In the previous part, we understood that Allah Himself (in His Essence) is absolutely unknowable, in no way similar to creations, in no way comprehensible to their thoughts and ideas. His most pure and holy Essence is closed from creations forever and ever.
Then how do we know Him? And is it even possible to know God? And if it is impossible, then why does all religion and all revelation exist? After all, that which is in no way knowable, in fact, does not exist for us. And is religion anything other than knowledge of God? And isn’t God and knowledge of God the initial and starting point of religion?
Answer: knowledge of Allah is not only possible, but also constitutes the essence of all our experience, everything that we see around us. But this knowledge is realized not by His essence, but by His actions. Any knowledge of God is knowledge of His actions.
Yes, the Creator in His essence is absolutely unlike any of the creations. Yes, we do not know and will never know what this essence is in Itself. But at the same time, all creation is a manifestation of the Creator’s action, and therefore, the qualities of His action are reflected in it. This is similar to how we know fire by its effects. Let us assume that we do not know the essence of fire and let us assume that this essence is generally inaccessible to our knowledge and is radically different from everything that we know and can know. But nevertheless, the effects of fire are accessible to us: we know that it burns, and therefore we call it “burning”; we know that it warms, and therefore we call it “warming”… And through these actions and qualities of action, fire becomes more obvious to us than anything obvious. (In parentheses, I will note that the example with fire seems to me all the more successful because, if we proceed from the ideas of modern physics, then people of past eras really did not know anything about the essence of fire. Fire, according to modern physics, is nothing more than an intensive oxidation process, accompanied by radiation in the visible range and the release of thermal energy. Rapid oxidation, that is, a connection with oxygen, leads to the restructuring of chemical bonds, due to which energy is released, that is, an increase in the speed of movement of molecules occurs. However, all this was discovered and formulated only in the 19th or 20th century, and if we consider these ideas to be correct, then it turns out that people of previous eras knew nothing about the essence of fire. But does this mean that they knew nothing about fire at all? Of course, they knew perfectly well what fire was, but they knew it not by its essence, but by its actions, that is, effects. In other words, they knew that fire is something that warms, burns, illuminates, and so on. further.
Of course, this is just an example to bring thoughts closer to the topic, and the essence of God differs from the essence of any of the creations in that it will never be revealed and known. This is impossible even in theory, since the one who would know the essence of God would embrace Him, and the one who embraced Him would himself become God, and this denies the premise from which we proceeded, that is, it denies the very divinity of God as such).
So, any knowledge of God is possible only through His actions. As was already said in the previous part: we know that God created a beautiful world, and therefore we call Him “Beautiful”. We know that the ignorant do not create a wise creation, and therefore we call Him “Wise”. We know that the dead do not create life, and therefore we call Him “Living”. We know that the ignorant do not create knowledge, and therefore we call Him “Knowing”. And we know that He who does not exist cannot create existence, and therefore we say that He is.
In other words, we know that He is good because His actions are good, and the actions of the unkind are not good. We know that He is wise because His actions are wise, and the actions of the unwise cannot be wise. And so on… But what He is like in Himself, we do not know and will never know. All the attributes, the sifats of Allah are His understanding by us through His actions and the result of these actions.
Speaking about all this in other words: the Creator revealed Himself to the creations not by His essence, but through these creations themselves. And therefore, for these creations, there is nothing more obvious and clear than Him. Since all creation was created by the action of God, then everything points to Him. As Imam Ali (A) said: “They do not comprehend His thoughts, but He revealed Himself to them through them.”
In the “Tawhid” of Saduk from Abu Basir it is narrated:
I asked Imam Sadik (A): “Inform me, will the believers see Allah, great and holy is He, on the Day of Resurrection?”
He said: “Yes. And before the Day of Resurrection they saw Him.”
I said: “When?”
He said: “When He asked them: “Am I not your Lord?” They said: “Yes” (7: 172).”
Then he kept silent for a while and said: “The believers in this world also see Him before the Day of Resurrection. Do you not see Him now?”
I said to him: “May I be your sacrifice, and I will convey this hadith from you?”
