In the “Tawhidˮ of Saduq, a hadith indicates that a Jewish person came to the Messenger of Allah (S) and asked him: “Why do you say that you are the greatest of all Prophets? ˮ He said: “Because I was the first to bear witness about my Lordˮ.
It means that he gave the first answer to the question: “Am I not your Lord? ˮ
It was so that Allah created the ocean of possibility (imkan) and made it the mention of all things – everything that can be attached to the creation of Allah and the eternal Faiz. And He made everything possible there. This is His created knowledge, hijab of wahdaniya (veil of unity), and what Imam Mahdi calls “the Great Abyss” in “Dua Simatˮ. And this is the ocean of predestination (bahru l-qadar), at the bottom of which the Sun shines, as Imam Ali says (A):
“Predestination (qadar) is a secret from the secrets of Allah, a veil from the veils of Allah, a sanctuary from the sanctuaries of Allah. It is raised to the covering of Allah, folded up from the creation of Allah, sealed with the seal of Allah. It was antecedent in the knowledge of Allah, and Allah has taken of its knowledge from the servants and raised it above their witnessing and level of intellect because they cannot attain it with the reality of the Lordship or the power of the Needless. Neither can they attain the greatness of the Light nor the honor of the solitary. It (predestination) is an overflowing ocean purely for Allah, the Exalted. Its depth is between heaven and the earth, and its width is between the east and the west. It is as dark as the pitch-dark night, full of snakes and fishes. It rises at one time and drops at another. In its bottom, the sun shines. It ought to be that no one has its information except Allah the One, the Peerless.ˮ
And this is ismun mahzunun maknun – “the kept, secret name,” and this is the “burning sea” mentioned in “Dua Ahd.”
The meaning of this world of possibility, the world of Imkan, is that everything there can be anything. That is, Zeid can be Amr, can be a mountain, a tree, a prophet, a stone, an animal, etc., to infinity. It is like ink with which you can write any letter or word. The ink contains in itself, in its capacity, any writing. You can write the name of God with it, and you can write a curse.
So, Allah had created the ocean of infinite possibilities of all things, which is the manifestation of His infinite power… And He threw there, into this Great Abyss, the question: “Am I not your Lord? ˮ
And this question, of course, was not just a question, not just a phrase. It was Light – the Light of being. In this ocean of possibility, any thing could become any thing, and the question was thrown there to determine what kind of thing each would become.
So, to this world of universal possibility, the Creator addressed the question: “Am I not your Lord? ˮ – in order to bring them out to being from the realm of possibility.
And faster and more perfect of all, Muhammad and the Household of Muhammad (the Fourteen Infallibles) accepted this being. Therefore Allah made them the first being and the source of all existence. He gave them absolute power over all creation and made them His “mathalˮ, an example, as He said in sura “The Lightˮ: masalu nurihi ka-mishkat – “The example of His light is like a niche…ˮ (24: 35). And therefore, in the ziyarat of Fatima Zahra (A), we read: “Allah has tested you before creating you.ˮ
And when they hastened to the being, the light of Allah penetrated their manifestation, and their light shone over the Great Abyss.
The next who answered this question were one hundred and twenty-four thousand Prophets, and He created them from the radiance of this first pure Light, i.e., the Light of Muhammad and the Household of Muhammad (S). But in these one hundred and twenty-four thousand Prophets, a little darkness had already appeared. That is, their light was weaker because they had left the “firstˮ (awwal), in contrast to these fourteen lights. This is why in the holy Quran, we see that the Prophets left the “first” or “best” (awwal) and therefore the Quran tells us stories about the mistakes of Adam, Dawud, Yunus (A)…
The next, who answered this first question, were people, that is, all humankind, and Allah created them from the radiance of the light of the Prophets.
Then, angels, jinn, animals, plants, and inanimate matter were created in the same way – each next step from the radiance of the light of the previous step.
So, the very emergence of creations from the possibility to being was associated with their answer “yesˮ to the question of rububiya, to the question of the unity of the Creator. And therefore, there is not a single particle of creation that would answer “no” and would not recognize His tawhid and dominion, and they all “praise him incessantly,” as the Quran says, and all creation was created on fitra of tawhid, as an expression of Tawhid.
