoteric knowledge from the Imam through their spiritual power of imagination (khayal):
The Hujja grants knowledge to the da‘is and the people through speech and the Imam grants knowledge to the Hujja through command (amr) and imagination (khayal).
Sayyidna Nasir-i Khusraw, Wajh-i Din, ed. Aavani, 134
It can be said that the Hujjas of the Imam have reached the spiritual level of “centaur”, in which their imagination (khayal) is purified from animalistic attachment and has become fully integrated with their rational soul. The Imam conveys guidance to his Hujjas through their khayal without the need to convey physical speech. In principle, however, it is possible for every Ismaili murid to practice in the “House of Imagination” (bayt al-khayal) and develop their khayal to the rank of the Imam’s Hujjas.
It is based on this spiritual symbolism that Sayyidna Nasir-i Khusraw (Wajh-i Din, 294) explained that in the prophetic hadith — “there is goodness in the forelocks of horses until the Day of Resurrection” (see various Sunni hadith) — the “horses” refer to the Imam’s Hujjas and the “forelocks” refer to the Imam’s Da‘is. One may wonder, then, that perhaps it is based on this established Ismaili ta’wil of the “horse” as a hujja of the Imam that Mawlana Hazar Imam⁽ᶜ⁾ named one of his famous horses “Shahrastani” (shown below).
This is significant because al-Shahrastani is the name (nisba) of a great Ismaili philosophical theologian Taj al-Din ‘Abd al-Karim al-Shahrastani (d. 1153) — who publicly appeared to be Sunni but was secretly a high-ranking Ismaili da‘i and very likely a hujja of the Imam of his time. Indeed, the Hujjas of the Imam are great souls who were spiritually bred and trained through the Imam’s farman, just as the Imam’s championship horses were physically bred and trained in his stables.
In conclusion…the horse has served as an ancient symbol for spiritual and esoteric truths: the horse (khayl) traditionally represents the animal soul, physical body, and lower imagination (khayal) and the horse-rider stands for the human rational soul. The goal of horse-riding is to achieve a state where the horse-rider and his horse are moving in complete union under the rider’s control; likewise, a major goal of spirituality is for the rational soul to gain mastery over the animal soul and the imaginal faculty. The imagination (khayal), once successfully integrated into the rational soul, enables one to reach the status of the Hujja (proof) of the Imam and receive spiritual wisdom from the Imam through the imaginal faculty.
We conclude this article with the words of Mawlana Hazar Imam⁽ᶜ⁾, which speak to the immense practical and spiritual significance of the horse in human history:
What has the horse meant to various epochs of human civilisation, to various regions of our world? It is a fascinating, nearly unlimited subject. You can approach the topic from the point of view of faith and you will find the horse everywhere: in the Muslim world, in the Christian world. You will find that the horse has been part of sport all over the world, going back centuries, including hunting on horseback and polo. You can look at the horse in human life — in agriculture, in war, or as a vehicle of exploration — for hundreds of years. When you think about it, the horse is one of the most extraordinary phenomena we have.
Imam Shah Karim al-Husayni Aga Khan IV, quoted in Philip Jodidio, A Racing and Breeding Tradition: The Horses of the Aga Khan.
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
When Mowlana Sultan Muhammad Shah says in the same way insan is the master of his nafs translated as man is the master of his animal soul there needs to be greater analysis. Insan in Arabic and then adopted into the Indic languages denotes a creation that is superlative. There is an-nas which means mankind, then al-ins or the human and finally al-insaan which is The Human Being.
So it is actually a human being which is in control of his nafs. Here since nafs hasn't been designated as an-nafs al-ammara, an-nafs al-lawamma or an-nafs al-mutmaina it is inclusive of all three states which the nafs or soul posseses. Thus a human being is in control of the soul which incites to evil, the soul which is reproaching and the soul that is contented.
The way this occurs the Imam stated was through the reins the rider holds. The reins here are representative of 'aql or intellect whose function it is to fetter the soul which Mowlana Sultan Muhammad Shah speaks about further in Farman 125 of Kalam-E-Imam-E-Mubin.