Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

QOM; GEOGRAPHICALLY AND HISTORICALLY

There is no an accurate dating about the establishment of this city nor a certain reason behind its name. There are some historians confirming that its history belongs to the pre-Islamic conquest period relying on some historical manuscripts, which show clearly that the city has been available during the age of Anushirvan, the Persian king.[1] It (Qom) has been mentioned during the Islamic conquests when talking about the battle of Jalawla’ against Khosrow, the last king of the Sasanian dynasty, where Hijr bin Adiy was one of the leaders of the Islamic armies at that day.

Hence the history of the city belongs to the period before the year twenty-third A.H. (the year of (al-Fat~h-the Conquest) for a long time.

Many stories have been said about the name of the city each trying to give an explanation about it. Some have said that its name was “Kumondan”[2] and then some of its letters have been dropped and others have said that the original name was “Kam” meaning “little” that it was a small village and then it was Arabized into “Qom” after the Islamic conquests.[3]

But the name of the city began to shine on the Islamic map after it had been occupied by the Ash’arites[4] in ninety-four A.H. They had tried their best to build the city. It grew and became one of the important cities in Persia after its people had believed in Ahlul Bayt[5] (s) and after it had become independent of Isfahan[6] in 189 A.H.

The fate had willed that the city was to be one of the sacred cities after its ground had embraced the pure body of Fatima, the daughter of Imam Musa al-Kadhim[7] (s) in 201 A.H. Hence it could be said that since that date the city of Qom had begun to ascend the stairs of glory to be at the head of the Islamic capitals.

The city has paid the price of its allegiance and love to Ahlul Bayt (s) so expensively along all the ages. The Abbasid policy has followed a degrading means by imposing very heavy taxes.

In spite of that there was a kind of political ease towards Ahlul Bayt (s) during the reign of al-Ma’moon.[8] History has recorded that a revolution has broken out in Qom in 210 A.H. because of the heaviness of taxes but the revolution has been suppressed severely, the walls of the city have been destroyed and the taxes have been increased three and a half times.[9]

Some books of history mentions stories, which are like fables, about the name of the city. One of them says that the Prophet (s), during his ascension to the Heaven, has seen a place on the earth, which was more beautiful than the color of saffron and with a fragrance better than the fragrance of musk, and has seen an old man putting a long cap on his head. The Prophet (s) asked Gabriel and Gabriel said: “This is the place of your Shia and your guardian’s Shia and this old man is Iblis. He invites people to disbelieve.” The Prophet (s) asked Gabriel to swoop down and Gabriel swooped down faster than lightening. The Prophet (s) shouted at Iblis: “Get up (qom)[10] O you cursed!” Then the city was called as “Qom”!

In spite of the vicissitudes of time, the city has withstood throughout the ages of history and has remained as a capital of knowledge and intellect and as a refuge for the wronged and subdued people of the Prophet’s progeny. This is why there are many shrines of the Hashemites[11] in this great city.

Qom in traditions

Much praise has been mentioned in traditions related to Imam as-Sadiq[12] (s). He said:

“Above Qom there is an angel flapping his two wings. No arrogant intends to offend it (Qom), unless Allah will make him melt away like salt being melted in water.”[13]

He also said:

“If you are afflicted with distress and suffering, you are to resort to Qom because it is the refuge of the Fatimites[14] and the resort of the believers.”[15]

Imam Musa al-Kadhim (s) said:

“Qom is the shelter of Muhammad’s progeny and the resort of their Shia.”[16]

He also said in another tradition, which was as an astonishing prediction:

“There will be a man from Qom, who will invite people to the truth and great masses of people will join him. They will not be shaken by the most violent storms.”[17]

This tradition has become real after the Islamic revolution under the leadership of Imam Khomeini (may Allah be pleased with him).

There is another tradition of Imam as-Sadiq (s) deserving to be pondered on. Imam as-Sadiq (s) said:

“The ground of Qom is sacred. Its people are from us and we are from them. No arrogant tries to offend them, unless his punishment will be hastened to him as long as they do not betray their brothers. If they do that, then Allah will subject them to the offenses of the arrogants.”[18]

There is another tradition related to Imam as-Sadiq (s) talking about Fatima al-Ma’ssooma (s).

He said:

“We have a sanctum. It is the village of Qom, in which a woman from my progeny will be buried. Her name will be Fatima.”[19]

Biography of Fatima al-Ma’ssooma

Fatima al-Ma’ssooma (s) was born in Thil Qa’da,[20] 173 A.H. She was six years old when her father Imam al-Kadhim (s) was put in prison in 179 A.H.[21]

She had several surnames but she was known as “al-Ma’ssooma”. It not known exactly why she has been surnamed as al-Ma’ssooma but there might be some reasons behind that.

The girl was pure and infallible besides that she was a daughter of the seventh imam of the infallible house of the Prophet (s), a sister of an infallible imam (Imam ar-Redha[22] (s)) and an aunt of an infallible imam (Imam al-Jawad[23] (s)).

We could add another reason that she had died oppressedly far from her nation while she was still a famous than her name.

In 201 A.H. Fatima al-Ma’ssooma[24] (s) decided, with some of her brothers, to travel to Marw,[25] which was then the capital of the Islamic state after the end of the war between the two Abbasid brothers, al-Ameen and al-Ma’moon, who won the war and killed his brother.

Al-Ma’moon, after becoming the caliph, took a decision, whose motives have been still disputable until now, to make, apparently, reconciliation between the Alawite[26] house and the Abbasid house and to put an end to the distresses of Ahlul Bayt (s). Many people doubted the intents of al-Ma’moon when he appointed Imam ar-Redha (s) as his crown prince. They had convincing justifications about doubting the real intents and aims of al-Ma’moon towards the progeny of Ali (s).

It was very probable that the travel of Fatima al-Ma'ssooma (s) with her brothers, which was in tow separate caravans; one followed the way of Basra to Shiraz and then to Marw and the other followed the way of Hamadan-Sawa[27] and then to Marw, was to confirm the situation of Imam ar-Redha (s), whom al-Ma’moon had begun to confine. What confirmed these doubts that the two caravans did not reached Marw. The first one stopped at Shiraz and its people separated here and there after a clash with government forces and the other stopped at Sawa. Some historical sources mentioned that the second caravan had been attacked too and that Fatima al-Ma'ssooma (s) felt that she was about to die after she had felt too weak and this made her ask about the city of Qom. It was said to her that Qom was about eighty kilometers and so she asked to be taken there.

