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What are the
Essence and Attributes of God? Can we describe Him? How can we respond
to those who ask, ‘Why can’t we see God?’, and ‘Given that God
created everything, who created God?’
God is absolutely
other than His creation. The Creator cannot by any means be the same kind of
being as that which He created. Although this is self-evident to sense and
reason, some people still ask why we cannot directly see God.
But direct vision is
very limited and could never be an appropriate way of seeking the Unlimited.
Let us explain:
There are innumerable
bacteria in the human body, indeed innumerable bacteria in so small a
space as a human tooth. These creatures are quite unaware of the tooth in
which they live. To become aware of it, they would have to somehow situate
themselves out of the tooth, and then, through the use of artificial means
(telescopes and microscopes and the like) they might, conceivably, obtain
some very approximate notion of the dimensions of the tooth, and then,
perhaps, of the larger body to which the tooth is attached. Only through
such an effort, which is scarcely imaginable, could the bacteria become
aware of the human body which makes up the large ground or sustaining
environment of their life. And this scarcely imaginable awareness is itself
an immeasurable distance away from anything remotely resembling what we
would call understanding.
Though on a very
different scale, the sense-awareness of human beings is similarly limited.
It may indeed be that, with the assistance of telescopes and other
instruments, we can ‘see’ across distances of millions of light years.
But all that we ‘see’ in this way is insignificant compared to the
dimensions of the whole of which it is a minute fragment. In fact, allowing
for the difference in scale, what human beings can ‘see’ is as
insignificant as the bacteria’s awareness of the living tissue within
which they exist and perish, when compared to the dimensions of the body of
which that tissue is a minute fragment.
Further, if we
consider the matter closely, we soon realize that our ‘seeing’ (or
hearing or any other mode of perception) is conditional upon our
understanding. We need to have some general ideas about what we ‘see’ in
order to distinguish it and recognize it. If we did not have some idea,
however vague at first, of what, for example, a tree is, we should be
literally unable to ‘make sense’ of that object before our eyes which we
know as a tree. If our ‘seeing’ is as limited as it is, and if-even for
the objects within creation, and within the reach of our ‘seeing’ or our
‘seeing’ instruments-we need some general understanding so that we can
‘make sense’ of what we ‘see’, how improper a demand it is, how
absurd a demand, to ask why we cannot directly ‘see’ or directly ‘know’
the Creator of the whole.
We are created
beings, that is, finite, limited in our possibilities and our
capacities. Only the Creator, God, is Infinite.
We are created
beings, that is, finite, limited in our possibilities and our capacities.
Only the Creator, God, is Infinite. By His Mercy, the Creation is available
to us as the ground or environment within which we exist and perish, strive
for understanding and virtue, and seek our salvation. The Prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, said: Compared with the Seat of Honor (kursi), the whole
universe is as little as a ring thrown upon a desert. Similarly, compared
with the Throne (‘arsh), the kursi is as little as a ring thrown upon the
desert (Tabari, Tafsir, 3.77). From that comparison we gain some
understanding of how far the Infinitude of the Creator exceeds our power
of apprehending it. How can we even begin to conceive of the reality of the
kursi and ‘arsh from which the All-Mighty in His Infinite Majesty sends
out His Will and Command and sustains His Creation, let alone begin to
conceive of God Himself?
As for God’s
Essence and Attributes:
God Almighty should
be considered from five perspectives:
One is His
Essence as Divine Being―Zāt, in Islamic terminology.
His Essence cannot be known by anyone except God Himself. A
Prophetic Tradition says: Do not reflect on God’s Essence,
instead, reflect on His works and acts. For God has no partners,
likes and resemblance, which is pointed to by the verse: There is
nothing like or compared unto Him.
The second
perspective is God’s Essential, “Innate” Qualities as being
God. These are the source of the Attributes.
