Fane

Frequented Fane Footnote

By John Taylor; 2007 Apr 07

A friend asked this question: What is the frequented fane?

Fane has an older Teutonic sense of a flag, banner or weathercock, but the modern, common sense is derived from the Latin Fanum, temple or church. Most frequently we meet the word in the form of its opposite, "profane," which describes what happens when ordinary objects enter into the sacred fane, or temple. The Greeks had their fanes for Hera and Diana, and other deities. Their myths describe the dire revenge that the patron god or goddess would wreak on any that profaned their fanes. The acropolis of ancient Athens was the fane of Athena; she guarded there the city state's mint and treasury, relying upon any prospective thief's fear of her wrath should they lay hands the gold stored there. Today the American government uses the more secular deterrent of an army base surrounding their gold storehouse, Fort Knox.

Thoreau used the word metaphorically, describing the care that must be taken not to allow the "fane of the mind" to be desecrated by garbage -- this of course was long before advertisers marked off our minds, divided them into lots and sold the temple grounds wholesale to all comers.

"If we have thus desecrated ourselves -- as who has not? -- the remedy will be by wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and make once more a fane of the mind. We should treat our minds, that is, ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are, and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their attention." (Life Without Principle)

As for the "frequented fane," this expression seems to have come into English when Rodwell translated the fifty second chapter of the Qu'ran, The Mount," and survived into the more modern translation of Jusuf Ali,

The Mount

By the Mount (of Revelation);
By a Decree inscribed
In a Scroll unfolded;
By the much-frequented Fane;
By the Canopy Raised High;
And by the Ocean filled with Swell;-
Verily, the Doom of thy Lord will indeed come to pass;-
There is none can avert it;-
On the Day when the firmament will be in dreadful commotion."

My Google search turned up one Muslim commentator's footnote to "frequented fane" saying that it is "a place above the Kaba in the seventh heaven where angels go to pray." Presumably the "frequented" part of the fane, meaning the black rock to which every Muslim prays five times daily, refers not only to the directed prayers but to the massive crowds that still circumambulate the Kaaba in Mecca during every pilgrimage season. Angels, it seems, get to pray several stories above the rush.

As for this entire chapter being called "The Mount (of Revelation)," I suppose this is a reference to the mountains where Moses was informed of His mission, and where He received the Law. Mountains are a symbol of the rock-hard nature of faith, which nobody can change lightly without severe metaphysical trauma. Hence Jesus' promise, after he had wilted a fig tree that got in His way,

"Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done." (Matt 21:21, KJV)

The Manifestation of God and those who abide in His name have the sanction to remove the mountains of faith because God existed "before" hills and valleys existed,

"Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world." (Proverbs 8:25-26, KJV)

The Bab wrote the following, referring to God and the "all-highest paradise,"

"This is the divinely-inscribed Book. This is the outspread Tablet. Say, this indeed is the Frequented Fane, the sweet-scented Leaf, the Tree of divine Revelation, the surging Ocean, the Utterance which lay concealed, the Light above every light... Indeed every light is generated by God through the power of His behest. He of a truth is the Light in the kingdom of heaven and earth and whatever is between them." (Selections, 154-155)

Why does God reveal such power through this Frequented Fane? In order to inspire worship to Himself.

"Through the radiance of His light God imparteth illumination to your hearts and maketh firm your steps, that perchance ye may yield praise unto Him." (The Bab, Selections, pp. 154-155)

The Bab was the first known Manifestation to write down His words with his own Hand, and the idea of a "frequented fane" may refer to the fact that now the millions and billions can "frequent" the person of the Bab by reading His Book, as well as the older ways of directed prayer and pilgrimage. Muhammad had intentionally drawn worship away from his person in order to keep Islam from becoming a cult of personality, as Christianity had become. Today Muslims pray to the rock, not to His tomb. Sadly, the present Saudi regime has gone to the unprecedented extreme of desecrating and obliterating the burial place of Muhammad, while the majority of Muslims can only look on in horror, with no other authority to bring their protests to.

