Tawhid: The Infinite and the Finite Creation

📅 Date: 1403/09/08 – 26 Jumada al-Awwal 1446
✨ Session: Meshkat-e Noor
📖 Weekly session on the explanation and interpretation of al-Sahifa al-Sajjadiyya (Supplication 20)
🎤 Speaker: Master Ali Saei
Some of the topics discussed in the session:

🙏 Obedience and servitude

Make me wholly devoted to obeying You; make me Yours, so that I may wear away and perish solely in the path of obedience and servitude to You.

💖 Becoming complete in Your path

I want to give myself entirely to You, but I cannot. You, O God, bring me to completion for Your sake. Spend all of me for Yourself, until I am spent and reduced to nothing. May my whole being be reduced to nothing in serving and worshipping You.

⚔️ Struggling against Satan

O God, if I am not devoted to You, I will be devoted to Satan. If I am not spent in Your service, Satan will make use of me for his own ends. Turn me into a field of Your oneness, so that I may become the most magnificent manifestation of worship and servitude to You. Let me not become a field of polytheism, for then I will become a place of recreation for Satan, his garden and orchard; Satan will graze upon me. My being will taste sweet to Satan, and he will never let go of me. I will become a creation of Satan. O God, extinguish polytheism within me and bring me to life through Your oneness.

✨ The taking of the soul and return to You

O God, when I stray from the path of Your oneness, take my soul. I implore You by Your majesty and oneness: when I veer from the road of Your oneness, take my soul before I fall into the whirlpool of polytheism or draw someone else into the darkness of my own polytheism.

🧠 Overcoming Satan’s ignorance

Let us understand that Satan is steeped in ignorance and has marshalled all its forces to destroy humanity, and to destroy the worship and servitude of God. To overcome the cunning born of satanic ignorance, we must equip ourselves with the clear, radiant intelligence of reason. Until we possess rational intelligence, we will not overcome Satan’s ignorant cunning. Satan is no child, though it pretends to be one to dupe me, to reduce me to childishness. This is the same Satan that brought elephants to their knees and cast so many proud backs down into humiliation.

💥 The nuclear energy of ignorance and the end times

In this end-times age, Satan has marshalled all its power to unleash the nuclear energy of ignorance, spending its last reserves to destroy the worship and servitude of God. Satan’s nuclear energy is being unleashed and activated. This is the age of satanic nuclear deception: all Satan’s power is being deployed to overcome humanity, and its effects are now becoming visible. Satan is merciless. When it showed no mercy to itself, will it show any to humanity? Without a doubt, it will prove utterly merciless toward humankind. Satan has sworn to bring humanity to the dust of humiliation and destruction. Satan destroyed its own virtues and set its worship ablaze; will it not set humanity’s field on fire as well? Satan’s harshest revenge is to turn human beings away from the path of oneness. If it extinguishes the lamp of oneness in the human heart, Satan will have achieved its desire.

🔥 Satan’s deception and mercilessness

Satan has deceived himself; why would he not deceive us, or give up trying? He despises even his own allies, let alone his enemies. He has brought all his forces to bear against the believers, seeking to destroy them and drive them from the sanctuary of faith. This is the Satan who tells even his allies, “I disown you.” He loathes those who have served him so well—so what of the believers, whose destruction he pursues day and night, at every moment?

💀 Cruel Deaths and Satan’s Torment

In his utter ruthlessness, Satan devises cruel deaths for human beings. He wants to torment a person, patiently reducing them to ruin bit by bit, so that he can savour his revenge. At times, Satan may use his silver tongue to lead someone into sin. Sometimes he advances in great leaps; at others, in movements so tiny they are measured in nanometres—all to bring a person to the depths of misery.

🧠 Guarding Our Beliefs Against Satan’s Influence

We must guard our beliefs against Satan’s influence. Let us not become a tempting morsel for him. Someone who makes themselves conspicuous to those who are not their close relatives is, in effect, making themselves tempting to sinners—and becomes Satan’s prey. Instead of spending themselves in God’s service, they spend themselves in Satan’s. Let us not be deceived by them. They are thieves who steal beauty and wealth.

🛡 Equipped for Worship

Let us equip ourselves for worship so that we may thwart Satan. Yes, to offer our obedience and find joy in God, we must equip ourselves with knowledge of Him. We must learn all the branches of divine knowledge and, beyond receiving it directly, attain a deeper understanding of its interpretation and exegesis.

