Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

Spirit, Matter, and Life

Spiritualism - The Substantive Reality of the Spirit

Many scholarly questions have had the good fortune not to be discussed outside scholarly circles. Others have been dragged into every assembly and forum and handled by every group, thus giving them an altered aspect, making the work of students and researchers difficult or even tending to throw them off the track from the first. The questions of spirit and body and God and the world belong to the latter group. Perhaps no one has not raised these questions for himself and somehow resolved them for himself, The first questions man, with his inquiring nature, asks himself are What am I and What is this world I am in? Man must satisfy himself somehow vis-i-vis these questions. Accordingly, everyone forms a kind of egology and world-view.

Because the question of spirit and body is one of these shopworn questions, one which everyone has heard about from birth, first from nurse, mother, and grandmother, and later from preachers, poets, and public speakers, everyone has accumulated impressions and associations concerning the subject, along with a special way of thinking about it. Therefore, many may be prepared to read that the spirit is a mysterious, invisible being that, “providentially” hidden behind the veil of the body, masking itself in it, and carrying out interventions more mysterious and irregular than those ascribed to jinn and ghouls from behind its palpable mass, accomplishes everything from behind this outward, artificial, and borrowed curtain that is the body.

Much of our poetry immediately brings this picture to mind: The spirit is a celestial bird, and the body is only an ephemeral cage built for it through special causes. The spirit is a falcon dwelling in a lote-tree that unexpectedly has come to lodge in the torturous alcove of the body: It is a king who has chosen the hovel of the body for his castle and may grant more importance to this hovel than to himself and who may cover its exterior with brocades and himself sit naked and unadorned.

I do not mean to criticise the language of poetry, which is what it is and could not be anything else. The language of poetry, like that of sermon and pulpit, is different from the language of science and philosophy because its object is different. The language of any discipline is a key made for that discipline. A key is useful only in that lock for which it was designed.

Persons who have a compound personality speak in more than one language. One who is both poet and philosopher speaks in the languages of poetry and philosophy, which remain separate. For example, compare how and in what language Avicenna discussed spirit, body, and the relation between them in his books of philosophy (such as the Shifa' and the Isharat) on the one hand and in his famous “'Ayniyya” qasida on the other, whose opening line is “It descended to you from the highest locus, [And grew] filled with pride and refusal.” We must distinguish the languages of science and philosophy from the languages of poetry and the pulpit so that we do not, like so many atheists and materialists, become faced with grave and unpardonable errors.

In fact, philosophers have theories that correspond with what appears in the language of poetry. For instance, Plato holds that the spirit is an eternal substance preexistent to the body. When the body is ready, the spirit “descends” from its level and is “attached” to the body. This theory is totally dualistic in that it regards spirit and body as two separate and disjoined substances and sees their relation as something accidental and nominal, like the relation of bird and nest or of rider and mount. It recognises no substantial and natural connection representing a kind of unity and essential connection between them.

But before long, Plato's student, Aristotle, demolished this theory. Aristotle noted that Plato and his predecessors had focused on the aspect of duality and contrast between spiritual phenomena and physical phenomena but ignored their unity and interdependence. Aristotle noted that one cannot regard the interrelation and interdependence of spirit and body as superficial, like that of bird and nest or that of rider and mount, but that the relation of spirit and body is certainly more profound and natural.

Aristotle regarded the relation of spirit and body as belonging to the species of relation of the form to the matter in which it originates, with the difference that, because the rational faculty is abstract, it is a form with matter, not a form in matter. The idea that the spirit is an eternal substance in actu does not persist into Aristotle's philosophy.

The spirit is not eternal; it is created in time. At first it is purely potential. It acquires no sort of prior knowledge; it actualises all its knowledge in this world. The same idea in a slightly different form is reflected in Avicenna. The duality, separation, and alienness in Plato's philosophy has been largely obviated in the philosophies of Aristotle and Avicenna, in which this matter has been based on the well-known Aristotelian theories of hylomorphism and of generation and corruption.

Although Aristotle's theory is most noteworthy for its advantages over its predecessor, especially for its rejection of the spirit-body duality and its advocacy of a kind of real and substantial unity and interrelation of spirit and body, it nonetheless is not devoid of major ambiguities and difficulties. These difficulties pertain to the question of how the natural relation of matter and form is to be depicted and to the question of generation and corruption. Further steps in the worlds of science and philosophy were necessary if the curtain were to be lifted from over this mystery or if the topic were even to be addressed in a rational and satisfactory way.

The precursors to this intellectual and scientific transformation appeared in Europe and created a revolution in the fullest sense of the word. Revolution threw out the good with the bad. All past foundations and structures were cast down at one stroke. The revolutionaries designed a new scheme for everything. The famous French philosopher, Descartes, articulated a new scheme of spirit-body dualism that in time became the one scheme to accept, reject, or revise.

Descartes admitted three realities: God, the soul, and the body. In conceiving that the soul has thought and intelligence but not dimension and the body has dimension but not thought and intelligence, he came to believe that soul and body are separate things. The objection raised, first by other Europeans, against Descartes's theory is that he had considered only the aspects of duality, difference, and contrast obtaining between spirit and body, but offered no explanation of how spirit and body, which he says represent extremes of disparity and contrast, came to be conjoined. It is important to consider how they connect and are united, what sort of relation obtains between them.

Descartes's theory is in this respect a kind of regression, a reversion to Plato's theory. We seem to be back to the story of the bird and the nest. Because Descartes entertains conceptions of innate qualities and essences and so regards the soul as a phenomenon in actu, his theory resembles Plato's.1 His theory falls as far short as Plato's of explaining the relation between spirit and body.

This regression or reversion turned out to be very costly. The essential and natural relation of body on the one hand and spirit or spiritual qualities on the other is not something one can ignore; one cannot content oneself with noting their discrepant and contrastive aspects. Intelligent people after Descartes sought to discover the relation of these two entities.

Modern philosophers laboured to discover what sort of relation physical phenomena have with spiritual, and in the course of their labours highly divergent schools and theories arose, marked by all kinds of excess. Some have even denied all duality of spirit and body in regarding all psychical phenomena as normal and natural properties of material compounds, and others have denied all such duality in regarding body and matter as unreal, as a mere phantasmagoria displaying itself to the spirit. Still others have wearied of the search and declared the subject beyond man's power to explore.

Although modern scholars and philosophers have gotten nowhere in studying the identity of spiritual phenomena and the nature of the relation of spirit and body, researchers in all fields, especially biology, physiology, and psychology, have had tremendous and amazing results. They at times may not have noted the implications of their findings for spiritual questions or for questions of the nature of the relation between spirit and body, but their work has opened the way for study of these questions.

Among post-Avicennan Islamic philosophers, no original research into this question was done directly, but enormous transformations and advances occurred in the most general and basic questions of first philosophy, that is, the questions surrounding being.2 These advances had an indirect but tremendously important effect on most other philosophical questions, among them questions of motion and of the unity versus the duality of spirit and body.

Mulla Sadra, who spearheaded this transformation in the approach to questions of being, concluded from the new, excellent, and powerful principles he had forged that, in addition to the overt, accidental, and sensible motions governing the superficial phenomena of the world, there is a deep, substantial motion inaccessible to the senses that is the principle of these overt and sensible motions. If one is to postulate hylomorphism, one must postulate it only on the basis of this motion. The appearance and formation of physical species are based on the law of motion, not on that of generation and corruption.

The soul and the spirit arise in accordance with this law of motion. The soul is formed within the matrix of physical matter. Matter has the capacity to nurture an entity in its lap that is on the plane of the supernatural. No wall or membrane exists between the natural and the supernatural, and there is nothing to prevent a material being from transforming into an extramaterial being through a gradual evolution.

Neither Plato's nor Aristotle's conceptions of the source for the formation of the soul and the nature of its relation to the body is correct. The nature of the relation between life and matter, or between spirit and body, is more natural and more substantial than they supposed. It is like the kind of relation between a stronger and better developed stage of a thing to a weaker and less well developed stage of it. Or to put it perhaps more aptly, it is like the relation of one dimension to the other dimensions. That is, matter in its transformation and evolution expands in a new direction additional to the three physical or spatial dimensions and to the temporal dimension by which essential and substantial motion is quantified. This new direction is independent of the other four, the spatiotemporal directions.

In calling this direction a dimension, I do not mean it is a kind of extension or that it is susceptible to mental analysis, like other quantifiable. Rather, I mean only that matter finds a new direction to expand into, one in which it wholly sheds the quality of materiality.

We are now in a position to address this question: Are spiritual properties the product of an admixture or a synthesis of material elements, like the other properties that matter exhibits in isolation or in compound entities? Or does physical matter, insofar as it is physical and material, lack such properties and effects, such that they appear only as matter evolves in its essence and substance, coming to have in its essence a degree of being according to which it is extramaterial and extraphysical? Spiritual properties would relate to that degree of being and reality. I now have no need to confine our discussion to the human spirit and the psychical phenomena of man, as is conventional. I can start lower and extend this discussion to vital phenomena and effects as such.

The difference that can be allowed between mental effects and other vital effects, that the one is abstract and the others not, is not at issue here. What concerns us is the idea that the spirit is not a property or effect of matter, but a substantial entelechy that appears for matter and is in turn the source for effects more numerous and various than those of matter.3 This is true of all life. Whatever the reality of life, whether or not it is possible for us to perceive the inner reality and core of life, those beings we call living or animate, the plants and animals, have activities and effects not witnessed in other, dead or inanimate, beings.

Beings of this class have the property of self-preservation and place themselves at a remove from the effects of environmental factors. They use a wholly internal power to equip themselves for life ins particular environment and so array their internal defences as to be able to combat factors in that environment or to use them to further their survival in it.

A living being has the property of adaptation to the environment, which arises from its internal processes. An inanimate being, however, has no such property, and if it is placed in an environment containing factors destructive to it, it can exhibit no activity oriented to its survival and in fact cannot combat environmental factors. For example, a living being has the property of acclimation. if it encounters a stressful external factor, at first it is heavily affected and distressed, and its equilibrium is lost; but it gradually acclimates and acquires a sort of immunity to the external factor.

This immunity is an effect of internal functions and of the property of adaptation to the environment, which it acquires to the extent of its capacity. If a plant, an animal, or even a member of an animal's body is placed in an environment wherein it contacts something injurious, something that poses a threat to its equilibrium and survival, it gradually arms itself to resist that factor in that environment. When a human hand that is soft and fine is first faced with carrying a hard and rough material such as brick, it is unable to stand up, but gradually that hand acclimates; that is, an internal power in its tissues brings about changes that enable it to resist the new factor.

A living being has the power of assimilation. Under the influence of an internal factor, it automatically draws external materials to itself and, through special processes of decomposition and resynthesis, uses them for its own survival. However, this property does not exist in inanimate beings.

Wherever living beings and organic factors appear, they gradually grow, renew themselves, and evolve. They augment their power until they are ready to reproduce; thereafter they wane and disappear, having given perpetuity to their existence in their progeny.

Whenever life appears, it predominates over environmental conditions and triumphs over the lifeless elements of nature. It alters nature's compounds and makes of them a new synthesis. Life is designer, modeller, engineer, and artist, and it evolves in these very capacities. Life has goals and makes choices. It knows its way and its object. It slowly follows the road it adopted millions of years ago, toward a definite object and destination that will be unattainable save at the utmost degree of perfection.

All these properties exist in living beings and not in inanimate beings. In the words of A. Cressy Morrison, “Matter has no initiative, but life brings into being marvellous new designs and structures.”4 Here we perceive fully how life itself is a special force, a separate entelechy, and an added process that appears in matter and that exhibits various further processes and effects.

Invaluable research has been carried out in the area of life and the properties of living beings, research that makes quite plain the substantive reality of the vital force. Many researchers have perceived this truth and referred to this substantive reality of the vital force in their work.5 They have noted that this vital force is an extramaterial force in nature and that biotic phenomena are the effect of this force and not simply of the synthesis, the addition, subtraction, and combination, of material constituents.

These latter processes are a necessary but not sufficient condition for the emergence of life. Then there were those like the famous biologist, Lamarck, who denied the substantive reality of the vital force and formally declared that living nature must be studied from the standpoint of mechanics. What impelled them to deny the substantive reality of the vital force was their equation of such a reality with a duality, an existence for the vital force separate from matter and its effects.

They supposed that if the vital force had a substantive reality, this fact would entail its being independent of the environment and environmental factors, its being the same in all environments, its unsusceptibility to influence by environmental factors, and its independence of the physicochemical processes of the body. Scientific observations have demonstrated the contrary in each instance. Lamarck said life is nothing but a physical quality. All the qualities of life depend on physical or chemical causes and originate in the organism's structure. Lamarck evidently supposed that if the vital force had substantive reality, this fact would necessitate its being independent of physicochemical causes and its not having its origin in the organism's material structure.

Descartes's dualistic theory, his regression or reversion to Plato's theory, wound up being very costly because it obliged scientists to conclude that whenever they contemplated a substantive reality for the vital force, they were denying the substantial and essential connection of life and body and were thinking of them as two opposing poles.

Descartes himself, in arriving at this dualism of body characterised by dimension and soul characterised by thought and intelligence and in positing a deep gulf between the two, was compelled to deny life as a substantive force in other-than-human beings. Incredibly, he regarded the structure of all animals - except man - as purely mechanical and denied all perception and feeling in animals. He claimed animals have no perception, no feeling, no pleasure, no pain. When they move or call out, this behaviour does not arise from feeling or will. These machines have been so constructed as to display these effects at these times, whereas we imagine that they result from feeling or will!6

Modern scientific research supports the theory of the substantive reality of the vital force. The theory of evolution of species further supports the concept of the vital force and its governance of and predominance over matter and the inanimate forces of matter. Darwin, the original champion of this theory, did not seek to demonstrate the substantive reality of the vital force but rather at first based his work on natural selection, which he saw as the result of random, undirected changes in nature. But as he inquired closely into the secret of evolutionary advance and the ordered evolution of species, he was obliged, as he says, “to admit a character for living nature.” He spontaneously arrived at this conclusion, to such a degree that some of his contemporaries said to him, “You speak of natural selection as if it were an active force or a supernatural power.”7

Those who study the psychical aspects of man, without intending to show the substantive reality of human life or to derive a philosophical conclusion from their researches, have arrived at such a conclusion. Freud, the psychologist and founder of psychoanalysis, set off a revolution in psychology. He concluded from his studies and clinical work that the researches of the physiologists and the anatomical studies of the brain with its convolutions constituted an inadequate approach to mental illness.

He discerned a hidden system of intelligence relative to which man's overt and everyday intelligence and self-awareness are superficial. He noted that the diseases of the spirit that arise from complexes themselves have a substantive reality and give rise to organic illnesses. One must approach the treatment of these illnesses spiritually and resolve these complexes, and thus even their physical symptoms will often be alleviated.

The treatment of physical illnesses by spiritual means and even the treatment of some organic diseases by spiritual means represent no new discovery - such physicians as Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi and Avicenna used it - but today this technique has found extraordinary breadth of application.8 It wholly affirms the substantive reality of life and especially of the spirit. But what is noteworthy in Freudianism is the discovery of the hidden mind and also of a range of complexes. Formerly, moral and physical afflictions were explained simply as a range of engrams ('adat). An engram is a state resulting from the repetition ofan act and is said to be a quasimaterial process.

When we first bend a straight stick, it returns, but not quite fully. After we repeat this process many times, the stick remains bent. An engram was said to be something similar, something like the folding of a sheet of paper. Through repetition of an act, permanent effects, called moral virtues or sins, would be left on the furrows of the brain. But the theories of a hidden mind and of complexes demonstrated that the dynamics of morality involve quite different processes.

Freud did not seek by his theory to demonstrate the substantive reality of the vital force or life's governance of matter. Rather, where he moves from the area of scientific researches in which he shows such mastery to the area of philosophical inference, in which he shows no such competence, he arrives at certain objectionable theories unworthy of his stature. This does not detract from the value of his scientific researches.

Some of Freud's students, such as Jung, wholly disagreed with their master over the method of deriving philosophical conclusions from psychological theories. They did much to throw light on the substantive reality of the vital force in their theories; they imparted a “supernatural” dimension to Freud's theory.

What is most difficult here is not to see the difference between body and psyche or between matter and life. Even before the European researchers provided such clear evidence for the substantive reality of the vital force, superficial observation revealed these differences plainly enough. What is more difficult is to arrive at a sound conception of the relation of body and psyche. This difficulty has led many scholars to withhold belief from the substantive reality of the vital force. This difficulty has been resolved in the finest way in the philosophy of Mulla Sadra.

The question of the substantive reality of the vital force has a supernatural aspect. If life were an effect and property of matter, it would have no such aspect, in that it would exist as a latent effect of matter in the elemental state or in compounds. When a living organism appears, nothing would actually be created; no entelechy would be created in matter. But according to the theory of the substantive reality of the vital force, matter in its essence lacks life; life is created and added when a capacity appears in matter. In other words, matter becomes alive in the course of its movement toward perfection; it gains an entelechy that it had lacked. In consequence, it gains effects and modes of activity that it had lacked. Therefore, the being that comes alive actually has been created.

Although inanimate matter in the elemental state does not have the property of life, what is there to prevent this property from emerging in consequence of the interaction of these material constituents? When several material or extrarmaterial constituents are compounded and interact, each yields some of its effects to the others and receives some of the others' effects. An intermediate temper results. It is absurd that through the synthesis of several constituents an effect should appear other than the combined effects of the constituents or a quality intermediate to their effects, unless the synthesis of these constituents makes it possible for a faculty or a force higher than those of any of these constituents to come into being as a substantial entelechy and to impart a real unity to these constituents.

