Chapter 1: Theology and Monotheism
The Importance and Levels of Theology
1. What is the foundation of religion?
Answer: All elements related to religion are branches of monotheism. It is monotheism which requires prophethood and necessitates the hereafter.
2. What is the meaning of the following tradition: “If your discussion leads to God, then abstain. Do not ponder on the essence of God. Speak about what is below the Throne, but do not talk about what is beyond”?
Answer: The imams have the highest level of expression in regard to monotheism and the teachings of religion. Imam ʿAlī in unlike any person in describing the essence of God and monotheism. This tradition pertains to those who cannot describe the essence of God as He is. Thus, their explanations amount to anthropomorphism and blasphemy. Consequently, the criticism is not against the listeners either, since under the podium of Imam ʿAlī a multitude of people were present. The command to abstinence is solely directed to unqualified speakers. The Almighty God says: Glory be to Allah (for freedom) from what they describe; [all] except Allah’s exclusive servants ().
3. How can the limited human being learn about God Who is infinite?
Answer: The limited learns about God according to his capacity, just like a window on which light shines; according to its dimensions it is capable of absorbing that light.
4. Given that the known (maʿlūm) is infinite and unlimited, how can the limited human being learn about him?
Answer: The limited being’s existence is relational (rābiṭī) and depends on God’s existence, meaning that its knowledge is known by God. Therefore God is both the knower and the known in reality. On this basis, it is the Infinite that knows about the Infinite, and this solves the problem.
5. What is the meaning of this tradition narrated from Imam al-Ṣādiq: “Verily he who knows God, is he who is introduced to God by Himself; therefore he who is not introduced to God by Him does not know God, but he knows something else. There is nothing between The Creator and the created…”?
Answer: There is another tradition that is related by the same transmitter, which states: “God revealed onto David: O David, I have emplaced five into five, but the people seek them in five other things, and thus they do not find them… I have emplaced tranquility in paradise, but the people look for it in this world, and thus they do not find it.” In other words, ultimate tranquility is that which is with God, which can only be acquired by His love and His companionship. However, most people are deprived of this blessing, and therefore search for a sense of ease in this world.
The first tradition is trying to say that humans see God before everything else, and then they see God manifested in the other things. In the physical world, it is impossible to see God without His manifestations and separate from the creation. Likewise in the hereafter, it is senseless to see God Who is the apparent and uncovered without His manifestation from whom the cover is lifted.
The Human being, who is the noblest of the creation, is always directed towards God, loves Him, sees Him and wants Him. However, people are not unaware of this in this world, but this reality is unveiled to them in the hereafter, as God says in the Qur’an: You were certainly heedless of this. We have removed your veil from you, and so your sight is acute today ().
6. What is the meaning of this phrase by Imam al-Sajjād which says [to God]: “I have come to know you by Yourself”?
Answer: It means that God is to be known by Himself. It is also narrated from Imam al-Ṣādiq: “Verily he who knows God, is he who is introduced to God by Himself; therefore he who is not introduced to God by Him does not know God, but he knows something else.”
7. Was the monotheism propagated by the prophets before Prophet Muḥammad complete?
Answer: No, their monotheism was not perfect, since they did not possess the monotheism of Islam, which is free even of the condition of unconditionality (iṭlāq).
8. Does God have matter (māddah)?
Answer: Matter entails composition, and that entails need, which is contrary to the nature of God.
The Meaning of rubūbiyyah (Lordship)
9. In a debate with an atheist, Imam al-Ṣādiq said: “Have you ever been on a boat?” The man replied by the affirmative. Imam al-Ṣādiq continued: “Did anything happen to cause your ship to sink?” The man said, “Yes.” The imam then asked: “At that time, did your heart wish for someone or something to save you?” The man replied, “Yes.” The imam then said: “That is God.” Is such argument found in the Qur’an?
Answer: The analogy of the boat and the sea is mentioned in various passages of the Holy Qur’an. This is a sign that when man’s capacity to act in the natural world grows faint, and when his heart is detached from the apparent means, the Almighty alone is able to bring him to the highs which one desires.