Whether her sickness was because of poison, which had been inserted into her food, or because of the great tiredness and sufferings that she had faced, she died after seventeen days only after arriving at Qom. She was as a guest of Musa bin[28] Khazraj until she died after some days to be buried in a land called Babulan belonging to this man.

After a period of time, this land became a great graveyard containing bodies of thousands of narrators, speechers, leaders and rulers. This peace of land became the central part of the city, which began to grow rapidly.

The Holy Shrine

The shrine (of Fatima al-Ma'ssooma) was at first as a shed of straw mat erected according to the order of Musa bin Khazraj al-Ash’ari to be now as a high gold dome, around which high minarets rising towards the Heaven.

Through twelve centuries the shrine has been rebuilt many times.

The first dome, after that straw mat shed, has been built after half a century by the order of Zaynab, the daughter of Imam al-Jawad (s) in the middle of the third century of hijra. It has been built with adobe, stone and plaster.

Then two other domes have been built after some Alawite ladies have been buried (in the same shrine). The three domes remained until the middle of the fifth century of hijra when the first high dome has been built to replace those three domes. It has been built by the vizier of Tugril the Great[29] after encouragement by Sheikh at-Toossi. This dome has been decorated with colored figures, bricks and tiles (kashi).

In 925 A.H. the roof of the dome has been decorated with mosaic according to the order of Lady Beigam, the daughter of Shah Issma’eel as-Safawi (the Safavid). Also a hall and two minarets have been built in the old yard.

Finally, Fathali (Fat~h Ali) Shah al-Qajari[30] has ordered to decorate the roof of the dome with gold plates to remain shining for two centuries.

After some damage had happen to some of the gold plates, the office of the custodian of the shrine decided to rebuild the dome. The old gold plates have been collected to be replaced with others in a great project,

whose cost might be twenty-five milliard Iranian rials (one dollar equals eight thousand rials).

In general the shrine is a structure with wonderful signs of Islamic architecture. It has been adorned with marvelous figures.

The total area of the shrine is about fourteen thousand square meters including the haram, the porches, the halls, the three yards,[31] the tombs of the kings and the two mosques; at-Tabataba’iy and Balasar (over the head). Lately the Great Mosque has been added to the shrine. The area of the Great Mosque alone is about twenty-five thousand square meters.

When a visitor arrives at the outskirts of the city, he will see two minarets shining distantly.

The dome leans over a silver tomb crowned with gold. The tomb is four meters high, five meters and twenty-five centimeters long and four meters and seventy-three centimeters wide.

The northern hall is fourteen meters and eighty centimeters high, eight meters and seventy centimeters wide and nine meters long. It is adorned with gold from inside and its figures are demarcated with gold too. Upon this hall the two minarets go high in the space until thirty-two meters and twenty centimeters from the ground. The diameter of each minaret is one hundred and fifty centimeters. This hall is called “the hall of gold” and its gate is called “the gate of gold”.

In the eastern side there is a hall decorated with hundreds of mirrors where lights reflect to make it more beautiful and wonderful. This hall adjoins with the haram by a porch, which is seven meters and eighty centimeters high, seven meters and eighty-seven centimeters wide and nine meters long. The porch stands on four stone pillars. Each of them is eleven meters high.

There are two minarets on this hall. Each of them is twenty-eight meters high from the roof of the hall. It is written on the top of them in one meter width “la hawla wela quwatta illa billah: there is no power save in Allah” and on the other one “subhanallah, wel hamdu lillah, wela ilaha illallah, wellahu akbar: glory be to Allah, praise be to Allah, there is no god but Allah and Allah is Great”.

The visitors feel a state of spirituality and happiness under the shadows of the shrine and in the new yard where several minarets extend high towards the Heaven and lights reflect in the hall, which is decorated with hundreds of mirrors besides the flying flocks of doves, which have taken this holy shrine as warm nests while the fountains dance in a glittering pool.

In the past the visitors and tourists could come into a museum from the yard of the shrine directly but now this way is closed and the museum has a gate outside the shrine in the Moozeh (museum) street.

The museum, which consists of two floors, contains a good group of gifts and valuable things that have been gifted to the holy shrine throughout its long history.

Surely whoever visits the museum feels eager to see al-Faydiyya school beside it, which is one of the most famous religious schools and hawzas.[32] This school, according to certified facts, has replaced al-Aastana school. It is connected with the haram by a hall in the old yard.

A tourist’s attention may be drawn by the masses of the passer-bys between the small park adjacent to the street and between the school, the museum and the markets. He may think to take his way to the bazaar!

A tourist will feel that he enters a museum showing him different kinds of arts of architecture and different handworked goods in this ancient bazaar.

A tourist may ask, in the other side of the bazaar, about “Baytun noor: the house of light”, which is one of the important marks in the city that has become a school called as-Satiyya, where Fatima al-Ma'ssooma (s) had lived as a guest for seventeen days before she left to the better world.

Qom; Country and People

Qom is the smallest governorate in Iran. Previously it was as a district belonging to the governorate of Arak and then it was attached to Tehran until it was certificated to be as independent governorate.

Its population was not more than one hundred and fifty thousand in 1957 A.D. In 1979, when the Islamic revolution triumphed, the population of the city was about three hundred thousand.

The city has progressed so much and has gotten much attention from the government after the years of deliberate neglect during the reign of Shah. After the triumph of the Islamic revolution, the city began to grow rapidly until its population became more than one million besides the many foreign students coming from the different continents of the world. They have come to study in Qom and then they got married and make families or they have brought their families with them. There are also many Afghan emigrants, who are more than half a million besides some thousands of Iraqi emigrants.

The city has flourished and prospered in every side especially that there is cheap employment because of the great numbers of the emigrant Afghans.

The cultural life has become too prosperous because of the availability of learned Arabs, among whom the Iraqis form a great proportion.

As for the texture of the local population of the governorate, we can say that only nine percent live in the countryside whereas ninety percent live in the city.

Nearly half a century ago the farms and gardens covered most parts of Qom and then they began to abate little by little before the expansion of building.

