The Tawhid of al-Kazim: Beyond Deficiency and Increase

🔘The Birth of Imam Musa al-Kazim, peace be upon him
📆 Date: 1403/04/07 – 20 Dhu al-Hijjah 1445
📌 Meshkat-e Noor session
👤 Lecture by Master Ali Saei

🗒 Some points raised during the session:
📌 Please note that the hadiths cited in this text are paraphrased. For the full hadiths, please consult the lecture.

🌼 The Imam of truth and light
🌼 The reckoning of all his lovers lies within this noble Imam’s heart, as does the reckoning of all the enemies of Islam.
🌼 The one who shatters all the hypocrites of the world
🌼 We need this Imam’s wilayah in order to become pure and purified.
🌼 At every moment, we must renew our covenant of wilayah with the Imam.
🌼 Reviving the sense of wilayah associated with al-Kazim
🌼 We must revive the Ghadir of al-Kazim. The Ghadir of al-Alawi certainly passed through the lanes and streets of al-Kazim as well.
🌼 Ghadir is an entire constellation, and one of its highest members is Imam al-Kazim.
🌼 Hujjiyyah is a system, and that system is completed through each and every Imam.
🌼 To forget Imam al-Kazim is to extinguish our own light.
🌼 Through my Imam, I know myself. My sight must remain open to this light.
🌼 The verse of wilayah holds many secrets.
🌼 The zakat given while the wali of God is bowing has both an outer and an inner meaning.
🌼 The Master is the very soul of prayer; he never leaves the state of bowing, even for a moment.
🌼 Each and every Imam gives zakat in the state of bowing.
🌼 Have we received the verse of zakat from the very soul of Imam al-Kazim?
🌼 The Imam is the centre of God’s gracious bestowals.
🌼 His humility and reverence are where God’s special favors flow forth.
🌼 If we forget al-Kazim of the family of Muhammad, we will be deprived of God’s special provision.
🌼 The Qur’an without the Ahl al-Bayt is like the sun without light, like knowledge without wisdom.
🌼 Each Imam embodies one of God’s laws.
🌼 If a new band is added to the spectrum of light, what was hidden will become visible to our sight.
🌼 Through each Imam, we will see things unseen before. So we must know God’s proof and look upon existence through this vision.
🌼 My palate must become familiar with this taste: I must revive the element of al-Kazim within my own being.
🌼 Imam al-Kazim has many layers and levels. We must clothe ourselves in the Godwariness of al-Kazim; dressed in this garment, let us hasten to meet God—and likewise, let us wear the garment of each and every Imam.
🌼 The Imam’s words have a spirit; they are alive, because they issue from a living, integrated system. Each time, they appear with a new flash of insight.
🌼 A hadith concerning those who believe that God descends to the lowest heaven: The Imam replied that God does not descend, nor does He need to descend, for God’s vantage point is the same whether near or far. Such descriptions are used by those who attribute imperfection to God. After all, anything that sets something in motion must itself have something to set it in motion.
🌼 To descend means not to be there already. But God transcends the categories of being and existence: He exists beyond existence, everywhere. His power, knowledge and majesty encompass all things.
🌼 His relation to things is more than encompassing them: He transcends existence itself.
🌼 Descent and coming down indicate imperfection.
🌼 Wherever His knowledge, power and majesty are absent, nothing can exist.
🌼 Everything depends on Him both for coming into being and for continuing to exist.
🌼 God was not in space when He created space.
🌼 Our ideas of above and below are created by Him; His will alone brings things into being, and His will, too, is His creation.
🌼 God did not create time and space within time and space; He created them beyond time and space. So neither makes any difference to Him within the coordinates of time and space.
🌼 From another perspective, distance and nearness are constructs—laws He has established. He encompasses the beginning and end of everything, with an all-at-once awareness, indeed an awareness beyond simultaneity. We can only speak of it as uniform and simultaneous. If He did not encompass the beginning and end, nothing could exist at all.
🌼 Awareness involves first not knowing and then coming to understand.
🌼 If He did not apprehend what is near and far at once, neither nearness nor distance would exist.
🌼 We do not know the nature of distance and nearness.
🌼 Every being is limited within its own coordinates.
🌼 We live in the past; we have not yet apprehended the present.
🌼 When we look at the sky, we are watching the past.
🌼 Time and space are a mystery to us.
🌼 If He wills, He makes what is far near and what is near far.
🌼 The capacity to increase indicates imperfection, because it means that something was lacking and was later acquired.
🌼 Descent and ascent both involve a kind of deficiency and increase.
🌼 Every descent and ascent occurs through movement, and movement itself requires something to set it in motion.
🌼 He created distance.
🌼 He is the One who joins and separates time.