Lessons from Nahjul Balagha [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Sermons
Sermon
151

SERMON 151

About the greatness and the
attributes of Allah (1)

Praise be to Allah who
is proof of His existence through His creation, of His being
external through the newness of His creation, and through their
mutual similarities of the fact that nothing is similar to Him.
Senses cannot touch Him and curtains cannot veil Him, because of
the difference between the Maker and the made, the Limiter and the
limited and the Sustainer and the sustained.

He is One but not by
the first in counting, is Creator but not through activity or
labour, is Hearer but not by means of any physical organ, is
Looker but not by a stretching of eyelids, is Witness but not by
nearness, is Distinct but not by measurement of distance, is
Manifest but not by seeing and is Hidden but not by subtlety (of
body). He is Distinct from things because He overpowers them and
exercises might over them, while things are distinct from Him
because of their subjugation to Him and their turning towards Him.

He who describes Him
limits Him. He who limits Him numbers Him. He who numbers Him
rejects His eternity. He who said "how" sought a
description for Him. He who said "where" bounded him. He
is the Knower even though there be nothing to be known. He is the
Sustainer even though there be nothing to be sustained. He is the
Powerful even though there be nothing to be overpowered.

A part of the same
sermon about the Divine leaders (Imams)

The riser has risen,
the sparkler has sparkled, the appearer has appeared and the
curved has been straightened. Allah has replaced one people with
another and one day with another. We awaited these changes as the
famine-stricken await the rain. Certainly the Imams are the
vicegerents of Allah over His creatures and they make the
creatures know Allah. No one will enter Paradise except he who
knows them and knows Him, and no one will enter Hell except he who
denies them and denies Him.

Allah the Glorified,
has distinguished you with Islam and has chosen you for it. This
is because it is the name of safety and the collection of honour.
Allah the Glorified, chose its way and disclosed its pleas through
open knowledge and secret maxims. Its (Qur'an)wonders are not
exhausted and its delicacies do not end. It contains blossoming
bounties and lamps of darkness. (The doors of) virtues cannot be
opened save with its keys, nor can gloom be dispelled save with
its lamps. Allah has protected its inaccessible points (from
enemies) and allowed grazing (to its followers) in its pastures.
It contains cover (from the ailment of misguidance) for the seeker
of cure and full support for the seeker of support.

(1).
The first part of this sermon consists of important issues
concerning the science of knowledge about Allah, wherein Amir
al-mu'minin has thrown light on the matter that Allah is from ever
and His attributes are the same as He Himself. When we cast a
glance at creation, we see that for every movement there is a
mover, from which every man of ordinary wisdom is compelled to
conclude that no effect can appear without a cause, so much so,
that even an infant a few days old, when his body is touched,
feels in the depth of his consciousness that someone has touched
him. He indicates it by opening his eyes or turning and looking.
How then can the creation of the world and the system of all
creation be arranged without a Creator or Organiser?

Once it is necessary
to believe in a Creator, then He should exist by Himself, because
everything which has a beginning must have a centre of existence
from which it should terminate. If that too needed a creator,
there would be the question of whether this creator is also the
creation of some other creator or exists by itself. Thus unless a
Self-created Creator is believed in, who should be the cause of
all causes, the mind will remain groping in the unending labyrinth
of cause and effect, and never attain the idea of the last
extremity of the series of creation. It would fall into the
fallacy of circular arguing and would not reach any end.

If the creator were
taken to have created himself, then there would be (one of the two
positions, namely) either he should be non-existent or existent.
If he were not existent, then it would not be possible for
something non-existent to create any existent being. If he were
existent before creating himself, there would be no sense in
coming into being again. Therefore it is necessary to believe that
the Creator should be a Being not dependent on any other creator
for His own existence, and everything else should be dependent on
Him. This dependence of the entire creation is a proof that the
existence of the Source of all creation is from ever and eternal.
And since all beings other than He are subject to change, are
dependent on position and place and are similar to one another in
qualities and properties, and since similarity leads to plurality
whereas unity has no like save itself, therefore nothing can be
like Him.

Even things called one
cannot be reckoned after His Unity because He is One and Singular
in every respect. He is free and pure from all those attributes
which are found in body or matter because He is neither body, nor
colour, nor shape, nor does He lie in any direction, nor is He
bounded within some place or locality. Therefore, man cannot see
or understand Him through his senses or feelings, because senses
can know only those things which accord with the limitations of
time, place and matter. To believe that He can be seen is to
believe that He has body, but since He is not a body, and He does
not exist through a body, and He does not lie in any direction or
place, there is no question of His being seen. But His being
unseen is not like that of subtle material bodies, due to whose
delicacy the eye pierces through them and eyes remain unable to
see them; as for example the wind in the vast firmament. But He is
unseen by His very existence. Nevertheless, nothing is unseen for
Him. He sees as well as hears, but is not dependent on instruments
of seeing or hearing, because if He were in need of organs of the
body for hearing and seeing He would be in need of external things
for His perfection and would not be a perfect Being, whereas He
should be perfect in all respects and no attribute of perfection
should be apart from His Self.

To believe in
attributes separately from His Self would mean that there would be
a self and a few attributes and the compound of the self and the
attributes would be Allah. But a thing which is compounded is
dependent on its parts and these parts must exist before their
composition into the whole. When the parts exist from before, how
can the whole be from ever and eternal because its existence is
later than that of its parts. But Allah had the attributes of
knowledge, power and sustaining even when nothing was existent,
because none of His attributes were created in Him from outside,
but His attributes are His Self and His Self is His attributes.
Consequently, His knowledge does not depend on the object of
knowledge existing first and then His knowledge, because His Self
is prior to things coming into existence. Nor is it necessary for
His power that there should first exist the object to be
over-powered and then alone He would be called Powerful, because
Powerful is that who has power equally for doing or abandoning and
as such the existence of the object to be over-powered is not
necessary.

Similarly Sustainer
means master. Just as He is the Master of the non-existent after
its coming into existence, in the same way He has power to bring
it into existence from non-existence, namely if He so wills He may
bestow existence upon it.