Therefore, if it is asked what there is to prevent the property of life from appearing in consequence of the synthesis and interaction of material constituents, this question calls for further clarification. If it is meant that, in consequence of the interaction of material constituents, the capacity appears for a substantive force, the vital force, and so this force does come into being, and with it the properties of life, this is correct. But if it is meant that, in the absence of a vital force, properties of life appear inconsistent with the properties of any of life's constituents, this is absurd and impossible.

Another hypothesis might be proposed. Although matter lacks life in its essence and life is a force superior to material and inanimate forces - just as, according to scientific research, there is in the physical universe a certain fixed quantity of energy and the formation and disappearance of inanimate entities does not constitute creation but rather consists of a set of coalescences and dispersals of material constituents and transfers of energy - so we may posit a special mode of energy for life, such that, like other forces, vital forces would not be created. Rather, through these coalescences and dispersals and transfers of energy, they would be concentrated in certain instances, Thus, animation would not involve creation.

The concept of vital energy must be clarified. Is this energy inanimate or animate in its essence? If it is animate, does an entity have life? Is life a thing apart from the entity, which has been compounded or conjoined with it? Or is this entity life itself? If the energy is animate or inanimate, there is no difference between vital energy and other energies in respect to this question (of how animacy is to be explained and how this energy produces life), in that either this energy is not alive at all (the first hypothesis) or the agent of life is a thing external and added to the entity's essence. If this entity is life itself, an abstract being (life, or the vital force) has descended a level and, preserving its effects, has become matter, which is absurd. What the philosophers call “descent” when they say that nature and matter have descended from the supernatural is not this transfer and transduction of energies.

If we deny that there is creation in inanimate matter but hold that the appearance of these entities is nothing more than the coalescence and dispersal of material constituents and the transfer of energies, we are saying something scientists agree is incorrect in reference to animate beings. The character of life is such that one cannot hypothesize that there is some certain fixed quantity of it; one cannot regard the appearance of animate beings as a transfer of life from one locus to another, as, in truth, a kind of transmigration.

The phenomenon of life cannot be assigned a certain fixed quantity; it has been on the increase since the day it appeared on earth. If at times much life has perished in a mass extinction, this power did not concentrate elsewhere. Life and death are a kind of expansion and contraction, but an expansion and contraction arising from above the plane of natural being. They constitute an emanation coming from the unseen and returning to the unseen.

As Oswald Kulpe says in criticism of materialism:

Materialism stands in contradiction to a fundamental law of modern natural science, the law of the conservation of energy; according to which the sum of energy in the universe always remains constant, and the changes that take place all about us are simply changes in the distribution of energy, and involve an absolutely uniform transformation or exchange. The law evidently implies that the series of “physical” processes is a closed chain, in which there is no place for a new kind of phenomenon: the “psychical” or “mental.” Brain processes, e.g., despite their extreme complexity, must be included in the circle of causes and effects, and all the changes produced in the brain substance by outside stimulus conceived of as propagated and diffused in a purely chemical or physical way.

A theory of this universal validity leaves the mental side of things “all in the air”; for how the secondary effect of mentality can be produced without any the least loss of energy upon the physical side, is difficult to say. The only logical thing to do is to co-ordinate mental processes, as representing a special form of energy, with the ordinary chemical, electrical, thermal and mechanical energy, and to assume that the same uniform relation of transformation and exchange obtains between them as between the various “physical” energies. But apart from the fact that this view is nowhere mentioned, still less worked out in any detail, in materialistic literature, there are several objections to it upon general grounds, all leading to the same conclusion, that the idea of energy as defined by natural science is inapplicable to mental processes.9

A. Cressy Morrison says:

The rise of man the animal to a self-conscious reasoning being is too great a step to be taken by the process of material evolution or without creative purpose.

If the reality of purpose is accepted, man as such may be a mechanism. But what operates this mechanism? For without operation it is useless. Science does not account for the operator, nor does Science say that it is material.

Matter has never done more than its laws decree. The atoms and molecules obey the dictates of chemical affinity, the force of gravity, the influences of temperature and electric impulses. Matter has no initiative, but life brings into being marvellous new designs and structures.10

The hukama’, in discussing cause and effect or the odder phenomena of nature (as Avicenna does in the tenth section of the Isharat), speak of spiritual influences and forces. Mulla Sadra composed a chapter of the Asfar on the subject of cause and effect titled “On the Fact that Thought and Imagination are Sometimes the Origin for the Creation of Phenomena.” In this chapter, he seeks to demonstrate the governance, predominance, and effect of thought and imagination, which are phases of life, upon matter. He introduces various subjects in this chapter, among them that of the effect of the suggestion and imagination of health or of illness in actually producing either condition.11

Today no place remains for the ancient Democritean idea that the universe is a purely mechanical one and that creation consists solely in the coalescence and dispersal, or the combination and synthesis, of particles.

Scientific research has thoroughly deflated the materialists' hubris. No longer may someone say, as did Descartes and others, give me matter and motion, and I will construct a universe. The warp and woof of the universe have too many threads for being to be confined to matter and the sensible and accidental motion of matter.

The Qur'an and Life (The Qur’an and a Question Regarding Life)

Repeated mention is made of life in the Noble Qur'an. The following are mentioned in its verses repeatedly as signs (ayat) of divine wisdom and providence: the animation of beings, the successive appearance of living things, the evolution of life, the system of creation of living organisms, and the properties of life - comprehension, iintelligence, perception, hearing, sight, guidance, inspiration, and instinct. Each is a very interesting subject in itself.

One of the points the Qur'an makes about life is that life is in God's hands; it is God Who gives life and takes life. The Noble Qur'an, with its special logic, is saying that life is not at the disposal of any other than God; no one else can give or take life.

In the Sura Baqara, Abraham is related to have said to a contemporary tyrant,

“It is my Lord Who gives life and death” (2:260).

The sura Mulk describes God as

“He Who created death and life” (67:2).

There are many verses in the Qur'an that speak of God simply as the Giver of Life and the Giver of Death and that predicate these functions directly to Him. That is, they exclude agents other than God from them. Likewise, the verses that attribute acts of reanimation of the dead to certain prophets stipulate that these acts occur “by God's permission.” An example is Al 'Imran:

“And [appoint him a messenger to the Israelites] with the message, 'I have come to you with a sign from your Lord: I create for you out of clay the figure of a bird. I breathe into it, and it is a bird, by God's permission. And I heal the born blind and the lepers, and I raise the dead, by God's permission' “(3:49).

Overall, this is one of the points of difference between theists and materialists, the theists regarding the origin and creator of life as something external to nature and the materialists regarding matter itself as creative of life.

There is a subtle yet vast difference between the logic of the Qur'an as to God's being the Creator of Life and the standard logic of theists in this matter. It exemplifies the miraculous quality of this Noble Book. If theistic scholars were to familiarize themselves with this logic, not only could they extricate themselves from the materialists for good, but they could free those unfortunates from the clutches of supposition and error as well.

Usually, when scholars seek to relate life to Tawhid and God's will, they bring up the issue of life's appearance on earth and raise the question of how it first appeared. Clear scientific evidence shows that life has a beginning on earth, that is, that no species of living organism, plant or animal, has existed into the indefinite past, in that the earth itself has a finite and ascertainable age and has not been capable of sustaining life over the whole of its many millions of years of existence.

By what means did these organisms first appear? Our immediate experience is that an individual is always born of another individual of its own species. Wheat springs from wheat, barley from barley, horse from horse, camel from camel, human being from human being. Nature forbids the spontaneous generation of, say, an animal or a tree from a mass of pure earth. Living organisms always have their origins in other living organisms; for instance, they are released as germ cells or seeds to grow in a suitable environment.

How did this process begin? Does each of these species have its origin in a single individual? If so, how did this individual appear? Nature forbids that an organism should be unpreceded by an egg and a sperm or by some material released by a prior organism. One would therefore be forced to say an exception, a “miracle,” had occurred, that the hand of divine power had emerged from its sleeve to create that individual.

Or do all these species have a common origin? Do they all relate as a family? Assuming all these various organisms trace through one or more lines to a single unicellular organism, how did this organism appear? Has not science demonstrated that no organism appears except through other organisms? So has an exception, a miracle, occurred? Has the divine will intervened such that a suddenly a single cell has appeared?12

Here the partisans of the materialistic theory see themselves compelled to advance a hypothesis that not even they can accept. The theists take this point as proving the existence of a creator, saying that certainly a supernatural power has intervened to cause the appearance of this first life; certainly, God's will has manifested itself to bring it into being. Likewise Darwin, personally a theist, having resolved the question of speciation to his own satisfaction and considering the one or more organisms that first appeared on earth, without deriving from other lifeforms, said that these have found life through the divine breath.13

A. Cressy Morrison says on this same subject:

It has been suggested by some that life arrived from some planet as a germ which escaped unharmed and after an eternity in space settled upon the earth. Such a germ could hardly survive the absolute zero temperature of space, and if it did, the intense short-wave radiation would kill it. Here, if it survived, it must have found the right place, the ocean probably, where an amazing combination of circumstances brought about its rebirth and the beginning of life here. Besides, this puts the question back one step, for we can ask how did life originate on any planet.

It has been generally held that neither mere environment, no matter how favourable to life, nor any combination of chemical and physical conditions which could be brought about by chance, can bring life into existence. Disregarding this question of the origin of life, which is, of course, a scientific mystery, it has been suggested that a little speck of matter, a giant molecule, but still so small that no regular microscope could even glimpse it, added atoms, upset its cohesive balance, divided, and the separate parts repeated the cycle, and thus took on the aspects of life; but no one yet claims it took on life itself.14

Here Cressy Morrison seeks to demonstrate that, because life cannot be explained through material and natural causes, it must have appeared through the intervention of a creator. He considers the first appearance of man, the great transformation that led to the appearance of a rational and thinking being, a being with an extraordinary capacity for thought, the power to produce sciences:

“The rise of man the animal to a self-conscious reasoning being is too great a step to be taken by the process of material evolution or without creative purpose.”15 What Morrison says exemplifies the manner of thinking and deductive reasoning that has been applied to the question of the relation of life to God's will.

For all man has tried, he has been unable to form the constituents of a living organism by scientific means. He has not, for instance, succeeded in producing a synthetic grain that would have the property of life, that would grow and seed if planted, from chemicals. He has been unable to produce an animal or human germ cell that could become an animal or a human being. Scientists, however, have spared no effort in this attempt, and it is yet not fully clear to them whether they will succeed one day or this feat is wholly beyond the power of human science and industry.

This question of the future, like the question of the beginning of life has created a stir in the world. Those theists who say God is the author of life and who address the relation of life and God's will in the manner exemplified by Morrison's work have held that human effort along these lines is futile because life is not by the hand of man but depends on God's will: Man cannot of his own volition, by the means of science and industry, create life whenever he pleases. The prophets, in animating dead matter, did so through God's permission. It is impossible and absurd for someone to do such a thing without God's permission. If he wishes to do so with God's permission, he must join the ranks of God's prophets and perform miracles, for God does not enact miracles except through the instrumentality of His prophets and saints.

These theists have taken this present incapacity of man as proof for their position: See what would happen if man should form a grain of wheat that did not differ from natural wheat in its chemistry, that would be identical with it, but that lacked life. This would be the case because life depends on God's will and must appear by God's permission, which He has not given to any other than His prophets.

The Noble Qur'an, too, says explicitly that God is the Author of life and denies that any other can intervene to create life. But nowhere do we find the Qur'an invoking the beginning of the life of man or of other animate beings to demonstrate this point. On the contrary, it calls this existing and observable system to witness and regards this very system in process of life as the system of creation and perfection. The Qur'an says that God is the Author and Creator of life, but in ascribing life to God's creatorship, it does not refer to the first day and contrast it to later days.

It says that these very systematic transformations of life constitute the creation. For instance, it says in the blessed sura Mu’minin:

“Truly We created man from an extract of clay, then We made the droplet into a clot, and then We made the clot into a little lump, and then We made the little lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh, and then We produced it as another creation. So blessed be God, the best of creators!” (23:12-14).

This noble verse refers to the transformation and evolution of the embryo according to a determinate system and says that ongoing acts of creation follow this same evolutionary pattern. It is said in the sura Nuh:

“What is the matter with you, that you do not look to God for dignity, while He has created you by stages?” (71: 13-14).

It is said in the sura Zumar:

“He creates you in the wombs of your mothers, creation after creation, in a threefold darkness” (39:6).

It is said in the sura Baqara:

“How is it you disbelieve in God when you were dead and He gave you life I Then He will give you death, then life again, and then you will return to Him” (2:28).

It is said in the sura Hajj:

“It is He Who gave you life, will give you death, then will give you life again” (22:66).

There are many other verses to this effect, in all of which this same system we witness in process is called the system of creation. The opening of a seed under the earth, the growth of herbs and the foliation of trees in the spring are all spoken of as the new creation, the ongoing acts of creation of God. Nowhere do we see the Qur'an holding that creation and God's will to produce life are confined to a single first human being or first animal that appeared on the earth as the sole creature of God or product of God's will.

Mention is made in the Noble Qur'an of the creation of a first human being, but not in demonstration of Tawhid or to argue that the existence of a first human being shows that the hand of divine power emerged from the sleeve to manifest God's will in the act of creation. The hand was never in the sleeve and never will be.

In telling the story of Adam, the Qur'an alludes to many moral and edifying teachings, such as: man's worth to reach the station of divine creativity, man's abundant capacity for knowledge, the angels' humility before knowledge, man's capacity to outstrip the angels, the detrimental effects of avidity and arrogance, how sin causes man to fall from the highest planes of being, how repentance saves man and returns him to the station of nearness to the Truth, and admonition to man not to be led astray by Satanic temptations.

But the special and exceptional circumstance of Adam's creation is in no way related to the subject of Tawhid and recognition of the Creator. Because the object in telling the story of Adam consists in a series of moral and edifying teachings, not in a calling to witness the beginning of life in testimony to Tawhid, mention of the first human being is felt to suffice, and no mention is made of how the other species of animals found life on earth.

When theists consider the first living being and find no way to account for its life, they say, “It came into existence through the divine breath.” But just as the Noble Qur'an regards this divine breath as the life of the first human being, it regards it as the life of all other human beings, which take shape through the system in process.

At one point, God says to the angels regarding the first human being,

“When I have set him in balance and have breathed into him of My spirit, do fall down in prostration to him” (15:29, 38:72).

Elsewhere He says,

“And We created you, then shaped you, then told the angels, 'Prostrate to Adam'“ (7:11).

Plainly, in this verse, the creation, the inbreathing of the spirit, and the humbling of the angels have been generalised to all human beings.16 It is said in the sura Sajda:

“He Who has made everything He has created good - He began the creation of man with clay, then He made His progeny from an extract of despised fluid, then He fashioned it and breathed into it of His own spirit. And He gave you hearing, and sight, and hearts. Small thanks you give!” (32:7)

As exegetes have said, and as the context indicates, the pronoun hu (it) in sawwahu (He fashioned it) refers to nasl (progeny), not to al-insan (man). Theists turn to the first appearance of life when they seek to attribute life to God's will. The Noble Qur'an never takes this turn in its method of Tawhid, but treats life with its evolution as such as the direct product of God's will, without distinguishing between the beginning of life and its continuation.

This difference between the Qur'an's logic and others' logics springs from a more fundamental difference. These theists seek to know God through the negative aspect of their knowledge, not through its positive aspect. That is, when they are confronted with an unknown, they drag God into it. They always seek for God amid what they do not know. That is, they always look to those things for which they know no natural cause, and when they come up with some striking instance of such a thing, they at once exclaim, “This, certainly, has come into being through God's will!”17 It follows that the more unknowns they rack up vis-a-vis the natural causes of things, the more evidence they see for their conception of Tawhid, and the more they learn of these causes, the more their faith diminishes.

For some theologians and adherents to the school of Tawhid, the supernatural is like a storehouse for their ignorance: Whatever they do not know, do not understand, or have not found a natural cause for, they at once ascribe to the supernatural.18 They see the traces of the supernatural in instances where, as they believe, something out of the ordinary has occurred and the natural order has been disrupted and has broken down.

Because they have not found the natural cause for an event, they substitute a supernatural cause for it) failing to note, first, that the supernatural also has a logic and law and, second, that if a cause should supplant a material and natural cause, it too must be material and natural, on a level with matter and nature, not supernatural. Nature and the supernatural are aligned longitudinally, not latitudinally. A natural cause cannot supplant a supernatural cause, and a supernatural cause cannot occur on the plane of a natural cause.

The Qur'an never cites cases in which it would appear the natural order has been disrupted and has broken down in demonstration of Tawhid. It cites cases having natural elements and causes familiar to people; it calls the system itself to witness.

In the special case of life, the logic of the Qur'an is premised on life's being wholly a sublime emanation from a plane above that of sensible bodies, by means of whatever law and reckoning the emanation takes place. Therefore, the evolution of life is creative and perfective. According to this logic, it makes no difference whether life appeared on earth in an instantaneous creation or gradually, in successive creations. This logic is premised on the assumption that sensible matter is essentially lacking in life and that life is an emanation, a light, that it must be emanated from a higher source. Thus, the laws of life in any form represent this law of creation.