With the Bab's Revelation, the kaaba became His person, and then later transferred to Baha'u'llah's person. This change evidently came when the Bab declared Himself to be the "mystic Fane of God" in the following passage,

"Verily, the One True God beareth Me witness that in this Day I am the true mystic Fane of God, and the Essence of all good. He who doeth good unto Me, it is as if he doeth good unto God, His angels and the entire company of His loved ones. He who doeth evil unto Me, it is as if he doeth evil unto God and His chosen ones. Nay, too exalted is the station of God and of His loved ones for any person's good or evil deed to reach their holy threshold. Whatever reacheth Me is ordained to reach Me; and that which hath come unto Me, to him who giveth will it revert." (The Bab, Selections, 15)

The Bab evidently uses this terminology because of the Hebrew and Arabic pun, Haykal, meaning both body and temple. His body is a temple or fane, a sacred place exalted above all other points in space. He repeated the term "mystic fane" in the following:

"I am the Mystic Fane which the Hand of Omnipotence hath reared. I am the Lamp which the Finger of God hath lit within its niche and caused to shine with deathless splendour. I am the Flame of that supernal Light that glowed upon Sinai in the gladsome Spot, and lay concealed in the midst of the Burning Bush." (The Bab, Selections, 74)

The Muslim tradition that the frequented fane is somewhere up in the seventh heaven above the point of adoration indicates the exalted nature of the new station claimed by the Bab. The Guardian later collected these and several other self-references of the Bab in order to give a picture of His role as a sort of spiritual fulcrum for all spiritual manifestations, the "primal point" at the center of the circle of existence,

"He, as affirmed by Himself, "the Primal Point from which have been generated all created things," "one of the sustaining pillars of the Primal Word of God," the "Mystic Fane," the "Great Announcement," the "Flame of that supernal Light that glowed upon Sinai," the "Remembrance of God" concerning Whom "a separate Covenant hath been established with each and every Prophet" had, through His advent, at once fulfilled the promise of all ages and ushered in the consummation of all Revelations. (Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 57)

Interestingly, the space above the person of the Bab is still considered by believers to be highly sacred. As those involved in the construction of the shrine of the Bab have written, the Guardian was quite upset that workmen had to walk around on the roof of the Shrine of the Bab, for pointing one's feet down directly over the sacred remains is a mark of disrespect. But he recognized that this was a practical necessity. I suppose this will have to happen again when the shrine to be built over the present burial place of Baha'u'llah is built, unless by then robot workers, without feet in the ordinary sense of the word, might be employed for the purpose.

The fast is a time when we are meant to commune with the Manifestation as He was in the state of revealing the holy Word, a time when He does not think about worldly means of sustenance, as eating and drinking. Thus it is no coincidence that Baha'u'llah mentions "frequented fane" in a prayer for the fast,

"Praise be to Thee, O Lord my God! I beseech Thee by this Revelation whereby darkness hath been turned into light, through which the Frequented Fane hath been built, and the Written Tablet revealed, and the Outspread Roll uncovered, to send down upon me and upon them who are in my company that which will enable us to soar into the heavens of Thy transcendent glory, and will wash us from the stain of such doubts as have hindered the suspicious from entering into the tabernacle of Thy unity." (Prayers and Meditations, p. 9)

The Mashriqs are not quite as literally sacred, but theirs is a sanctity all their own. John Esslemont in his masterwork, Baha'u'llah and the New Era (p. 186), recalls Tennyson's lines as a description of the Mashriq's role as a sort of virtual temple, opening up the sacred, making everything in the world holy,

"I dreamed
That stone by stone I reared a sacred fane,
A temple, neither Pagod, Mosque nor Church,
But loftier, simpler, always open-doored
To every breath from heaven, and Truth and Peace
And Love and Justice came and dwelt therein."
(Tennyson, Akbar's Dream, 1892)