He said: “No, because if you were to relate it, people would reject it, not understanding its meaning, or they would understand it as a likeness (of God to creation) and would fall into disbelief. Know that seeing with the heart is not the same as seeing with the eyes: Allah is exalted above what those who liken Him and apostates attribute to Him.”
(Tawhid, hadith 141).
“Seeing” here does not mean seeing the essence of God (i.e. God Himself in Himself), but seeing the traces of His action and created plan, His mashiya, in every thing. Imam Hussein (A) says in Dua Arafat: “The eyes that do not see You have gone blind” – this means: “they do not see Your action in all things”, and not “Your essence”. So, the meaning of seeing Allah is seeing His verses, signs and traces of His action. For example, in the hadith of Imam Reza (A) it is said that whoever sees Muhammad (S) in his high position in the next world – he will see Allah. This means that by the greatness, magnificence and power of this position, we will understand the greatness, magnificence and power of Allah Himself. And therefore, seeing this position will be a vision of Allah.
So, we understood that Allah has attributes of essence and attributes of action. The attributes of essence are what He is like in Himself, in His essence. What He was like before the creation of creations and is like during their creation and after their creation. This means that there is no difference between these attributes and His essence. They are His very essence, they are He Himself. And there is no such thing as His essence having many sides, so that His knowledge differs from His power, power from His vision, and so on. No, all of this is one and the same, all of this is His single and incomprehensible essence. And therefore, when we speak about the attributes of His essence, we must understand that we are talking about synonyms, between which there is no difference. His Knowledge is the same as His Life, Life is the same as Power, Power is the same as Vision… The attributes of essence are synonymous words, because they cannot denote different realities, that is, it cannot be that “Knowing” means one thing, and “Strong” means another.
This is with regard to the eternal attributes of His essence, which are completely incomprehensible. But He also has other attributes through which He is manifested to His creation, and these are the attributes of His action. If it were not for them, He would never be known, because His essence, as we have said, is completely incomprehensible. Any differences in the attributes relate to the difference between action and the results of action. Once again, Allah is known not through His essence, but through His action. For example, through the fact that He created all creation, He is called khaliq – “the Creator”. This is His action. Through the fact that He gave all creation their rights and judged between them fairly, He is called adil – “the Just”. Through the fact that He provided sustenance and provision to all creation, He is called razaq – “the Nourisher”. He revives them and therefore is called muhyi – “the Reviver”. He kills them and therefore is called mumit – “The Killer”. He led them on the straight path and therefore is called hadi – “The Guide”…
All these are His actions among His creations, and by these actions He is known by the creations and described by them.
I will give another example to make this clearer. Let us take such and such a person, for example, named Zayd. He has an essence and there are actions. His essence is himself, this is what does not change. For example, that he is a “talking animal”, as they write in school textbooks on logic. Man is a “talking animal”… This is his essence, which we do not see. But for us this man is manifested through his actions, which we see, which we directly perceive from him. He writes and therefore we call him “the writer”. He walks and therefore we call him “the walker”. He sits and therefore we call him “the sitter”. And all these are the actions of this person, through which his hidden essence is revealed to us. And that is why we call him thus: “O writer”, “O walker”, “O sitting”. These are his names and his qualities through which he is revealed to us. And there is no difference between him and these names of his, although in their essence they are not him, but only his manifestations and his actions that he produces. And Allah also has incomprehensible attributes of essence, which are nothing more than synonyms in relation to each other, and there are created attributes of action, His names, by which He is revealed to us.