10. It’s clear that this case is not limited to non-believers, for believers also seek God’s protection when their boat is sinking, and realize that there is no safeguard and no way out except to God. So why do these verses address the non-believers in particular?
Answer: The speech and reasoning of the Qur’an is about the idol-worshipers who believed that God is the creator of the universe without any doubt. As is mentioned in the Holy Qur’an: If you ask them, “Who created the heavens and the earth?” they will surely say, “Allah” (, ).
Therefore, the difference between Islam and Qur’an on the one hand, and them [the idol-worshipers] on the other hand, is based on their understanding of the world’s management system. They believed that the world is managed and organized by God’s righteous servants, each of whom controls a specific order of creation (such as the earth, the skies, the deserts, the oceans, the mountains, the forests, humans and animals). They referred to each of these righteous servants as “lord” (rabb) and collectively as “lords” (arbāb). Yet, they were not considered as the creation of God. These idol-worshipers did not deny the existence of God; in fact, they would refer to Him as the Lord of lords (rabb al-arbāb).
Based on that, the verses of Qur’an refute the view of the idol-worshipers and prove the existence of God as the creator and sustainer of all aspects of the creation without resorting to any helper or associate.
11. How is it possible to argue in favor of the existence of God using the above verses from the Holy Qur’an?
Answer: The verses show that deliverance from drowning and death is outside the capabilities of their material lords. In such exigencies one finds in one’s inmost conscience that solely God is mighty and capable of helping.
Unicity of Being (waḥdat al-wujūd)
12. Is there a difference in the views of mystics and philosophers regarding the unicity of existence (waḥdat al-wujūd)?
Answer: Mystics say: There is no existence other than that of God; everything else exists by God, and its existence is accidental and metaphorical. However, philosophers say that existence is of many degrees, unlike mystics who say that nothing exists other than God.
13. What is the view of mystics and philosophers regarding the limitlessness or finiteness of existence?
Answer: Mystics do not believe in finite existence. On the contrary, they say that the reality of existence [that is, God] is characterized by personal unity. In other words, there is only one instance of existence, and that is God. They say that in fact, nothing exists other than God; other things exist by the Almighty. However, philosophers subscribe to an absolute sense of existence that, when delimited by quiddity, becomes finite existence. They interpret causality as a matter of being dependent or independent in existence.
14. I would like to state something I believe in; please advise me if it is correct or not: “There is that which is, and that which is not. However, the latter, by definition, does not exist. Hence, there is only one reality which exists.”
Answer: That is correct, but it needs a short premise. Take this match box as an example (pointing to the match box in hand). It is either existence itself, or it is non-existent, or it derives its being from existence. It is a match box, so it is not non-existent. However, it is not existence itself either. Rather, it exists by existence. Therefore, a match box or any other contingent being is neither non-existent nor God, but it derives its existence from God.
15. What is contingent existence (al-wujūd al-imkanī)?
Answer: Contingent existence means the effect (maʿlūl) in the sense that it is an effect. In other words, it is neither the subject, nor the predicate, and nor the relation between the two, but it is copulative existence (wujūd al-rābiṭ). It has no existence of itself, but its only reality is dependence and connection. Such existence is in need of the Necessary Being, without necessitating the Necessary Being to have a quiddity (māhiyyah). It always depends on either something that exists, or on existence itself.
16. Is the truth about the world its non-existence?
Answer: It is difficult to justify non-existence as the truth about the world. Perhaps what the inquirer means is that people do not really exist, in the sense that if we take God away, everyone and everything else ceases to exist and the world would vanish.
The Essential Attributes of God
17. What are the essential attributes of God?
Answer: The essential attributes of God are: Knowledgeable, Powerful, Living, Seeing and Hearing. The author of one book has removed Seeing and Hearing from these five, and instead added five other qualities: Willing (al-Murīd), Perceiver (al-Mudrik), Beginningless (al-Qadīm), Pre-Eternal (Azalī), and Truthful Speaker (al-Mutakallim al-Ṣādiq). He says:
He is Knowledgeable, Powerful and Living, my friend;
Willing, Perceiver and Beginningless, so transcend;
Eternal, and Truthful Speaker is the end.