The difference in plane of being between matter and life is a demonstrable scientific fact. If we seek to discover a supernatural basis for life by reference to this difference in plane of being, we shall have proceeded from the positive aspect of our knowledge, not from its negative aspect. We shall no longer need to draw down the supernatural from its own level to supplant the natural whenever we are at a loss for the natural cause of something. Rather, we shall have to surmise that a natural cause, which our knowledge has yet to encompass, is at work.

In the “Safar-i Nafs” section of the Asfar; Mulla Sadra takes Fakhr-i Razi to task on this point, saying, “I am amazed at how whenever this man and those like him seek to demonstrate the principle of Tawhid or some other principle of religion, they go looking for some situation where the natural cause is unknown, where as they suppose the order of the universe has broken down and calculations collapsed.”19

According to the Noble Qur'an, creation is not an instantaneous phenomenon. An animal or a human being continuously undergoes creation in traversing the stages of evolution. The whole universe is continuously undergoing creation.

The contrary idea is that creation is confined to a moment. In considering the creation of the universe, one has reference to that first moment in which the universe was created and emerged from nonexistence. It is as if the universe cannot be viewed as created except on such an assumption.

Similarly, in considering the createdness of life, one is supposed to have reference to that first moment in which life began. This is a Jewish way of thinking.

“The Jews say, 'God's hand is shackled.' May their hands be shackled and may they be accursed for what they have said” (5:67).

This conception of the relation of life to God's will, that inevitably seeks to relate it to God's will by reference to its beginning, is a product of Jewish thought. This Jewish conception gradually has spread everywhere, and, unfortunately, the mutakallimin of Islam have come under its influence. This “moment” has no place in. Qur'anic teachings.

I noted earlier that some have asked if man is capable of making a living being. Will he be able, for instance, to fabricate a human zygote that, after implantation in a womb or other suitable environment, will develop into a complete human being? Some theists, who see the relation between life and God's will as restricted to the first appearance of life and other exceptional instances, vehemently deny this possibility. But, in Qur'anic teachings, there is nothing to prevent it.

The immense structural complexity of living organisms must be considered. Will man one day be capable of discerning all the mysteries of the material organization of a living cell and of discovering the natural law whereby such a cell is produced? I can express no opinion on such a question; it is outside my competence. Scientists say that higher and more profound than the creation of earth, planets, solar systems, and all else is that of the substance called protoplasm.

If one day man discovers the law of the creation of living things - just as he has discovered the laws of many other entities - if he achieves all the conditions and assembles all the material constituents for synthesis of a living organism, will that synthetic being be alive? It will definitely be alive. It is absurd that the conditions for the existence of an emanation should be fully met and that emanation not be realized. Is not the Essence of Unity eternally self-sufficient, absolutely perfect, and absolutely effulgent? Is not the necessary Being in Essence necessary from all standpoints and in all respects?

Where does the idea that God is the sole Author of life, that beings other than God are excluded from the acts of giving or taking life, fit in? The Noble Qur'an itself makes this point. If one day man is graced with success in this area, what in the final analysis he will have accomplished is to bring about the conditions for life, not to create life. Man will not be giving life; he will be perfecting the capacity of matter to receive the emanation of life. He will be the agent of motion, not the source of being.

If one day man is graced with such a success, this will be a major work of scientific discovery, but it will be no more an intervention in the creation of life than that of the father and mother in creating the life of the child through copulation or that of the farmer in creating the life of the grain through planting. In none of these instances is man the creator of life; he is the one who brings about the conditions for some material substance to receive life. The Noble Qur’an expresses this point in the best possible way in the blessed Sura Waqi'a:

“Have you seen that which you emit? Do you create it or are We the Creators?” (56:58-59).

The miracles of the prophets represent acts of which man is incapable through his normal knowledge and power. The prophets did not arrive at this knowledge and power by normal means; they bore an extraordinary degree of knowledge and power that carried them above the plane of nature, enabling them to be sources for such magnificent acts. If people should one day succeed in [producing life], they will not be accomplishing what the prophets accomplished through God's permission. If ordinary people should one day gain the ability to bring about the conditions for life, it will be similar to the way people today can destroy the conditions but cannot cause life to withdraw. The emanation of life is in God's hands. One might say that man could bring about or remove the capacity of matter to receive life by discovering the laws of the emanation and withdrawal of life.

I have said that life is not the act of man, which it is beyond the realm of human action, since to give or to take life is in the hands of God. And I have said that man may be able to bring about the conditions for life.

I am not, however, suggesting a division of labour, some works belonging to man and not to God and others belonging to God and not to man. Rather, I have delimited and qualified human action, not delimited and qualified God's action. God's action is absolute and unlimited; what is qualified and limited is the action of the creature. This point has far-reaching implications. For further discussion, I refer you to Usul-i Falsafa va Ravish Ri'alism, volume 5.

Tawhid and Evolution

In order fully to understand this section, the reader must bear in mind the contents of the two preceding sections. In “Spiritualism,” I made the point that life is a reality accompanying matter under certain special conditions. A duality does not govern the relation of matter and life3 and they are not two conjoined realities but matter and life are two levels of one being, each level having special properties.

At certain stages of its evolution and under special conditions, matter transforms into life. As everything transforms from a less perfect to a more perfect form, the less perfect being of inanimate matter transforms into the more perfect form of the living organism. Life is not the creation or effect of inanimate matter but an entelechy or activity that is added to it. Matter in its essence does not possess life, such that it could express or manifest it. Matter has a receptivity vis-à-vis life that becomes apparent under certain conditions, not the property of creating or giving life.

In other words, matter cannot create or give life. This system of living organisms we see before us is a system of receptivity from the standpoint that it is associated with matter and a system of creativity from the standpoint that it is associated with a higher plane.

Life transforms, intervenes in, governs, and makes matter behave as a function of its own determinations. If life were the creation, effect, or product of matter, it would not be able to so influence its own cause and origin or to have determinations superior to the determinations of inanimate matter able to govern them. Biologists and psychologists, without seeking to arrive at a conception of the substantive reality of life, have arrived at results that demonstrate such a reality. Even the theory of natural selection, seen by most authorities as having a materialistic character, when gone into more deeply, demonstrates the governance and substantive reality of life.

In “The Qur'an and Life,” I considered the mode of relation between life and the supernatural, or God's will, and I explored the marvellous logic that is one of the features of the Noble Qur'an. I dwelt on two points in particular. First, that an erroneous idea of Jewish origin as to the meaning of the creation has appeared in the world. It inevitably attaches the creation to a moment. That is, whenever one attempts to visualise the creation of the universe or of life, one begins by asking, “At what moment did it emerge from nothingness; when did it begin?” The question of this moment never arises in the logic the Noble Qur'an first propounded.

The second point is that innumerable persons approach the question of Tawhid and theology by attempting to know God by negative means. They seek for God amid their ignorance, not amid their knowledge. Whenever they are at a loss to explain the cause of an event, they drag God into it. Thus, in dealing with the question of the createdness of life or that of the createdness of the universe, they dwell on the moment of its first appearance because in their view nothing is less known than how life or the universe appeared. This idea of negative theology amounts to the basis for the idea that creation is confined to a moment.

This Jewish idea on the one hand and this negative idea on the other have resulted in a tendency to predicate the question of Tawhid on the matter of the moment on the one hand and on the unknown causes of events on the other. If the matter of the moment of the creation of life or of the universe is placed in doubt or if the unknown causes of events come in time to be known, then the ideas of Tawhid and theology in time come into doubt and discredit.

An example of the miraculous nature of the Noble Qur'an consists in the fact that no trace of this Jewish idea or of this negative idea is to be found in it, notwithstanding the fact that these two paralysing ailments are so pandemic in human intellectual history that none but the few who have drunk deeply from the Qur'an have escaped them.

This fact is confirmed by a close examination of the intellectual history of pre-Islamic philosophers as well as that of the mutakallimin of Islam and that of the European philosophers of the modern period as a body. The Qur'an is the sole teacher of Tawhid that introduces God to man within the extant and observable system, within the process of operative causes, effects, and norms of the creation, not by reference to its beginning, and through the clear and demonstrable, not by the negative means of resort to unknown causes.

I shall not go into the subject of Tawhid per se, rehearse the proofs for Tawhid that have appeared in books of kalam or of philosophy, or go over all that has been said or might be said on the subject. Nor shall I discuss the evolution of living beings, committing the same error others have committed in seeking to defend the bounds of Tawhid by denying and attempting to falsify the principles and laws of evolution, thus inciting those who take a materialistic approach to philosophical problems to leap into the fray and obliging them to treat even the more questionable aspects of evolutionary theory as definitive in order to attack the theory of the existence of the Creator.

This wrangling is pointless for two reasons. First, the principles of Tawhid and the principles of evolution in nature in all its forms, including the transpecific evolution of living organisms, do not negate and oppose but affirm and complement each other. The supposition that these two principles contradict each other is born of ignorance. Second, it is not for just anyone to hold forth on this subject. Only those scientists who have devoted their lives to research on this question and have approached it by the correct scientific method can more or less reasonably discuss what the flickering flame of science is able to reveal.

Transpecific evolution is a recognised scientific fact. The gradualistic model of evolution, which the ancient Greek philosophers advanced, which Lamarck and Darwin sought to demonstrate scientifically, and which prompted their fanatical followers earnestly to search for the ancestors of horses and human beings and their assumption that man is descended from the apes, has been displaced by the punctuation model of evolution.20

But consideration of this question is the task of biologists. Theists and materialists alike must await the results of scientific research to see whether it accords with their principles.

Accordingly, I shall treat directly neither Tawhid nor evolution, but the complement to these topics, the relation of Tawhid and evolution. I seek to see whether these two ideas are mutually exclusive or mutually supportive. For instance, if someone should be convinced of the principle of Tawhid through rational proofs, does this entail his rejecting the principle of the evolution and speculation of living beings? If he comes to believe in speciation, does this impair his belief in Tawhid?

And likewise, if someone has accepted the principle of transpecific evolution, if he is convinced that species of living beings derive from others in so the manner, does this entail his casting aside the key principle of Tawhid and turning into a materialist? My citations of the proofs of Tawhid or of the principles of evolution in this section are directed toward answering this question.

The idea of the contradiction between Tawhid and evolution, like the idea of the creation's being tied to a moment or that of negative theology by resort to the unknown has spread across the globe. Bizarre, even unbelievable, specimens of such thinking that can only sadden a Muslim thinker have appeared in the histories of European science and philosophy. Study of the modern history of biology and the sciences in general shows that this contradiction exists in the thought of almost all European scientists. Thus, an ambiguity or distortion, which materialists have had no small part in creating, has come about.

We are obliged to study this intellectual current to see why, as modern thought has developed, a materialistic and antitheistic aspect has been imparted to the theory of evolution. Why have both parties to the conflict taken this aspect of the theory for granted? Why have Tawhid, theism, and acceptance of the principle of creation been thought synonymous with the theory of constancy of species? Is there really a logical contradiction between the idea of Tawhid and that of evolution, or has one or more particular causes led to the supposition that there is?

In studying the works of scientists in this field, I have always striven to discern the roots of their thinking from the tenor and phraseology of their writing and to apprehend just what has prompted them to approach a problem involving philosophical inference in a particular way. What assumptions have they taken for granted and based their subsequent views upon? The main reason for divergences in philosophical views is that each thinker tacitly begins from a set of assumptions. Each supposes that these assumptions are beyond question and to be taken for granted, not only in his own mind, but in others' minds. In fact, the assumptions are nothing but idiosyncrasy and fallacy.

What has led to this conception of a contradiction between the idea of Tawhid and that of evolution is the Jewish idea of creation and the negative theology at its root. If we study the history of science or biology or refer to the books of philosophy written, on the one hand, to defend the bounds of Tawhid and refute the theory of evolution or, on the other, to defend the school of materialism, we see the specter of that Jewish idea everywhere.

The idea of negative theology appears to be the source of the idea of the momentary character of creation. The idea of the momentary character of creation is the source of the idea of the contradiction between Tawhid and evolution.

From ancient times until comparatively recently, scholars have debated this point: Does the organism with all its members and organs exist in miniature yet fully formed from the beginning in the female ovum or the male spermatozoon, these organs thereafter to grow in proportion? Or is the matter that is the source of the members of the organism at first simple and uniform only later to be differentiated into various organs and members? In modern times, not in the middle ages, for about two hundred years, most scientists held to the former belief.

This is more or less the same split in opinion that once existed between Aristotle and Hippocrates, with their respective followers, concerning the germ. Hippocrates held that sperm collected from all the body, and so each portion of it gave rise to a member. Aristotle believed that germ is uniform.21 It is not clear from what Hippocrates has written whether he held that there was an actual homunculus in the germ. (His opponents said that such an unsound inference follows from his assertion.) Beginning in the seventeenth century, however, scientists formally held to preformation and preexistence.

One of the wonders of the creation is this appearance of the most diverse beings with all their various members from a simple, uniform substance that is the same in appearance for all of them. One of the best testaments to the existence of a dominical guidance and a divine sovereignty is this very diversity and this structure within which beings progress from uniformity to diversity and from simplicity to complexity. It is said in the Noble Qur'an,

“It is He who forms you in the womb as He pleases” (3.6).

As Sa'di says: “He gives the germ a Peri's form/Who's painted images on the water?”22

Many seventeenth century scientists contributed to this theory of preformation without having any scientific proof or analytical evidence. They claimed that, from the first creation of the human species, all individuals have been created with all their organs and members whole and entire, if minute. They were present in the seed of the first human being and have been transmitted from generation to generation3 growing into visible form with each generation. Pierre Rousseau says:

William Harvey affirmed in 1651 that every creature arose from an egg, and, dissecting the does of Windsor Park at regular intervals, he discovered the embryonic calves at the various stages of their development. Some years later, in 1672, the Dutchman Regnier de Graaf (1641-1673), sacrificing in the same way a series of rabbits, believed he had laid his hands on the secret of the eggs of mammals. And in 1689, Malpighi, studying eggs not yet sat on by hens, declared he had seen the forms of chicks there. This was the point of departure for the extraordinary theory of preformation.

Seeing that the as yet unfertilised egg contains a complete being all ready to develop, that being, that embryo, must itself contain eggs that in their turn contain each a complete being, and these too must contain other eggs containing other complete beings, and so on.

“Consequently,” added Swammerdam, “the body of Eve contained, nested one within another, all the eggs and all the germs of future humanity.”

But a voice was raised in contradiction-that of Leeuwenhoek, who, in 1679, had just discovered spermatozoids: “This is all wrong,” he wrote. “It is not the egg that contains the preformed being, but the spermatozoid.”

“The proof,” exulted Fr. de Plantades, secretary of the Academy of Sciences of Montpellier, “is that I have seen, under the microscope, a spermatozoid open, and a tiny but fully formed man emerge from it!”

Was this believed? The biologists (sic) placed their faith in this audacious tall tale and went on gravely discussing whether the germs of humanity had been lodged in the ovaries of Eve or the spermatozoids of Adam.23

Rousseau recounts the opposition of a couple of scientists to the theory of preformation and continues: “Yet, the theory of preformation, commended by such grand savants as Haller and Charles Bonnet, continued to rally the near-unanimous support of men of science. Even Cuvier [the great biologist of the second half of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries] was a Johnny-come-lately partisan!”24

Pierre Rousseau offers no explanation as to why so many scientists held to this senseless theory. I believe that this hypothesis was intended to account for the fact of the creation; these scientists sought by this means to demonstrate that every living being is the creature of God. That they hypothesised that every human being and even animal came into existence completely formed, if minute, on the first day its most remote ancestors came into being shows the influence of the Jewish idea.

How vast is the difference between this way of thinking and that way which, when it seeks to express God's creatorship, says it is God who gradually formed and shaped a shapeless, characterless, simple, and uniform substance in the womb.

“It is He Who forms you in the wombs as He pleases” (3:6).

Usually, when the subject of the origin of life, the nature and character of its appearance on earth, is approached by works of biology, works of so-called philosophy, or even textbooks, various hypotheses are offered, none of which has any scientific corroboration. One of these is called the creation hypothesis. It holds that all species of beings were created whole and entire, with no antecedents. This interpretation therefore implies that, if any of the other hypotheses are valid, there is no creation. What has led to this position, which holds that, if the appearance of living things was instantaneous and without antecedents, then creation is demonstrated, but if this was not the case, creation if refuted?

A chapter of Farziyaha-yi Takamul (“Hypotheses of Evolution”), beginning on page 9, is devoted to the subject of the origin of life. After an introduction, the author says, “We shall now note the hypotheses that are worthy of mention and that have had widespread acceptance for some time.”25

He then notes several hypotheses, such as that the first living organism came to earth by chance from another planet, spontaneous generation, and that of entities arising through volcanism or lightning. The first hypothesis he names he calls the creation hypothesis. He suggests implicitly that, if living organisms were spontaneously generated from inanimate matter, then no creation is involved. If the ultimate origin of living organisms is some other planet, then the living beings found on earth have not been created. One can only say that the living beings on earth are God's creatures if none of the previously-mentioned conditions hold, if living beings first appeared out of stillness and with no antecedents. In the small mind of the author of this book, creation can have no other meaning than this.