If you have understood this, then listen very carefully, because this will be the essence of everything we will talk about further. So, we have understood that all creations are the result of Allah’s action. And therefore, all creations without exception manifest His actions and the attributes (qualities) of His action. But among them there is a certain hierarchy, that is, some manifest these attributes to a greater extent, others to a lesser extent, some manifest some attributes, others – a large number of them, and others – all of them. This is similar to the trace of a person’s foot manifesting only one attribute of that person – his being, that is, the fact that someone existing left this trace. But from this trace we will not be able to find out his other attributes, for example, what nation he belongs to, what his profession is, whether he is smart or stupid, beautiful or ugly… But if we take another imprint of this person’s action, for example, a book of memoirs written by him, then we will know much more about his attributes, about his qualities. And exactly the same is with the actions of Allah. From a wall you can know the One Who created this wall, but not in the same way as you know Him from a rose. Because a rose is more perfect and higher than a wall. Further, more perfect than a rose is an animal, for example, a lion. Even more perfect than an animal is a man. And so we will rise from one level of creation to another, until we reach the highest creation of God, in which all the attributes of His action are manifested to the highest degree. That is, we will reach the top of the pyramid of creation, and this is Ahl ul-Bayt, the Fourteen Immaculate. That is, Muhammad (S), Ali (A), Fatima (A), Hasan (A), Hussein (A) and nine Imams from the progeny of Hussein (A), the last of whom is Qaim. “We will show them Our signs in the world and in themselves, so that it will become clear to them that this is the truth” (41:53)
And the fact that Muhammad (S) is the highest and most perfect creation of God is also agreed upon by all “Ahlu Sunnah” and even the Wahhabis. It is just that the Wahhabis do not understand what conclusions follow from this. But formally, in language, they also recognize Muhammad (S) as the highest creation of Allah. And the Quran also speaks about this repeatedly: “He stood right on the highest horizon, then drew near and descended, and was two arcs away and even closer” (53: 6-9) – that is, he was in the greatest proximity to his Lord, which is not available to any of the creations. And in the famous hadith it is reported that Jabrail, that is, one of the four close angels, said in the miraj: “If I go further with you, then my wings will burn.” And the Quran says about him: “We have not sent you except as a mercy for the worlds” (21: 107). Here the verb “arsala” (“sent”) is used, the same root as the word “rasul” (“messenger”). That is, the Messenger of Allah (S) is a messenger as a mercy for the worlds. In other words: he conveys the mercy of Allah to all the worlds. And what are “worlds”? “Worlds” are all of creation. In Surah Fatiha we read: “Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds.” Allah is the Lord of the worlds, that is, all of creation. And in the 156th verse of Surah al-Fatihah, Allah speaks of mercy (rahma): “My mercy encompasses all things” (7:156). Muhammad (S) was sent as a rasul (messenger) as mercy for all the worlds. He is the mediator of mercy for all the worlds. This is the true understanding of the second part of the Islamic shahada: “And I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and messenger.” In essence, “messenger” means the same as “mediator.” Muhammad (S) is the mediator of Allah’s mercy for all the worlds. And the “worlds” are all of Allah’s creation. Dunya, the Day of Judgement, the Hereafter — these are all worlds. And the Messenger of Allah (S) is the mediator of Allah’s mercy for all these worlds, down to the atoms. Allah chose him and granted him this position.
So, Muhammad (S) is the highest creation of God, and there is no disagreement in this, at least among the people of the qiblah. As for his pure Family, the same applies to them. Doesn’t the Quran in the verse “mubahila” call Ali (A) the “nafs” of the Prophet (that is, his “self”, “himself”)? And doesn’t he say in the hadiths, which are also transmitted in the sources of “ahlu sunnah”: “Hasan is from me, and I am from Hassan”, “Hussein is from me, and I am from Hussein”, “Fatima is part of me”? And what does it mean that the highest creation says that he is FROM Hasan (A), that he is FROM Hussein (A)? This means that they are one and the same essence, they are inseparable from each other, they always go together, they are one light.
So, the top of the pyramid of creation is Muhammad (S) and his pure Family, that is, the Fourteen Immaculate (A). Above people, above other prophets, above the close angels – above everything that was, is and will be. This is the top, the limit and the maximum. And since, as we said, God is known only through the created attributes of His action, and the highest product of His action is Ahl al-Bayt (A) – to that extent the attributes of His action are embodied in them in the best and most perfect way. The Quran says: “To Allah are the beautiful names, so call upon Him by them” (7: 180). Imam Sadiq (A) said in the interpretation of this verse: “We are the beautiful names of Allah.” What does this mean? This means that when we say, for example, “ya rahman”, “o Merciful”, then we are calling upon God, Who described Himself to the creations through created “mercy”, and they (Ahl ul-Bayt) are this mercy. When we say “o Forgiver”, then we are calling upon God, Who described Himself to the creations through created “forgiveness”, and they are forgiveness. And exactly the same with all the other names.