Some people, who have lived in the city about fifty years ago or those who have been born in the city, refer to some main streets of the city and say that they were as gardens full of pomegranate and fig trees.

Some famous quarters in the city are still having names that refer to their rural origins.[33]

Nevertheless Qom was and is still as a district having a desert and semi-desert climate.

There are some certain areas having cold mountainous climate and others having moderate climate but the general climate of this governorate is the semi-desert climate.

At the shores of the “Lake of Salt” there is a long line of desert having many dunes. After that and towards the north and the west-north there are wide wild lands, in the western side of which Qom is. As for the moderate areas, they form the western line and have an area four times more than the area of the desert line. There is a small area having a cold mountainous climate around Mountain Ghaleek, which is 3171 meters high.

The western line has an important role in the life of the governorate because it has fertile agricultural lands and many water sources.

From among fourteen rivers flowing in the land of the governorate there are only two permanent rivers; one is “Qara Chai”, which flows from the mountains of “Shazand” in Arak to the west of Qom and the other is “Qamrood”, which flows from the mountains of “Khawansar” in the south.

The rate of raining in the governorate is about 138 millimeter. It is very little rate in comparison with the general rate of rain in Iran, which is about 255 millimeter.

Once Sayyid Muhsin al-Ameen al-Aamily has passed by this city and written down his notes about it in his Iraqi-Iranian travel in 1353 A. H., 1933 A/D.

Here are some lines of his notes:

“A flood has come and covered all the streets (of Qom) so we were obliged to walk away from the places being covered by the flood. We couldn’t reach Qom at that day. We spent the night some kilometers before Qom in a café near a village there. In the café there was an official having a high position in the army. He began to smoke opium with the keepers of the café. In the morning we set out towards Qom. We found that the flood had covered the way. We could not pass the bridge near Qom by the car so we passed it on foot.”

The Village of Qom

Qom is a flourishing village with an ancient history. Particular histories have been written about it. Most of its people are poor. They are famous of their Shiism since the ages of the infallible imams (s) like the people of Kufa.[34]

Most narrators (of traditions) of the Shia were from these two cities (Qom and Kufa). The Arab Ash’arites had come to live in Qom after the advent of Islam. They were followers of Ahlul Bayt (s) and from among the narrators of their (Ahlul Bayt’s) traditions. The people of Qom nowadays are well-known for their piety.

In Qom there was a big river, on which there was an arch, flowing from the west to the east in the north part of the city.

Most buildings of the city were made of adobe and some were made of brick.

The water of the city was and is somehow salty but it is said that it is useful. There are many old wells, to which it is come down by ladders. They are too deep. They were the source of drinking water.

Mosquitoes spread in the city in big numbers. The prices were satisfactory. Eggplants were sold singly. One hundred eggplants equaled one kiran (five Syrian piasters) in comparison with the Ottoman lira, which equals five hundred and fifty Syrian liras. Pistachio is much cultivated in the governorate.

One of the wonders of this governorate is that there is a sandy land near it, which no one can walk in. Whoever enters this land will sink as if he sinks in water and mud and he cannot save himself from that.

The river of the city flows until it reaches this sandy land to sink in it.

In Qom there is a high minaret. It is said that it has been erected during the reign of Umar bin Abdul Aziz, the Umayyad caliph.

Sheikh Abdul Kareem al-Yazdi

He was the jurisprudent and teacher of Qom. He taught Sayyid Muhammad al-Isfahani. He was so prudent and strong-minded with great knowledge, high morals and deep thinking. We could not say that his knowledge was more than his mind or his mind was more than his knowledge because he was so skilled in both.

He lived in Sultanabad and then he moved to live in Qom, in which he established a religious school, until he died.

Everyday the postman came to the sheikh with a parcel of books and letters. The sheikh had a clerk, who used to receive the parcel. If there was something not so important, the clerk himself would answer it and bring it to the sheikh in order to sign it but if there was something important, the sheikh himself would reply to it.

In his meeting many scientific deliberations were held. I often attended them. They all were in Persian.

He had a disease in his stomach so he was confined to certain kinds of food and in certain times according to the doctors’ recommendations.

Because he was so prudent, he used not to take the monies that came to him (as religious rights) but he let them with a merchant and asked him to spend them in paying the students’ salaries and he himself took a salary from the merchant. By such he lived in ease and let none criticize him. The poor are always at his door. He either gave them from his own money or asked his companions to give them what they needed.

Al-Mutawally Bashi

From among the notables of Qom was al-Mutawally Bashi (the responsible) of the holy shrine of Fatima al-Ma'ssooma (s), whose name was Sayyid Muhammad Baqir bin Sayyid Hasan al-Husayni al-Aamily al-

Qommi. He was a lofty Hashemite man from Mountain Aamil in Lebanon. Once he went to perform hajj and we met him in Damascus.

When we came to Qom, we were told that he had been cripple. We visited him in his house. One day his son Sayyid Misbah visited us in our house. Now he undertakes the affairs of the shrine instead of his father.

The School of Qom

Sheikh Abdul Kareem (mentioned above) had established the (religious) school of Qom. It was said to us that the school had about nine hundred students. Sheikh Abdul Kareem paid the most of the students’ expenses. He had appointed to them a special doctor. Every six months and at the end of every year, Sheikh Abdul Kareem made a test for his students.

A delegate from the government attended this test to exempt the students from joining the military service. Sheikh Abdul Kareem often complained and said:

“We educate a student until he ripens and then he puts off the turban and the dress of the ulama to put on the dress of the people of rule to work in of the offices.”

Mirza Abdullah at-Tehrani

In Qom there was a man from Tehran called Mirza Abdullah at-Tehrani. He was one of the best students in the school of Sheikh Abdul Kareem. He was virtuous, prudent, with high morals, altruistic, sincere and kind. He often visited us, stayed with us and achieved our needs and affairs.

The flood in Qom

The flood-as we mentioned before-had occurred in Qom three days before we arrived. It had destroyed about three hundred houses in the new quarter because all the houses were built of adobe but no one was killed and no wealth was lost because usually the flood came to the city from a distant place and so the people had enough time to prepare their affairs.

A telegram had reached warning them of the flood. They got their furniture and animals out of the houses and they also got out of the houses, which were liable to fall down. When the flood came, the houses were empty; therefore no loss was among people, their cattle and furniture.