And this is what is called the “the first Zarrˮ. All creations were united in recognition of Tawhid because this recognition was a condition of their very creation and coming from possibility to being.
When did the division take place? The division took place in the question of the leadership, the Wilaya of some creations over others. That is, there is no difference in relation to the Creator. All are His servants, all they worship Him and obey Him…
But when He had thrown among these creations the second question: “Is Muhammad not your Prophet? And is Ali not your Imam? And are the Imams from his descendants not your Imams? ˮ – then some of them said: “Yesˮ, while others answered: “Noˮ.
And then there was a division and distinction of creations. By the answer to the second question, some of them chose a form of submission for themselves, and Allah created them in this form, while others chose the form of disobedience, and Allah created them in this form. And from here comes the sharia and taklif… Submission to the highest creation became submission to Allah, and his disobedience – disobedience to Allah. And depending on this submission or disobedience, they received different forms and different degrees of distance from the Source (that is, the Will of Allah, His Volition, Mashiyya).
Let me try to explain it with an illustrative example. Here we see the Sun, which is the brightest and most powerful source of light for our world – so to speak, an absolute illuminator. (And in parentheses, I wanted to note that the Almighty did not put the Sun for our earth in vain: He did it as an allusion to the highest reality, i.e., to Muhammad’s Reality, which is the Sun of those worlds).
So, the Sun gives light that falls on billions of different objects – mountains, trees, people, planets, seas… And each of these things reflects this light in accordance with its receiving ability and capacity, i.e., with the level of its own transparency or turbidity, subtlety or roughness. The light is the same, it doesn’t change! But the perceiving ability of things is different – what in Arabic is called “qabiliyatˮ. If the Sun’s rays fall on a clean crystal, it sparkles. And if they fall on the dark earth, it simply absorbs these rays and remains gloomy. Once again: the light of the Sun is the same, but the way it reflects from things depends on their surface, on their receiving capacity, on their “responseˮ to this light.
So, in the world of Zarr, the answer “yesˮ or “noˮ to the taklif, to the call of the Wilaya, was the creation of a receptive ability for the light. The question “Is Muhammad not your Prophet, and Ali not your Imam? ˮ is, in fact, streams of light coming from Sun of the worlds, and the answer “yesˮ or “noˮ is the receptive ability of creatures, their qabiliyat. The one who said “no” created the darkness of himself, of his clay, of his creation – a darkness that cannot receive these rays of light, just as the gloomy earth cannot sparkle from the rays of the Sun.
Of course, we have described all this approximately because the reality is much more complicated. There were no direct “yesˮ or “noˮ answers. Someone answered faster, someone later, someone hesitated, someone said “rather yes than noˮ, someone said “rather no than yesˮ. That is, there was a whole range of capabilities beginning with the full and unconditional “yesˮ, which corresponds to full light, and ending with the complete “noˮ, which corresponds to total darkness. It was a very long story… Just like our world: it also consists of a huge number of details, but for some creature who is not familiar with it, how can you describe it? What have we been doing in this world? Well, let’s say briefly that we fulfilled the will of Allah or did not fulfill it… Ultimately, only this… That is, the essence of our world is also the answer “yesˮ or “noˮ to the call of the Almighty.
So, Allah created everyone in the second creation in accordance with this answer, with this receiving ability, with the form that he determined for himself.
Those who said “no” were created from the opposite of light – and this is how the souls of unbelievers, shaitans, bad animals and plants, and the lower worlds were created – down to Sijjeen, whose darkness is darker than black, sharper than the edges of diamond and hotter than fire.
Now, if we turn to the birth of a person in our world, we will see that each of us is not born as a blank slate: he comes with a specific load of his deeds in the past worlds.
When the embryo is formed in the mother’s womb, its animal body is created, endowed with a lower animal and vegetative soul. After birth, the lights of the Throne begin to shine on this body, like on a mirror. And now they are reflected in this mirror in accordance with the shape of the mirror itself.
Let me explain in more detail. So we take a mirror and put it in front of us. It reflects us. But mirrors can be different. One can be transparent, the other cloudy; one straight, the other curved… A crooked mirror will display a beautiful person in an ugly way – that is, in the mirror, the person will look ugly.
