Ahl-i-Batin
The Batini are a group of Arabian mages that practices mainly magic with a strong focus on subtlety. Former holders of the Seat of Correspondence and a founding member of the Council of Nine, they withdrew their membership early on in the 20th century in order to focus on the maintenance of the Web of Faith and the protection of the Middle East against the Technocratic onslaught.
Name: Ahl-i-Batin, Batini
Plural: Ahl-i-Batin, Batini
Pronunciation: ahl' ee' bah-teen'
Nicknames: Subtle Ones
Seat: Correspondence
The Batini are a group of Arabian mages that practices mainly magic with a strong focus on subtlety. Former holders of the Seat of Correspondence and a founding member of the Council of Nine, they withdrew their membership early on in the 20th century in order to focus on the maintenance of the Web of Faith and the protection of the Middle East against the Technocratic onslaught.
Contents
Paradigm
In the Dark Ages, the Batini have a Foundation of al-Ikhlas (Awareness of Unity), supporting four Pillars called Ubbadan (Faith): al-Anbiya (Mastery of Fate), al-Fatihah (Mastery over Minds), al-Hajj (Mastery of Space), and al-Layl (Mastery of Secrecy).
The Ahl-i-Batin, or Subtle Ones, are living embodiments of the highest accomplishments of Muslim culture – philosopher-naturalists who seek the hidden Unity that underlies all things. Masters of the intricate patterns that make up God’s creation, the Ahl-i-Batin fulfill a variety of functions in their native lands: scientists, explorers, diplomats and even assassins when necessary. The Subtle Ones use their remarkable understanding of connections to move about as few mages can, seeing and doing things that others cannot. Possessing knowledge of interest to all who have magical power, the Ahl-i-Batin are nevertheless shunned and viewed with suspicion, sometimes even among their own peoples. Their vision, which transcends the here and now and seeks to find commonality in all things, sparks the very divisiveness the Subtle Ones strive to overcome.
The Ahl-i-Batin were the first ones to postulate the existence of the Tenth Sphere, which they called Unity. Other magical traditions, like the Order of Hermes, borrowed the term from them following the exchange of knowledge after the Crusades.
History
No one – not even the wisest sages of the Ahl-i-Batin – knows how old the sect truly is. Tradition among the Batini holds that their history stretches back untold thousands of years into the past. There is no proof of such vintage, but it is held nonetheless for the Subtle Ones believe that current incarnation of the sect is the re-founding of much older one that died out millennia before.
Early History
The greatest of the Batini sacred texts, the Mushaf al-Isra (or “Great Book of Passage Through Night”) claims that the Subtle Ones are fragments of a powerful entity known as the Kamil, or “Perfected One”. For reasons that are unclear, the Kamil had no contact with the world for thousands of years. It was during this time that the original Ahl-i-Batin ceased to be. Then, one night in 514 BCE. – known as the Night of Fana – the Kamil returned to the world and the Batini along with it.
Of course, the sect didn’t spring into being immediately. Rather, it was the result of a combination of factors that, according to the Batini, reveal their Doctrine of Unity in action. On the Night of Fana, there was a great conflict. Adherents of two warring magical traditions (predecessors of the Euthanatoi and Akashic Brotherhood) fought against one another, with one group pursuing the other into a vast, green meadow where the others expected to destroy their foes. The hunted mages found that the meadow was already inhabited by another group of adepts, whom the Batini call the Darwushim. While waiting for their pursuers to arrive, the hunted mages joined the Darwushim in a magical ritual of dance and motion, one that summoned an entity which would become known as the Khwaja al-Akbar.
The Khwaja al-Akbar was the fusion of two men, on from each magical group involved in the ritual. Suffused with power, the Khwaja al-Akbar spoke and affected the world around itself. For a few moments, all of space became one and Unity was achieved among all the men and women present at this event. Space broke down and became one in a moment of ecstatic union that has never been repeated since. During the event, the Kamil, freed once more, manifested itself in everyone present. Then, the Khwaja al-Akbar disappeared and the men who composed it returned to their former selves. Yet they, like everyone else present, were changed forever. Their original affiliations meant nothing compared to the greater Unity they had experienced. The Ahl-i-Batin were born.
The newly formed “Interior Ones” spent the next few hundred years establishing the lands of China, India and Persia, although they proved most successful in Persia. There, they established six distinct schools, called khanaqas, each of which taught its student a different aspect of the Unity the sect hoped to achieve. These early Batini became deeply involved in many aspects of Persian life. In particular, they were revered as masters of self-discipline and sought out as teachers of both etiquette and diplomacy. The Batini also became involved in politics and attempted to institute reforms within the Parthian administration that would lead to greater unity. These reforms were partly successful and culminated in the formation of Neo-Persian, or Sassanid, Empire in the third century CE.