Furthermore, he says that the affirmative attributes are defined through the negative: Knowledgeable means “not ignorant”; Powerful means “not powerless”; and so on. However, it seems that the attribute of idrāk (perception, comprehension) has not been used for God [in Qur’an and hadith], and cannot be used, because perception implies that a thing arrives to another without having reached it before. This idea does not make any sense with regards to God.
18. Is the divine quality of hearing (samīʿ) the same as the divine essence?
Answer: Yes, it is identical with the essence.
19. Are vision and hearing not part of God’s attributes of action (ṣifāt al-fiʿl)?
Answer: No, they are not.
20. It is possible to assume God’s existence without the quality of hearing. This shows that hearing is not identical with the divine essence, since it can be assumed to be separate from it. Thus, the attribute al-Samīʿ (the Hearer) is an attribute of action, not an essential attribute.
Answer: If so, then the same could be assumed about the attributes al-ʿalīm (the Omniscient) and al-Ḥayy (the All-Living), in the sense that separated from knowledge, God cannot be Omniscient, and without life He cannot be All-Living. However all of these assumptions are self-contradictory and impossible. Likewise, power means being the origin of things. The same applies to life. Therefore, the assumption of a God that exists without having life, or without being omniscient is assuming the impossible.
21. “Knower” (ʿalīm) means “a subject that is characterized by knowledge.” Therefore, does the attribute of knower represent an extension to the subject’s essence?
Answer: In this context [of God’s attributes], “knower” does not imply acquired knowledge, but it refers to the presence of the divine essence before the divine essence. That is God’s knowledge of His essence. In the same sense, “powerful” (qadīr) doesn’t not mean a subject that is characterized by power, rather it implies the very reality of power.
22. Is “comprehension” (idrāk) among the attributes of God? Can He be described by this quality?
Answer: Comprehension means “to reach one’s objective,” which has knowledge as a requirement. As God says in the Holy Qur’an: The sights do not apprehend Him, yet He apprehends the sights, and He is the All-Attentive, the All-Aware ().
For example, the pain of labor experienced by women, men comprehend not. Therefore, in everyday language comprehension is used to mean understanding. However, the literal meaning of idrāk is reaching something which one did not possess, and this meaning is not applicable to God. The essential Divine characteristics considered by Shias are five in number: (1) life; (2) power; (3) knowledge; (4) hearing; (5) sight. The last two point back to knowledge. “The Hearer” (al-Samīʿ) points to God’s knowledge of things that can be heard; and “the seer” (al-Baṣīr) points to His knowledge of things that can be seen. The Sunni school of thought also includes “will” (irādah) and “speech” (takkalum) to the essential divine attributes. Yet, in our traditions it is cited that “Allah was, but speech was not; Allah was, but Will was not.” This shows that these two are God’s attributes of action because they can be negated from the essence.
23. Muslim theologians refer to comprehension (idrāk) as knowledge of details and particulars. Can God be described by comprehension in this sense?
Answer: There is no doubt that God has knowledge of all particulars and universals. But philologists describe comprehension (idrāk) as “attainment of what is desired.” This is inconsistent regarding God. Knowledge and comprehension have the same meaning in everyday language, therefore comprehension in that sense is also knowledge—by which God is described. Knowledge doesn’t require the acquisition of the known, unlike comprehension which means to attain what is desired as an additional quality for the subject. That is impossible with regards to God.
God’s General Attributes
24. It is said that the two attributes of knowledge and power that are present in creatures are different from the knowledge and power of God. Is this correct?
Answer: Knowledge, power, providence, and will of God are the same as the ones by which we are described. This is based on the necessary congruity between cause and effect. It is not possible to say that these attributes are inexistent in Him. However, the negative attributes are in reality negations of something non-existent, which reduce to affirmative attributes. For example, God is not weak, where weakness means “lack of power.” This attribute of “not being weak” can be broken to “powerlessness” and “nonbeing.” Both are negative, and together they mean power. Following the same course, “God is not ignorant” means that “He is knowledgeable.” Both “not being” and “ignorant” are negations, and if two negatives are multiplied, the result is a positive, so we obtain the “knowledgeable” attribute.