As the history of biology shows, Cuvier, who had a tremendous influence on his contemporaries' scientific thought, rejected gradual transformation of living beings. Seeing that the fossil record shows that animals had not maintained the same structure through various periods, Cuvier proposed and defended the hypothesis of a series of geological revolutions and catastrophes. He proposed that, in consequence of these catastrophes, the species living in one geological era had become extinct, and God had created newer (and, of course, more perfect) species to replace them on the earth.26

There is an article in the Azar 1338 [November 1959] issue of Sukhan that consists of the recorded remarks of Mahmud Bihzad, a scholar from Tehran, at a meeting commemorating the centenary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. He says:

“Cuvier in comparing fossils of extinct faunas noted their gradual development with the passage of geological eras. He also perceived that the animals of any given era are comparable to those of previous eras in their structural organisation, but since he believed in the constancy of species and their periodic mass extinction, he sought to explain his observations through the hypothesis of “the plan of creation.” Cuvier maintained in this hypothesis that a general plan exists for the creation of living beings, and that this phan is consulted on the occasion of each renewed creation: the reason for the basic resemblance among the faunas of different eras is the existence of such a plan”27

Elsewhere, too, whenever reference is made to Cuvier's theory on the partitioning of the organisms of one era from those of another, it is called the theory of successive creations. One would have to ask Cuvier himself, or at least his followers, what led him to suppose that we can speak of creation only in the event of the absence of genetic relation among organisms. Why should creation otherwise be meaningless?

Pierre Rousseau writes:

When the Darwinists had resolved - they thought! - the problem of the origin of man and animals, they no longer sensed any limit to the all-power of their science, so they merrily attacked another question, one which the German naturalist Emile du Bois Reymond (1818-1S96), successor to Jean Muller, had classed, in a famous discourse given in 1880 at the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, among the seven enigmas of the universe: the question of the origin of life. There was a very perplexing point here, for if one were to reject the creationism of the Bible and of Cuvier, if one were to deny that only divine intervention could make living matter appear from nothing, one was as good as admitting that living matter had been created all by itself. In other words, one was as good as shaking hands with spontaneous generation, which Pasteur had condemned justly in the name of experimental science.

We must confess that, since that epoch [the time of the materialists' hypothesis on the origins of life, which was discredited by Rousseau's time], not much progress has been made on the problem. It always consists in finding by what means many hundreds or many thousands of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen were able to agglutinate to form a molecule of living matter...

The probability of the appearance of a single cell rests on a phenomenon of pure chance, a chance so prodigious that it approaches a miracle.

Is one thus obliged to have recourse to divine creation? “No,” responded the French de Monlivault in 1821, and “No,” responded the German Richter in 1865, followed by Lord Kelvin and Helmholtz. Since positive science admits neither creation nor generation, it remains for us to suppose that the earth has been inoculated like a petri dish. “Good God, inoculated by what germs?” “Well, by bacteria come from other worlds and sailing across interstellar space.”28

Rousseau, who claims conversance with all the world's scientific knowledge from ancient times to the present age, believes that positive science accepts neither creation nor spontaneous generation. He is right to believe this because his conception of the meaning of the creation is unsupported by science. His conception, and that of all scientists who think along the same lines, is, according to firm and indubitable philosophical demonstrations, impossible and absurd; such a thing never has occurred and never can occur. That conception of the creation rests on wild, haphazard surmise. God's creation does not take place except through specific and definite norms, whether or not they are known to us.

You may suppose that Pierre Rousseau and others speak for science, propounding and explaining what science has shown them, and that my objections amount to objections to the progress of science. What I have sought to show in these examples is that the hypotheses so expressed do not rest on concrete observations and objective experiments. The trend of scientific experiment can be otherwise explained and interpreted, but the particular conception scientists have of the creation and the particular sort of philosophy that holds sway over their minds have resulted in the above-named questions being addressed as they have throughout the history of science. Despite what the title of his book suggests, what Rousseau addresses is not just the history of science and of empirical observation, but a hybrid history of science and European philosophy.

The most tragicomic aspects of this situation pertain not to the history of the modern sciences, but to that of philosophical thought in Europe. European scientists conceive of the creation in terms of a form of the Jewish conception and of God in terms of the negative theology I have discussed in “The Qur'an and Life.” That is, they seek for God amid their ignorance.

By now you should able to guess why the materialist school so flourished in Europe. The faulty logic on questions of divinity that has held sway over scientists at large was doomed and bound to fail and disappear from the very beginning. As I study the history of science in recent centuries and note the peculiar coloration given pure science simply by scientists' special turn of philosophical thought, I grow saddened and discouraged.

I wish scientists could become acquainted with the fine calibre of philosophical thought that has evolved in the lap of the Noble Qur'an over the last fourteen centuries and the limpid water of science would not remain polluted by that Jewish way of thinking.

I am especially saddened to see those youths newly introduced to science and lacking the power of analysis who, reading works of modern philosophy, works on the history of science, or even textbooks, assimilate a conception of scientific progress adulterated by that way of thinking. They are persuaded that scientific observation discredited the hypothesis of the creation and of the existence of God years ago. They think that the hypothesis of a creation and a Creator lives on only in the darkness of inherited beliefs and that not a trace of it remains to be seen in the clear light of science.

Perhaps what has led scientists to adopt this mode of thought is not what I have termed the Jewish way of thinking, but reverence for the contents of the Book of Genesis. Doubtless, its contents have had a profound effect, but at the most, the Book of Genesis has propounded the character of the creation in a special manner. It has not suggested that, if organisms have come into being in any other way, creation has no meaning. Basically, the Book of Genesis cannot impart a particular conception of or way of thinking about the meaning of the creation. The history of scientific thought on this question indicates that scientists, theists and materialists alike, have been unable to consider the creation from any other standpoint than the one I have described.

Even after rejecting the conception of the creation given in the Book of Genesis, scientists continued to regard the meaning of the creation as before. Therefore, some other cause is at work. I believe that cause is a pandemic way of thinking characteristic of the Jews and stemming from Jewish scholastic theology, not from the Book of Genesis. They lack the correct, clear, and logical way of thinking characteristic of those raised with study of the Noble Qur'an.

After noting Cuvier's theory of catastrophism, Bihzad says:

It is not unamusing to note that Louis Agassiz (another student of Cuvier and opponent of evolution), in order to accommodate the evolution of faunas observed in the fossil record to the theory of the constancy of species, arrived at a bizarre theory that is in a class of its own and, if closely examined, sheer unbelief. Agassiz proposed that the cause for the development of faunas from era to era, or otherwise their gradual evolution, resulted from the evolution that has taken place in the thought of the Creator Most High from the first era of time to the present.29

This quotation shows how deeply rooted this Jewish idea has become, not as a principle of religious observance, but as a philosophical assumption, so deeply that it is easier and more acceptable for one scientist to conceive of evolution occurring in the mind of God than, gradually, in the creation. Is the theory of catastrophism also found in the Book of Genesis? Does the Book of Genesis say that God's knowledge gradually has evolved?

Notes

1. For an explanation of this point, see Usul-i Falsafa, vol.2.

2. For a more extensive treatment of this topic and of the historical development of questions of being, see Usul-i Falsafa, vol.3.

3. Concerning the history of the entelechy concept in biology, from Aristotle to Hans Driesch, see Arthur Koestler, Janus (New York, 1979), pp.222-226. Trans.

4. A. Cressy Morrisson, Man Does Not Stand Alone (New York, 1944) p. 35.

5. For discussionof vitalist currents in modern biology and for further references, see Koestler, Janus, p.224-226; Arthur Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine (New York, 1976) pp.196-221; Karl R. Popper and John C. Eccles, The Self and Its Brain (Berlin, 1981) pp.28-29, 68; C.H. Waddington, The Nature of Life (London, 1963), pp.115-122; Richard Grossinger, Planet Medicine: From Stone Age Shamanism to Post-Industrial Healing (New York, 1980) pp.116-123; and Rupert Sheldrake, A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (Los Angeles, 1981), pp.43-52. Ludwig von Bertalanffy perceptively analyses and criticizes vitalistic theories in his Problems of Life (New York, 1960). Most present-day biologists, although they may not advocate a substantive reality of the vital force, hold that biological phenomena cannot be fully analysed in physicochemical terms. This rejection of explanatory reductionism is embodied in the ideas of holism and organicism and reflected in systems theory. Especially interesting work along these lines is reflected in Erich Jantsch, The Evoluntionary Vision: Towards a Unifying Paradigm of Physical, Biological, and Socio-cultural Evolution (Boulder, Colo., 1981). See also the various writings of Gregory Bateson. In The Growth of Biological Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1982) p.52, the eminent biologist Ernst Mayr suggests that vitalism per se is a dead issue among biologists but notes that it has many defenders among physicists and philosophers.

Some modern physicists who appear to advance vitalistic ideals are Werner Heisenberg (see his Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science [New York, 1962], pp.102-106), David Bohm, (Wholeness and Implicate Order [London, 1981] pp.193-196), and J.A. Wheeler (with C.M. Patton, “Is Physics Legislated by Cosmogony?” in Ronald Duncan and Miranda Weston-Smith, The Encyclopaedia of Ignorance [Oxford, 1977] pp.19-35). Trans.

6. This belief is preserved to this day among the behaviorists. For an extensive refutation, see Donald B. Griffin, The Question of Animal Awareness: Evolutionary Continuity of Mental Experience (New York: 1981).

The Qur’an ascribes rational being to animals in 24:45-46, verses whose significance Mahmud Taleghani discusses in Society and Economics in Islam (Berkeley, 1982), pp.166-167. Trans.

7. Mahmud Bihzad, Darvinism, 5th ed., p.99.

8. See Kazimzada Iranshahr, Tadavi-yi Ruhi (“spiritual healing”).

9. Oswald Kulpe, Introduction to Philosophy: A Handbook for Students of Psychology, Logic, Ethics, Aestehtics, and General Philosophy (London 1901), p.122. [Gregory Bateson has stressed how inapplicable such physical concepts such as energy and force are to mental phenomena. See especially his Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York, 1972, paperback edition), pp.448-465, 478-487, and Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (New York, 1979), pp.217-223. Trans.]

10. Morrison, Man Does Not Stand Alone, pp.34-35.

11. Readers can refer to the various works that have been written on suggestion and its effects, among which I recommend especially Iranshahr, Tadavi-yi Ruhi. [A balanced and comprehensive treatment of these areas in English is Grossinger, Planet Medicine. Trans.]

12. See Pierre Rousseau, Histoire de la science (Paris, 1945), pp.687-681.

13. This is surely a paraphrase of part of the concluding passage to Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1st ed. (London, 1859), p.490: “There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one.” Trans.

14. Morrison, Man Does Not Stand Alone, pp.39-40.

15. Ibid., p.96.

16. The second-person objects here are all plural. Also, the context is of an address to peoples and communities. Trans.

17. Note Chuang Tzu’s dictum: “In the world everyone knows enough to pursue what he does not know, but no one knows enough to pursue what he already knows.” (The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu [New York, 1968] p.113). Trans.

18. The context suggests that the author means to include monotheists at large here and in similar references in these articles. Trans.

19. See Usul-i Falsafa, vol.3, p.220.

20. The punctuational model was first clearly formulated by Ernst Mayr in 1954 and has been given its best theoretical elaboration to date in Steven M. Stanley, Macroevolution: Pattern and Process (San Francisco, 1979). It does not radically alter the scientific picture of human origins. It proposes that major evolutionary change occurs relatively rapidly, in small, isolated populations.

It is also possible that the author’s term takamul-i daf’i translates the the theory of saltationism, advocated by Richard Goldschmidt in The Material Basis of Evolution (New Haven, 1940). It held that a new species could arise in a single generation, as a bird from a dinosaur’s egg. Trans.

21. See Mulla Sadra, Asfar, vol.4, and Avicenna, the Tab’iyat of ash-Shifa’.

22. Exact place of occurrence not found. Trans.

23. Rousseau, Histoire de la science, pp.371-372.

24. Ibid.

25. Unknown. Trans.

26. For a view that Cuvier’s thinking was chiefly influenced by the Platonic doctrine of essentialism, see Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), especially pp.363-367. Trans.

27. Mahmud Bihzad, “Darvin va Nazariya-yi Takamul” (“Darwin and the Theory of Evolution”), Sukhan, vol.10 number 9 (Azar, 1338), p.947. Trans.

28. Rousseau, Histoire de la science, pp. 678-679.

29. Bihzad, “Darvin va Nazariya-yi Takamul,” p.947. Trans.

CHAPTER VI: HIS TALENTS AND HIS GENIUS

The talents and genius of Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, resulted in great abilities of knowledge that included all sciences, such as the tradition, philosophy, theology, jurisprudence, high maxims, and standard morals. Moreover, it included the events the Imam had predicted before they occurred. Then they happened on the arena of life. His knowledge was vast. Though the scholars learned a lot of his pure knowledge, he found narrowness in himself because of his many sciences for which he found no way to proclaim. He, as the narrators said, heaved deep sighs and said with grief:

“If I found (carriers) for my knowledge which Allah, the Great and Almighty, has given to me, I would proclaim monotheism, Islam, religion, and Islamic laws. How can I do that? My grandfather, the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, found no carriers for his knowledge for his knowledge. Thus, he sighed deeply on the pulpit and said: ‘Question me before you lose me, for there is much knowledge among the ribs.’”[1]

The historians and the narrators have unanimously agreed that the Imam was the richest of all the thinkers and the scholars of his time in scientific abilities and talents. Besides, the biographers have mentioned that he proclaimed knowledge and discovered its treasures and facts, as we have mentioned in the previous chapters. Before discussing the sciences which he discovered, it is necessary for us to present some important points concerning the topic.

The Scientific Life at his Time

The scientific movement at the time of the Imam was afflicted with much inactivity and dullness. In other words, it had no shade on the arena of life. That is because the political parties turned the people away from knowledge. The high houses pounced upon winning the government. So, they threw their human and financial powers into astonishing, horrible, violent battles that afflicted the community with heavy causalities and disasters. The members of the community launched armed attacks against each other. So, they turned away from knowledge and thought. In other words, they abandoned that light which Islam brought for mankind, and abandoned its orders to follow it to achieve their aims in life, such as security, welfare, and development.

The Bright Role of the Imam

Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, came to a world full of discords, disturbances, and events. He saw that the Islamic community had lost all of its qualities. It lost all the characteristics which Allah wanted for it, such as unity, perfection, and development in the fields of knowledge and production. So, through his spiritual leadership, the Imam did his best to renew the glory of the community and to rebuild its cultural entity. Thus, he proclaimed knowledge and thought. He refrained from practicing all political activities, and devoted himself to knowledge only. The orientalist, Rowit M. Ronaldson, said: “He (al-Baqir) lived honored. He dedicated himself to knowledge during his isolation in Medina. The people came to him to ask him about the Imamate.”[2]

Some notables of the community went to the Imam to study knowledge under him. Among them was the great scholar, Jabir b. Yazïd al-Ju‘fi. When the Imam met him for the first time, he asked him:

-Where are you from?

- From Kufa.

- From which tribe?

- From Ju‘f.

- What has brought you here?

- Seeking knowledge.

- From whom?

- From you.[3]

Then knowledge-loving deputations came to the Imam frequently to learn knowledge and sciences from him. Shaykh Abu Zahra said: “All the scholars who went to (Medina), the city of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, went to him to learn the principal features of religion from him.”[4] The jurists learned from him the lawful and the unlawful.[5]

However, the Islamic world took from the Imam all the elements of its development and progress. The cultural movement that depended on the Imam was not confined to his time only. Rather it included all the times that followed him. Thus, the scientific life appeared, and sciences developed very much. For this reason, the scientific life in Islam prospered.

Surely, the cultural life in Islam is indebted to this great Imam, for he renewed and led it throughout history.

The Sciences the Imam Discussed

The Imam studied several sciences, and then he taught them to the scholars in the Mosque of the Prophet or in the yard of his house. Among these traditions are the following:

The Tradition:

Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be no him, took great care of the traditions which were reported on the authority of his grandfather, the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, and on the authority of his pure grandfathers, peace be on them. That is because the tradition is the second source of the Islamic law after the Holy Koran. It is of great importance in the Islamic law, for it specifies the general (verses) of the Book, limits its absolute (verses), it distinguishes its abrogated (verses) from its abrogating (ones), and its vague (verses) from its clear (ones). The tradition also denotes the jurisprudential rules concerning worships and dealings. It gives the general rules which the jurists use to conclude the religious opinion. It has bright rules for individual and social behavior. It has rules for organizing the family and preserving it from committing sins. Moreover, it has all what people need for their individual and social life. For this reason, Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, took care of tradition and adopted it positively. Jabir b. Yazïd al-Ju‘fi reported seventy thousand traditions on the authority of the Imam. Aban b. Taghlub reported a large group of them on his authority. Great figures from the Companions reported a large group of traditions on his authority.

The important thing is that Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, took care of understanding the meanings of the tradition. He regarded understanding the meanings of the tradition as a criterion for preferring the narration. Yazïd al-Razzaz reported on the authority of his father on the authority of Abu Abd Allah on the authority of his father, who said:

“Know the positions of the Shi‘ites according to their narration and their knowledge. Indeed knowledge is understanding the narration. Through understanding the narration, the believer reaches the maximum degree of belief. I looked at a letter that belonged to ‘Ali. I found in the letter that the value and importance of the person depend on that he should know that Allah will reckon people according to the reason He has given to them in the world.”[6]

That the narrator understands the meanings of the narration indicates his high scientific rank.

As the Imam took great care of the tradition, he put certain rules to distinguish the correct tradition from the incorrect one when they contradict each other. We will mention that when we talk about the science of the fundamentals which the Imam treated.

The Reports of the Imams

As for the traditions which were reported on the authority of the pure Imams, peace be on them, they do not denote the personal ideas of the Imams. Rather, they denote the words of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, and his ideas. Thus, the Shi‘ites have added the Imams' traditions to the sunna (practices of the Prophet). Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, referred to that in two traditions he told Jabir b. Yazïd al-Ju‘fi.

