The Greatest Name and the Beauty of the Proof of God

🔘 The Eve of the Martyrdom of Imam Hasan al-Askari
📆 Date: 1403/06/22 – 8 Rabi al-Awwal 1446
📌 Meshkat-e Noor session
📌 Weekly session on the commentary and exegesis of al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya (Supplication 20)
👤 Lecture by Master Ali Saei
🗒 Some of the topics discussed in the session:

🌼 In his own time, Imam Hasan al-Askari, peace be upon him, was more isolated and less known than the Imam of our Age.
🌼 His Eminence is نورٌ علی نور, a sign of God’s light—a light upon light, the lamp of the Ahl al-Bayt.
🌼 In his own time, people were immersed in his light, yet blind to the light of the Imam.
🌼 Even his bitterest enemy spoke of him this way: “In Samarra, among the descendants of Ali, I saw and knew none better than al-Askari in character. He possessed a singular serenity and exceptional piety; he was truly noble and honourable. He had the most beautiful stature and features, a well-proportioned frame, and the fresh face of a young man. He commanded dignity and awe.” (These are not the words of a Shi‘i, but of a Nasibi.) “He was of the utmost dignity and possessed a distinctive grandeur. His standing was lofty, and his speech beautiful.”
🌼 (A report from the time of Imam Hasan al-Askari’s martyrdom): When His Eminence was martyred, all of Samarra resounded with a single cry of grief; the city was like the Day of Resurrection.
🌼 Consider, through this report, how influential His Eminence was, despite being held captive.
🌼 If the light of His Eminence does not shine, hearts will no longer feel love. Every human faculty of feeling will cease to function.
🌼 His Eminence bore the greatest mission in all existence: he was God’s special envoy, charged with ensuring that the Imam of our Age came to dwell safely on earth.
🌼 The Imam fought the ignorance of all creation. Did the devils not see the birth of the Imam of our Age? How had they been blinded so that they could not witness his birth? The jinn devils are spies for the human devils.
🌼 The defeat of all disbelievers is possible through the weapon of supplication.
🌼 Through His Proof, God has completed His proof to all creation.
🌼 The sun must shine, and God grants us the grace to see its light. If we have closed our eyes, it means we are trapped in denial.
🌼 (Hadith) The Imam says: بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم “This verse is closer to the Greatest Name than the black of the eye is to its white.”
🌼 بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم To interpret it, we would have to expound the entire Quran.
Even if we turned through all of creation, we would still not reach its interpretation.
🌼 بسم الله الرحمن الرحیمIt is a mark we make upon ourselves to declare that we are servants of God.
🌼 God’s Greatest Name has 73 letters. Asif possessed only one of them, yet that was enough for him to bring Bilqis’s throne to Solomon’s court in the blink of an eye. Jesus possessed two of them, which enabled him to raise the dead and heal the sick.
The Proofs of God possess 72 of them.
🌼 Through God’s Greatest Name, we must bring about in our hearts the greatest remembrance of God.

🌼 Let us entrust the matter to the very possessor of the Greatest Name. If we seek this world and the next through it, we will still have lost.
🌼 Just as an electric current passing through a filament makes it glow, the current of the Greatest Name should make us shine in the same way.
🌼 If the heart is healed, we will understand the sweetness of God’s Greatest Name. We must come into God’s presence with a sound heart; we must restore our heart to health.
🌼 Who is it that does not claim divinity? (Anyone who keeps saying “I, I” is, in a sense, making a claim to divinity.) Like a stone that has descended, we must first bring ourselves in existence to the station of a stone, then rise from it until we reach the vegetative station, and finally attain true humanity.
🌼 Why do we not humble ourselves in supplication? Because our hearts have grown hard. The heart must become tender.
🌼 Three things harden the heart:
listening to frivolous pursuits, hunting, and presenting oneself at the ruler’s court.
🌼 Do not let your hopes grow long, for this hardens the heart.
🌼 The distance between black and white (a reference to the eye) is zero.
🌼 The Quran has an outward and an inward meaning, and its inward meaning has seven layers.
Words alone are signs. We must take the sign and reach what lies at its root and source.
🌼 If I do not call upon God by His Greatest Name, then I have not invoked Him by His greatest name.
🌼 We receive sustenance from everything; we also receive sustenance from the Greatest Name.
🌼 God’s Name has no limits, no length or breadth; it is not confined by space or time. It transcends time and space, dimensions, personhood, and the senses, and lies beyond motion. (A comprehensive set of descriptions is used; be sure to consult the session transcript.)
🌼 I have a dimension that transcends these dimensions. I do not belong to the God of time and space; I am not bound by time or place. When God willed me into being, time and space did not exist. I must let God’s Names flow in that same state.
🌼 Why do we not understand the unit of time and space? Because it is bound to the divine will.
🌼 Words are signposts. If we set foot on this step, we will reach God’s Greatest Name.
🌼 God’s Proof is the hardware and software of God’s Greatest Name.
🌼 God is the one who brings nearness to nearness, and His relation to His creatures transcends both nearness and distance.
🌼 We fathom neither nonexistence nor existence.
🌼 The boundary between white and black is zero (a reference to the eye). God’s Greatest Name has broken through all limits and distances. Were it not for His will, no blackness would lie between the white.
🌼 If a person reaches the destination and then asks for something, they have lost (a reference to reaching the Greatest Name).
🌼 There is a secret within the secrets of the supplication اللهم عرفنی نفسک. This supplication has a special connection with seeking the Greatest Name. If we reach it, we will attain a miracle beyond miracles. When the Imam of the Age appears, that is, when God’s Greatest Name appears, we must thereby attain remembrance of God in its greatest form.
🌼 We are insignificant hardware; we must attain mighty hardware—which is impossible unless we connect to God’s supreme hardware.
🌼 We must remember God as our Imam of the Age remembers Him.
🌼 The Imam of the Age, who is the greatest remembrance, must become established throughout our entire being.