The Safavids had built a dam some distance away to prevent floods but it had been destroyed by time.

At the same time the news came saying that a flood had occurred in Tabriz and destroyed many houses there.

Ma’ssooma Qom

In Qom there is the holy shrine of Fatima, the sister of Imam ar-Redha (s). The Iranians call her Ma’ssooma (of) Qom. The shrine is so great and is visited by people from everywhere in the world. The shrine has its own officials and caretakers.

Inside the shrine, Mirza Ali Asghar Khan has been buried. He has been killed by the people of the (mashroota: constitutional movement). He was the vizier of Nasiruddeen Shah and the vizier of his son after him.

Tombs of the Ulama and Narrators in Qom

In Qom there is a graveyard called the graveyard of “Sheikhoon”, which means the sheikhs. Sheikhoon is the plural form of Sheikh in Persian. In fact it is sheikhan because the mark of plurality in Persian is by adding “AN” at the end of a word but when speaking the Iranians often change the “AN” into “O(O)N”.

In this graveyard there are many tombs of great narrators (of traditions) like Zakariyya bin Adam and some of bani[35] Babwayh and tombs of famous ulama like al-Mirza al-Qommi. These tombs are about to be obliterated because the government[36] has made streets in the graveyard without paying any attention to the tombs. In fact the government has intended to remove the graveyard totally.

Our Relatives in Qom

Sayyid Hasan bin Sayyid Muhammad al-Ameen, who was the brother of our grandfather Sayyid Ali bin Sayyid Muhammad al-Ameen, has traveled to Iraq to study (religious knowledges) with his brother Sayyid Husayn. His brother has stayed in Najaf and got a high position in knowledge but he himself has traveled to Qom and stayed there.

He had a progeny in Qom but they became extinct. One of his daughters had got married to a sayyid[37] from the sayyids of Qom and had offspring from him. Two virtuous sayyids, who are two brothers, of her progeny have still been living in Qom till now. Each of them is an imam of a mosque.

One of them has told us about the coming of our grandfather’s brother to Iran and his living in Qom in a wonderful story.

Our Works in Qom

We found in Qom “Thayl as-Sulafa”, from which we quoted necessary things in our book “A’yan ash-Shia”.

We kept on looking in the libraries for the books that we might make use of in writing our book mentioned above. We found a volume of “al-Majmoo’ ar-Ra’iq” and quoted some things from it. Also we found some other books that we do not remember their titles now.

We were told that in Isfahan there was a copy of “Riyadhul Ulama’” for sale. We asked Mirza Abdullah at-Tehrani about this and he confirmed the news and said:

“The keepers of the book want sixty tomans but we can buy it with less than this price.”

Sixty tomans equaled thirty Syrian liras or nearly five and a half Ottoman gold liras at that time.

We asked him to send a telegram to the keepers of the book. He said:

“The telegram will make them insist on the price. We send them a letter.”

Then he was told that the book had been bought by Hajji Agha Husayn at-Tehrani, the king of the merchants, with one hundred and twenty tomans, which was as twice as the previous price they wanted for the book.

We kept on looking for another copy. We found two volumes; the second and the third. We bought them with expensive price. The first and the fourth volumes of the book were lost. We could not find the fifth volume but we found a copy of it with somebody. We hired someone to copy it by hand and we gave him his wage. He said that it would be completed after our return from Khurasan. He corrected it and sent it to us in Tehran.

After buying the second and the third volumes and hiring somebody to copy the fourth volume, another volume, which was a manuscript written by the author himself, was offered to us. The keeper of this volume was a woman. She wanted thirty Ottoman liras for it. We would have bought it if she had deducted the price a little but she hadn’t. We could not buy it with this expensive price.

We stayed at Qom for about fifteen days and in the last of Safar,[38] 1353 A.H. we set out towards Tehran.

The Salty Lake

On the right side of the way between Qom and Tehran there was a salty lake, which was called in Iran as “Daryatcha Namak”.

It would be useful to mention here what the Egyptian writer and journalist Professor Fahmi Huwaydi had written about Qom through his visit to the city in 1983 A/D. nearly half a century after the visit of Sayyid Muhsin al-Ameen al-Aamily.

Professor Fahmi Huwaydi says:

“Qom remains as the key and the lock in Iran after the Islamic revolution.”

We often read longingly the reportages written by Professor Fahmi Huwaydi, which took the Arab readers to far horizons, especially when they (the reportages) were accompanied with the camera of the photographer Oscar Mitry. His writings had a great historical and scientific value.

Let us read what the professor and journalist has said about Qom:

Shahr-e-Muqaddas: The Other Face

[39]

With the sunshine of the next day we were at the gates of Qom. We moved on the wide and well-paved way, whose building started at the reign of the Shah to be completed at the age of the Revolution as the fate willed! We passed by wide wild land. We passed by the Lake of Salt, in which the men of SAVAK[40] used to throw whomever they wanted to get rid of to be swallowed by the lake and then to be dissolved by the salty water. We stopped at one of twelve checkpoints established recently to control coming and going. A bearded young man from the guards of the revolution with a machine gun on his shoulder gazed at us. His eyes stopped at me. The driver said to him: “He is a foreign Muslim”. He smiled and murmured: “Ya Allah!” he turned to check the bag of the car to be sure that there was no weapon or any kind of bombs or any forbidden thing else. Then he permitted us to move.

After two hundred meters we stopped at another checkpoint. The same procedures were done and then we entered Qom. The first thing we faced was a big signboard, on which it was written:

“Until the appearance of al-Mahdi our revolution will still be continuous.”

After some minutes, my host, whom I met for the first time, was leading me welcomingly to a rectangular hall, whose walls were hidden behind the shelves of the books and whose floor was covered with a modest rag whereas cushions and pads were here and there. No seat there was in the hall. We sat squatting on the ground and we were acquainted with each other so quickly. He said to me in good Arabic:

“Take your ease as if you are at your home or try here the life of the weak.”

Then he recommended his younger brother, who was one of the intelligent young students of the hawza, to take care of me and then he left to do his affairs. I did not see him during that week that I spent in his house-residing in that room-except two times only.