The third
perspective is His Attributes. The Attributes have three kinds: one
is His Essential Attributes, which are: Existence, Having No
Beginning, Eternal Permanence, Being Unlike the Created,
Self-Subsistence. The second is the Positive Attributes, which are:
Life, Knowledge, Power, Speech, Will, Hearing, Seeing, Creating. The
third is the “Negative” Attributes. The Negative Attributes are
innumerable but can be summed up in a definition: God is absolutely
free from any defective and shortcoming. The Attributes are the
sources of Names. Life gives rise to the All-Living, Knowledge to
All-Knowing, Power to All-Powerful, etc.
God has
many Names, about one thousand of which are known by human beings.
The Names are the sources of the Acts. For example, giving life has
its source in the All-Living; knowing everything down to the
smallest originates in the All-Knowing, etc.
God is “known”
by His acts, Names and Attributes. Whatever exists in the universe,
in the worlds, material and immaterial, is the result of the
manifestation of God’s Names and Attributes. For example, the
universal and individual provision points to His Name, the
All-Providing; the All-Healing is the source of remedies and
patients’ recovering from illnesses. Philosophy has its source in
Wisdom, etc. The acts, Names and Attributes are the “links”
between God and the created, or the “reflectors” with which to
have knowledge of God.
Although we try to
know or recognize God by His acts, Names and Attributes, since there is
nothing resembling Him, we must refrain to think about Him in the terms
associating likeness or comparison unto Him. First of all, He is absolutely
One, Single, that is, He is God without any resemblance what or howsoever.
In this sense, His Oneness is not in terms of number. However, He has also
Unity. He has relations with the created. In order to have some knowledge of
Him through His acts, Names and Attributes, some comparisons are
permissible. This is pointed to in the verse: For God is the highest
comparison. For example, using the Sun as a unit of comparison to understand
God’s acts, Names and Attributes should be considered from this
perspective.
Why can’t we see
God?
The Quran teaches:
Vision comprehends Him not, but He comprehends all vision (al-An’am,
6.103).
After the Prophet’s
ascent to the heavens, peace be upon him, his Companions asked him if he had
seen God. It is reported on the authority of Abu Dharr that, on one
occasion, he answered: He is the Light. How do I see Him? (Sahih al-Muslim,
‘Iman,’ 291; Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 5, 147). And on another occasion, he
answered: I have seen a Light. (Muslim, Iman, 292). These statements clarify
the well-known saying, The light is the limit or veil of God (Muslim, ‘Iman,’
293; Sunan Ibn Ma’ja, ‘Muqaddima,’ 13; Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 4, 13).
Between us and God is the light which He created. All that we see we see by
that light, within that light-the light is the ground and environment and
the limit of our seeing, and that light shields or veils us from God. In
fact, we see but a part of that light of creation, we see but a part of what
veils Him.
Let us consider the
matter from another direction. Ibrahim Haqqi says: ‘In the whole universe
of creation there is nothing that is either the like or the equal or the
contrary of God. God is Exalted above all form, indeed immune to and free
from form.’
It is only because
existing things have a like or an equal or a contrary that we are able to
distinguish them and perceive them. We know what is ‘long’ only against
what is ‘short’ by comparison or contrast; similarly, we know ‘light’
only against what is ‘dark’. How then should we distinguish or perceive
One who has neither like, nor equal, nor contrary? This is the meaning of
the statement that God is Exalted above form.
Whatever conception
of God we form in our minds, He is other than it.
The reader will
certainly have understood that the question of those who ask to directly
perceive God is but an image of the question of those who ask to directly
‘think’ or ‘know’ His Being. But, in truth, we can no more ‘think’
or ‘know’ His Being, than we can ‘see’ Him. Just as He is beyond all
measures of form or quality or quantity, He is also beyond all our powers
of conception or reasoning. As the Muslims learned in kalam (theology) put
it: ‘Whatever conception of God we form in our minds, He is other than it.’
And the Sufis say: ‘God is beyond; and beyond all our conceptions; and we
are surrounded by thousands of veils.’
Men of wisdom have
said that God exists and He cannot be comprehended by human reason, nor
perceived by human senses. The only means to knowledge of Him is through the
prophets, that is, the men whom God appointed as bearers of His
Revelation. Where perception and reason have no access, we need to, indeed
we must, accept the guidance of Revelation.