So, Ahl ul-Bayt created mercy, generosity, forgiveness, etc. And they are generous, and He is the Generous, that is, the One Who performs generosity. And “Generous” is the name of the action, indicating Him, and the One Who is implied by it is He and only He.
And this is the meaning of other words of Imam Sadiq (A): “Nahnu maanihi” – “we are His meanings”. This means that they are the meanings of His actions. For example, He is Generous, and they are generosity, that is, the manifestation of His action as generosity.
Allah is not known except as He has described Himself, and He has not described or made Himself known to His creation except through the attributes of His action, and the attributes of action have effects that indicate them, just as fire is indicated by its effects such as heat or burning.
And we do not say that these attributes reveal His essence as it is, but we say that they indicate it from the side as it manifests itself to us through its actions, and we cannot comprehend it in any other way. For this essence does not manifest itself to us in itself, as it is, but only through its actions.
And from here come the numerous hadiths of the Imams (A), such as: “We are the exalted (araf), and Allah is not known except through knowing us”, “Whoever knows us has known Allah”, “knowing Allah is knowing the Imam of his time”, and so on…
In other words: the Creator revealed Himself to the creations not by His essence, but through these creations themselves. And His first creation was His action, that is, His Mashiyya, and the first creation of the Mashiyya was the light of Muhammad (S) and the family of Muhammad (S). Allah is not known at all by His essence, but is known through how He described Himself to His slaves. And everything that We know about Him is only what He Himself revealed to us. He revealed Himself through His “maqams”, “through which the one who knows knows You”, as it is said in “Dua rajab” from the Imam of the time (A). And when a person’s heart turns to these maqams, He finds Allah there – just as his eye finds Him when it turns to the Kaaba. Turning towards the Kaaba is turning to Allah. And worship consists in calling upon Him through them, through these beautiful names of His action, just as prayer consists in calling upon Allah through the Kaaba.
So Allah is known only as He has described Himself, and He has described Himself through His supreme sign and His masal, His example in the heavens and on the earth: “For Him is the supreme example (masal) in the heavens and on the earth” (30:27).
According to the Quran, Allah has no misal, no likeness: laysa ka mislihi shay – “There is nothing like Him” (42:11). But He has a masal, an example. That is, a sign, a verse. “And for Allah is the supreme example” (16:60). This example is not similar to His essence in any way, but expresses His action – His mercy, His power, His wisdom, His forgiveness, His provision, and so on…
Again, in slightly different words: the entire creation is nothing but a collection of verses, signs, pointing to God. “In what Allah has created in the heavens and the earth are signs for a people who fear God” (10:6). Anything is an verse pointing to the One Who created it. But not all of Allah’s verses are the same. A stone does not point to its Creator in the same way that a rose flower does. There is a hierarchy of His verses, His signs, and at the top of this hierarchy is Muhammad (S) and the people of the House of Muhammad (S), who together are His highest verse – ayatu llahi l-uzma, “the greatest sign of Allah.” Imam Ali (A) says: “Points to Him are His signs.” Allah is known not by His essence, but by His created signs, verses. And He has no signs higher than Muhammad and the family of Muhammad (S).