This was not my first visit to Qom although it was my first residence in it. I had come to Qom for the first time with Professor Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, the famous writer and journalist, who had visited Iran in 1980 when he was trying to write his book about the Islamic revolution in Iran, which was published later on under the title of “The guns of Aayatullah”. At that time Imam Khomeini was still in Qom. Professor Haykal went to meet Imam Khomeini in Qom where I accompanied him and then we went back to Tehran in the evening of the same day.

We saw the Leader of the Revolution where his house was surrounded by a sea of people, who had come from every spot in Iran to announce their allegiance to him. We did not see anything in Qom save the shrine of al-Ma’ssooma with its gold dome shining in the sky of the city and with its wonderful building, which seized the sights of the visitors and which no eye would miss even if the visitor was-like us-just a passerby in his car towards the abode of the Imam.

At first sight, Qom takes you some centuries backward in the past when the Islamic world was full of centers of knowledge and science from Bukhara and Samarqand in central Asia to al-Qayrawan in the north of Africa and to Timbuktu in the west of the continent. Your eye is caught by the great numbers of libraries, jurisprudents, who walk in the streets with their distinguished turbans and wide cloths, the minarets and domes, the activity of trade in the roofed markets with the narrow streets and the sellers of rosaries, perfumes and charms. The new thing may be the voices of the reciters and mourners, which follow you wherever you go and the loudspeakers impose them on your hearing. Then you see the ads of the only cinema “al-Fajr”, which has been established after the Revolution. The film, which was on at that time and whose title was “sincere repentance”, conformed to the general condition of people in the city.

But this scene changes little by little whenever you approach to the other parts of the city and knock at its many gates. After the first round in Qom, you will discover that it is not just a “Shahr Muqaddas” holy city but it is a big centre followed by many quarters and districts. Among these quarters there is one called “Neauphle-le-château”. It is the name of the place in which Imam Khomeini has resided when he resorted to France after he has been exiled from Iraq in 1978.

You will discover too that it is not the city of the hawza only because the old of the hawza is just a little more than half a century, since it has been established by Sheikh Abdul Kareem al-Ha’iry after his departure from his birthplace Arak. Sheikh Abdul Kareem died in 1355 A.H. whereas the old of the city (Qom) is more than thirteen centuries.

As knowledge is what the city has become known of but it is just one face among its other faces, which have been prevailed by the hawza, whose fame has spread throughout the world during the last quarter of the century.

Just a few people know that Qom is an agricultural city having a good production of wheat, cotton, pomegranate, melon, fig and pistachio. Also a few people know that Qom is an industrial city. The merchants of carpets are more aware of Qom’s expensive silk carpets, which is enough to refer to and to say that they are made in Qom. As for its production of pottery, plastic products and materials of building no one outside Iran may have known about it.

At the same time the commercial Qom is unknown too. The city has gained its commercial value because it is a market that millions of peoples come to from everywhere to visit the shrine of al-Ma’ssooma (s) and to be blessed by visiting the tombs of the progeny of the infallible imams and the other saints. The excellent location of Qom, which is at the crossroads that connect the north of Iran with the south, has contributed to gain this value. Besides these excellences that have been realized by the good location of the city, its people have tolerated unwillingly its only disadvantage. It is the one that the river coming from the mountains of Bakhtiyariyya in the middle of Iran has brought to them. The river is called “Roodkhana-e-shoor” which means the salty river. The fate has decided that the people of Qom have to coexist with this river and to swallow its salt willingly and submissively since the existence of the two; Qom and the river. This river is the main source of the city’s drinking and irrigating water because the rain water in general is little and have no value in this concern besides that the winter is not long here anyhow.

If these faces have been unknown to those, who have known Qom through the books and the media, the visitors of the city will meet them all when their feet lead them to the main streets like “Imam Khomeini Street”, “Musa al-Sadr Street” and “Talaqani Street” besides the bazaar. In fact these streets show you more and more about the city and give you an impression that the city lives in its golden age since the Revolution has broken out and that the age of the ulama has circulated to everything in Qom from the hawza until the bazaar.

This is the functional Qom. But as for Qom the city, since it has become as a center of attracting people after the Revolution its population has been tripled to be more than one million.

A visitor can easily distinguish between three faces of the city; the old Qom surrounding the shrine of al-Ma'ssooma (s) with its narrow, circuitous, roofed and earthy streets and with its houses decorated from inside with beautiful architectural figures that distinguish the city from among the other cities, the modern Qom with its wide paved streets, high buildings, restaurants and hotels, which swim in seas of fluorescent lights and the most modern Qom, which has appeared after the Revolution and the beginning of the age of prosperity and flourishing, which has brought with it the agencies of the most modern Mercedes cars and the big supermarkets. Salarya quarter (the quarter of the notables) is a part of the most modern Qom although it is in the southern part of the city on the contrary to Tehran, whose quarter of the notables is in the north.

What I wanted to concentrate on through showing all these faces of the city was the hawza, which would have not existed unless the shrine of al-Ma’ssooma (s) had been there. The holy shrine of al-Ma’ssooma (s) was the cornerstone of the city and by which the birth certificate of the holy city had been written and then to have had a passport to enter into history.

Al-Ma’ssooma and the Hawza

Before I knocked at the doors, I had been busy with the meanings of the words that had succeeded in the record of time as the following: Qom, al-Ma'ssooma and the hawza and I found what I have looked for in the bookcase, which was above my head and against which I opened my eyes every morning along my residence in Qom.

The sayings were different about the name of the city although the likeliest of them was the story saying that there was a small village in the same location of the city called “Kam”, which means “small” or “little” in Persian, and when the Arabs conquered it in 23 A.H. and came to live in it, they changed its name from Kam into Qom. Some Arabs of the tribe of al-Asha’ira had come to live in the city and then some families of the Hashemites and the Alawites resorted to it in the first centuries of hijra when they had fled from the pursuits of the Umayyads and the Abbasids.

The Islamic encyclopedia of the Shia mentions that building has begun in Qom at the end of the first century of hijra whereas it does not refer to any history about the city before Fatima al-Ma'ssooma (s), the daughter of Imam Musa al-Kadhim (s), has been buried in it in 201 A.H. It is said that she has come from Medina to Marw in order to see her brother Imam Ali bin Musa ar-Redha (s) but she has fallen ill and asked to be carried to Qom, where she has died some days later. Since then she has been called as Ma’ssooma Qom. Since she was from the progeny of Ahlul Bayt (s) her tomb has become a holy shrine and then it has been referred to as “the haram”.

