We have said that man is the Haikel of Tawhid in the previous parts. And we described the structure of this Haikel and explained what the body, soul, and spirit are.
But is that all? Or is this again not the end, and something else is inherent in man? Here we understand that we have not covered everything, that there is one more question left, which is the most important one. This is a matter of Iman (faith). We know that there are people of faith and people without faith. Humanity is divided into these two large groups, with their own gradations within themselves. So is there anything else in man that is inherent in people of faith and not inherent in people who don’t believe, and vice versa?
Humans consist of body, soul, and spirit, and they all work almost the same way. For example, we all know how to speak, which means we have a higher speaking soul. In the same way, all people have a spirit; otherwise, they simply could not live. After all, it is not that polytheists, for example, have no soul and no intellect. If you go, for example, somewhere to India, to Varanasi, or Qom and Karbala, then there and there you will find, in principle, the same people.
But there is an element or dimension not present in everyone, which determines a person’s relationship to God and Truth. In the Quran, this element is called “heartˮ – qalb or sadr. The organ of faith. “Indeed in that is a reminder for whoever has a heartˮ (50: 37)… “In their hearts is diseaseˮ (2: 10) … “Rather, the stain has covered their hearts of that which they were earningˮ (83: 14)…
So, not everyone could have a heart. Some people have a very developed speaking soul: they look brilliant and speak beautifully, but they are devils in human form because they have no heart. The heart determines the faith of a person. That is, of course, not our physical heart. In Islam, it is also called “breastˮ, sadr. So, the heart is actually not some kind of organ: it is the inner form of a person or his inner image, his clay, from which he was created. Allah says about this: “And We have certainly created for Hell many of the jinn and mankind. They have hearts with which they do not understand, they have eyes with which they do not see, and they have ears with which they do not hear. Those are like livestock; rather, they are more astray” (7: 179).
The heart is an internal form that can be human and can be animal or satanic. Probably someone will ask: “But you have said that man is a Heikel of Tawhid; how about that? ˮ Yes, man, since he is a human being, is Haikel of Tawhid, but some people have only the outer form of a human. On the inside, their form is satanic. As Imam Ali (A) said: “The form is human, but the heart of an animal.ˮ
That is, there are different levels of deviation from the human form. The very word qalb (heart) comes from qalaba, which means “to rotateˮ, “to turn overˮ. The Messenger of Allah (S) said: “The heart of the believer is open; there is a shining light in it. The heart of an unbeliever is black, overturned. ˮ
So, man – by his design, by his idea – is a Haikel of Tawhid. But in passing through the worlds, through various types of tests and calls, many people gradually deviate from this image and acquire an opposite form, created from the shadow of this image. Because the lower worlds of darkness are created from reflection and shadow of light. “And He established darkness and light” (6: 1), says the Quran. That is, we are dealing, as it were, with a black double of this human Haikel. It is the same Haikel but filled with the opposite content.
In surah “Aarafˮ, Allah says: “Your Lord took from the children of Adam – from their loins – their descendants and made them testify of themselves: ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said, ‘Yes, we have testified.’ [This] – lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘Indeed, we were of this unaware.’” (7: 172).
That is, Allah in the world of Zarr, before our world, scattered the souls of people under the green light of the Throne and said: A lastu bi-rabbikum – “Am I not your Lord? ˮ – qalu bala – “They said, ‘Yes’.ˮ That is, everyone said: “Yes. ˮ And then He created the basis of man, meaning, his very humanity, the very plan of man, so to speak. And therefore, it is said that Allah created all people on fitra of tawhid, on the natural quality of Monotheism. And if they answered: “Noˮ – then they would not have been created at all. So, this answer was their coming to being. Because there is an action of the Creator – and there is a response of creation to this action…
In other words: Allah called every one in order for them to become humans. And those who accepted this first call, received the human form. And these are all people because everyone said, “Yes,” and whoever did not say, simply did not arise. Allah says about this state: “People were a single community, and Allah began to send Prophetsˮ (2: 213).
So, to deepen Tawhid, Allah began to send Prophets to them, and those who answered their call received qalb, received inner light and a heart.
And in our Dunya (earthly world), this process continues. Some might ask: do we in our Dunya only follow what was predetermined for us in the world of Zarr? The answer is yes, we are following it, and we are continuing it too. After all, our Dunya can also be represented as the world of Zarr in relation to future worlds, where there will be a continuation of development, only at a different stage and with other laws. And therefore, the one who obeyed the Lord then and there can deepen his submission here, and an insubordinate person can obey here or deepen his disobedience – within certain limits, of course. It is similar to how I had started heating something over a fire, for example, and then transferred it to an apartment and continued heating it on a gas stove. Conditions have changed, but the process continues.