Dark Ages
In its efforts to achieve Unity, some Ahl-i-Batin looked in unusual places. One such Batini was Ishaq al-Jannani who, around 100 CE, began to cooperate with the Nif’ur en’Daah, an Infernalist sect of mages. Unfortunately, Ishaq becomes so enamored of the Infernalist’s ways that he adopted them, renaming himself Ishaq al-Iblis. He became the first Devil King and turned against the Subtle Ones – violently. In the process of his own corruption, he did the same to the kanaqa he led, which soon ceased to be part of the Ahl-i-Batin forever.
In order to defend themselves against the new threat from within, the Batini leadership created the Qutbs, who used their powerful mind-reading magic to monitor the thoughts of Batini. The Qutbs rose to prominence as the sect grew and eventually became judges within it. A few decades later, the Ahl-i-Batin authorize the training of assassins to be used against their corrupt brethren. So successful are these assassins that their abilities enter legend – and sully the good name of the sect in the eyes of some outsiders.
The Ahl-i-Batin nevertheless soldiered on in their quest to influence cultures and societies toward Unity. According to Batini tales, a Qutb encountered a certain man and saw in him great destiny, although he possessed no magical ability. This man, who would become known to history as the Prophet Muhammad, wrote a holy book, the Qur’an, after receiving its words from God through the agency of the angel Gabriel. The religion he founded – Islam – had many beliefs in common with the Doctrine of Unity and in fact spread those beliefs throughout the world far better than the Ahl-i-Batin ever had.
Some Batini would later claim that no unenlightened merchant could have founded Islam without magical assistance. Stung by the realization that the Prophet had succeeded in preaching Divine Unity better than they, these reactionary mages simply refused to accept that their Fellowship did not have some hand in the foundation of Islam. The current majority, however, accept what seems obvious to them: that God Himself chose an ordinary man to spread the Doctrine of Unity not through the esoteric learning of the Ahl-i-Batin but through the simple beauty of a new religion. Instead of claiming credit for the intervention of the godhead in bringing a new revelation to mortals, most Batini mages did what they could to encourage Islam’s spread.
And spread it did. Within a couple of centuries of its birth, Islam was knocking on the doors of Europe and would likely have made ever greater inroads had it not been opposed by mages of other sects, particularly the Messianic Voices. Even so, the Batini could take pride in what the new faith had achieved in so short time – in particular, the development of a rational and scholarly culture that preserved and passed on ancient wisdom. Under Islam, the cause of Unity was advanced through scholarship. Many important elements of the Doctrine of Unity passed into other cultures – including Christian Europe – through the medium of philosophical and theological texts. So powerful were the ideas contained in these texts that the Messianic Voices could not censor them, try as they might. In this way, European civilization benefited from the fruits o the Batini influence on Islam, even as it opposed the religion that had nurtured them.
The Ahl-i-Batin likewise influenced the cause of Unity through their unceasing efforts to fight against the Devil Kings. The Subtle Ones recognized early that Infernalism was a path to be avoided and that it offered mages nothing except corruption and death. In this effort, they made common cause with other magical traditions – yet another part of their plan for Unity. Batini texts on combating evil also found their way into European hands, although, ironically, Commoners and mages alike turned some of these against the Subtle Ones.
Renaissance
The Ahl-i-Batin suffered a brutal setback in 1248, when the Mongols conquered Baghdad and gutted the resident qutb Baha al-Din Zuyar. The Cabal of Pure Thought from the Order of Reason began to stalk and hunt them, driving them from two of their most potent Nodes. Faced with a common enemy, the Batini joined the Great Convocation, seeing it as a way to bring Unity. They took the Seat of Correspondence and worked subtly to increase inter-tradition cooperation.
Modern Nights
During the period of 1890-1914, the Ahl-i-Batin lost most of their holdings to the onslaught of the invigorated Technocratic Union. In 1922, the Ahl-i-Batin leave the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions, protesting the Council of Nine's apathy toward European happenings in the Middle East. Batini Masters vanish. Some few Adepts and Disciples are subsumed into the Order of Hermes, Ex Miscellanea.[1] The Batini only survived by directing the Technocrats against the Taftâni, a group of highly vulgar mages that soon began to match them.
All things are connected, for all things are One. Though this world appears to be a rich pageant of people, places, creatures, and thoughts, those myriad elements are but mirrors and reflections of a greater Unity. When one realizes this fundamental truth, the Tapestry unfolds, responding to one’s will. That Will and the Tapestry become One. This truth the Ahl-i-Batin have known since their beginnings on the legendary Night of Fana, when, in the midst of a terrible war, a faction of Akashayana came upon a group of Darwushim – dervishes – who were dancing and whirling in the moonlit night. On that night, the Brothers and the Darwushim danced together, forming a great mandala... and in the midst of that dance, an ancient consciousness Awakened.