1. He, peace be on him, said to Jabir: “If we speak to you according to our idea, we will be from the perished. However, we speak to you according to the traditions we gather on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, as they gather their gold and silver.[7]

2. He, peace be on him, said to Jabir: “By Allah, Jabir, if we speak to the people according to our opinion, then we will be from the perished. However, we speak to them according to the traditions we report on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family. We inherit the traditions successively. We gather them as they gather their gold and silver.[8] ”

Therefore, the Imams of the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them, did not ascribe the traditions to themselves. Rather they ascribed them to their grandfather, the Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family. Thus, it is they who preserved the Prophet's scientific heritage. In other words they gathered it as the people gathered their gold and silver.

The Traditions of Imam al-Baqir

As for the traditions which Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfather, Allah's Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, and on the authority of Imam (‘Ali), the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, they are of two kinds:

1. (Ahadith) mursala; they are the traditions which the Imam recorded without mentioning the chain of the narrators. The Imam attributed the tradition directly to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, or Imam (‘Ali), the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him. The Imam, peace be on him, was asked about the chain (of the narrators), he said: “When I report a tradition, I do not mention the chain (of the reporters), for I report it on the authority of my father, Zayn al-‘Abidïn, on the authority of his father al-Husayn, the martyr, on the authority of his father, ‘Ali b. Abu Talib, on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, on the authority of Gabriel, on the authority of Allah, the Great and Almighty.”[9]

2. (Ahadith) musnada; they are the traditions which the Imam recorded on the authority of his pure grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family.

Whether the Imam's traditions are mursala or musnada, they are proof with the Shi‘ites without difference. That is if the chain (of the narrators who reported) on his authority is correct; otherwise they are treated like the other traditions that may be weak or reliable or acceptable.

His Traditions from the Prophet

As for his traditions from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, they sometimes concern Islamic jurisprudence. The encyclopedias of jurisprudence and traditions have mentioned them. They sometimes concern behavior and morals. Some of them also concern the outstanding merits and obligatory love of the pure family (of the Prophet). The following are some of the Imam's traditions from the Prophet:

1. The Imam, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “The virtue of knowledge is more lovable with Allah than the virtue of worship. The best (thing) in your religion is piety.”[10]

This tradition summons and urges people to seek knowledge, for knowledge is better than worship of which its owner makes no use. The tradition also urges people to refrain from what Allah has forbidden and to turn away from the sins that corrupt the person and deviate him from the right path.

2. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “Adding clemency to knowledge is better than adding a thing to a thing.”[11]

Indeed knowledge and clemency raise the level of the person. They distinguish him from other than him, for there is nothing better than these two qualities.

3. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “There is obedience over every obedience. However, when (the person) is killed for Allah, then there is no obedience over that. There is disobedience over every disobedience till the person kills one of his parents. If he kills one of them, then there is no disobedience over that.”[12]

Surely, the maximum degree of obedience is martyrdom for Allah. If the person is killed for that, then he will reach the maximum degree of obedience. Also the maximum degree of sin and disobedience is that when the person kills one of his parents. If he does that, then he will reach the maximum degree of sin and disobedience.

4. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “It is an act of generosity to reclaim property.”[13]

The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, urges the capitalists to invest their capitals to improve the general economy, to increase the individual income, and to meet the needs of the country. Meanwhile he prevents them from wasting and freezing capitals. That is because such acts harm the economy of the country.

5. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family said: “Indeed Allah, the Blessed and Most High, has given me and my community a gift which He had not given to any of the communities. It is dignity from Allah to us.”So, his Companions said: “O Apostle of Allah, what is that?”He said: “It is breaking the fast and shortening the prayers during the travel.”[14]

Indeed shortening the prayers and breaking the fast during the travel are among the favors of Allah, the Glorified, for this community. That is because the traveler suffers from tiredness during the travel. If Allah made it obligatory on the traveler to fast and complete the prayers, then He would add tiredness to his tiredness.

6. He, peace be on him, said: A man came to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, and said to him: “Why do I not like death?”The Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Have you a property?”The man said: “Yes.”The Prophet said: “Have you offered it?”The man said: “No.”The Prophet said: “For this reason, you do not like death.”[15]

Surely, if this person had offered his property for the hereafter and striven for it, he would have loved it to take the reward of what he had done. However, he had done nothing to approach him to Allah. So, he hated death and meeting Allah, the Most High.

7. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Indeed the wicked of my community are those who are honored for their wickedness. Indeed whom the people honor to avoid his wickedness does not belong to me.”[16]

Surely, the wicked of this community are those who are honored and respected not for a virtue in them or for kindness they do for the people, but to avoid their evil or for fear of their oppression. Thus, such a kind of people do not belong to Islam that has brought mercy and kindness for people.

8. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “The head of intellect after the belief in Allah, the Great and Almighty, is showing love to people.”[17]

How wonderful and beautiful this wisdom is! Surely, showing love to people through meeting their needs or doing good for them or saving them from oppression results in spreading love among people and strengthening the links among them. This what Islam wants to establish its society.

9. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “O Group of the readers of the Koran, fear Allah, the Great and Almighty, in respect with His Book. I am responsible and you are responsible. I am responsible for conveying the message. You will be asked about undertaking the responsibility of the Book of Allah and my sunna (practices).”[18]

In this tradition (the Prophet) summons the readers of the Koran and all the men of religion to play an important role in guiding people and informing them of Allah's orders and prohibitions.

10. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “I and ‘Ali were created from the same light.”[19]

Indeed Allah's Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, and ‘Ali, peace be on him, were created from the same light that has illuminated the horizons of the universe. They are the source of thought and awareness of this community. They are the pioneers of people for all what they become high through.

11. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Allah's anger and my anger are intense against him who sheds my blood and hurts me in respect with my family.”[20]

Woe unto the traitorous group that did not keep the will of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, in respect with his family and his progeny! That is because this group killed them, cut off their limbs, took their women and children as prisoners, and violated their sacredness.

12. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “My (grand)father Abraham and ‘Ali will be gathered together. A caller will call: O Mohammed, the best (grand)father is your (grand)father and the best bother is your brother.”[21]

Indeed, blessed is that pure fatherhood of Abraham, the friend of the Merciful (Allah), and that truthful brotherhood of the Imam, the Commander of the Faithful, towards the great Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family. On the day when the people will be gathered together on the land of the truth and justice, a caller will call Abraham and ‘Ali to show their outstanding merits and their high rank with Allah.

13. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said to ‘Ali: “Were it not for you, the believers would not be known after me.”[22]

The Imam, the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, is the criteria of faith, the truth, and justice. No one believes in him except those who believe in their Lord, their homeland, and their community. No one disbelieves in him except those who disbelieve in justice and the interest of their community, turn away from praising Allah, and take his communications as mockery.

14. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “My daughter Fatima will be raised from the dead. Blood stained clothes will be with here. She will cling to the pillar of the throne and say: O Almighty, judge between me and the killer of my son (i. e. al-Husayn). By the Lord of the Kaaba, He (Allah) will give a judgment in favor of my daughter.”[23]

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, announced several times the murder of his great grandson, Imam Husayn, peace be on him, among the people. In this tradition, he announces that his part, the Mistress of the Women of the World, Fatima the Chaste, peace be on her, will raise on the Day of Judgment with her son's shirt stained with his pure blood. She will request the Just Judge (Allah) to judge between her and his killer. Woe unto him against whom the pure family will bring suit on the day when the liars will be losing.

15. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Indeed Allah created the progeny of Mohammed, may Allah bless him and his family, from ‘Ali's back.”[24]

Surely, blessed is that progeny through whom Allah strengthened the word of truth, through whom He illuminated the way, through whom He made clear the aim, and whom He made guides to His obedience and leaders to His way.

16. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Whoever performs his ritual ablution properly, performs his prayers well, pays the zakat (alms) of his property, stops his anger, prevents his tongue, does his favor, asks (Allah) to forgive him his sins, and is loyal to the members of my House meets the facts of belief and the doors of Paradise are open for him.”[25]

Indeed these deeds approach the servant to his Creator. The person reaches the fact of belief and is worthy of the gardens through them.

17. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Bear two strange (things): accept the word of wisdom from the fool and forgive the word of foolishness from the wise man.”[26]

It is strange that the fool says a wise word. If he says it, we must put it into effect regardless of him. It is also strange that the wise man says a foolish word, for he is wise and perfect. However, if he says it, we must not blame him for it.

18. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “(The people are) ungrateful for two blessings: security and good health.”[27]

Surely, the people are ungrateful for these two blessings while life is not good without them. Moreover, they do not thank Allah for them.

19. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “If two kinds (of people) from my community are righteous, my community is righteous. When they are corrupt, my community is corrupt. It was said: O Apostle of Allah, who are they? He said: the jurists and the rulers.”[28]

Surely, social righteousness depends on the righteousness of these two kinds of people. When they are righteous, the community is happy and achieves its aims. When they deviate from the laws of the truth and justice, the community will suffer from a quick decline in all fields.

20. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “The smell of the garden is found from the walk of five hundred years. However, neither the disobedient one nor the cuckold

finds it. It was said: O Apostle of Allah, who is the cuckold? He said: He whose wife commits adultery and he knows (that).”[29]

Indeed the person who disobeys his parents and the cuckold who has no honor are not worthy of Paradise that is the abode of the prophets and the righteous. Rather they are not worthy of anything except that they are shackled in the Fire.

21. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “There is no good in livelihood except for two men: an obeyed scholar and an aware listener.”[30]

Surely, good in this world is for the scholar whom the people obey when he orders them to follow noble values and high ideals. When the scholar finds such a kind of people, he is successful in conveying his message and achieving his aims. Good in life is also for the listener who is aware of the noble objectives in the message of the righteous and puts them into practice.

22. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Whoever helps the poor and treats the people with justice is a true believer.”[31]

Indeed, to help the poor materially and spiritually indicates strong perfect faith. To treat the people with justice also indicates that the person is noble and is free from selfishness and all psychological diseases. This is the reality of faith and essence of Islam.

23. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “The parents are ungrateful for their son when the son is righteous as the son is ungrateful for them.”[32]

Surely, ungratefulness is not confined to the son when he is ungrateful for his parents. Rather, it includes the parents when they treat their son illegally. Thus, they commit a sin when they treat him in such a way.

24. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “The believer does not spend an expense more lovable with Allah, the Great and Almighty, than saying the truth during consent and anger.”[33]

How wonderful this wisdom is! It is the rule of Islam that orders people to prefer the truth and justice to anything else.

25. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Two kinds of my community have no share in Islam. (They are) : the extremists and the fatalists.”[34]

As for the extremists, the claim that the Imam, the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, is Allah, the Exalted, or the son of Allah. The Shi‘ites say that they do not belong to them. Rather, the Shi‘ites say that they are unbelievers and are treated like them.

In satirizing them, Sayyid al-Himyari said:

(They) are the people who have gone too far in loving ‘Ali.

Woe unto them!

They say: He (‘Ali) is the son of Allah. Great is our Creator.

He has neither son nor father.[35]

As for the fatalists, they say that all good and evil are from Allah. (That happens) through his determination and will.[36] They have no share in Islam.

26. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Whoever has three qualities or one of them will be in the shade of the throne of Allah, the Great and Almighty, on the Day of Judgment, the day when there will be no shade except His shade. (These qualities are): He should treat people with justice. He should do no thing till he knows that (his deed) pleases Allah or angers Him. He should find no fault with his Moslem brother till he frees himself from that fault. For when he frees it from a fault, he finds another fault in it. It is enough for the person that his soul diverts him from the people.”[37]

This tradition summons the persons to cleave to high moral standards and good behavior towards people. It warns him of mentioning the faults of people.

27. He, peace be on him said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Lying is good in three (cases): the trick during war, your promise to your wife, and making peace between (two) people. Truthfulness is bad in three (cases): tale bearing, your telling the person about his wife with what he hates, and your accusing the person of lying (when he tells) about good. Sitting with three (kinds of people) deadens the heart: sitting with the low, conversation with women, and sitting with the rich.”[38]

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, permitted telling lies in these cases because of the interests that result from them. The scholars said: “Telling lies is not the perfect cause of ugliness. Rather it is a necessity for it. So, when the interests that remove its ugliness are found, the person is permitted to it. Truthfulness is also ugly in these cases because of evil that arises from it.

28. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Every eye will weep on the Day of Judgment except three eyes: the eye that weeps out of the fear of Allah, the eye that blinks at what Allah has prohibited, and the eye that stays awake at night for Allah.”[39]

29. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “The quickest good in reward is benefaction and the quickest evil in punishment is oppression. It is enough fault for the person that he looks at what the people have while he has it, that he disgraces the people with what he cannot leave, and that he hurts his friend with that which does not concern him.”[40]

This tradition urges people to do good, to be careful of evil and aggression against people, and to censure the person who looks for the faults of people and does not look for his own faults.

30. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “No staying up at night but for three (cases): spending the night in (reciting) the Koran or in seeking knowledge or in directing the bride to her husband.”[41]

31. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Whoever does not have three (traits) does not belong to me nor does he belong to Allah, the Great and Almighty. It was said: O Apostle of Allah, what are they? He said: clemency through which

he drives back the ignorance of the ignorant, good manners through he lives among the people, and piety that prevents him from disobeying Allah, the Great and Almighty.”[42]

This tradition summons the Moslem person to build his character according to noble foundations such as clemency, good manners, and refraining from what Allah has prohibited.

32. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Three (groups of people) have the right to intercede with Allah, the Great and Almighty: the prophets, the scholars, and the martyrs.”[43]

33. He, peace be no him, said: The Apostle of Allah bless him and his family, said: “Belief is appreciation with heart, acknowledgment with tongue, and action with limbs.”[44] Belief is not a word on everybody's lips. Rather, it is an affair settled in the depth of the heart and inner self. It motivates man to act out of conviction and loyalty.

34. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said to Abu Dharr: “O Abu Dharr, beware of begging, for it is present abasement and quickens poverty. There will be a long reckoning concerning it on the Day of Judgment. O Abu Dharr, you will live by yourself, die by yourself, and enter Paradise by yourself. Some Iraqis will be happy because of you. They will wash and prepare you for burial. Do not beg with the palm of your hand. When a thing comes, then accept it. Then he, may Allah bless him and his family, said to his Companions: Shall I tell you about your wicked ones?”

“Yes, O Apostle of Allah.”

“Those who go about with slander, sow division among the friends, and find fault with the innocent.”[45]

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, advised Abu Dharr to cling to abstinence and self-esteem. He, may Allah bless him and his family, recognized from behind the unseen that this great reformer would suffer from severe punishments and persecutions because of carrying out his immortal reformative message. Thus, Abu Dharr was indignant with the Umayyads who turned away from the rights of the community and possessed alone its wealth. So, they inherited successively the property of Allah and enslaved His servants. Thus, Abu Dharr defended the rights of the oppressed and the persecuted and showed their sufferings. So, the Umayyads were unable to bear him. Accordingly, they banished him to al-Rabadha and imposed a house arrest. He lived at that barren area. Then this great revolutionist died of hunger. He was banished from the home of Allah and of His Apostle. However, the Umayyads possessed the gold of the land and the wealth of the community. They spent them on their pleasures.

Abu Dharr sacrificed his life for achieving social justice, finding equal opportunities for the people, removing poverty and oppression, and returning the government of the Koran and the justice of Islam to them.

35. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “O ‘Ali, four (persons) whose supplication is not refused are: the just Imam, the father (who invokes Allah) for his son, the man who invokes (Allah) for his absent brother, and the oppressed one to

Allah, the Great and Almighty, says: By My Greatness and Might, I will support you even after a while.”[46]

36. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said to ‘Ali: “O ‘Ali, indeed, Allah, the Great and Almighty, looked thoroughly over the people of the earth and chose me from them. Then He looked over them a second time and chose you from them after me. Then He looked over them a third time and chose from them the Imams from your children. Then He looked over them a forth time and chose Fatima from the women of the world.”[47]

Surely, Allah, the Most High, chose His great Prophet and his testamentary trustees, the pure Imams, from His creatures. He made them keepers for His knowledge, store for His wisdom, pillars for His monotheism, signpost (of knowledge) in His earth, and guides for His pleasure and obedience. May Allah bless them all.

37. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Whoever has four (attributes) is in Allah's great light: the protection of his affair is that there is no god but Allah and that I am the Apostle of Allah. When a misfortune hits him, he says: to Allah we belong and to Him is our return. When he gains good, he says: praise belongs to Allah. When he commits a sin, he says: I ask Allah's forgiveness and turn to Him in repentance.”[48]

38. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “Whoever has four (traits), Allah spreads His protection over him and makes him enter the garden through His mercy: good manners through which he lives among people, leniency towards the grieved, piety for the parents, and kindness to the slave.”[49]

This tradition summons the people to cleave to good manners, good behavior among the people, and leniency and mercy towards the afflicted (with disaster) and the unfortunate.

39. He, peace be on him reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, who said: “Four (acts) deaden the heart: sin after sin, much talk with the women, disputing with the fool, (You say and he says, he never returns to good), and sitting with the dead. It was said to him: Who are the dead? He said: All the extravagant.”[50]

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, warned (his community) of these affairs, for they deaden the conscience and stiffen the heart. However, Islam has taken great care of man's conscience. Meanwhile Islam wants man to be aware, free, educated, and merciful.

40. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said in his testamentary bequest to the Imam, the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him: “O ‘Ali, act through four: your youth before your old age, your health before your illness, your riches before your poverty, and your life before your death.”[51]

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, summoned (his community) to do good and to seize the opportunity to do what approaches

the servant to his Creator before it is too late, so man loses the blessings which Allah has prepared for him in the eternal abode.

41. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, peace be on him, who said: “Among the signs of unhappiness are: the impudence of the eye, the cruelty of the heart, the intensity of greediness in seeking livelihood, and the persistence of the sin.”[52]

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, warned (the community) of these things that make man far from his Lord and throw him into great evil.

42. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said on his pulpit: “Indeed the best names are: ‘Abd Allah, ‘Abd al-Rahman, Haritha, and Hammam. The worst names are: Derar, Murah, Harb, and Zalim.”[53]

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, ordered the Moslems to call their children with blessed names and prevented them from calling them with evil names.

43. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “The servant will be asked about four (things) on the Day of Judgment before his legs disappear: in what he used up his age, in what he wore out his youth, from where he earned his money and in what he spent it, and our love, we, the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt).”[54]

Indeed Allah, the Exalted, will ask man on the Day of Judgment about all the affairs of his life in this world. He will ask him about whether he had used up his age in the obedience and pleasure of Allah to reward him or he had used it up in committing sins and oppressing the creatures to punish him. He will especially ask him about in what he had worn out his youth. He will ask him about whether he had lawfully earned his money to reward him or he had unlawfully earned it to punish him. He will also ask him about his love for the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them, for they are the source of light and good in the earth. If he (man) loves them, he will be successful; otherwise he will be unsuccessful.

44. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers, who said that the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, addressed the people on the last Friday of the month of Sha‘ban. He thanked Allah, praised Him, and then said:

“O People, indeed, a month will shade you. In it there is a night (that) is better than a thousand months. It is the month of Ramadan. Allah has imposed the fasting in it (on you). He has made performing a prayer willingly in a night of it as performing prayers willingly in seventy nights in months other than it. He has made (the reward) of him who does willingly good and kindness as the reward of him who carries out a commandment of the Commandments of Allah. Whoever carries out a commandment of the Commandments of Allah is like him who carries out seventy commandments in (months) other than it. It is the month of patience. The reward of patience is the garden. It is the month of help. It is the month in

which Allah increases the livelihood of the believer. Whoever breaks the believer's fast, with that, has with Allah, the Great and Almighty, releasing a slave and forgiving his past sins.

“It was said to him: O Apostle of Allah, not all of us are able to break the believer's fast. He said: Indeed Allah, the Blessed, is generous. He gives this reward to those of you who have nothing to break someone's fast except milk mixed with water or a drink of fresh water or few dates. Whoever helps his slave in it, Allah will commute his punishment. It is the month whose beginning is mercy, whose middle is forgiveness, and whose end is answer and releasing from fire. In it you are in need of four qualities: Two qualities through which you please Allah. Two qualities are necessary for you. As for the two (qualities) through which you please Allah, they are: Testify that there is no god but Allah, and that I am the Apostle of Allah. As for the two (qualities) that are necessary for you, they are: In it ask Allah for your needs and Paradise. In it ask Allah for good health and seek refuge with Him from the Fire.”[55]

Surely, the month of Ramadan has holiness and sacredness with Allah. Thus, Allah has preferred it to the other months. In it the Apostle summoned the people to obey (Allah) and to do good and kindness to the poor. He distinguished it very much from the other months.

45. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said to ‘Ali in his testamentary bequest: “O ‘Ali, four (things) are in vain: eating after fullness, the lamp in the moon, planting in the salt ground, and doing a favor for the people who are not worthy of it.”[56]

46. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “I summon (my community to follow) five (practices) till death: I will eat with the slaves at the foot (of the mountain). I will ride the donkey with saddle. I will milk the she-goat with my hand. I will greet the boys so as to be a practice (sunna) after me.”[57]

These affairs were among the high morals through which the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, became the Lord of all the prophets and made the people believe in Islam.

47. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “Whoever sells and buys should refrain from five qualities; other wise he should refrain from selling and buying: usury, swearing (by Allah), concealing the defect, praising when he sells, dispraising when he buys.”[58]

In the light of this tradition, the jurists have given religious opinions in the Chapter on Sale as follows:

1. The seller and the buyer should understand the affairs of dealings to avoid the usurious dealings that are among the great prohibitions in Islam.

2. They should avoid swearing (by Allah) during the dealing. If they are truthful, it is hateful for them to do that. If they are liars, they commit a sin and a prohibition.

3. They should not conceal the defect whether in the cost or in the goods. When concealment occurs and then it is discovered, the deceived one has the right to repudiate the dealing.

4. The seller should avoid praising his commodity.

5. The buyer should avoid dispraising what he has bought when it is sound.

48. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers, who said that a man came to the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, and asked him:

- O Apostle of Allah, what is knowledge?

- Listening.

- Then what?

- Listening to it.

- Then what?

- Memorizing it.

- Then what?

- Putting it into practice.

- Then what?

- Proclaiming it.[59]

49. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said to his Companions: “Feel shame before Allah very much. They said: What shall we do? He said: If you want to do (that), then no one of you should spend the night but he is in fear of Him. He should keep the head and what it has contained and the abdomen and what it has included. He should recall the grave and death. Whoever likes the hereafter should leave the embellishment of the world.”[60]

Indeed man can accomplish shame through fearing his Lord, holding back his tongue from telling lies, preventing his eyes from looking at the unlawful, and recalling the grave and the fright therein. When man does that, he feels shame before Allah.

50. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, was asked about the best servants. So, he said: “When they do good, they are cheerful (about it). When they misbehave, they ask Allah's forgiveness. When they are given, they thank. When they are tested, they are patient. When they are angered, they forgive.”[61]

51. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers, who said that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, said to ‘Ali in his commandment:

“O ‘Ali, there are six qualities in fornication: three of them are in the world, and the others are in the hereafter. As for those in the world, they take away glory, hasten ruin, and stop livelihood. As for those in the hereafter, (they will lead to) evil reckoning, the wrath of the Merciful (Allah), and immortality in the Fire.”[62]

Indeed fornication is a social catastrophe that destroy morals. Thus, Islam has intensely forbidden it and threatened those who commit it with various kinds of torment in the hereafter.

52. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “Monopoly is in six things: Wheat, barley, dates, raisins, (cooking) fat, and (animal) oil.”[63]

Monopoly is among the factors that paralyze the economic movement in the country and spread poverty and need among the people. Islam has severely forbidden monopoly, and ordered the rulers of the Moslems to price commodities so as not to harm the people.

53. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “Ill-gotten property is the price of the dead animal, of the dog, and of wine. (It is) the prostitution rate, the bribery in government, and the wage of the magician.”[64]

Islam has forbidden spending money on these affairs, for they ruin morals and spread corruption in the earth.

54. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfather on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “Allah and every prophet with accepted (prayers) have cursed six (persons): the one who increases the Book of Allah, the one who accuses the determination of Allah of lying, the one who leaves my practices (sunna), the one who regards as lawful what Allah has prohibited concerning the members of my House (ahl al-Bayt), the one who dominates through tyranny to degrade those whom Allah has consolidated, to strengthen him whom Allah has lowered, and to possess alone the booty the Moslems gain without fighting and regards it as lawful.”[65]

55. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said to ‘Ali: “O ‘Ali, seven things of the sheep are prohibited: blood, the penis, the bladder, the spinal cord, the glands, the spleen, and the gall bladder.”[66]

Islam has forbidden these parts to preserve public health and to guard society against diseases. Modern medicine has proved that they harm public health. Thus, it advises people to refrain from eating them.

56. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said to ‘Ali: “O ‘Ali, indeed, Allah has given me seven qualities concerning you: You and I are the first to whom the grave will split open. You will be the first to stop with me on the path. You will be the first to be clothed when I will be clothed and to live when I will live. You will be the first to dwell with me in the highest gardens. You will be the first to drink with me from the pure drink that is sealed (to others), whose sealing is musk.”[67]

57. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostles of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “Allah, the Great and Almighty, is not worshipped with a thing better than reason. The believer is not wise till ten qualities come together in him: good from him is hoped, evil from him is safe, regards little good from other than him as much, regards his own good as little, is not tired of

seeking knowledge throughout his life, is not fed up with those who request needs from, humbleness is more lovable for him than high rank, poverty is more lovable for him than riches, his portion of the world is food, the tenth (quality), what is the tenth (quality)? When he sees someone, he says: he is better and more pious than me. People are two men- one man is better and more pious than him, the other is more evil and lower than him. So, if he sees the one who is better and more pious than him, he should behave humbly towards him to follow him. If he sees the one who is more evil and lower than him, he should say: perhaps the good of this (person) is hidden, and his evil hidden. May (Allah) make his final result good. If he does that, his glory becomes high and he is the lord of the people of his time.”[68]

This traditions, like the other Prophetic traditions, urges (people) to reform their souls and to educate them with good manners and deeds to be the source of guidance for people.

58. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “Ten (persons) are cursed because of wine: the one who plants it, the one who guards it, the one who presses it, the one who gives it, the one who drinks it, the one who carries it, the one to whom it is carried, the one who sells it, the one who buys it, and the one who takes its price.”[69]

Islam has strictly prohibited all the above-mentioned cases of wine. That is because wine is among the social catastrophes that harm public health and corrupt values and morals.

59. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “Blessing is ten parts: ten parts are in trade and one part is in the skins (i. e. sheep).”[70]

60. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Islam has been built on ten parts: Testifying that there is no god but Allah- it is the religion, the prayer- it is the religious duty, fasting - it is the garden, zakat (alms)- it is purity, the hajj- it is the Islamic law, jihad (armed struggle) - it is invasion, enjoining (people) to do good deeds - it is the fulfillment, forbidding (them) from doing bad deeds - it is the proof, unity - it is familiarity, and infallibility - it is obedience.”[71]

61. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “When you ask Allah, then you ask Him with the palm of the hand. When you ask him for protection, then do not ask him with the outside of the hand. ”[72]

62. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “If my community does fifteen qualities, the tribulation will afflict it: if they steal properties successively, regard the deposit of booty and zakat (alms) as loss, the men obey their wives and disobey theirs mothers, treats his friend with kindness and turns away from his brother, the voices become loud in the mosques, a man is honored out of fear of his evil, the leader of the people is the lowest of them, silk is worn, wine is drunk, female singers and stringed instruments are adopted, and the last

(generation) of this community curses the earlier (generation) of it, after that, they must look forward to three qualities: red wind, transformation, and humiliation.”[73]

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, warned (his community) of these affairs, for they ruin nations and peoples. If the Islamic community commits them, then Allah will punish it.

63. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “Whoever spends the night tired from earning the lawful spends the night forgiven.”[74]

Islam has also urged the community to earn its livelihood lawfully. It has regarded such a kind of livelihood as jihad and honor for its owner. Whoever strives to earn (the livelihood) of his family spends the night forgiven.

64. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, was asked about the best creatures. So, he, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “When they do good, they are cheerful. When they are given, they are grateful. When they are tested, they are patient. When they are angered, they forgive.”[75]

Whoever has these qualities is the best of all the people and the most honorable than them. In other words he possesses the rein of his soul and his reason controls his desire.

65. He, peace be on him said, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “You are unable to encompass the people with your money, so encompass them with your ethics.”[76]

How high this wisdom is! It makes people love each other and unifies their feelings and sentiments. The power of money is unable to achieve that. However, morals are the strongest factor in building society on sound bases.

66. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, passed by a group of people raising stones, so he said: “What is this?” “With that we know the strongest of us,”they said. “Shall I tell you about the strongest of you?”asked the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family. “Yes,”they said. He, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “The strongest of you is he whose content enters him in neither sin nor falsehood when he is pleased, he whose discontent does not prevent him from saying the truth when he is displeased, who he does not take other than his right when he is powerful.”[77]

Islam takes care of only the strength of conscience towards the truth. As for the boast of the muscles is among the customs of the pre-Islamic times. However, Islam has forbidden them.

67. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Sitting with the people of religion is the honor of here and the hereafter.”[78]

Sociology has proven that man has an effect on the environment. Meanwhile the environment has an effect on him. Thus, it is natural that the righteous have an effect on those who makes friends with them. They protect them from practicing evil habits and make them love doing good. So, with that, they obtain the honor of here and hereafter.

68. He, peace be on him, said: [The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said:] “Indeed this religion is strong. So, go deeply into it gradually. Do not make the servants of Allah hate worshipping Allah.”[79]

69. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “Whoever wants to seek access through me (to Allah) and that there will be a hand for him, through which I intercede for him (with Allah) on the Day of Judgment, then he should keep in contact with the members of my family and make them happy.”[80]

70. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said to ‘Ali: “O ‘Ali, I am the city of knowledge and you are the gate. He who claims that he can reach the city not through the gate tells lies.”[81]

71. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of Umm Salama on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “The hajj is the jihad of every weak (person).”[82]

72. He, peace be on him, said: [The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said:] “Whomever Allah moves from the abasement of sins to the glory of (religious) devotion, then He (Allah) makes him rich without money, strong without a tribe, and entertains him without a close friend. Whoever fears Allah, Allah makes everything afraid of him. Whoever does not fear Allah, Allah makes him afraid of everything. Whoever is satisfied with the little livelihood of the property of Allah, He (Allah) is satisfied with his little deed.”[83]

73. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, who said: “Indeed I and twelve members from my family, of whom ‘Ali is the first, are the stakes through which Allah prevents the earth and its people from sinking. If the twelve members from my family depart, the earth and its people will sink.”[84]

74. He, peace be on him, said: The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “Twelve chiefs are from my family. They narrate traditions. Among them will be the one who will undertake (bring about) the truth (al-Qa'm bi al-Haqq).”[85]

With this we end our talk about the traditions Imam al-Baqir, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfather, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family.

His Traditions on the Authority of the Imam, the Commander of the Faithful

On the authority of his grandfathers, Imam al-Baqir, peace be on him, reported a group of the maxims of his grandfather, Imam (‘Ali), the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him. The following are some of them:

1. He, peace be on him, said: A man from the people of Basrah rose and said to Imam (‘Ali), the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him:

“O Commander of the Faithful, tell us about the brothers (i. e. friends).”

The Imam, peace be on him, answered him: “The brothers are of two kinds: the reliable brothers and the laughing brothers. As for the reliable brothers, they are the hand, the wing, the family, and the property. If you have a reliable brother, then sacrifice for him your property and your body, be sincere to those who are sincere to him, make an enemy of those who make an enemy of him, conceal his secret and defect, and show his good (deeds). O Questioner, know that they are less than red sulfur. As for laughing brothers, you obtain your pleasure from them. Do not stop that from them. Do not request what is beyond that from the most lowly of them. Give them what they give you such as cheerfulness and sweet words.”[86]

As for the laughing brothers at this time, they are the overwhelming majority. Ambitions, interests, and desires move them. As for the aspects of their friendship, they are cheerfulness and smooth words, as Imam ‘Ali said.

2. He, peace be on him, said: The Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, said: “The temptations are three (kinds): the love of women- it is the sword of the Satan, drinking wine- it is the brain of the Satan, the love of the dirham and the dinar- it is the arrow of the Satan. Whoever loves women does not make use of his livelihood. Whoever likes drinking (wine) is deprived of Paradise. However loves the dirham and the dinar is the slave of the dinar. He, peace be on him, added: Jesus, son of Marry, said: The ailment of religion is in the dinar. The (religious) scholar is the doctor of religion. When you see the doctor perform the ailment against himself, then accuse him. Know that he is not loyal to other than him.”[87]

3. He, peace be on him, in ‘Ali's letter there are three qualities: Their owner will never die till he sees their evil results: oppression, estranging blood relatives, and false oath through which (the person) fights with Allah. Linking blood relatives is the quickest obedience in reward. Perhaps the people are sinners. However, they link each other. Thus, their properties grow. They treat each other with kindness. So, their lives increase. False oath and estranging blood relatives make houses empty of their people. They disturb blood relatives. Disturbing blood relatives stops birth.”[88]

This paragraph of the letter of Imam ‘Ali, the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, is full of commandments on kindness, religious devotion, and what does general good for man in this life.

4. He, peace be on him, said: The Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, said: “Religion depends on four (persons): The scholar who proclaims and uses it. The rich one who does not refrain from granting his favor to the people of the religion of Allah. The poor one who does not sell his life in the hereafter for his life in this world. The ignorant one who does not abstain from seeking knowledge. If the scholar conceals his knowledge, the rich one refrains from granting his money, the poor one sells his life in the hereafter for his life in this world, and the ignorant one abstains from seeking knowledge, then the world moves backward. So, many mosques and the different bodies of a certain group of people should not tempt you. It was said: How will (we) live at that time? He, peace be on him said: Associate with them apparently and oppose them internally. The person will have what he earns. He will be with those whom he loves. Nevertheless, wait for the ease from Allah, the Great and Almighty.”[89]

Indeed such kinds of people are able to reform the world when they shoulder their responsibilities and carry out their religious duties. However, if they deviate from that, life will move backward and all the high values in it decline.

5. He, peace be on him, said: The Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, was questioned: “How much is between truth and falsehood.”He, peace be on him, replied: “Four fingers.”He put his hand on his eyes and ears, and then he said: “What your eyes see is true. Most of what your ears hear is false.”[90]

6. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of his grandfathers on the authority of the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, who said: “The Apostle of Allah, may Allah bless him and his family, mentioned ten qualities concerning me. Each is more lovable for me than what the sun rises over. He said to me: You are my brother here and in the hereafter. You are the closest of all the creatures to me in the standing. You are my helper and successor and inheritor about my family and property. You are the carrier of my standard here and in the hereafter. Your friend is mine. My friend is Allah's. Your enemy is mine. My enemy is Allah's.”[91] Allah, singled out Imam (‘Ali), the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, with many outstanding merits. He granted him many favors. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, mentioned some of them in this tradition.

