Theology and Creed

The severity of the punishment on the Day of Resurrection will make the unbeliever wish he could offer up everything he owns and everyone he loves—including his children, wife, brother and clan—to escape it. This shows that worldly pleasures and possessions are worthless beside the punishment of the Hereafter, and that a person would be willing to sacrifice them all to be delivered from it.

Forgetting the details of the Realm of the Primordial Covenant is part of our worldly test. Yet its traces and teachings remain within our innate nature, and one day we will remember. Knowledge of God is firmly rooted in our hearts, even though we have forgotten that occasion. For more information, see the commentaries on verse 172 of Sūrat al-Aʿrāf.

Will is an act of God and is originated—that is, created. God created will through His own essence, then used it to create all other things. This is compatible with divine unity because will itself is created and is subject to God’s will.

Intellect is the first creation of God and the commander of the seventy-five forces of noble character. A person’s rationality depends on how much they benefit from the light of intellect and distance themselves from ignorance. We should respond with patience and forbearance to those who, in our view, do not act rationally, and try to help them move toward perfection by learning about intellect and its forces and turning away from ignorance. Intellect can be strengthened through practice and understanding.

The deeds of unbelievers, even when they appear good, are deemed invalid and without effect because they lack a foundation in monotheism and sound belief. Such deeds may be superficial, incomplete, self-serving, or performed without sincere devotion to God; alternatively, they may lose their worth because of rejecting the authority of the Ahl al-Bayt (AS) or committing what is forbidden. Islam rests on five foundations, and wilayah is the key to them all; without it, deeds are but scattered dust.

The just and most learned jurist is a radiant light of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Household, and a voice for the Two Weighty Things. So long as he upholds this station and meets the standards of superior knowledge and sound judgment, the authority of God’s proof remains a shelter for all people, and obedience to him is obligatory.

Both human existence and human will are manifestations of the divine will. God has willed that human beings have freedom within certain bounds and be able to exercise their will. Thus, the statement “Your seeking is the form of His self-disclosure” means that both human existence and human will are manifestations of the divine will.

The diversity of human perceptions of God reflects both the Lord’s indescribable greatness and the limitations of those who perceive Him. The idea of the divine Essence manifesting itself is mistaken; what is manifested are God’s signs, names, and attributes. Self-knowledge means recognizing the station of the One who is sought by the Divine Will—that is, discerning God’s will—not a means of knowing the divine Essence.

The emergence of ugliness is a particular expression of creation, itself portrayed in perfect beauty. Ugliness is the appearance of conduct that departs from God’s law, displayed by the Creator in the most beautiful way possible; it is the mark given to those who fail the test. God is beautiful and loves beauty, and He made everything He created good.

The Face of God refers to the divine religion and God’s proofs, whose permanence is willed by the Lord and which have no independence of their own. Everything—whether transient or enduring—comes to be by God’s will. The verse «یمحو الله ما یشاء ویثبت وعنده أم الکتاب» (Qur’an 13:39) points to this truth.

The Face of God—which refers to religion and God’s proofs—has no connection with the philosophers’ doctrine of the unity of being. The Face of God consists of realities through which God turns His servants toward Himself. God is the Creator of existence and transcends it; His oneness means that He is unique and without equal, not that He is one with His creatures.

The experience of time and timelessness, like everything else, is a manifestation of divine power. Whenever God Almighty wills, He brings a person to experience time, timelessness, or any other mode of temporality.

Real time depends on the divine will, whereas conventional time is measured by clocks and human-made divisions. Units such as seconds, minutes, and hours have no bearing on the reality of time; they were devised solely to organise worldly affairs.

Studying time in discussions of divine unity deepens our understanding of the majesty of the Almighty and prevents us from confining the Divine Essence within the limits of time. An understanding of time also helps us better appreciate God’s Most Beautiful Names and verses such as «و ان یوما عند ربک کالف سنه».

At the height of sincerity, the mystic’s silence is the highest expression of God’s perfection, and it holds a place above speech. It comes after one has become certain of God’s majesty, and is itself an inward, wise form of speech.

The difference between mediated and immediate perception on the path of divine oneness is that everyone moves from immediate perception to mediated perception. True immediate perception is beyond perception: it does not need to be perceived, and we all abide in it. Seeking knowledge of God’s Proof passes through immediacy, as the supplication for the Age of Appearance states.

Prayer has no power to change matters that have received God’s final seal, because God has willed that they remain unchanged. These seals include the divine way, the divine words, God’s promise, and the Lord’s appointed time. Badāʾ (the possibility of change) applies to divine decree, but not to what has been finally sealed.

Everything being written in the Preserved Tablet does not mean that God willed it all; knowing is not the same as willing. Divine knowledge encompasses will, decree, destiny, and their fulfillment, and has no temporal or spatial framework. The stages that follow, by contrast, unfold within time and space. Divine knowledge transcends the limits of our minds.

A change in destiny does not mean a change in God’s knowledge; divine knowledge is unchanging. Change occurs within the sphere of the divine will before the decree takes effect, and even the possibility of *badāʾ* and erasure is already known to God. Divine knowledge encompasses all things and is beyond the limits of our understanding.

To reconcile the mystic’s experiential understanding of oneness with the philosopher’s demonstrative one, we must recognize that demonstration leads to oneness only when it articulates an innate vision. This innate vision is the vision of authentic reason, the voice of human nature.