📚 The Threefold Knowledge

We have arrived at the threefold knowledge:
اللهم عرفنی نفسک، اللهم عرفنی نبیک، اللهم عرفنی حجتک.
If we fail to attain this knowledge, we will be the first and last to lose in worship and servitude to God. Our rank as servants will be determined by the measure of our knowledge. We must find our place in the divine tree.

⚠️ The Danger of Ignorance and Misguided Knowledge

One who worships God without knowing Him worships as though committing a sin.
One who recites the Qur’an without understanding it insults the Qur’an.
One who prays without understanding does not seek God. Perhaps they are seeking themselves or other people.

Ignorance is dangerous; worse than ignorance is false knowledge.
If we fall into it, we will make ignorance seem harmless by comparison. At its worst, ignorance leads a person to abandon worship; false knowledge begins when a person turns worship into polytheism, and calls polytheism monotheism.
So let us remember:
It is better to have no religion than a corrupt religion; a corrupt religion is worse than no religion.
It is better not to understand than to misunderstand.

💔 The Affliction That Destroys Religion: False Knowledge

Misunderstanding religion is its pain and its killer.
Those who misunderstand yet believe they understand are the most deeply ignorant of all.
Unless we descend from the foul tree of ignorance, we will never ascend the blessed tree of knowledge.

📖 The Path to Knowledge

Anyone who seeks knowledge by a path other than the alley of the Two Weighty Things will reach ignorance instead of knowledge, and mistake that very ignorance for knowledge.

Let us be mindful of our own state and know polytheism, so that we may come to know monotheism.
Until we know polytheism, we will not know monotheism.
Let us learn to distinguish knowledge from ignorance: we must know both, lest we mistake ignorance for knowledge.
If we do not know the difference, we will know neither monotheism nor polytheism. We may even mistake monotheism for polytheism, and polytheism for monotheism.

Blessed knowledge is knowledge of divine unity. One cannot worship God as one does through knowledge.
Nor can one disobey God as one does through associating partners with Him. The worst kind of disobedience issues from the polytheist.
For the polytheist, disobedience is the greatest of sins.
What are we to do in this maelstrom so that we do not sink into the swamp of shirk or become tainted by ignorance?
The way is to cling to God.
If we are unable, He is all-powerful; through Him, let us attain the knowledge that brings us to the truth. Let us ask Him for our destination and our goal, and ask with all our heart. Let us seek refuge in God from misunderstanding.

🌟 Calling on the One God for Help

Let us cry out for help at the threshold of God, the One and Only, against the imagined monotheism that is shirk. Let us cling to God, lest we fall prey to misunderstanding. Superficial understanding is a threat to knowledge and wisdom; taking words at face value breeds conceit. The polytheist is the most ignorant of the ignorant. Such ignorance is compounded ignorance, and the greatest of sins a person can fall into.

🔑 True Monotheism and the Affirmation of Innate Nature

The monotheism we speak of must be affirmed by our innate nature. And innate nature, in turn, must be affirmed by the Two Weighty Things. Without the Two Weighty Things, it is impossible to discern what innate nature tells us. Let us test our certainty and bring our convictions before the affirmation of innate nature and the Two Weighty Things. Until our convictions are substantiated, let us beware that they do not bring ruin—as a medicine injected into another’s body might.

📜 Legitimacy and Evidential Support for Beliefs

Our beliefs must have legitimate grounds. A pleasant feeling that comes from our own discoveries is no proof that they are acceptable or legitimate; they must be affirmed by the Two Weighty Things. They may well be embellishments from Satan and the lower self. So let us not grade ourselves. Instead, let us equip ourselves to enjoin what is right on the basis of knowledge and reason, so that our call to right conduct may guide and provide proof. We must arm ourselves with evidence and proof.

👁 Inner Vision and Its Affirmation

Inner vision is a personal matter; it concerns me alone. Before I share it with others, it must be affirmed. This inner vision may be true or false. How do I know that my vision or discovery is true? It may well be false. I should cling to God and seek confirmation of my discoveries from God’s own authority: the Two Weighty Things.

🧠 Self-Centredness and Its Dangers

Self-centredness keeps a person from knowledge and wisdom. The more we say “me, me, me” and approve of ourselves, the more we are worshipping ourselves. We are self-absorbed, tainted by ignorance and far from knowledge, without even realising it. So we must board the Ark of Salvation to find the truth. Let us not confine our knowledge within narrow limits.