The notables, the emirs and the kings have competed to spend on the shrine and to enrich it costly; therefore it has become as a splendid architectural masterpiece surrounded by gates and windows made of gold and silver. It has always been expanded and developed until it has become as big as 13500 square meters in area.

Another kind of competition has occurred in burying the notables, the emirs and the kings near the tomb of Fatima al-Ma'ssooma (s). Her shrine has been still as a center of attraction to the masses of the Shia everywhere. They come to be blessed by visiting the holy shrine and to attend the different religious occasions. This has given the city of Qom a high and distinguished position.[41]

As for “al-hawza al-ilmiyya” it is an accurate Arabic name. Hawza in Arabic means a place or an area, which if is assigned for studying and learning can be called as hawza ilmiyya.[42] According to the linguistic origin, a hawza can be assigned for any human activity. But this word, according to the Shia intellect, has been correlated with “learning” until it has been understood spontaneously that a hawza must be a center of knowledge. In fact the word “hawza” itself has been dealt with as having this meaning and nothing else until it has been used alone without assigning to give the meaning of the two; “hawza” and “ilmiyya” at the same time.

Al-hawza al-ilmiyya is not one scientific institute as many people think, but it refers to the whole city of Qom as a place of learning through many religious schools with different ranks. The government has nothing to do with spending on al-hawza al-ilmiyya, which is run by the heads of the sect (the Shia), who are called “maraji’ at-taqleed[43] ”.[44]

QOM IN PHOTOS

A spatial photo from about 705 kilometers high

Ansariyan Publications

In 1975 A/D a candle was lit. It began to shine and its light spread little by little.

Yes! Such was the beginning; mercy of Allah and interests undertaken by believers who have believed in Islam as a religion and as a mission.

Such was the beginning; the letters of the Iranians, who have roved throughout the world for studying and trading.

Faithful youths and “men who are true to the covenant which they made with Allah” have seen the world, which has drowned in confusion, stray and suspicion…they inquired: Where is the preaching of Islam? Where is its humane mission?

They lived there and saw closely the confusion of the human beings; Muslims and non-Muslims. Everyone was looking for the right path.

Moreover, the fruitful meetings with Allama (jurisprudent) Tabataba’iy, with Professor Mahmood ash-Shahabi after his return from a travel then, and with others of ulama and learned people of the world of Shiism of Ahlul Bayt (s); all that has led to the establishment of Ansariyan Publications in the holy city of Qom. Ansariyan Publications has been granted with blessings of Allah, His messenger and Ahlul Bayt (s). The beginning was as any beginning. It opened its way slowly and step by step and when the Islamic Revolution triumphed the establishment of Ansariyan flourished to grow up, be firm and fruitful.

Worth mentioning that Ansariyan Publications is proud, in spite of all problems and defects, of suffering what it has suffered while opening its way to stand up nowadays with honor of what it has achieved and what it has presented to the Arabic, Islamic and international libraries, of witnessed services in this concern in spite that it has not got any official or personal subsidy.

And this book before you is one of the fruits of its efforts, which have continued for thirty years of perseverance. Nevertheless, it considers itself as in the beginning of the way beseeching Allah for help and invoking our master and imam al-Mahdi, the authority of Allah on His earth, to keep on this blessed work determinedly and sincerely.

Respectable visitor:

O you, whose heart burns for pure Islam!

O you, whose heart flourishes with loving the Prophet and his progeny!

O you, whose soul has absorbed allegiance to Ameerul Mo’mineen Ali (s)!

You undertake, today, a serious responsibility before Allah, the Almighty, with your tongue, pen, social position and moral and material capabilities and know well that Allah will ask us all about our deeds!

O our brothers in belief and humanity, come on to work and to cooperate and to invoke Allah to grant success to our Islamic Umma.

In Tehran International Book Fair

The meeting of the head of the establishment Professor Muhammad Taqi Ansariyan with the president of the Islamic Republic

God: From Seeking God to Faith in God

The History of Belief in God

The history of theism is probably equal to the history of mankind itself. Since man's mental structure, capabilities and forces have not undergone dramatic change throughout at least the last 40000 years, we must say that belief in God has at all times existed. The supernatural tendencies and prayers that have accompanied man's life ever since he came into being, prove that man has never been without believing in God.

Of course, man has at times erred in his supernatural tendencies and worshiped other beings rather than God. Some sociologists studying religions have attempted to prove that in order to evolve from ignorance to knowledge, man had to begin with idolatry, and subsequently turn to monotheism. They present these two reasons in defying the history of monotheism:

1- Man's worshipping idols and statues instead of God shows that monotheism has not existed since ancient times. In response, we must say that there are still a great many unsolved things about primitive men - such as the magic some say they did - that cannot be scientifically considered to be true and that man worshiped nothing but those; such findings should not be generalized as being the only things that really were. Even today, there are sacred places around the world in which people, although believing in God, still have deep respect for.

2- Throughout history, man has always been attracted by “gods.” Even after Abraham, “gods” were still very popular and were given specific duties. Some writers seem to have imagined that these gods were really worshiped instead of the one God.

There are several reasons proving that the word god has been used referring to particularly sacred or respected things and people.

a) As Abu -Reihan Biruni quotes from Galen, “Great men who have achieved extreme mastery and skill in industries or medicine deserve to be included among 'gods.' “

b) Abu -Reihan Biruni believes that the fact that the public are more interested in what they can sense rather than the rational is the reason why sculptures have been so popular in nations all over the world.

c) Plato, a monotheist philosopher, believed that human spirits were made by secondary gods. Plato used the term “gods” referring to abstract and adducent objects.

d) Some ignorant Arabs, although believing in God, called God at first and then their idol while performing the Haj pilgrimage.

e) The Holy Qur’an has also pointed out that Arabs thought idols would provide them with intercession with God:

    و يقولون هولاء شفعانا عندالله

“They say´ These are our intercessors with God. “ (10:18)

Void of Reasons for Defying God

None of those who defy God have ever been able to produce any reasons why God does not exist. Atheists and materialists have no reasons that show

there is no origin to the universe; they have merely criticized the reasons theists have for the existence of God. Debating on the reasons why God exists cannot logically prove that God does not exist. If one is to defy the existence of God, independent reasons that God does not exist are required.