Called the Entelechy by certain scholars, this consciousness was said to be comprised of the Ascended souls of mages who lived in an age before this one, mages who hoped to bring humanity into harmonious unity with the cosmos. As the Entelechy manifested into our chaotic world, it fragmented and dissolved. In so doing, it caused the Akashayana and the Darwushim dancing in the center to become a single entity that was neither one man nor the other. This was the Kwajah- al-Akbar, and as it spoke its mighty prophecy, those who danced around it were enlightened. Time ceased to be. Everyone upon that field became one with their partners in the dance – united in mind, body, and spirit.
When the Fana ended, all those who had been joined became individuals once again, forever transformed by their experience. Of what use were names? Of what importance country or kingdom when one understood the Unity of all things? The story of that night ends with these newborn souls forming a circle and dancing a spiral into its center, where, one by one, they disappeared. When these Ahl-i-Batin (“Subtle” or “Interior” Ones) re-emerged, their sole purpose was to continue the legacy of the great consciousness that now spoke in the voices of their Avatars. From the humblest hut to the grandest palaces, these mages used their Awakened magicks to bring about Unity for all mankind.
These are the myths surrounding the Batini. Such tales recall that once, not long ago, the Ahl-i-Batin sat upon the Council of Nine Traditions, occupying the Seat of Connection, as Correspondence was then called. People have said that the rise of the Technocratic Union spelled the end of the Subtle Ones, forcing them all into exile – hiding in the mysterious Realm of Mount Qaf, lost to time and obscurity. Everyone knows that.
And what everyone knows is false.
The Ahl-i-Batin never went anywhere. Rather, they went everywhere, leaving the turmoil of the Technocratic pogroms in the Middle East to emerge in Europe, Asia, the Americas, Central and South Africa... always gently and softly bringing the world into Oneness – one whisper, one sigh, one leaf-fall at a time.
But although Batini ideals focus on Oneness and light, their methods, in practice, often take on the darker, bloodier cast of war – particularly with regards to their ancient fight against the Nephandi. It has been said that no one knows the ways of the Dark Mirrors, or battles them as assiduously, as the Batini do. It was Batini scholars, after all, who compiled the dreaded Sebil-el-Mafouh Whash that first detailed the Nephandi, and it was Batini Masters who drove the Devil Kings from the Middle East. Unfortunately, their deep connection to the Fallen also leaves the Subtle Ones far more susceptible to Nephandic corruption than they might be otherwise. Both groups could indeed be seen as opposite reflections of the same principle: all things are Unified, and thus all things remain bound... even light to darkness and oblivion to hope.
Organization: Unity emerges from structure; therefore, the Batini value order in their organization. There are five khanates in different parts of the world, each one presided over by a Master Murshid called a Qtub, or “pole.” Each khanate is made up of about a dozen or so cabals composed of a few Murshids, several Murids, and 10 to 20 initiates. Each cabal knows that the others exist, but they rarely have contact with other Ahl-i-Batin outside their own immediate circle.
Initiation: Joining this sect requires equal amounts of secrecy and patience. Often, a candidate for initiation is observed for years before she’s ever approached by a Murid. If the candidate expresses an interest in the Ahl-i-Batin, she undergoes a slow and steady process of removing herself from the world (and from the possessions and luxuries inherent therein) and adopting stringent levels of asceticism. This successive removal of distractions and temptations separates the initiate from ego and attachments, preparing her to embrace the greater freedom of Unity.
Affinity Sphere: Correspondence or Mind – but never Entropy.
Focus: As their name declares, the Batini remain subtle. The phrase “leave no trace” holds a particularly significance in everything they do. A Batini mage often spends weeks, months, even years observing, considering, and contemplating a situation before she finally uses her Arts to nudge things in the desired direction.
Faith is an essential element of Batini practices, with a core belief in Divine Order and Earthly Chaos. Certain Batini assert that It’s All Good, and others hold the bleak conviction that Everything’s an Illusion. Crazy wisdom, alchemy, and High Ritual Magick maintain their traditional places in Batini Arts, with yoga, gutter magick, reality hacking, and even chaos magick appearing in the practices of certain devotees.
Despite their mystic acumen, Batini cannot learn the Entropy Arts at all. This mystic blind spot presents an interesting conundrum: if all things are Unified, then surely even decay has a place in that sacred order? That’s a question the sect has not yet answered.
Stereotypes
The Traditions: They refuse to see the connections between all things that make us One, and yet they believe themselves to be authorities on all things mystical!
The Technocracy: Riddled through with Nephandic corruption. Now, more than ever, we must crack their shell and purge their poisons.
The Disparates: Perhaps Unity will speak more clearly in disparate voices than it has in traditional ones!