💤 Personal Certainty and Its Authority

Personal certainty, like a dream, carries no authority for others. Even the person who experiences it should question that personal certainty, and weigh and test its truth or falsity against the Two Weighty Things.

⚖️ Knowledge and Its Effect on Self-Worship

Lack of knowledge, or faulty knowledge, leads to worshipping others or worshipping oneself. A polytheist may even accuse a monotheist of shirk.
Imagining the Essence of the Real to be infinite, and a look at this error of perception and structure.

🌌 The Finite and Infinite in God’s Creation

The first and last word is this: the finite and the infinite are both created by God. Let us not rush, but be patient. How is it that God created both finitude and limits?

If God set no limits for a creature, it would accept no limits at all. If God had not created death, life would go on.

God has created both finitude and infinity, yet God Himself is described neither as finite nor as infinite.

⚡️ The Breadth and Length of Infinity Before God

The presence of finitude is self-evident. This infinity, too, has no breadth before God. The breadth and length of this infinity are nothing but God’s will, and that is all: God created infinity.

🌀 The Creation of Infinity through God’s Will

How? Without any how—solely through His will. He willed it, and infinity came into being.

God created a name without allowing it to take on sound; it is soundless. The name He created was without sound and was not confined by any particular sound. It had no sound.

🔇 The Absence of Sound and the Name’s Limitlessness

The absence of sound signified that the name was unlimited, not that it was restricted. Sound signifies limitation, not limitlessness. God created that name without allowing it to take on sound.

Without allowing it to take the form of words or speech. In other words, that name was not confined to verbal expression. It had no verbal limitation and no sonic limitation; it was incorporeal, did not admit of embodiment, and could not become embodied.

Whatever takes on a body becomes corporeal, takes bodily form, becomes embodied—in other words, it becomes limited. His name was incorporeal and did not admit of bodily limitation.

🌟 The Name of God as Beyond Comparison and Description

That name could not be described through any comparison. It was beyond description by analogy and resembled nothing. There was nothing with which it could be compared. Likeness and resemblance were foreign to that name.

That name was mingled with no colour, nor did its frequency undergo change. It was without frequency and without motion, and it did not undergo change so as to acquire colour. The capacity to take on colour is a sign of motion and limitation. It is limitation that gives shape to colour. That name had no limitation in motion; it was not confined by motion. It had no length, breadth or frequency. It was not wave-like and had no vibration. That name was non-vibrational.

🔒 The Limitlessness and Infinity of the Name of God

Diameters were negated in relation to that name; it admitted no diameter. It had no length, no breadth and no dimension. It knew neither smallness nor largeness. Boundaries were far removed from that name.

That name had no limit or boundary; it was unlimited, it was infinite!

How is this possible? Its Creator is beyond description. He is capable of creating, even though we may be unable to comprehend His creations.

🕊 Describing God and the Infinite Name

Whoever describes God as infinite thereby turns God into His name. This infinity is God’s name, not God Himself. God transcends these descriptions. He is higher than anything we can comprehend.

From that name—not from that Essence—the perception of every perceiving imagination was veiled. A perceiving faculty cannot perceive it. That name was and is imperceptible; it cannot be confined by any name. It was concealed without being covered; it was behind the veil.

No one’s knowledge can reach its stature; no processor can process it; no observer can see it. This does not mean that it does not exist; rather, it cannot be sensed or comprehended.

🔍 The Manifestation of Three Names from Four Components

That name, then, was a complete word that rested upon four parts. Those four parts were together, joined to one another. No single unit came before another. Those four parts were interwoven. How? I do not know.

After those four parts, three parts of the name appeared outwardly, because of the creatures’ need for those names.

🌿 Divine Poverty and Wealth

What a mystery! It is poverty that creates wealth. The poorer we become, the wealthier we are. This poverty is blessed. It is poverty toward God. The poorer I become toward God, the more the divine names will open themselves to me.

Three names from those four parts were revealed to creatures, and one of them remained hidden. And that one name was God’s hidden name.

📜 Knowing God and the Blessed Hadith

I leave the rest of the hadith to you. God willing, recite this blessed hadith so that we may understand our own station. Where do I stand in the knowledge of God?