Knowledgeable = not × ignorant
25. Then why in Duʿaʾ al-Jawshan al-Kabīr, the affirmative attributes are traced back to negative attributes? For example it says: “O Knower Who is never ignorant. O Powerful Who is never weak. O Living Who never dies.”
Answer: These sentences confirm the affirmative attributes of God. They mean that God is a knower in whom ignorance has no place. Similarly, He is powerful in a way that there is no weakness in Him. And He is living in a manner that leaves Him no place for death. The implication of knowledge is the absence of ignorance; the implication of strength is the absence of weakness; and the implication of life is the absence of death. This is opposite to saying that God is the same as the absence of ignorance, the absence of weakness, and the absence of death, in the sense that He has no attribute and is the sum total of all non-existential attributes.
26. Are all the affirmative attributes of God essential?
Answer: Some of them, such as knowledge, power and life, are essential. However, the attributes of action are not. Rather, they reveal God’s actions and are outside the realm of God’s essence. As example, one can enumerate sustenance, revival, fatality and speech. The majority of God’s names are of this kind; they are additional to God’s essence. Providence (mashiyyah) and will (irādah) are also of this category. They are deduced from God’s actions.
27. Is richness (ghinā) an attribute of God’s actions or an attribute of His essence?
Answer: The richness of God points to His lack of need, and is among his negative attributes.
28. What is the meaning of God’s strength (quwwah)?
Answer: God says in the Qur’an: Surely Allah is Strong, Mighty (, ). Strength has a side which point to firmness which is not reactionary. God is Strong in this sense: He is not influenced by any factor.
29. What is the difference between strength (quwwah) and power (qudrah) when used for God?
Answer: God’s power (qudrah) means that He has influence on others, while His strength (quwwah) means that He is not influenced by anything conceivable. They are different conceptually, but they represent the same external reality.
30. What is the meaning of this phrase by Imam ʿAlī: “The perfection of monotheism is to refute His attributes”?
Answer: This phrase negates the traits which are additional to God’s essence. Otherwise, His essential attributes are identical to His essence.
31. The first verse of Sūrah al-Ikhlāṣ says: Allah is Aḥad (), and the second verse says: Allah is al-Ṣamad (). Why is it that there is no article al- before Aḥad in the first verse, but there is al- before Ṣamad in the second verse?
Answer: The article al- indicates exclusivity and restriction. Ṣamad means the ultimate end, to which everything goes back. Therefore, al-Ṣamad means that God is the only point of reference in all affairs, as He says elsewhere: and to Him all matters are returned (); And to Allah all matters are returned (, , , , ).
However, the word Aḥad is needless of restriction. It already has an exclusive meaning because it means that God has no parts or components, whether externally, mentally or conceptually. Imam ʿAlī said in response to the man who asked him a question [about God’s oneness] in the Battle of Jamal: “It [the meaning of God’s oneness] is to say, ‘God has a singular meaning,’ in the sense that He is not divisible externally, mentally or imaginatively. Indeed, thus is our Almighty Lord.”
32. What is the meaning of “the One” (Aḥad)?
Answer: God is Aḥad, meaning that He is not dividable physically, mentally, or intellectually. There is a tradition which relates that Imam ʿAlī explained the meaning of Aḥad in the Battle of Jamal. He said: “God is One, meaning that He is the Only One which is undividable intellectually, physically, and imaginarily.”
33. What is the difference between Unity (wāḥidiyyah) and Oneness (aḥadiyyah) of God?
Answer: Oneness (aḥadiyyah) refers to the absoluteness (ṣirāfah) of God’s essence, whereas unity (wāḥidiyyah) points to the fact that although all attributes of God are different from one another conceptually, they are all actualized in one instance. He is a single essence that is characterized by all perfections and is an instance of all attributes such as Provider, Reviver and Death-Giver; they all point to one entity. Yet, we do not have this in oneness (aḥadiyyah), because oneness is used when we regard the divine essence by itself, far from any perfection and beyond all limits, even from this very condition of unconditionality. God is One in the sense that He is, even beyond the finiteness of the word “infinite.”