This is what we talked about in the previous part. Remember, we said that we had chosen a form for ourselves to live in this world. And we compared it to a mirror that reflects the image of each person. That is, in that world, we have chosen the shape of that mirror in which we will be reflected in the world of Dunya. And this form was the answer to the question: “Is Muhammad not your Prophet? Is Ali not your Imam? ˮ
So, the human Haikel that Allah created after answering all the people on the first question, the question of Tawhid: “Am I not your Lord? ˮ – this Haikel, which is Haikel of Tawhid, comes into our world in accordance with his reflection in the mirror, the form of which he has chosen. And whoever said “no” out of envy and anger toward the highest creations of Allah, has chosen the form of disobedience – the devilish form in which this Haikel was reflected. Imagine a crooked, cloudy mirror that reflects a beautiful person in an ugly, scary form. And who said “yesˮ, has chosen the form of obedience and light. And we said that this form is the tin, the clay of creation, or the heart of man.
Coming into this temporal world is like entering or drawing a human Haikel into a mirror. Let’s imagine that a person was standing in front of a mirror and pulled himself in, entered it – and took the form of this mirror. This drawing into the mirror is what in the hadiths is called creation from good or bad clay – from the clay of Illiyyunor the clay of Sijjeen.
And Jibt and Taghut, the first two usurpers, were the first who refused in that world to recognize the Wilaya of the Fourteen Infallibles and began to call others to the refusing. And therefore, in our world, they became the expression of all evil from Adam to the Day of Judgment. They said “no,” knowing the truth, out of envy and arrogance. They said: “O Allah, if You force us to obey them, then we have no power over You, and we cannot resist You. But if You leave the matter to our choice, we will not obey them, kill them and be at enmity with them. ˮ And Allah said: “I do not force My slaves to believe. ˮ
And therefore, all evil in our world comes from them. As Imam Sadiq (A) said: “Our enemies are the root of all evil” – that is, according to the order of being, and not according to the order of this world.
In this world, the order is not what it really is. Indeed, according to the time of this world, we know that before the enemies of Ahl ul-Beit (A), there also was evil – for example, the evil of Pharaoh, the evil of Nimrod, and so on… But according to the real time, according to the time of Dahr, they (Jibt and Taghut) are the root of all evil because they were the first who answered “no” and began to call others to this, and therefore Pharaoh, Nimrod, etc. came from them. And in the same way, Muhammad (S) himself and his Family were the last to be manifested in this world, while in real time and the true state of affairs, they are the first. And therefore, Imam Ali (A) says that he was with Noah in the ark and with Abraham, he destroyed the Adits and Thamud… He was with them according to the time of Dahr, according to the real time, and not according to the time of Zaman, because by the time of Zaman, he was not physically born then.
And this is the answer to a very important question about predestination. This is what Abrahamic religions are often criticized for: there is supposedly no freedom here, and people here are just pawns in the game of the almighty God, blind tools of His plan… Opponents of the Monotheistic paradigm paint such a caricatured picture that God is an almighty tyrant who quite arbitrarily sends some of His creatures to eternal Hell. Who also created all the evil and disadvantages of this world… I.e., God knows the evils and burdens of this world, but to enjoy it, as if playing chess with Satan…
In reality, this is absolutely not the case. Allah created people and gave them freedom. They move from world to world, responding to His call, to His taklif, to His program, and thereby defining for themselves those cosmic regions into which they ultimately end up – in Heaven or Hell, up or down. Allah creates them in the next world in accordance with the choice they have made in the previous world. During the transition to our world, we were created according to the choice we had made in the world of Zarr, and during the transition to the future world, we will be created according to the choice we made in this world.
Our earthly world is only a short step on this path, in this chain of worlds that will continue forever – in the chain of the formation of the human Haikel. Because what is called Hell or Paradise is also a countless number of worlds. There are stages in Paradise, where perfection will continue forever. A person will ascend higher and higher from stage to stage, endlessly approaching Allah and never reaching this approximation completely.
One might ask: well, couldn’t have the almighty God create everything harmonious and good from the very beginning, i.e., make such a universal Paradise? Why all these tests, these questions, why these transitions from world to world? The answer is that if everything were so, it would mean that God forced all His creations to obey Him, and in such obedience, there would be no sense. It would not even be obedience at all, just like rotation of the moon in its orbit is not obedience or disobedience – it just rotates, and that’s it… This would mean that God has created all creations as soulless machines without any freedom, and this would contradict His wisdom and perfection. A perfect God could not create an imperfect creation.