Those who defy God mainly refer to the evil and discomfort in the world. If there really is a God, they say, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?

Such criticism will obviously never lead to the defiance of God, for the most we are able to conclude from it is that the order and harmony in the universe is not what we might expect or imagine. In fact, those who refer to evil in the world are concerned with divine justice rather than the actual existence of God itself.

As Voltaire says, those who attempt to defy the existence of God by referring to the evil and suffering in the world are like someone who enters a highly sophisticated mansion full of exquisite architecture, paintings and woodwork. Although the extremely skillful works he sees can only lead to the fact that a master must have built them, he says that since he found drops of blood and broken arms and legs on the stairs or in the hall, such a mansion cannot have a maker! This is clearly a baseless argument, for asking about the maker of a mansion is quite irrelevant to violations in the laws and rules that govern it.

Classifying People based on Their Belief in God

According to their belief in God, humans can be divided into three groups:

1- Believers in God: This group is dominant both qualitatively and quantitatively, for most scientists and great thinkers throughout history have believed in God.

2- The Indifferent: These people do not seem to have any belief in God, nor do they believe in the existence of any absolute being as God, either.

This group includes anyone who has no inclination, tendency or actions based on belief - anyone who doubts the existence of God, those who defy God in imitation of others, and those who may realize deep inside that there must be some kind of extreme origin or force, but fail to associate it with God.

These people have not turned indifferent about God in spite of their research, awareness or knowledge, for if they are provided with suitable instructions and guidance, they abandon their defiance and doubts.

3- Those who have turned against God: Some people lose their belief in God, and claim that they scientifically or philosophically doubt that God exists. Based on why they turn away from God, these people can be categorized as:

a) Personal: These people turn away from God because they fail to achieve the goals or ideals they set for themselves. For example, those who attempt to gain wealth, fame, or power, sulkily abandon their faith when they are unable to get what they aim for; in fact, they suffer from a multi-personality syndrome.

b) Ideological: Some people claim that the reasons theists have for the existence of God are baseless, because we cannot see or feel God or evil and suffering has filled the world.

Despite the philosophical and/or scientific justification these people have for their criticism, an intellectual will never accept them as reasons that can prove that there is no God; even if the theists' reasoning is baseless or the world is full of evil and suffering, it cannot mean God does not exist. How can such people claim that they have studies the universe carefully and found no God? If their criterion is feeling that God exists, why do they not observe their own thoughts, which is the base of all their activities?

Each human being knows that he/she has a “self,” an ego. In spite of this, the human body becomes ill, and suffers a lot at times. Does that mean that man has no ego, no “self,” for if he did, he would never suffer? Although man's ego adjusts his actions and behavior, it also warns him about things that might harm him physically or mentally. The ego's functions are not limited to man's physical, worldly life; yet, it is not comparable to God's role in the universe, for God influences everything about man infinitely, even things far beyond man's control. Thus, even the slightest attention to the human “self” will never lead to defiance of the existence of God.

Factors Inhibiting Obvious Recognition of God

Man can achieve faith and knowledge about the existence of God, for there are a great many logical reasons supporting it. There are, on the other hand, various veils that inhibit it. We can categorize the inhibiting factors as:

1- Those arising from practical deviations, like drowning in sins and lusts, which make man both fail to recognize God and communicate with Him, and darken the most obvious reasons supporting God's existence, changing them into a bunch of meaningless, ineffective words. There are many thinkers and intellectuals who are highly proficient in divine philosophy and have mastered the reasons that clearly prove that God exists, but still do not believe in God. Such people are empty of any supreme human-divine sense of responsibility. Their points of view have been blinded by both scientific factors and practical deviations.

2- Some scientific perceptions about the universe have also hindered true belief in God. As we know, there are many aspects to the universe, and man has made contact with it with specific aims and viewpoints. Sometimes our discoveries make us associate one characteristic of one component of the universe with all its other components. For example, when we observe the dominance of quantity, we may regard it as an absolute fact that dominates all aspects of the universe.

The less man's mental development, the more natural occurrences and appearances penetrate into his mind, which he uses to evaluate all facts about the universe.

The inhibitions caused by incorrect scientific receptions are due to mental and spiritual weaknesses of individuals themselves, for they are incapable of freeing their intelligence of the superficial occurrences and issues of nature. The most significant of “scientific veils” is absolutist perceptions of the law of causality, which the normal mind saturates with

absolute concepts and destroys his sense of absolutism toward discovering the basic principles of the universe. Inaccurate comprehension of the law of causality changes it into a thick barrier.

As we know, there is some definite information at hand on the law of causality. Some of these facts are:

● Every effect has a cause.

● A cause cannot transfer something it does not have to its effect.

● The principle of “same kinds” between the cause and its effect.

The problem with causality in regard to God starts when we extract the causes of things from nature, and suppose there is no room left for God as the creator of the whole world of nature. Thus, we put God aside from nature, considering Him as the cause of all causes among the chain of nature's components. In other words, God is regarded as the creator of the first natural reason, the manager of the whole of nature, and nature is considered to be the one controlling itself directly.

We see in the Holy Qur’an that every event and motion in the universe is directly related to God. All of nature is an act of God:

The big mistake is that we - consciously or unconsciously - derive the main operative cause out of material and superficial causes, concluding their independence of the direct creator, and putting God at the very beginning of the creation chain. Interestingly, we even call God the primary cause - the cause of all causes.

That, indeed, is the real point. We must realize that God, though being the primary reason and the cause of all causes, is in fact the actual creator of the whole universe.”

Jalal-addin Muhammad Molawi (Rumi) says that as long as we human beings are imprisoned in our natural senses and theoretical intelligence, all of our receptions will be confined to natural appearances; only if we can step far beyond these superficial causes may we find God, the direct truth behind all events:

    بی سبب بيند چو ديـده شـد گذار تو که در حبسی، سبب را گوش دار

    با سببــــها از مسبـّـب غافلــی سـوی اين روپوشـها زآن مايلــی

    هين ز سايه شخص را ميکن طلب در مسبــب رو گذر کـن از سبب

(Those who have made great effort in life and succeeded in ignoring the pleasures of natural life, stepping beyond their natural self, achieve the level in which the causes and reasons of the world are revealed to them. Their penetrative eyes can now see the underlying foundation of the universe which is independent upon the cause-and-effect relationships. But you, drowning in your mortal lusts and animal-like desires! You, who have sold the gem called 'your life' for meager selfishness!