34. Does God possess the perfection of all creatures?
Answer: Any perfection attributed to a creature was given to it by God, while God is not devoid of any existential perfection. His creation is an act of bestowing, and bestowing necessitates the possession of that quality which is bestowed. This in turn reduces to congruity [between the Giver and the recipient]. Therefore, the perfections of all beings are from God. In reality, it is God who has the perfections that are found in His creation. He is the One Who is truly characterized by these perfections; He is the real noun that is described by these adjectives.
35. What is the meaning behind makr (plot, scheme) which God attributes to himself, as He says: They plotted [against Jesus], and Allah also plotted, and Allah is the best of plotters ()?
Answer: Scheming with reference to human beings denote the action plotted by someone aiming someone else while that person is not aware of it. Scheming with reference to God denotes a trial put forth by God to a human being.
36. What is the meaning of this tradition which states: “God created everything with His will (mashiyyah), and He created will by itself”?
Answer: It means that God created everything with His will and volition, but the will itself does not require another will; otherwise it would result in an infinite regress. Will is a cause for the creation, and God creates everything with His will. His will is present from the beginning to the end of the action. God’s will is part of His attributes of action, meaning that it is extracted from His actions. It is not one of His essential attributes. Will refers to when all components of the complete cause of some event are present. Will is derived from this condition.
37. Is the divine irādah (will) the same as the divine mashiyyah (volition, decree, providence)?
Answer: Yes, they refer to the same concept.
38. What is the meaning of the phrase “extinguisher of all that is lost” (fāqid kull mafqūd) in a supplication for the month of Rajab?
Answer: It means that “whatever disappears and ceases to exist, it is You Who annihilates and extinguishes it.” In such expressions, verbs like faqada and ʿaduma are transitive, although in other cases they may be intransitive. Therefore, in these contexts, fāqid (lit. one who is missing) means mufqid (lit. one who causes something to miss) and ʿaduma (lit. it disappeared) means aʿdama (lit. it was made to disappear).
God’s Mercy
39. What is the meaning of mercy in the phrase, “His mercy encompasses everything”?
Answer: Mercy refers to fulfilling the needs of any creature to achieve its existential goal. God has not only created every existent, but He also fulfills their needs and guides them to meet their requirements such that they may reach their perfection and their ultimate good. Based on this, all existents are immersed in His mercy.
40. Does God’s mercy also include the very existence of things?
Answer: Existence itself is also a form of mercy. In fact, existence itself as well as all existential qualities are manifestations of perfection. That is how God’s mercy has encompassed everything.
41. What is the common denominator in giving perfection to deficiencies?
Answer: It is “to give perfection to whomever deserves it.”
42. Mullā Ṣadrā says in al-Mabdaʾ wa al-Maʿād, “The Almighty loves Himself by the virtue of Himself, and subsequently loves His effects.” What does this mean?
Answer: Since God is absolutely perfect, He loves Himself and is delighted with Himself. And since His effects [that is, other beings and events] emanate from His essence, He also loves them. He says: He loves them and they love Him (); Say, “If you love Allah, then follow me; Allah will love you…” ().
43. What does God’s delight (ibtihāj) mean? Does it mean passive influence by some affection?
Answer: Passivity pertains to the low plane of matter, not the plane of the divine. At that level, the divine essence is present for Himself without being passively influenced by anything. Pleasure (ladhdhah) and delight (bahjah, ibtihāj) hinge on three pillars: (1) the knower; (2) the known; and (3) knowledge. The stronger and more intense these three are [in terms of existence and perfection], the stronger and more intense the resulting pleasure and delight will be. In a supplication from the Infallibles we read: “Who is it that tasted the sweetness of Thy love, then opted for a substitute for Thee?!”