7. He, peace be on him, said: [The Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, said:] “The pious have signs. They are known with them: truthful talk, paying the deposit, fulfilling the promise, little pride, miserliness, consideration for blood relatives, having pity on the weak, little sleeping with women, doing favors, good manners, vast clemency, adopting knowledge that bring (them) closer to Allah, the Great and Almighty. ‘A good final state and a goodly return shall be theirs.’”[92]

8. He, peace be on him said: [The Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him said:] “Indeed ambitions control the hearts of the ignorant. Desires take them as security. Tricks cling to them.”[93]

This tradition pictures the condition of the ignorant. It includes their qualities of which are: ambitions control their feelings and sentiments. Desires take their hearts as security. Tricks convince them easily, for they have little experience and knowledge.

9. He, peace be on him, said: [The Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him said:] “All good has been gathered in three qualities: thinking, silence, and speech. So, every thinking that has no viewpoint is inattention. Every silence that has no idea is heedlessness. Every speech that has no praise (of Allah) is nonsense. Therefore, a good final state shall be for him whose thinking is a viewpoint, silence is an idea, and speech is praise (of Allah), who weeps over his sin, of whose evil people are safe.”[94]

These are the qualities of those who know their Lord and turn to Him in repentance. They are appropriate for the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them, and those who follow them.

10. He, peace be on him, said: The Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, said: “We, the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), are the tree of

the Prophet, staying place of (Divine) Message, descending place of angels, sources of knowledge.”[95]

11. He, peace be on him, said: [The Commander, peace be on him, said:] “The one who acts with oppression, the one who supports him, and the one who is satisfied with him are three partners.”[96]

His Narration from his Grandfather al-Husayn

He (Imam al-Baqir), peace be on him, reported on the authority of his father on the authority of his grandfather Imam Husayn, peace be on him, who said: [I heard my grandfather Allah's Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, say:]

“Act according to Allah's obligations to be the most pious of all people. Be satisfied with Allah's apportionment to be the richest of all people. Refrain from what Allah has forbidden to be a believer. Be a good friend of him who makes friends with you to be a Moslem.”[97]

His Narration from his Father

He reported on the authority of his father ‘Ali b. al-Husayn, peace be on him, who said: “He whose eyes shed tears for the murder of al-Husayn, Allah will settle him at the highest place in the garden. The believer whose eyes are filled with tears for the persecution our enemy practiced against us, Allah will settle him in the seat of honor. The believer who suffers from persecution for us and then his eyes shed tears for us, Allah will not punish him on the Day of Judgment and make will him safe from the wrath of the Fire.”[98]

His Narration from Jabir al-Ansari

 He, peace be on him, reported a group of traditions and events on the authority of Jabir b. ‘Abd Allah. Among them are:

1. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of Jabir, who said: “Indeed, when Allah's Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, stopped at al-Safa (a hill in Mecca near the Kaaba), he exclaimed three times:‘Allah is Great’, and then he said: ‘There is no god but Allah. He is One. There is no partner with Him. Supreme power and praise belong to Him. He has power over all things.’ He (the Prophet) did that three time. He did the like of that at al-Marwah (a hill near the Kaaba).”[99]

2. He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of Jabir, who said: “Indeed, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, wore a ring on his right finger.”[100]

3. He, peace be on him, asked Jabir about what had happened between ‘Ali and ‘A'isha. So, Jabir said: “One day I went to ‘A'isha and asked her about her opinion concerning ‘Ali. She bowed her head. Then she raised it and composed:

 When gold is rubbed against a touchstone

its adulteration appears without doubt.

Corruption is in us, and ‘Ali, the purified gold,

is like the touchstone among us.”[101]

His Narration from ‘Umar

He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of ‘Umar b. al-Khattab, who said: [I heard the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, say:] “Every means and lineage will break on the Day of Judgment except my means and lineage.”[102]

His Narration from b. ‘Abbas

He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Abbas, who said: [‘Ali looked at the faces of the people, and then he said:] “Indeed I am the brother of Allah's Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, and his helper. You know that I was the first to believe in Allah and his Apostle. Then you entered Islam one by one after me. I am the cousin of Allah's Apostle may Allah bless him and his family, his brother, and his partner in his lineage. (I am) the father of his (grand)sons, and his son-in-law (being married to his) daughter, the mistress of his children and of the women of the garden. You know that when we went out with Allah's Apostle and came back, he loved and trusted me more than you. I was the most intense of you in defeating the enemy and affecting the equipment. You know when he sent me to Bara'a. He made the Moslems associate with each other as brothers. He chose nobody other than me. Then he said to me: ‘You are my brother and I am your brother in this life and the hereafter.’ He took the people out of the mosque and left me. Then he said to me: ‘Your position to me is as Aaron with Moses, except that there will be no prophet after me.’”[103]

His Narration from Zayd b. Arqam

He, peace be on him, reported on the authority of Zayd b. Arqam, who said: [We were sitting before the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family. He, peace be on him, said:] “Shall I show you him whom if you ask for advice you will not go astray nor will you perish?” “Yes, O Allah's Apostle,”they said. He said: “This.” He pointed to ‘Ali b. Abï Talib. Then he said: “Associate with him as brothers, help him, believe him, and be loyal to him. Indeed Gabriel has told me about what I have said to you.”[104]

His Narration From Abï Dharr

He, peace be on him, reported a group of sayings of the great reformer, Companion (of the Prophet), Abï Dharr. Among them are the following:

“O you who seek knowledge, do not let your family and your money divert you from your soul. On the day when you leave them, you will be like the guest. (You will) spend the night among them, then you will leave them to other than them. Here and hereafter are like the house from which you move to other than it. There is nothing between death and raising from the dead except a short sleep, then you will wake up. O You who seek knowledge, indeed, the heart without knowledge is like the ruined house.”[105]

These are some of the traditions which have been reported on his authority. They concern the rules of conduct, morals, and the outstanding merits of the pure family that is equal to the Holy Book.

The Exegesis of the Holy Koran

Among the sciences which Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, presented during his lectures was the exegesis of the Holy Koran. Indeed he devoted a time of his times to it. He discussed all of its affairs. The scholars of exegesis, though they had different opinions and trends, studied under him. Thus, he was the most brilliant explainer in Islam. Among his studies on the Koran are the following:

The Virtue of Reciting the Koran

Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, urged (the community) to recite the Holy Book, for it is the abundant source that guides people to righteousness, enlivens their hearts, and supplies them with abilities of light and awareness. He, peace be on him, reported what his grandfather Allah's Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, said concerning the virtue of reciting the Koran. He, peace be on him, said: [Allah's Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, said:] “Whoever recites ten verses on a night is not written among the heedless. Whoever recites fifty verses is written among those who praise (Allah). Whoever recites a hundred verses is written among the obedient. Whoever recites two hundred verses is written among the humble. Whoever recites three hundred verses is written among the successful. Whoever recites five hundred verses is written among the strivers. Whoever recites a thousand verses, a hundredweight of gold is written for him.”[106]

Traditions similar to this have been reported on the authority of the Imams of the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them. They urge Moslems to recite the Koran and to consider carefully its verses and to understand their secrets. Without doubt the verses of the Koran develop intellect, educate souls, protect them from deviation, and guide them to the right path.

Repetition of Reciting the Koran

As for repeating and reciting the Koran with a good voice, it penetrates the depth of the heart and inner self. It reacts with sentiments, for the Koran has maxims and sciences necessary for life.

The Imams of the members of the House (ahl al Bayt), peace be on them, took care of reciting the Holy Koran. Thus, Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, was the best of all the people in reciting the Koran with a good voice.[107]

Abu Basïr reported: I said to Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir): “When I recite the Koran loudly, Satan comes to me and says: with this (recitation) you want to please your family and the people.”Imam al-Baqir, peace be on him, said: “Recite the Koran in an intermediate recitation. Let your family listen (to that). Read the Koran with a good voice. Indeed Allah likes reciting the Koran with a good voice.”[108]

The Koran far above Falsehood

The Holy Koran is the great miracle of Islam. “(This is) a Book, whose verses are made decisive, then are they made plain, from One Wise, All-aware.” “(This Book), there is no doubt in it, is a guide to those who guard (against evil).”There is no contradiction in its rules nor is there any incompatibility in its verses. “And if it were from any other than Allah, they

would have found in it many a discrepancy.” “Surely this Koran guides to that which is most upright.” “Falsehood shall not come to it from before it nor from behind it.”Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, explained this verse, saying : “Falsehood does not come to it from before the Torah nor before the Bible and the Zabur (David's psalms). Nor from behind it means that no Book will come after it to abrogate it.”In a narration from al-Sadiq, peace be on him: “There is no falsehood in what the Koran has told about the past nor is there falsehood in what it has told about what will happen in the future.”

The Imam dispraised those who distort the Koran

Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, dispraised those who distort Allah's Book. It is they who interpret its verses according to their own desires. Thus, he, peace be on him, wrote a letter to Sa‘d al-Khayr: “Among their neglecting the Book is that they have rectified its letters and distorted its penal law. Indeed they see the Koran but they do not conform to it. The ignorant admire memorizing the narration. The religious scholars are sad when they leave the care.”[109]

Figurative Usage in the Koran

Figurative usages are famous in the language of Arabs. They are famous in many matters such as figurative predication, figurative word. Among them is the chapter on allusions. It is said that allusions are more eloquent than direct expressions. These expressions are among the nice usage and beauties of this language. The Holy Koran has a large group of figurative usage. Among them is the following Words of Allah, the Exalted: “He said: O Iblis! what prevented you that you should do obeisance to him whom I created with My two hands?”The meaning of the word hand is the special organ. However, this is impossible for Allah, the Most High. That is because the hand is in need of a body, while this is rationally impossible for Allah, the Exalted. Mohammed b. Moslem asked Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir) about that. So, he, peace be on him, replied: “The word hand (yad) in the speech of Arabs means power and blessing. Allah, the Exalted, said: “And remember Our servant Dauwd with hands.”He said: “And the sky We built it with hands.”It is said: “So-and-so has many hands with me, favors and kindness. He has a white hand with me, meaning blessing.”[110]

This means that the word hand (yad) is not used in its real meaning. Rather it is used in other than it, either figuratively or truly. That is because it includes all these meanings the Imam mentioned.

The Basmalah is Part of the Suras of the Koran

Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, and all the Imams of the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them, believed that the basmalah (i. e., in the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful) is part of the chapters of the Holy Koran. A large mass of the Moslem scholars and readers followed them in that.[111] Yahya b. Abï ‘Umran al-Hamadani wrote a letter to Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him. In the letter he mentioned: “May I be your ransom, what is your opinion of a man (who) started his prayers with: In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, in the mother of the Book (i. e., the first

sura of the Holy Koran), and when he reached to a sura other than the mother of the Book, he left it (the basmalah)? The ‘Abbasid (man) said: There is no harm in that.”So, the Imam, peace be on him, replied to him with a letter in which he mentioned: “He (i. e., the man who left the basmalah) should repeat it twice in spite of him (the ‘Abbasid man).[112] The traditions of the two parties (Sunna and Shi‘a) have unanimously agreed on that the basmalah is part of the suras of the Holy Koran. Those who deny that are irregular.

The Koran was revealed in Seven Letters

The commentators have made known that the Koran was revealed in seven letters. They claimed that Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, said: “The Koran was revealed in seven letters.”[113] The ideas in this connection are so many that Abu Hatam has mentioned that they are thirty-five.[114]

It is necessary for us to give a brief idea about the meanings of the seven letters to know whether they are truly attributed to Imam Mohammed al-Baqir, peace be on him, or not.

The Seven Letters

There are various views about the meanings of the seven letters. The following are some of them:

1. The seven letters are: promise, threat, order, prohibition, stories, controversy, and proverbs. Ibn ‘Atiya weakened this idea. He said: “These are not called letters.”[115]

2. They are the differing words that have close meanings such as aqbil and halum (come! come on!), ‘ajjil and asri‘ (be quick). Al-Tabari chose this meaning.[116] However, this meaning is untrue. That is because man, according to this meaning, has the right to read the Koran in various ways. So, this will lead to a big difference such as adding a verse or omitting it. That is because the differing words bring about differing sentences, as al-Qurtubi said.[117]

3. They are the seven chapters which the Koran brought: the prevention, the order, lawful, the unlawful, the clearly defined (verses), the ambiguous (verses), and the proverbs.[118] These chapters are not called letters. Besides the prevention and the unlawful are one chapter. They are therefore not seven chapters.

4. They are the classical dialects from the dialects of the Arab. They are differing in the Koran. So, some of the Koran was revealed in the dialect of Quraysh; some of it in the dialect of Hudhayl; some of it in the dialect of Hawzan; some of it in the dialect of the Yemen; some of it in the dialect of Kinana; some of it in the dialect of Tamïm; some of it in the dialect of Thaqïf. This idea is ascribed to al-Bayqahi, al-Abhari, and the author of al-Qamus. However, ‘Umar opposed this idea when he said that the Koran was revealed in the dialect of Madar.[119]

5. They are seven recitations. Our master, the Professor, opposed that when he said that the famous recitations are more than seven.[120]

These are some of the opinions. Our master, the Professor, numbered ten opinions. However, he disproved them and proved that they did not lead to

any result. Abu Shama wrote a book on these meanings and refuted most of them.

The Imam denied the Seven Letters

Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, denied the seven letters. What was attributed to him that he reported them is incorrect. In the (book) al-Sahïh, Zarara reported on the authority of the Imam, who said: “Indeed the Koran is one. The One (Allah) revealed it. However, the reporters have brought about these differences.”[121] It was reported on the authority of the Imam al-Sadiq, peace be on him, that he denied that. Al-Fudayl b. Yasar asked him: “Surely, the people say: The Koran was revealed in seven letters.”So, al-Sadiq, peace be on him, said: “The enemies of Allah have told lies. However, the Koran was revealed in one letter from the One and Only.”[122]

The Method of Exegesis

The trends of the commentators of the Holy Koran are different. In that they followed differing methods. Among them are:

The Exegesis through the transmitted Sayings

By that we mean interpreting the Koran through the traditions reported on the authority of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, and the Imams of guidance. Most Shi‘ite commentators followed this method. Among them were al-Qummi, al-‘Askari, and the like. Their proof was that the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them, were professional in the real knowledge of the Koran. Those other than them had no share in that. Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, referred to that when he said: “No one can claim that he has the deep and the surface (knowledge) of the Koran except the testamentary trustees of authority.”[123] It is therefore the testamentary trustees of the authority who had the deep and surface knowledge of the Book. The proofs have unanimously agreed that it is incumbent on the explainers to refer to them on interpreting the Koran. Shaykh al-Tusi said: “Interpreting the Koran is not permitted except through the authentic traditions from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, and the Imams whose words were similar to those of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family.”[124]

The Exegesis through the Opinion

By that we mean following the hypothetical rational considerations that belong to the approbation.[125] The Mu‘tazilite and the Batanian commentators adopted that. They did not follow the traditions reported on the testamentary trustees of Allah's Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, in their exegesis. Rather, they depended on the rational approbation. Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, prevented them from that. Qattada, the famous jurist, came to the Imam. So, the Imam said to him:

“Are you the jurist of the people of Basrah?”

“Yes, such they claim.”

“I have heard that you interpret the Koran.”

“Yes.”