Imagine that we are
in a closed room and hear a knocking at the door of that room. We may well
form some vague impressions about who is knocking, but we can no more than
guess at his attributes. We know for certain only that there is knocking at
the door, and that we are free to go to the door and, on opening it, ask the
person to make himself known to us so that we obtain thereby a more secure
knowledge of his true attributes.
This poor analogy may
help us to more usefully approach the question of how to seek God. The
fact of Creation, the immensity of it combined with an essential unity of
form, the sheer beauty and harmony of it, and its usefulness to us as well
as its demands upon our labor and our understanding, all make us aware of
the existence of the Creator. In just the same way as we deduce from the
manufacture of a wonderful diversity of fabrics out of a single material
that there is certainly an agent who spins and mixes and dyes and weaves and
otherwise prepares the final product, so we deduce from the stunning
evidence of the Creation that there is a Creator. While a manufacturer of
fabrics can be got hold of and may be persuaded to make himself known to us,
no such impertinent curiosity can be addressed to the Creator. Indeed, it
would be most incorrect to do so-as well as being impossible-just as
impossible as it would be for the fabric to address such curiosity to the
fabric-maker. Thus, without assistance from the Creator himself, we can
get no further than when, hearing the first knocking on the door, we began
to indulge hopelessly vague surmises about who was knocking.
But the reality is
that, by the Mercy of God, the Creation of mankind was accompanied by
Revelation. Through God’s Revelation to the prophets and their teaching,
the door is held open for us. We are enabled to respond to the Creation
around us as signs manifesting not only the fact of the Creator’s
existence but also His Attributes. Through the prophets we learn to
contemplate His Attributes and to call them-the One, the All-Merciful, the
All-Compassionate, the All Knowing, the All-Powerful, and so on. A true
understanding of these Attributes requires inward experience and
contemplation, which are achieved only after sincere and total observance
of the Divine decrees, objective study and long, profound meditation,
according to the pattern of the prophets. Only if a person has developed the
inward faculties will he be able to grasp the meaning of the Divine works,
that is, the Creation, and then rise to contemplation of the Divine
Attributes manifested in it.
His Names are known,
His Attributes are comprehended, and His Essence exists
Even then, it is by
no means possible for any person to comprehend the Divine Essence. That is
why it is said-‘His Names are known, His Attributes are comprehended,
and His Essence exists.’ In the words of Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, may God be
pleased with him: To comprehend His Essence means to confess that His
Essence can not be comprehended.
What falls to us is
to remain committed to our covenant with God, and to beseech Him in this
way: ‘O You, who alone are worshipped! It needs no saying that we are
unable to attain to true knowledge of You. Yet we believe that You are
indeed nearer to us than our neck-veins. We feel Your existence and nearness
in the depths of our hearts through the universe which You have created
and opened to us like a book, and through the wonderful harmony of form
between the least and the largest of what You have brought into being. We
come to perceive that we are integrated into the whole realm of Your
theophanies, and by that perception our souls are rested and consoled, and
our hearts find serenity.’
But there are some
who do not seek any such serenity or indeed any inward life at all. They are
of a mechanical turn of mind and readily fall into a mechanical kind of
sophistry which entraps and paralyses their reason. They ask:
Given that God
created everything, who created God?
When I first heard
this question, I straightaway confessed again ‘and Muhammad is His
Messenger’, for the Prophet, peace be upon him, predicted that this
question would be raised. Indeed, he predicted a great many future events
of importance-all have come true and will continue to do so as time unfolds.
On one occasion he said: A day will certainly come when some people will sit
with their legs crossed and ask: ‘Given that God created everything, who
created God?’ (Bukhari, ‘I‘tisam,’ 3).