God’s Actions and Creation
44. What is meant by “the face of God” in the verse: All things are to perish, except His Face ()?
God says in the holy Qur’an: What is with you passes away but what is with Allah shall last (). From this verse one can derive that “the face of God” is the same as “what is with God.” In another passage God says: Do not suppose those who were slain in the way of Allah to be dead; rather they are living and provided for near their Lord (). He also says: Do not call those who were slain in Allah’s way “dead.” Rather, they are living, but you are not aware ().
Answer: By looking at these verses, one can infer that “martyrs” are “the face of God” which is lasting and does not perish. Therefore, they are “with God” (ʿind Allāh; ) and “near their Lord” (ʿinda rabbihim; ). Whatever is with God remains eternally. Note that the imams are the highest of the martyrs (or witnesses).
45. What is the meaning of this verse: It is He Who created the heavens and the earth in six days—and His Throne was [then] upon the waters ()?
Answer: This means that at the beginning of creation, water had engrossed the skies, the lands and all things. Thus all of God’s laws [in the cosmos] were having their effect only on water.
46. What is ʿarsh (Throne)?
Answer: According to the dictionaries, ʿarsh means “kingdom” as it is used for a king’s throne. It is used in the verse: The All-Merciful, Who is established on the Throne (). This is interpreted in the narrations as “He has established his dominion.”
47. In the Qur’an we read: All His command, when He wills something, is to say to it “Be,” and it is (). What is the meaning of “His command” in this verse? Is it the same as the command “be”?
Answer: “His command” means His shaʾn (status, mode, function). The verse means that God is such a being that whenever He intends anything, He says to it “be” and it immediately comes to existence. The verse’s subject is “His command,” and its predicate is: “is only to say to it: Be!” It means that God addresses the thing by the word “be” and brings it to existence.
48. Does God really say “be”? Does He literally create things with this statement?
Answer: No, God does not have verbal speech. It is related through different traditions that: “His speech is his action.” Therefore, the “Be” of God is His external action. It is the very existence which He creates, not some word that He utters. Otherwise, there would be an infinite regress, because that word would also be something that is created and thus it would need another word “be” for its creation.
Moreover, there is no audience to hear God’s command “be” and then obey. If some audience were already there, then there would be no need to give it existence. This is rather a symbolic expression. What is meant is that whenever God gives existence to anything, all that is needed is God’s will alone. There is no need for anything besides the divine essence, and it comes to existence without any delay.
49. Based on when He wills something (), can we say that God’s will is a mediator between Him and His creatures?
Answer: No, the only thing involved in creation is God and the creation. Will (irādah) is a quality that is inferred from God’s action. Otherwise, the only cause of creation and existence is God, not His will. We talk about God’s will only after His creation. Therefore, the word “be” means the very being which God brings to existence, whose existence is solely dependent on God and attributable to Him alone.
50. What is the meaning of this verse: And there is not a thing but with Us are the treasures of it, and We do not send it down but in a known measure ().
Answer: It means that whatever can be qualified as a “thing” also exists in another realm. We do not send it means that We do not create it and descend it but in an a specified, measured and particular manner. However, that which is with Us does not have a specific or measured quantity. The two are two levels, one on top of another. Therefore, things have infinite treasures [in the higher realm].
51. Do humans also have stores and treasures about which it can be said: And We do not send it down but in a known measure ()?
Answer: God says: And there is not a thing but with Us are the treasures of it (). Therefore, anything that can be called a “thing” has treasures, and the human being is no exception. Thus, humankind also has treasures and an appointed measure. Its appointed measure is its form and creation. With regard to this, God says somewhere else: We certainly created the human in the best of forms ().
The creation and measurement of humankind are such that through beneficial knowledge and good deeds they can return to God’s proximity and eternal bliss. However, humankind which is created of the best stature is divided into two categories: (1) Deniers and wrong-doers who are excluded from the “best stature,” in regard to whom God says: Then We relegated him to the lowest of the low (). (2) Believers who have remained faithful to their innate nature (fiṭrah) and the best stature in which they were created, as God says: Except those who have faith and do righteous deeds, for whom there will be an everlasting reward ().
Therefore, this world is a factory of making human beings: some people complete their course and transcend beyond it, while others are stuck in it and end up in hell. The above verses are the only verses in the Qur’an that show where humankind has come from, where it has come to, and where it shall return and go to.