We do not know many laws of the Zarr world. It was a world like ours, perhaps even more abundant and vast, but with different laws. From this world, we came into ours, just as when we die, we will pass from our world to the world of Barzakh. But we know something about that world and can form a definite picture…
Most likely, what we call the “world of Zarr” was, in fact, many worlds because there are hints of this in the hadiths about “first Zarr,” “second Zarr”… The laws of that world differed from ours in that human actions led there to certain changes in his creation, in his taqwin. To some extent, this is the case in our world, but we just don’t see it. Whether a person’s soul changes or not, we do not notice this in our world: we see only the body.
We are now talking about the construction of the human Haikel, which began in the Zarr worlds, continues in our material world, and will continue indefinitely in future worlds. Because there is no limit to perfection, and the approach toward Allah continues forever and will never be achieved…
In this process, the Almighty sends us some impulses, some tasks, some programs, which is called “taklifˮ and is nothing but the light of being, and we shape ourselves according to our response to these impulses, to this taklif.
The Messenger of Allah (S) said: “I and Ali are the two fathers of this umma. ˮ This hadith has several levels of understanding, and the deepest one is that their call to humanity is like the seed of a father to a child. A child is born from the seed of the father, thrown into the womb of the mother – and, in the same way, man is born from the call of Muhammad and Ali, thrown into the womb of the readiness of humanity, its qabilyat. In other words, it is born from a person’s response to their call.
We have said in the previous part that man is the manifestation of the light of the first reality, Ahl ul-Beit. The human form is the result of answering their call. Therefore, they are the true Adam. As Imam Ali (A) said: Ana adam al awal – “I am the first Adam”. He is the true Adam because he and the Messenger of Allah (S) are the true fathers of believers, the fathers of the human form, from response to the call of whom this form was born. Adam is our father in earthly, material time, and Muhammad and Ali are our fathers in the time of Dahr.
After all, not all descendants of Adam are inherently human. As we said, among them, there are shaitans, who have only the external form of a man. And the external form of a man is the same for everyone, because at the first call – “Am I not your Lord? ˮ – they all answered “Yesˮ.
The enemies of truth, the enemies of Ahl ul-Beit, are the black counterparts of the human form: they are only the bodily likeness of man. They are the descendants not of Adam but the Shaitan in their essence and were created from his darkness, just as Iblis was created from the darkness of the First Jahl, inverse to the First Intellect. As Allah said: “Verily, the book of the righteous is in Illiyyun” (83: 18), and said: “Verily, the book of the wicked is in Sijjeen” (83: 7), and Sijjeen is the world of darkness on the border of the First Jahl, opposite to the First Intellect (Aql). Illiyyun is the highest heaven, on the border of the First Intellect, which is Spirit and the upper right pillar of the Throne.
Imam Baqir (A) said: “Allah created us out of the highest Illiyyun and created the hearts of our Shias out of what He created us from, and created their bodies out of what besides this. Their hearts yearn for us because they are made of the same that we are made of. And then he read this verse: “But no! Verily, the book of the righteous is in Illiyyun. And what can make you know what is Illiyyun? It is a book inscribed! The close ones testify about itˮ. And He created our enemies from Sijjeen and created the hearts of their Shias from the same from which He created them, and He created their bodies from what else. Their hearts yearn for them because they are made of the same that they are made of. And then he read this verse: “But no! Verily, the book of the wicked is in Sijjeen. And what can make you know what is Sjjeen? Book written! ˮ
Let’s now turn to sura “Manˮ. It begins by saying: “Has there not come upon man a period of Dahr when he was not a thing even mentioned? ˮ As we have already said, the word “dahr” is used here, not “zaman,” because this verse speaks of events in another time – the time of Malakut, the time of the World Soul.
Imam Baqir (A) says about this verse: “He was a thing, but was not mentioned” – that is, he was a pure thing, a thing without the qualities mentioned in the book of existence. And to this thing Allah turned the question: a lastu bi-rabbikum – “Am I not your Lord? ˮ – and they said, “Yes, we testify.ˮ
And in another hadith, it’s reported from Imam Baqir (A): “He was a predetermined thing (maqdoor), but was not a thing formed (muqawwan). ˮ That is, he did not yet have a form; there was no human form, there was only a plan, a project of man.
And then Allah says: “We created man from a drop, a mixture, testing him, and made him hearing and seeingˮ (76: 2). And the drop here is the call addressed to a person, in response to which he acquired a human form: “And made him hearing and seeing. ˮ
And in the next verse, Allah says: “We have led him along the path, either grateful or unfaithful.ˮ And “led him along the path,” as Ali ibn Ibrahim quotes, means “explained to him the path of good and evil,” and the words “either grateful or unfaithful” mean “this is a refutation to those who believe that Allah is forcing a person to act and that there is no choice for a person. ˮ This is what the hadith says.