So, the Imam blamed him for that, saying:

“O Qattada, If you interpret according to your own opinion, then you will be perished and perish (the people). If you interpret it according to the opinions of the men, then you will be perished and perish (the people). Qattada, woe unto you! Those who have been addressed in the Koran know it.”[126]

Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, confined the knowledge of the Holy Book to the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them. That is because they knew the clearly defined (verses), the ambiguous (verses), the abrogating (verses), and the abrogated (verses). The people other than them had not such knowledge. It was reported on the authority of the Imams, peace be on him, who said: “There is nothing farther from the mind of the men than the exegesis of the Koran. The beginning of the verse is on a thing and its end is on other thing. It is a coherent speech with various meanings.”[127]

As for following the surface of the Book is not numbered of the exegesis through the opinion which is forbidden. Some traditionalists opposed its proof. They cleaved to proofs which the fundamentalists refuted.[128]

Imam al-Baqir's Exegesis

Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, wrote a book on the exegesis of the Holy Koran. Mohammed b. Ishaq al-Nadïm mentioned the book in his book al-Fihrast when he mentioned the books written on the exegesis of the Holy Koran. He said: “Abu al-Jarud Zyad b. al-Munzir, the head of the Jarudiya, reported the book of al-Baqir Mohammed b. ‘Ali b. al-Husayn.”Sayyd Hasan al-Sadr said: “A group of the reliable Shi‘ites reported the book from him from the days of his righteousness. Among them was Abu Basïr Yahya b. al-Qasim al-Asadi. ‘Ali b. Ibrahïm b. Hashim al-Qummi mentioned it in his book al-Tafsïr on the authority of Abu Basïr.[129] The narrators said: “Jabir b. Yazïd al-Ju‘fi wrote a book on the exegesis of the Holy Koran. He learnt the exegesis from the Imam.”[130]

Examples of al-Baqir's Exegesis

The explainers reported many verses of the Holy Koran interpreted by the Imam. The following are some of them:

1. The Words of Allah, the Exalted, : “These shall be rewarded with the ghurfa (house) because they were patient.”[131] Al-Baqir, peace be on him, said: “The ghurfa (house) is the garden. It is a reward for them, for they were patient towards poverty in the world.”[132]

2. The Words of Allah, the Most High: “And to whomsoever My wrath is due he shall perish indeed.”[133] Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, was asked about the wrath of Allah. So, he peace be on him, replied: “His dismissal and His punishment.”[134]

3. The Words of Allah, the Exalted, “And most surely I am most Forgiving to him who repents and believes and does goods, then continues to follow the right direction.”[135] The Imam, peace be on him, interpreted “following the right direction”as following the Imams of the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt). Then he said: “By Allah, if a person worships Allah throughout his life between the corner (of the Kaaba) and the standing place

(of Abraham) and does not follow us, Allah will throw him down on his face into the fire.”[136]

4. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “O Apostle, deliver what has been revealed to you from your Lord.”[137] He, peace be on him, said: “By that Allah meant what He revealed to the Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, concerning the outstanding merits of ‘Ali.”[138] He, peace be on him, reported that Allah revealed to His Apostle to appoint ‘Ali successor. However, he was afraid that that would be difficult for a group of his Companions. So, Allah, the Most High, revealed this verse to encourage him to carry out His order.[139]

5. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “Leave Me and him whom I created alone.”[140] This verse was revealed concerning al-Walïd b. al-Mughïra al-Makhzumi, who accused the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family, of magic. The people called al-Walïd the alone. Thus, the verse was revealed to threaten him. Mohammed b. Moslem reported on the authority of Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), who said: “The alone is the illegitimate child.”Zarara said: “Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir) was told that one of the Hashimites said in his oration: “I am the son of the alone.”So, the Imam said: “Woe unto him! If he knew who the alone was, he would not boast of him.”Thus, we said to him: “Who is he?”He said: “The unfathered child.”[141]

6. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “The angels and Gabriel descend in it by the permission of their Lord.”[142] He, peace be on him, said: “The angels and the recorders descend to the lower world. They record the affairs that hit people within a year. That is up to Allah's will.”Allah makes to pass away and establishes what He pleases, and with Him is the mother of the Book.”[143]

7. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “So, they shall be thrown down into it, they and they erring ones.”[144] The meaning of the verse is that the erring ones and the atheist powers will be thrown all together into the fire. Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, said: “The verse was revealed concerning the people who described just things with their tongues, and then they did other than them.”[145]

8. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “And they did not do Us any harm, but they made their own souls suffer loss.”[146] Interpreting this verse, the Imam, peace be on him, said: “Allah is not oppressed, for He is Great and Powerful. However, He mixed us with Himself. So, He regarded the oppression against us as oppression against Him and our authority as His authority. So, He said: ‘Only Allah is your authority and His apostle and those who believe.’”He meant the Imams from us. In another place He said: “And they did not do Us any harm, but they made their own souls suffer loss.”[147]

9. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “So, ask the people of the reminder if you do not know.”[148] Mohammed b. Moslem said: I said to Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir): “Some of us claim that this verse concerns the Jews and the Christians.”He said: “Therefore they summon you to their religion.”Then he, peace be on him, pointed to his chest and said: “We are the people of the reminder and we are the people who are questioned.”[149]

10. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “Are those who know and those who do not know alike? Only the men of understanding are mindful.”[150] He, peace be on him, said: “It is we who know and our enemy is he who does not know. Our followers are the men of understanding.”[151]

11. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “Nay! these are clear communications in the breasts of those who are granted knowledge.”[152] Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir) said that “those who are granted knowledge”concerns the Imams of the members of the House (ahl al-Bayt), peace be on them.[153] Abu Basïr reported that Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir) recited this verse and pointed with his hand to his chest.[154]

12. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “(Remember) the day when We will call every people with their Imam.”[155] Jabir b. Yazïd al-Ju‘fi reported on the authority of Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, who said: When this verse was revealed, the Moslems said: “O Allah's Apostle, are you not the Imam of all people?”He, may Allah bless him and his family, said: “I am the Apostle of Allah for all people. However, there will be Imams over the people. They will be from my Household. They will assume the Imam over the people. However, the people will accuse them of lying. The Imams of unbelief and misguidance and their followers will oppress them. So, whoever supports, follows, and believes them will belong to me, be with me, and meet me. Whoever oppresses them, accuses them of lying will not belong to me nor will he be with me. Moreover, I will disown myself of him.”[156]

13. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “Then We gave the Book for an inheritance to those whom We chose from among Our servants, but of them is he who makes his soul suffer a loss, and of them is he who takes a middle course, and of them is he who is foremost in deeds of goodness by Allah's permission.”[157] Salim asked Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir) about this verse. So, he, peace be on him, said: “He who is foremost in deeds of goodness is the Imam. He who takes a middle course is he who knows the Imam. He who makes his soul suffer a loss is he who does not know the Imam.”[158] Zyad b. al-Munzir reported on the authority of the Imam, peace be on him, who said: “As for him who makes his soul suffer a loss is he who does a good deed and another bad one. As for him who takes a middle course is he who worships (Allah) very much. As for those who are foremost in deeds of goodness are ‘Ali, al-Hasan, al-Husayn, and those who died martyrs from the family of Mohammed, may Allah bless him and his family.”[159]

14. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “Surely in this are signs for those who examine.”[160] He, peace be on him, said: The Commander of the Faithful said: “Allah's Apostle, may Allah bless him and his family, was the one who examined. I, after him, and the Imams from my progeny are the ones who examine.”[161]

15. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “And that if they should keep to the (right) way, We would certainly give them to drink of abundant water.”[162] He (al-Baqir), peace be on him, said: “By that Allah meant that if they should keep to the authority of ‘Ali b. Abï Talib, the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him, and the testamentary trustees of authority from his sons, and obey their orders and prohibitions, He would certainly give

them to drink of abundant water, namely He would fill their hearts with belief. The (right) way is the belief in the authority of ‘Ali and the testamentary trustees.”[163]

16. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “Say: Allah is sufficient as a witness between me and you and whoever has knowledge of the Book.”[164] Barïd b. Mu‘awiya asked Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, about those whom the Words of Allah the Exalted: “And whoever has knowledge of the Book” concern. So, he, peace be on him, said: “He meant us. ‘Ali was the first of us, the most meritorious of us, and the best of us after the Prophet, may Allah bless him and his family.”[165]

17. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “But indeed We have given to Abraham's children the Book and the wisdom, and We have given them a grand kingdom.”[166] Barïd al-‘Ajali asked Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, about this verse. So, he, peace be on him said: “He made Abraham's children Apostles, Prophets, and Imams. Why do they accept that in the family of Abraham and refuse to accept it in the family of Mohammed, may Allah bless him and his family?”Barïd said: “What is the meaning of ‘And We have given them a grand kingdom?’”The Imam replied: “llah made them Imams. Whoever obeys them obeys Allah. Whoever disobeys them disobeys Allah. That is the grand kingdom.”[167]

18. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “And I breathed into him of My spirit.”[168] The Imam, peace be on him, was asked about the spirit. So, he said: “It is the power.”[169]

19. The Words of Allah, the Exalted: “Were it not for that he had seen the manifest evidence of his Lord.”[170] The Imam, peace be on him, said to Jabir al-Ju‘fi: “What do the Iraqi jurists say concerning this verse?”Jabir replied: “He (Joseph) saw Jacob biting his thumb.”Thus, the Imam, peace be on him, said: [My father related to me on the authority of my grandfather, ‘Ali b. Abï Talib, who said:] “As for the manifest evidence which Joseph saw when she made for him and he made for her was that she went to an idol crowned with pearls and corundum in the house to cover it with a white garment so that it would not see her or she felt shame of it.”So, Joseph asked her: “What is this?”She replied: “It is my lord. I feel shame of it when it see in this manner.”So, Joseph said: “Do you feel shame of an idol that does not avail nor does it harm nor does it see? Then why do I not feel shame of my Lord Who has the power over every soul? By Allah, you will never obtain that from me.”That is the manifest evidence.[171]

These are some of the verses which Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, interpreted. With this we end our talk about his exegesis of the Holy Koran.

Theology

Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir) researched many theological matters during his lectures. He was asked about the most complicated matters in this science. He answered them. Worth mentioning, the time of the Imam was the most sensitive of all the times. That is because the Islamic conquer included most areas of the world and the peoples of the earth. That moved a wave of spite in the souls of the enemies of Islam, from the helpless peoples and other than them. Thus, they launched a propagating campaign against

the Islamic thought. They proclaimed doubts and imaginations among the children of the Moslems. Meanwhile the Umayyad governments encouraged anti-Islam thoughts. No one has mentioned that the Umayyad rulers resisted these thoughts and prevented them from spreading among the Moslems. In the meantime nobody was ready to save the Moslems from these thoughts except Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, who refuted them with strong proofs. We will mention that in detail when we talk about the time of the Imam.

However, the following are some of the theological researches which the Imam did:

Monotheism

Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, studied the most important matters of monotheism. He uncovered them. He refuted the doubts and imaginations which were raised about them. Among what he studied are:

1. Allah is not attained through Reason The unquestionable thing is that man is unable to know with all his intellectual the reality of Allah, for reason has limited imaginations. Al-Shafi‘i said: “Indeed reason has a limited end as the eye has.”

All things which man senses are found at a certain place and time. Reason cannot imagine beings without a place or things without time. Thus, reason is unable to attain the reality of Allah, for neither time nor place can encompass it. In other words, Allah created the time and the place. Besides reason is unable to understand the reality of many things in the universe. Among them is the unseen reality which reason has not understood yet.

The conceptualization of the heart, though it has vast imagination, is unable to attain the essence of Allah. The eye is unable to attain it, too. Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, stated that when he was asked about these words of Allah, the Exalted: “The eyes attain Him not, but He attains the eyes.”[172] He, peace be on him: “The conceptualization of hearts are keener and sharper than the perceptions of the eyes. Through the conceptualization of the heart you can perceive countries like Sind, Hind (India) and other cities which you have never visited, although you have not seen them with your eyes. How can your eyes see Him when the conceptualization of your heart cannot attain Him?”[173]

Indeed the eye shall come back confused and fatigued when it tries to perceive the essence of Allah, the Most High, the Creator of the cosmos, and giver of life. Ibn Abï al-Haddïd said:

O Miracle of the cosmos, thinking has become unsound concerning You.

Whenever my thinking moves toward You a span of the hand, it escapes for a mile.

You have perplexed men of understanding and confused intellect.[174]

There is nothing remoter than attaining the essence of Allah, the Exalted, for reason is unable to attain it. Thus, ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Abï al-Najran asked Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, about Allah, the Most High. He said: “Should I think of anything (to understand Allah)?”The Imam, peace be on him, replied: “Yes, but you have to imagine a thing which the mind cannot contain and which is without limit. He is unlike whatever comes into your mind. Nothing resembles Him nor can any thought reach

Him. How can He be perceived when He is totally different from whatever is conceived and is the reverse of whatever is imagined. (Because Allah cannot be limited through the limitations of the mind or the senses.) Certainly, the thing which cannot be encompassed by the mind and which is without limits is that which should be imagined.”[175]

 2. The Eternity of the Necessary Being As for the Eternity of the Necessary Being, it is among the keenest theological and philosophical studies. A man asked Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him: “Tell me from when your Lord has been in existence?”The Imam replied: “Woe unto You! The question when and how long arises only in respect of things that (previously) were non-existant. Verily, my lord, the Blessed and Exalted, has always been Ever-living, without time or modality. Coming into existence does not apply to Him Who exists eternally nor does ‘how He exists’ apply to His existence nor does ‘where He exists’ apply to him, for He is neither in a thing nor on a thing. He did not invent a place for His location, nor was there any enhancement in His might after He had created the universe, nor had He been weak before its creation, nor was He alone before His act of creation, nor does He resemble anything that can be remembered, nor was He without dominion before creating the universe, nor will He be bereft of dominion after the universe passes away. He is Ever-living, Self-subsisting, the Almighty Lord without the category of life. He was the Almighty Lord before creating things, and He is the Absolute Lord after the creation of the universe. None of the categories of ‘how’ or ‘where’ or ‘when’ or ‘how much’ nor any ‘limit’ apply to his existence. He is not recognized by resemblance with anything nor does He become decrepit due to His endless existence. Nothing can strike awe in Him. Rather, all things are awe-struck by fearing Him. He was in existence before the appearance of life as such. Neither is He in existence such as can be described, nor can it be confined to any state and condition. He does not rest anywhere nor does He abide at a place that is in the neighborhood of another place. However, He is known as Living, the Lord whose might and dominion will never end. He has created of His own will whatever and whenever He desired. He can neither be confined, nor fractioned, nor can He be destroyed. He is the First without any modality and the Last without any space. ‘And all things are perishable except His face.’ ‘His are the creation and the command. Blessed be Allah, the Lord of all beings.’

“O Questioner, woe unto you! Surely, my Lord can never be encompassed by the imagination. Doubts cannot descend upon him. Nor can He be affected (by anything). Nor is He anybody's neighbor. Nor can events happen to Him. He can neither be questioned about anything nor is He ashamed of anything. ‘Slumber seize Him not, neither sleep.’ ‘To Him belong all that is in the heavens and the earth and all that is between them, and all that is underneath the soil.’”[176]

This wonderful paragraph of the speech of the great Imam has encompassed the eternity of the Necessary Being and His Unity. It has deemed Him far above comparison with His creatures which genus and species limit, and which are in need of the cause in their existence and non-existence. Moreover, they are in need of time and place. Allah is far above

all that, for He is the first and the last, outward and inward, and He knows all things. A researcher asked the Imam: “Who is Allah?” He replied: “The One and Only.” It was said to him: “How is He?” He answered: “He is a Powerful King.” It was said to him: “Where is He?” He replied: “He is watching.” So, the researcher said: “I am not asking you about this.” He said: “These are the attributes of Allah. Other than them are the attributes of creatures.”

They wanted to know the essence of Allah through their senses and reason. They did not know that He was far above what reason attains and what conceptualization perceives. There is no god but He, the Ever living, the Self-subsisting.

However, in this speech, the Imam, peace be on him, discussed the most important theological matters which no one of the Moslem theologians and philosopher had discussed before him except his grandfather Imam ‘Ali, the Commander of the Faithful, peace be on him. As for encompassing and explaining the speech of the Imam, peace be on him, it needs a detailed study. The Moslem philosophers have taken care of the points which the Imam has mentioned in his speech. They have produced evidence in support of them.[177]

3. Talking about the Essence of Allah is forbidden Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, prevented Moslems from talking about the essence of Allah, the Most High. That is because that depends on a deep philosophy which the reason of the simple people is unable to understand. In other words they have little knowledge. Thus, they fall into the tricks of the Satan. Then they go out of belief and come into polytheism. In this connection the Imam, peace be on him, said: “Talk about all things, but do not talk about the essence of Allah.”[178]

He, peace be on him, said: “Talk about the creation of Allah, but do not talk about Allah Himself, for that increases the owner of the talk nothing except perplexity.”[179]

Indeed talking about the essence of Allah increases man nothing except perplexity and throwing destructive manners and doubts. As for thinking of the creation of Allah and considering carefully the universe, they will lead man to belief in Allah. That is because the creation of all creature indicates the Great Creator. Darwin said: “It seems that all the creatures that live in the earth belong to one eternal shape. The Creator has breathed life into them.”[180] It is false to say that chance has created all these worlds. It is impossible for chance to find a well-woven regulation that depends on knowledge. Why does chance not create the plane and modern sets which thinking and science have found?

4. The Knowledge of Allah The knowledge of Allah has encompassed all things. The knowledge of Allah is the same before and after the creation of things. That is because He has created them. He knows what souls and hearts have. Mohammed b. Moslem reported on the authority of Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, who said: “Allah, the Great and Almighty, was there when nothing else existed. He has been eternally knowing whatever come into being. And His knowledge of a thing before it comes into being is exactly the same as it is after its being.”[181]

5. The Essence of Monotheism Jabir b. Yazïd al-Ju‘fi asked Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, to teach him something of monotheism. So, he, peace be on him, said: “Indeed Allah, whose names are blessed and Who is Exalted in the transcendence of His Essence, is the One (the only One). He is unique in Oneness, and He attributed Oneness to Himself when He was alone. Then, He made His Unity evidently known to His creatures. Thus, Allah is One, Unique, Self-dependent, and All-holy. All things worship Him and turn to Him in repentance. And His knowledge embraces all things.”[182]

6. The Attributes of Allah Surely, the attributes of the Wise Creator are exactly the same as His Essence. There is no number among them, as it has been proved in theology. Some Iraqis deviated from the right path. So, they proclaimed that Allah, the Most High, heard with other than with He saw, and saw with other than with He heard. In that He is similar to His creatures. Mohammed b. Moslem told Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on, about that. So, the Imam said: “They have told lies, become atheists, and likened (Allah to His creatures). Far is Allah above that. Indeed He is All-Hearing, All-Seeing. He hears with what He sees, and sees with what He hears.”

Then Mohammed b. Salim said: “They claim that He sees according to what they think.”So, the Imam, peace be on him, refuted their claims, saying: “Be Allah Exalted, the one who has the attribute of the creature perceive, but Allah is not such.”[183]

7. Doubt and Unbelief Surely, the doubt and unbelief in Allah, the Creator of the skies and the earth, have bad final results. Among them is that no deed is accepted from the one who doubts Allah and the one who disbelieves in Him. Their deeds will not avail them on the Day of Judgment. For this reason, the Imam, peace be on him, said: “The deed with doubt and unbelief is useless.”[184]

With this we end our talk about the words of Imam Abu Ja‘far (al-Baqir), peace be on him, on monotheism.