Seeing God with the Eye
52. It is reported in a tradition that Abū Baṣīr asked Imam al-Ṣādiq: “Do the believers see God on the Day of Judgment?” The imam said: “Yes, they had even seen Him before the Day of Judgment.” Abū Baṣīr then asked: “Is this the same kind of seeing to which God refers in the primordial state of things: Am I not your Lord? They said: Yes indeed! We bear witness ()?” The imam remained silent for some moments and then said: “The believers do see Him even in this world before the Day of Judgment. Don’t you see Him right now?” In the continuation of the tradition, Abū Baṣīr makes his wish of transmitting this point to others; however, the imam declines and instructs him not to tell others. Why did the imam not allow him to transmit this to others? And what is meant by seeing God in this world and in the hereafter?
Answer: If the imam had not prevented him, the ignorant would have believed that God has a body, and that He can be seen with the physical eye. With regards to the ability to “see” God in this life and in the hereafter, one should know that what we see is the truth and reality of things. Hence, whether in this world or in the hereafter, there is nothing that we witness other than God; as He says: Soon We shall show them Our signs in the horizons and in their own souls until it becomes clear to them that He is the Truth. Is it not sufficient that your Lord is witness to all things? Lo! They are indeed in doubt about the encounter with their Lord! Lo! He indeed encompasses all things (). From the phrase He is a witness to all things one can understand that He is witnessed by all in this world. Further, with regards to afterlife, He says: And they shall know that Allah is the Manifest Truth (). From this verse, one can conclude that in the Day of Judgment, it will become clear to everyone that God is really true, clear and evident.
53. Given that Abū Baṣīr was blind, what is the meaning of the question: “Don’t you see Him right now?”
Answer: The meaning points to his direct knowledge by presence, which is called witnessing. That is why in such comprehensions one says, “I see” even though he lacks eyesight. Knowledge includes both acquired knowledge (called ḥuṣūlī) and presential knowledge (called ḥuḍūrī). “Seeing” here points to seeing by knowledge and presence. To this effect God says: Soon We shall show them Our signs in the horizons and in their own souls until it becomes clear to them that He is the Truth. (), despite the fact that it is followed by: Lo! They are indeed in doubt about the encounter with their Lord (). This means that they see God Himself and not merely His bounties, because it says their Lord, not “the mercy of their Lord.” Of course, what is meant is a vision that befits the Almighty Truth, not a sensory vision, for that would entail polytheism and duality.
54. What is the meaning of: Until he was within two bows’ length or even nearer ()?
Answer: It means that if we considered the impossible that God and the Prophet were physical entities, then they would have been in great proximity, as when two individuals sit while one’s knee touches the other’s.
55. When Prophet Moses said, My Lord, show [Yourself] to me, that I may look at You (), was it a request of a vision of God that is possible?
Answer: Prophet Moses is among the divine messengers and he has a special rank among them. If it were not possible, he wouldn’t have asked God for it. What he asked for was certainly different from physical vision, for he was a messenger of God. He would be the first to know that seeing God with the senses is impossible.
56. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and Tirmidhī say: “Among the nobilities of Ḥamzah the reciter is that He saw God in his sleep, got on His Knees, and hugged Him.”
Answer: This transforms God into a being that is limited, needy and composed, such that it can be seen with the eye. It means that Ḥamzah saw a created being. However, God is not seeable and does not appear in dreams. He is far above the comprehension of senses, imaginations, and even intellects.
57. What is the meaning of this tradition related by Imam ʿAlī: “I have never seen anything but that I saw God before it and with it”?
Answer: This means that everything is the sign of and a pointer towards God. A sign points to what is beyond it. This is similar to the red light used at intersections, which indicates and warns of danger.