The Quran constantly repeats this. It is amazing how much people who read the Quran do not understand or do not recognize these things (I mean the opponents of Shiism). Let’s open the 53rd verse of the Surah “Explained”: “We will show them Our signs in the world and in themselves, so that it will be clear to them that this is the truth” (41:53). It is clear that these are not verses of the Quran that Allah will show them “in the world and in themselves.” These are the signs in the universe that Allah created. But what is a higher sign than Muhammad (S) and the Imams from his Family? Imam Sadiq (A) says: “What signs, besides us, does Allah show in the world and in themselves?” Let us open the 105th verse of Surah Yusuf: “How many signs (verses) are in the heavens and the earth, which they pass by and from them they turn away!” And in Surah Ya.Sin, verse 46: “And no sign (verse) comes to them from the signs of their Lord, but they turn away from them.” What is being said here? What signs from their Lord come to them, and they turn away from them? Let every thinking and intelligent person answer this question. What signs are meant here? Does Allah have any signs higher than Muhammad (S) and the family of Muhammad (S)? The verse says: the signs come one after another, but they turn away from them. That is, one Imam after another, one Guided One from Ahl al-Bayt after another. “See how We change the signs, that perhaps they will understand” (6: 65). And in the 93rd verse of Surah Al-Ant: “Say: Praise be to Allah! He will show you His signs, and you will recognize them.” Whom will Allah show them, and whom will they recognize? They will recognize Ali (A) and the Imams from the family of Ali (A), whom they rejected. “And who is more unjust than he who invents a lie against Allah and lies about His signs?” (6:21). “And those who strive to weaken Our signs – they will be in the punishment” (34:38). What signs are they trying to weaken? The verses of the Quran? But how can the verses of the Quran be weakened? The verses of the Quran can be destroyed, forgotten, burned, but not weakened. People can be weakened. This verse speaks of those who tried to deprive Ali (A) and the descendants of Ali (A) of the position that the Almighty gave them. So, the verses and signs are an indication of Allah, through which Allah is known. And hence the words of Ahl al-Bayt (A): “We are the beautiful names of Allah,” or: “We are the highest attributes (sifat) of Allah.” There is no doubt that any thing is known by its attributes, and these are the attributes (sifat) that indicate Allah, and not those by which His essence is revealed. These are the created attributes and names, or, what is the same, the verses and signs. Imam Reza (A) says: “His power is all-pervading, and there was no need for Him to call Himself by name. However, He chose names for Himself so that others besides Him would call Him by these names. For if He were not called by His names, He would not be known.”
Do not be misled by the Nasibi understanding of the names of Allah as words that are simply pronounced by the tongue. The Beautiful Names (asma’ al-husna) are not words, but first of all realities. These are created realities that the Almighty created for the creations to know Himself. Let us look again at the verse: “And to Allah belong the Beautiful Names, so call upon Him by them” (7:180). That is, He created these names, they belong to Him. And then He says: “And leave those who turn away from His names. They will be recompensed for what they used to do.” “Turn away from His names” – that is, they commit ilhad in His names, as it is said in the original Quran. Ilhad means “apostasy”, “denial”, “heresy”. And since, as we have seen, Ahl al-Bayt are His created names, then ilhad in His names is committed by all those who replace them with others or deny their position. Those who attacked the house of Fatimah (A), those who took Ali’s (A) place, those who killed Husayn (A) at Karbala – all of them committed ilhad in His names. And those who said that the beautiful names of Allah are only words spoken by the tongue, also committed ilhad in His names. “They will be rewarded for what they used to do.” In other words: knowing that the creations cannot comprehend Him in His essence, Allah described Himself to the creations through His created description and made this description with His names that point to Him. Imam Reza (A) says: “A name is a description for the described.” They are the description, and He is the described. They are the names and He is the meaning of these names. When we say “O Merciful”, we call upon God Who described Himself through created mercy, and Ahl al-Bayt is this mercy. When we say “O Forgiver”, we call upon God Who described Himself for the created through created “forgiveness”, and they are forgiveness. And since the worship of Allah is not performed except through His names, and Tawheed and the unity of Allah do not exist except through His names, then the one who truly commits shirk is the one who has associated partners in His names, that is, has associated partners with the wilayah of Ahl al-Bayt (A), as we will explain in detail in the following parts. Allah has rejected being addressed by His essence, since His essence is absolutely incomprehensible to the created, and there is no contact with It. Therefore, He established His names so that creation would worship Him through them and call upon Him through them. And any path to His Essence lies through His names, which point to Him, and these names are nothing other than His highest creation and greatest verse, and His highest creation and greatest verse is nothing other than Muhammad (S) and the family of Muhammad (S). Therefore, whoever has associated other creations with these names has associated partners with Allah, and this is the shirk that He will never forgive. Imam Reza (A) was asked: “Through what do we know Him (Allah)?” He said: “Through what is not He.” Allah is not known by His essence, as we have already said. He is known only through His creations, which are not Him. Then he was asked: “And what is not He?” The Imam (A) replied: “His plan (mashiya), His name, His attribute and what is similar to it. And all of this is not eternal, but created and guided.” And in another hadith it is said: “Allah was, and there was no creation. Then He created His names as a mediation (wasila) between Himself and His creation, so that they (the creation) would supplicate to Him through them (the names) and worship Him. And they (the names) are His remembrance. And Allah was, and there was no remembrance. And the One remembered in remembrance is He, Allah the Eternal, Who will not pass away. The names and attributes (asma wa sifat) are created according to their meanings; but the One Who is implied by them is Allah, in Whom there is no contradiction or compositeness, but contradictions and compositeness exist only in that which can be divided into parts.” What we have said must be correctly understood. Here lies the key to all the questions of Tawheed and all the questions of religion. But this understanding must be correct and not deviate in one direction or another. True Tawheed and true belief are subtler than the edge of a sword. And this is knowledge. To say that Muhammad (S) and the family of Muhammad (S) were ordinary people to whom Allah gave a little knowledge and miracles means ilhad in His names. But to say that they are similar to Allah in some way or express the essence of Allah in some way is ghulat and shirk. They are not similar to Allah in anything, but they are in their essence a manifestation (mazhar) of the qualities of Allah’s action, by which He is known by creation. This is why Imam Sadiq (A) says: “We are the beautiful names of Allah.”