Of course, those who
put such questions are atheists or inclined to atheism and seek to lead
others astray also. The purpose of their question is to avoid the
responsibility owed by a creature to the Creator, to avoid belief and
worship. At best, the question is derived from the observation of (what
are taken to be) ‘cause and effect’ relationships. Every circumstance
can be thought of as an ‘effect’ and attributed to an antecedent
circumstance or ‘cause’ which, in turn, is attributed to some
circumstance antecedent to it, and so on. In the first place, it is
obvious to anyone who reasons objectively that the notion of ‘cause’
is only an hypothesis, it has no objective existence: all that objectively
exists is a particular, often (but not always) repeated sequence of
circumstances. Secondly, if this hypothesis is applied to existence as a
whole, we cannot find a creator of it because each creator must have a
creator before that creator, in a never-ending chain. (In fact, the futile
notion of a never-ending chain of creators was one of the arguments used by
Muslim theologians to explain the necessity of believing in God.)
It is
self-evident that the Creator must be Self-Subsistent and One, without
like or equal. If any created being can be said to ‘cause’ anything,
that capacity to ‘cause’ was itself created within that being. Thus,
no being in the universe can be said to be self-existent; rather, it
owes its existence to the Creator who alone is Self-Existent as well
as Self-Subsistent.
It is self-evident
that the Creator must be Self-Subsistent and One, without like or equal.
If any created being can be said to ‘cause’ anything, that capacity to
‘cause’ was itself created within that being. Thus, no being in the
universe can be said to be self-existent; rather, it owes its existence to
the Creator who alone is Self-Existent as well as Self-Subsistent. It
follows from the fact that the Creator alone truly creates that for each and
every being He has determined all possible ‘causes’ and ‘effects’,
all things whatever that come before or after it. Therefore, we speak of God
as the Sustainer, who holds and gives life to His Creation from first to
last. All ‘causes’ have their beginning in Him, and all ‘effects’
find their ending in Him. In truth, created things are no more than so many
ciphers or zeros which, no matter how many we put in a series, add up to
nothing, unless a positive ‘one’ is placed before the series to give it
value. In just this way, the creation could have no real existence, nor
any value, except by God.
What we call ‘causes’
have no direct or independent influence in existence, no direct or
independent ‘effects’. It may be that we need to speak of ‘causes and
effects’ in order to understand how, in a short space and over a little
period of time, some part of the Creation is made (by the Mercy of God)
intelligible to us and available to us for our use. But even this but
confirms our dependence upon God and our answerability before Him. It is not
God who needs ‘causes and effects’ to create; rather it is we who need
‘causes and effects’ to understand what He has created. He alone is the
First and the Last, the Eternal, the Initiator and the Determiner-and all
our busy little efforts after cause and effect are but veils between
ourselves and His Majesty.
Let us then affirm
once more: He, God, is One; God, the Self-Subsistent,
Eternally-Besought-of-All; He neither begets nor was begotten; and nothing
whatever is like unto Him.
O you who believe
in the Unity of God! I have not been able find any evidence in the
universe to prove my cause. But how can you prove the existence of a
single One Who has infinite power? What are your grounds for rejecting
the interference of other hands in the creation and operation of the
universe besides His Power?
All of the creatures
from particles to stars are each a clear proof for the necessary existence
of the Necessarily Existent Being, the Absolutely Powerful One. Each link in
the chain of the creation is a decisive evidence for His Unity. Among the
numerous arguments which the Quran sets forth for the attention of all
people, particularly in verses like,
If you ask them
who has created the heavens and the earth, they will certainly say:
God. (39:38)
Among His signs
is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the difference of
your languages and colors. (30:22)
it presents the
creation of the heavens and the earth as an evident proof for God’s
existence and Unity. A conscious man who considers the creation of the
heavens and the earth will be compelled to confirm the existence of the
Majestic Creator and when asked who their creator is, he will answer: God.
The Quran rejects
any kind of partnership with God in the whole of the universe, from the
stars and heavens down to particles. It means:
(Since like a
human being the universe is an organism all parts of which work together
and are interrelated with one another), the Absolutely Powerful One, Who
has created the heavens and the earth in such perfect order, must be
holding in His grasp of Power the solar system which is an amazing
system.
