Symposium 6
Qualities of the Glorious Allah
Anwar:Last session, we had a talk on how to prove the existence of the Glorious Allah, and you promised to tell me about the qualities of this Great and Merciful God.
Hasan:It is obvious, Anwar, that the previous evidence through which we proved the existence of the Glorious Allah also show His qualities that are absolute; Allah is affluent with all the perfect qualities and away from any possible ones.
Anwar:What do you mean by perfect qualities and possible qualities?
Hasan:This is what I like about you. You are precise which encourages me to give whatever explanation you want.
Anwar:Thanks for the compliment, sir.
Hasan:Thanks to you. All right, let’s go back to your question. Religious scholars introduced some perfect qualities and some other negative qualities, that is, perfect qualities exclusively belong to the very essence of the Glorious Allah such as knowledge, power and life, but the possible qualities belong to the creatures of Allah; this is the reason why they are known as negative qualities. Lightness, heaviness, tallness, shortness, matter, weakness, ignorance, etc. are some negative qualities to describe the possible entities or the creatures and not Allah, Praised Be His Name.
Anwar:I hear about other qualities like the Creator, the Provider, the Merciful and the Compassionate. What type of qualities are they?
Hasan:These are known actual qualities that describe the essence of Allah. In other words, Allah cannot be the Creator and not be The Everlasting, Omniscient or
Almighty. Also, He cannot be the Provider without having all the perfect qualities.
Anwar:Would you please tell me about monotheism (Tawhid) and its types?
Hasan:With all pleasure! Monotheism is to believe is the One with no associates who is unmatched and unrivaled. Monotheism is divided into several types; I will mention some of them:
· Essential monotheism: it is to believe that Allah is essentially the One, and that He has no associates because He is unmatched and unrivaled.
· Worship monotheism: it is to believe that Allah is only worthy of worship; we must only obey Him, be only loyal to Him, and worship nothing or no one – like the Devil, money, power, etc. – but Him.
· Quality monotheism: this is to believe that the personal qualities of Allah are part and parcel of His existence and that they are not additional. If we say, for instance, that the Glorious Allah is eternally old and His qualities are as old and eternal as He is, we get into a problem. This way we are accompanying something
·
· with Allah – here His qualities; as if we are saying that the qualities are old and eternal too; but the fact is that it is only the Glorious Allah Who can be described as Old and Eternal.
· Deeds monotheism: it is to believe that the doer – the Creator, the Provider, the One Who raises from the dead and the One Who puts to death, the Beneficent, the Maleficent, etc. – is only the Almighty Allah, and no other person no matter who could ever share these doings with Him. These are the types of monotheism that we believe in.
Anwar:Excellent! This talk we just had forces me to raise some more questions, but I will bring them up next time.
Hasan:All right. See you next time, then!
Symposium 7
Demonstration of Types of Monotheism
Anwar:I am boiling with impatience to ask an important question.
Hasan:Of course, Anwar. Ask whatever you want.
Anwar:You were telling me on the subject of deeds monotheism that the Doer, the Creator, the Provider is only the Almighty Allah; it is totally true, but I hear that some common people request the Imams (PBUT) to give them good health or children and other things. Is it true? How do you explain this?
Hasan:I assure you that the Creator and the Provider is only the Glorious Allah; He is the One and He has no
associates, and that people do not actually ask the Imams (PBUT) to do anything for them.
People, in fact, entreat to that special status the Imams (PBUT) have before Allah and the special love and care He has for them so much the Almighty Allah would give them what they request through those medium, in this case the Imams (PBUT).
The Almighty Allah says in the Noble Quran:(and seek the way of approach unto Him)5;35, as He tells us that the Prophet Jesus is one of the illustrious dignitaries before the Glorious Allah:(And remember when the angels said: O Mary! Allah giveth thee glad tidings of a word from Him, whose name is the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, illustrious in the world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near unto Allah)3;45.
This is another proof to the validity of seeking refuge with the dignitaries before Allah, especially when your request is restricted to His worship and obedience. I will explain this more later when we try to explain imploring to and approaching the Almighty Allah.
Anwar:The answer you gave me was concise yet very
good and useful, and it is good that I can hear more later.
Hasan:Inshallah!
Anwar:Alright! Will you illustrate the implications of monotheism that you mentioned earlier?
Hasan:Yes, and I will start with explaining the ‘essential monotheism’; the Lord, in the Noble Quran, gave us the proof that the essence of the Divine Being is One and Only; it is not compound and it is not numerous:(Your God is One God; there is no God save Him, the Beneficent, the Merciful)2;163.
This Verse presents an obvious indication that the Divine Being is One and there is no God but Allah. Also, when He says He is the One, this does not mean there is number two. Not at all! The purpose as Amir Al-Mu’menin (PBUH) put it is that“the meaning of the One is that there is no similar thing to Him; this is how our God is”.
Furthermore, there are two separate proofs that He is Simple as opposite to compound; this means that the Glorious Allah is not a combination of segments.
Evidence of reason: which says that reasonably Allah cannot be a combination of segments, otherwise he would become an object or matter which would make him dependent on his segments, but we know that the Almighty Allah is in no need whatsoever.
Evidence of reports: is what Allah, Praised Be His Name, says in the Noble Quran:(Say: He is Allah, the One۞Allah, the eternally Besought of all۞He begetteth not nor was begotton۞And there is none comparable unto Him)112;4-1.
This Chapter is an obvious refutation to existence of any matches or counterparts or combination of segments in any possible forms. This is what I can say in brief.
Now, about ‘worship monotheism’, I should say that it persists on the fact that only Allah is worthy of worship, imploring and submission, as it is also clear in the following Verse:(ye worship none save Him)12;40. Thus, because we believe He is the Creator with all perfect attributes and the highest qualities, He is worthy of obedience and imploring.
Anwar:And how should we explain our obedience and