These names, or (which is the same) this greatest verse, or (which is the same) this highest creation, are an indication of Allah, but not Allah Himself or any manifestation of Allah. Allah has no manifestations and no likeness. All of His creations, including Muhammad (S) and the family of Muhammad (S) are His slaves, subordinate to Him, revolving in His will. And Muhammad (S) and the family of Muhammad (S) received this place, because they are the most perfect of His slaves, and this is the secret of the second part of the Islamic shahada: “…And I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and messenger.” The slave comes before the messenger. That is, he is a messenger because he is a perfect slave. And their ubudiyya before Allah, their slavery and worship to Him is the highest, and their fear of Him is the greatest. He promised them that He would never take away their position, but they know that He is able to do whatever He wishes and change the position of any of the creations as He wishes, and therefore they fear Him more than all other creations.
The truth of Tawheed is that Allah is absolutely unlike His creation. Everything that is a creation is not Him, and everything that is He is not a creation. That is why there must be a mediator between Him and the creation, which will also be a creation, but one in which He expresses Himself (not by His essence, but by His actions) and by which He is known.
But whoever looks at the names and attributes of Allah, manifested “in the world and in themselves,” and makes them independent of Allah, he will fall into kufr and will not worship Allah. This was the position of the Mushrikeen who said: “We do not worship them except that they may bring us closer to Allah” (39:3). True worship is not the worship of names and attributes, but the worship of the One Who is manifested through these names and attributes.
It was narrated from Imam Sadiq (A) that he said: “Whoever worships Allah according to his own idea has become a disbeliever (kafir), and whoever worships the name but not its meaning has become a disbeliever; and whoever worships the name and the meaning together has become a polytheist (mushrik). And whoever worships the meaning by fulfilling (or through fulfilling) the name in it, in accordance with the attributes with which He has described Himself, and believes in it with his heart and speaks about it with his tongue, secretly and openly – such are the true companions of the Commander of the Believers (A).” And in another version of the same hadith: “…Such are the true believers (mu’min).”
It was also narrated from Hisham ibn Hakam:
I asked Imam Sadiq (A) about the names of Allah – may He be exalted and holy! – and their origin. He said: “…The name is something other than what is called by it. Therefore, the one who worships the name and not its meaning has become an infidel (kafir) and does not worship anything; and the one who worships the name and meaning together has become a polytheist (mushrik) and worships two. And the one who worships the meaning and not the name – that is monotheism (tawhid). Do you understand, O Hisham?”
I said: “Tell me more.”
He said: “Allah – may He be exalted and holy! – has ninety-nine names. And if the name were identical with the thing named, then each name would be a god. However, all these names point to Allah (as their meaning), and all of them are not He.” Therefore, turning to Ahl al-Bayt with ibadat is kufr. Whoever worships a name and not its meaning has fallen into kufr. And whoever worships the name and the meaning together has fallen into shirk. Worship belongs entirely to Allah alone, His pure Essence, and all deeds and all acts of worship are dedicated and addressed only to Him. But turning to this pure Essence occurs through a medium, through a verse, through a sign, through a face, through a gate, through a direction that He has established, and this is Ahl al-Bayt (A).