Since that
absolutely All-Powerful One holds the sun together with its planets in
His grasp of Power, managing it and regulating its movements, the earth,
which is a part of the solar system, moving in orbit round the sun, must
be in His grasp of Power and management. Since the earth is in His grasp
of Power and management, evidently, all of the creatures, which are
created on it as its fruits and may be regarded as the goal of its
existence, are in His grasp of Lordship (raising, administering and
sustaining). Since all of the creatures, which are spread one by one or
group by group successively over the whole face of the earth, and after
adorning it for some time, are replaced by new ones, filling and then
emptying the earth in a continuous cycle, are in His grasp of Power and
Knowledge and are managed and arranged according to the measure of His
Justice and Wisdom, then certainly, all the individual members of their
species, which are each a well-designed and perfectly formed miniature
of the universe, a pattern or specimen of its species, and a tiny index
of the book of the universe, are in His grasp of Lordship, invention,
raising and management. Since each living being is in His grasp of
management and upbringing, then certainly the cells and blood
corpuscles, and the limbs and nerves, which form the body of that living
being, are under His command and at His disposal, and they move
according to His laws. Lastly, the particles or atoms, which are
essential building blocks constituting all those creatures and their
parts and the means for their design and formation, will mostly
certainly and necessarily be in His grasp of Power and in the sphere of
His Knowledge, and will be moving most regularly and performing perfect
duties by His command, permission and strength.
Since every
particle moves and functions by His law, permission and command,
certainly it is by His Knowledge and Wisdom that the face of each
individual has special marks to distinguish that one from the others and
like the faces, the sounds and tongues are all different from one
another. Consider this verse which, in mentioning only the first and
most universal link and the last and most individualized one, points to
this chain of creation and the series of His signs in creation:
Among His
signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the
difference of your languages and colors. Indeed, in this are signs
for those who know. (30:22)
Now we say: O
representative of the people who associate partners with God! These are
evidences as strong as the chains of creation, which point to an Absolutely
Powerful One, and prove His Unity.
Since the creation of
the heavens and the earth demonstrates an All-Powerful Maker and His
boundless and infinitely perfect Power, most certainly He will be absolutely
independent of partners. That is, He does not need partners in any way.
While He has no need for them, why on earth do you follow this dark way of
associating partners with Him? As He has no partners in His Divinity, so
also any kind of partnership in His Lordship and creativity is impossible.
For the Power of the Maker of the universe and the earth is boundless and
infinitely perfect, before which the big or small, the universal or
particular, the whole or the part, are equal. Supposing there were a
partner, then this would require that a limited power should defeat
boundless and infinitely perfect power or put a limit to it and infect it
with incapacity. This is the most unreasonable of impossibilities and the
most manifest inconceivability.
While there is no
need for partners and the existence of any is inconceivable, it is merely a
forced and arbitrary judgment to claim partnership with God. That is, since
there is no justification whatever, either logical or reasonable or
practical, for associating partners with God, it is a mere, insubstantial
claim to make such a nonsensical assertion.
Any probability
or possibility which does not arise from evidence is not to be
considered, and does not injure conviction or certainty based on
knowledge.
It is one of the
principles of theology and methodology that any probability or possibility
which does not arise from evidence is not to be considered, and does not
injure conviction or certainty based on knowledge. For example, it is
theoretically conceivable that Lake Van might change into oil or grape juice
boiled to a heavy syrup. But since this is a mere possibility raised on the
basis of no circumstantial evidence, it does not harm our certainty that it
is water.
Similarly, we have
inquired of all the parts of the universe: from particles to stars, and from
the creation of the heavens and the earth to the individual differences of
faces in the Second, whichever part we have asked of, it has testified to
God’s Oneness and shown the stamp of His Unity. Since this is so, there is
no circumstantial sign in the creatures of the universe, that any
possibility or partnership with God could be founded on it. Therefore, since
it is a mere, forced, meaningless and insubstantial claim to ascribe
partners to God, any such claim is clear nonsense and pure ignorance.
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