When I say, “اللهم عرفنی نفسک”, I am seeking the knowledge of God. I mean that I wish to attain the knowledge of God, beyond the names of God. This is precisely the meaning of “اللهم عرفنی نفسک”.

🌳 The Human Being’s Place in the Tree of God’s Beautiful Names

Let us discern our own place in this tree of God’s beautiful names. From which leaf, which fruit, which vista of this tree do we take our share? To what point in the knowledge of God have we entered? Are we bewildered at the very first signs?

The first sign is infinity. That is not God, but the sign of God. So to know God directly means to find Him without being confined by any limits—to become His proof, His instrument, His well-known one, His beloved.

Everything is a matter of becoming, not of becoming other. I am understood through Him. This is enough for the summit of knowledge and gnosis. This is the very secret of “اللهم عرفنی نفسک”. The whole apparatus of knowledge is nothing but the manifestations of “اللهم عرفنی نفسک”.

🌀 The Station of Self-Knowledge and Its Place

This self of which we speak goes back to before existence and the names. Let us discern the station of our own knowledge. Where is my knowledge?

Can I grasp the knowledge of that single name? Do I speak, loosely, of the divine Mother of Names? Or, from those four interwoven members, can I perceive that sign which admits no limits whatsoever?

Unless I take myself beyond limits, how shall I attain the understanding of the limitless?

🌌 The Manifestation and the Hidden Treasures of the Divine Names

When we speak of God’s beautiful names, we are speaking of names that have come to manifestation. But where are those hidden names of God? These names admit no place!

Unless I pass beyond these outward names, I shall never reach those hidden and treasured names. So the beginning lies in beginninglessness, and the end lies in endlessness. To imagine infinity as material is to imagine infinity as having an end.

If infinity existed, that infinity would have to be confined to that very existence. Was it not so? Did it have an existential limitation? Can I confine my Creator to existence? I cannot! God brought existence into existence; by God’s being God, He brought limits to limits.

🔄 Infinity and the Will of God

Infinity is God’s creation, and He transcends infinity. If He did not ordain His creation and set limits for it, it would have no end, no bounds. He is the One who sets limits to infinity, turning it into finitude. Whatever He named with that one name, and whatever further will He decreed, that infinity became finite.

Only one of His names is “the Infinite,” while He Himself transcends infinity. This infinity is something free of bounds. Infinity is God’s will: God’s abiding will that things remain without limit. Finitude, too, is God’s abiding will that limits endure.

🌱 Creation, Finitude and Infinity

For God, creating what is finite and what is infinite is one and the same, since the Creator’s singular will alone gives rise to infinity. God’s essence admits of neither why nor how. Is every finite thing filled with infinities within? How can there be infinity within every finite thing?

Yet He has done so. That peerless Maker and Creator has made the impossible possible. The supreme mystery we must seek is God’s will. God’s will is the supreme mystery.

🌀 God’s Will and Infinity

Infinity awaits His will. Until a command is issued, nothing changes. Once a command has been issued, no other command is issued in its place. Until another command is issued, the first remains in force.

This infinity precedes finitude. God created the finite after the infinite. That is how it appears. Finitude and infinity are simply two forms of His will.

This is the manifestation of God’s will. If He sets no limits for His creation, it will accept no limits. If He appoints no term, there will be no deadline or boundary.

🌍 The Weight of Infinity and Finitude Is the Same for the Creator

The weight of infinity and finitude is the same for the Creator. To worship sheer magnitude is forbidden.

Many people may picture God as a vast body, filling everything and leaving no space for anything else. Such false conceptions are a scourge upon tawhid.

The God imagined in this way is, in effect, a physically infinite being! God forbid that we conceive of God as a volume and regard created beings as its limits and surface. Could there be a greater act of shirk? In truth, it is creation imagined in place of the Creator.

🚫 The Idolatry of Divine Magnitude and the Delusion of Shirk

It is a false notion that God encompasses everything; rather, it is His names, knowledge and power that encompass everything. God Himself transcends all this.

He is described neither by knowledge nor by power, for He is higher and beyond.

Whoever commits shirk yet imagines it to be tawhid is afflicted by the delusion that makes shirk seem right. One of the clearest forms of shirk is to conceive of God as a volume.

Whoever says that God fills existence and leaves no room for anything else is imagining God as a physical volume—God forbid.