The Meaning and Forms of shirk
58. What was the shirk category of idol-worshipers?
Answer: The idol-worshipers did not believe in shirk (polytheism, associating partners with God) in the divine essence [that is, they did not believe in multiple creators and origins of existence]. Rather, they believed that God cannot be comprehended by either the intellect or the senses, and thus He cannot be worshiped. Instead, one should worship gods who could be sensed and who were intelligible to them. Thus they believed in polytheism and multiple gods at the level of God’s lordship (rubūbiyyah). They had selected some of God’s honorable servants as their lords and gods, and used to worship them in order to win their favor and attention towards themselves, so that they would intercede for them before God. This way they would get closer to the precinct of God. The Almighty God narrates from the idolaters: We do not serve them save that they may make us nearer to Allah ()
59. Is sinning a form of association (shirk)?
Answer: Sinning is associating partners with God in obedience to Him, not in His essence.
60. Is supplicating the Household of theProphet (tawassul) different from supplicating the Almighty?
Answer: When supplicating the imams, we place them as intermediaries, just as God has instructed us in the Qur’an: Seek the means of recourse to Him ().
However, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb says that “asking and supplicating other human beings such as the prophets and the Household of Muḥammad falls under the verse: Indeed those who are disdainful of My worship will enter hell in utter humility ().” Based on his argument, if someone asks another person to help him or give him something (such as asking a butcher for meat, or asking the help of a friend to raise a load), he will be sentenced to hell because he has requested something from other than God. This is obviously not true.
See Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 3, p. 259, tradition 6, p. 262, tradition 15, p. 265, tradition 26. ↩︎
See ibid., vol. 4, p. 160, tradition 6. ↩︎
See ibid., vol. 78, p. 453, tradition 21. ↩︎
Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 98, p. 82, tradition 2. Also see ibid., vol. 94, p. 190, tradition 3, vol. 98, p. 39, tradition 2. ↩︎
See ibid., vol. 4, p. 160, tradition 6. ↩︎
ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī has discussed this further in his Risālat al-Tawḥīd, published in a collection of seven epistles. ↩︎
See ibid., vol. 3, p. 41, tradition 16, vol. 67, p. 137, tradition 7, vol. 92, p. 232, tradition 14, p. 240, tradition 48. ↩︎
See verses , and . ↩︎
TR: In other words, according to Muslim philosophers, the Cause (that is, God) is that which is independent in existence. The effects (that is, the beings) have existence, but not of themselves. ↩︎
TR: In other words, its essence is either the same as the reality of existence, or it is nothing but non-existence, or it is something which exists at the mercy of existence proper. ↩︎
TR: “Existence itself” is God. “Something that exists” also exists by God. Therefore, the existence of all beings is contingent existence. ↩︎
See Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 10, p. 334, tradition 2, vol. 4, p. 68, tradition 11, p. 150, tradition 1, vol. 10, p. 312, tradition 1, p. 344, tradition 5, vol. 57, p. 57, tradition 28. ↩︎
See ibid., vol. 94, p. 388, tradition 3. ↩︎
TR: Negative attributes of God are attributes that imply a negation of some imperfection. ↩︎
Nahj al-Balāghah, Sermon 1. ↩︎
Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 3, p. 206; Irshād al-Qulūb, vol. 1, p. 166; al-Tawḥīd, p. 83. ↩︎
See Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 3, p. 206, tradition 1. ↩︎
See ibid., vol. 4, p. 145, traditions 19-20. ↩︎
Ibid., vol. 98, p. 393, tradition 1. ↩︎
Ibid., vol. 3, p. 88, tradition 1, vol. 94, p. 394, tradition 3, vol. 97, p. 189, tradition 5. ↩︎
Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 91, p. 138. ↩︎
Ibid., vol. 58, p. 30, tradition 51. ↩︎
TR: See Nahj al-Balāghah, Sermon 186. ↩︎
See Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 4, p. 44, tradition 24; al-Tawḥīd, p. 117. ↩︎
TR: Here ʿAllāmah is interpreting shahīd as the accusative meaning of mashhūd (witnessed). However, the Qur’an always uses shahīd in the nominative sense of shāhid (witness). ↩︎
For the Sunni view about seeing God in dreams, see Sunan al-Tirmidhī, vol. 4, p. 126; Tuḥfat al-Aḥwadhī, vol. 7, p. 224. ↩︎
See Miftāḥ al-Falāḥ, p. 289. ↩︎