That is, everyone was created as he is, according to his own choice, and whoever chose the inner image of man – Allah gave it to him, and whoever chose the inner image of the shaitan – Allah gave it to him. And in another hadith from Imam Baqir (A), we read: “either gratefulˮ – that is, taking (from Allah), “or unfaithfulˮ – that is, rejecting. That is, either accepting the call of Allah or rejecting it.
And when the second appeal was made: “Isn’t Muhammad your Prophet? And isn’t Ali your Imam? ˮ – to those who answered “Yes” was given the inner heart filling the human Haikel with light. And whoever answered: “Noˮ – their form was filled with darkness, and about them, the Almighty said that He created them from Sijjeen clay, and then said: “In Jahannam, and I will not be asked. ˮ And this inner heart is nothing more than tin, i.e., the clay of creation, the material from which the Almighty created them – that is, from the light of Illiyyun, which is the light of the Wilaya, or from the darkness of Sijjeen.
In other words, the image of taklif accepted in the world of Zarr is called “clay” (tin) in the hadiths, and this is the heart, and its relation to the original essence is like the relation of a mirror to what it reflects. And this person (“Zeidˮ) is reflected in the mirror of the second creation in accordance with the qualities of the mirror that he himself has chosen – depending on the ability of the mirror to receive light and darkness, on its smallness and size, its curvature or straightness …
As the hadith from Imam Ali (A) says:
“Allah said: ‘I will create man from sounding, from clay, clothed in a form. And when I have proportioned him and breathed into him of My spirit, then fall down to him in prostration’ (15: 28-29). And it was from Allah the preceding for Adam before his creation and His argument over them. And Allah scooped up with His right hand (hand – in a figurative sense, as a power) a handful of fresh water Furat, and made it sounding clay in His right hand, so that it hardened, and said to it: ‘From you, I will create Prophets, Messengers, and righteous slaves, and Imams, leading to the straight path and calling to Paradise, and their followers until the Day of Judgment and their Shias, and I will not be asked about what I am doing, but they will be asked.’
Then He scooped up another handful of salty, bitter water and made it sounding clay in His right hand, and it hardened. Then He said to it: ‘Out of you I will create tyrants, pharaohs, arrogants, brothers of shaitans and those who call to Fire until the Day of Judgment, and their Shias, and I will not be asked, but they will be asked.’ˮ
And the meaning of “scooping with the right handˮ here is their answer “Yesˮ to His question: “Am I not your Lord, and Muhammad is not your Prophet, and Ali is not your Imam, and the Imams from his offspring are not your Imams? ˮ – and “hardening” is similar to His words: “…Those who said: ‘Our Lord is Allah’ – and then became established (in this)” (41: 30). And the meaning of “scooping with another handful of bitter salty water” is their answer “No” to the same question.
Allah did not force a part of people to disobey Him while creating them “pharaohs, arrogants, brothers of shaitans and calling to Fire,” however, He created them in the second creation in the image that they had chosen for themselves in the first creation, that is, in the world of Taklif, in the world of Zarr. The Quran says: “Allah has sealed them for their unbeliefˮ (4: 155) – that is, their unbelief in the world of Zarr. And the other verse says about this: “They were not to believe in that which they had denied beforeˮ – that is, in the world of Zarr. – “Thus does Allah seal over the hearts of the disbelievers” (7: 101).
Allah created every thing according to the degree of its own acceptance of being (its answer in the first creation, the world of Zarr), that is, the way it had chosen for itself, and the one who had chosen the form of obedience – He gave it to him, and the one who had chosen the form of disobedience – He gave it to him.
This is the interpretation and mystery of the words of the Messenger of Allah (S): “The feathers dried up, and the predestination was fulfilled. ˮ He was asked: “And what then acts? ˮ He said: “Do the deeds because everyone will be facilitated what he was created for. ˮ That is: everyone will be facilitated for what he was created for in accordance with his own choice. And this is the word of Allah: “But they were not to believe in that which they had denied before” (10: 74) – that is, in the world of Zarr.
And it is also not the case that Allah created good people out of light and evil people out of darkness, but the truth is that Allah created everyone according to the degree of his acceptance or rejection of the light, that is, depending on his own answer in the World of Taklif. Submission to Allah returns the light from which all creations were created to its truth, and disobedience, on the contrary, turns this light into darkness. In other words, Allah made every good person good because of his own goodness and made every evil person evil because of his own evilness.
The first volume of Amin Ramin’s “Man in Islam” can be purchased on Amazon at this link.
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