Moreover, if He created such a creation doomed to Paradise, then this very creation would say to Him (if it could even speak): “Why did You not want us to obey You freely, why did You force us? Why didn’t You set us free? Why did You not allow us to seek perfection ourselves and submit ourselves to You at will? There is no value for us in this Paradise, to which You forced us, we do not understand the taste and sweetness of its blessings, because we do not know anything else, we have nothing to compare it with, and we did not deserve it ourselves but simply received it by the very fact of our being…ˮ
And then this Paradise would not be Paradise at all. It would be a kind of compulsory state, the value of which people would not understand at all. And believers know the sweetness of turning to the Almighty during trials, in danger, in suffering … If all this is taken away, then perfection will be taken away from creatures, which will mean that the world was not created by a perfect God.
So, Allah created creations from nothing – in the sense that they did not exist before He created them – and then shaped them through various forms of call addressed to them, in different worlds, through their own responses to these calls. And this is the meaning of Taklif and Sharia. This process also continues in our world. In our world, the call of Allah is also addressed to us through the Prophets and Imams, and we, in one way or another, respond to it, thereby forming ourselves for the future worlds.
Here the following question may arise: is a man created from darkness capable of changing himself in this world? Yes, it is, although it is very difficult. And the difficulty of this depends on the degree of predominance of darkness in him – as if a load that he brought with him into this world from previous worlds. But if he accepts the proper path, he will replace the darkness of his inner essence with light; his clay will change to a new one, he will be given a heart…
Could it be the other way around? Can a believer become an unbeliever, change his creation from light to darkness? The hadith says no, he cannot. There is a separate chapter in “Kafiˮ about this. And this is the mercy of Allah to people. If a person came to this world as a believer, he would never turn to unbelief, although the opposite is possible. That is, the conversion of an unbeliever to faith in this world is possible.
And in the same way, there are those in whom the darkness is so intense, so prevalent, that although theoretically, they can turn to the light, practically not.
The law for all creatures is such that the cause acts on the inflicted according to the acceptance of the inflicted. Imam Sadiq (A) said: “Allah refused to do things without reason. ˮ
The action of the actor comes from him following the qualities of the actor himself, but manifests itself on the one who receives the impact, following the qualities of the one who gets the impact. We have already said that it is like the light of the sun and its reflections depending on the surface of objects. The wall reflects the light of the sun differently from water; water is not like a mirror…
The call in Zarr was not just words – it was light, and this light was reflected in each of the creatures in accordance with its acceptance of this light, which was its response. That is, the call is light, and the answer is the acceptance of the light.
In our earthly world, these rays of light are turned into the form of Revelation and the laws of Sharia. “Thereafter We have made you upon Sharia of the Command, so follow it! ˮ (45: 18). That is, performing prayer, for example, in its essence, is not just some kind of action set: it is actually the acceptance of the Creator’s light into your soul, the formation of your soul for the next stage of being. And such are all the laws of Sharia. In their essence, they are light.
As a rule, the laws of Sharia return to the story of Adam and the forbidden Tree. Thus, the obligatory acts of worship are associated with the khalifat program, that is, the relationship between Adam (the Adamic man) and the Reality of Ahl ul-Bait (the Light of the Wilaya). These are salat (prayer), hajj, zakat, fasting, and so on…
And therefore, the commander of the believers Ali (A) says: “I am the prayer of the believers and their fasting. ˮ
In another hadith, he says: “I am the Frequented House, I am the Lofty Dome, I am the month of Ramadan, I am the Night of Decree, I am the Mother of the book, I am the final decision, I am surah ‘The Hamd,’ and I am the owner of the prayer. ˮ
That means that all this is a manifestation of his reality, rays from his light. The inner reality of all types of worship is Wilaya. Whoever understands this will understand the true meaning of worshiping Allah.
When you do prayer (salat), perform fasting, give zakat, the light of the Wilaya goes into your soul and shapes your human Haikel for the future worlds…
The first volume of Amin Ramin’s “Man in Islam” can be purchased on Amazon at this link.
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