Now that you are indeed imprisoned in this ring of senses and superficialities, keep struggling in the fatal whirlpool of causalities, and just go on desperately grabbing for something to cling to. You are so absorbed in causes and effects that you are ignoring the creator of them all; all you see is superficial effects. From these shadows you see (in fact, man's

existence), you can find the shadow-maker; indeed, these apparent causes can lead you to the Master of All Causes.)

Our theoretical intelligence sometimes pays attention only to superficial reasons, failing to penetrate deep into the mysterious ways the universe works.

    اين سبــب را محـرم آمد عقــل ما و آن سبـبها راسـت محـــرم انبيا

    وآن سببــها کانبيـا را رهبــر است آن سببها زين سبـبها برتـر است

(It is indeed the very hidden causes that guide prophets on their mission. By contact with these causes, they can perform miracles in this world. The hidden causes are much greater than their natural counterparts in this world. We can only realize these natural causes, whereas prophets of God can use those supreme causes and reasons.)

Jalal-addin Muhammad Molawi (Rumi)

Essentiality Reasoning

Saint Anslem, the Christian thinker, presented this form of reasoning, and later on philosophers like Descartes continued using it. It is based upon the image man makes of God in his mind. First, man defines God as the greatest being imaginable, and then as the most complete, perfect being imaginable. Anslem believes that if God is not considered as the most perfect, things more perfect than God can exist. If God is not a being, we cannot consider God as the most perfect thing of all, and that is not what we believe. Here, we have proved that the opposite of what we want to prove is wrong; since God cannot be non-existent, He must exist. Thus, the basics of this reasoning are:

1- We imagine God as the greatest or most perfect existence of all.

2- What we imagine must exist, for if it does not, we have not imagined the most perfect being.

3- Thus, God, as the most perfect, complete being, must exist.

The biggest problem with this reasoning is the mixing of the first, natural concept and the secondary, popular one. Anslem has mixed up primary, natural being with consequential creation. God being existent and perfect as the primary nature is fine, but the latter is inaccurate. Merely imagining the most perfect being does not lead to the external occurrence of the most perfect. We can, for instance, consider a partner for the primary nature that must exist - God - as the first, natural idea, but that will not make such a partner for God exist externally, too.

All in all, if a concept is in nature perfect, but when actually existent is not, this does not create a contradiction for us to use this form of reasoning for.

This reasoning is called the essentiality reasoning, also called the perfection reasoning. Here, existence arises from essentiality. This reasoning has roots in Islamic prayers and hadith. As the Sabah prayer by Imam Ali reads:

    يا من دلّ علی ذاته بذاته

“O God, the God Whose nature is itself a reason for the existence of His nature.”

And let us quote from Imam Zain-ul-abedin in the Abu Hamzeh Thumali prayer:

    بک عرفتک و انت دللتنی عليک و لو لا انت ما ادر ما انت

“I discovered You through You Yourself; You reasoned me toward Yourself. If not for You, how could I ever know You?”

Now let us describe this reasoning:

1- All human beings of sound mind and soul pay attention to the concept of God. Even those who defy God must pay attention to the concept of God's existence at first. If one says that God exists, he has undoubtedly understood that God is a concept that can exist. One who says that God doesn't exist also understands that God is a concept that cannot exist. In fact, the concept of God has been distinguished from the imagination of God, because the concept of God can be paid attention to, but it cannot be imagined. We realize that we are enjoying something, but we cannot imagine it.

2- The concept of God in developed minds is, “the most perfect truth, the richest existence and the most powerful,” for even the slightest imperfection would tarnish the concept of being God.

The god some thinkers have cast doubt on has characteristics that are not compatible with the real God, so their doubt is not justifiable. Bertrand Russell, for instance, who is doubtful about God, has failed to understand God correctly; the god Russell has recognized does not exist at all.

Having recognized God as the most complete, perfect being, we must say that God needs no other being - even Himself - and if someone claims that he can understand the highest of beings in a way that it also needs something, he has not recognized the highest of beings at all.

3- God, as the most perfect, complete being, exists. In other words, recognizing God as the greatest, most perfect, is a necessity for His reality, just like confirming the fact that a triangle has three sides when we see it. Merely recognizing God as the highest, most complete being is a sign that God exists, and if one claims that such recognition cannot prove God's existence - as Anslem was criticized - we can consider his claim as due to three factors:

a) The impossibility of God's existence

b) The absence of reasons

c) Inhibiting barriers

Firstly, as we have said before, no reason can defy that God exists. Secondly, this concept needs no reason. Thirdly, even if it had inhibiting barriers, it would not be recognized as the most perfect being at all. In other words, being the absolutely perfect contradicts with having reasons (causes) and also with having barriers inhibiting its existence.

Actually, the difference between these statements and Anslem's reasoning is that Anslem insists on the image of God, whereas we emphasize recognizing and understanding God. In other words, natural recognition is significant here.

In brief, this deduction consists of making man understand his own disposition, rather than having a reality outside the human mind reflected upon it. Man can understand and recognize what he has in himself my means of this deduction.

As we said about Anslem's reasoning, merely imagining something is not a sign that it really exists externally; we can imagine many things without them having any external existence.

Considering normal knowledge, such an objection is correct and logical, but we should not forget the fact that no imagination leads to its subject actually existing in the real world; thus, the existence of a fact always needs a cause. Just imagining does not imply its existence. Concerning our topic, however, our supposition is that our mind has been able to recognize a being that needs no cause.

Of course, the mere imagining of a being that needs no cause does not make us accept its reality, unless we intuitively recognize it; gained imagination is not enough. And intuitive recognition is nothing more than man's God-seeking disposition.

Some may claim that imagining such a being is hallucination. In other words, the human mind can have a wrong image of God, a God that is scared and coward, just like other cases when the human mind can imagine an effect without imagining its cause.

In response, we must say that the issue of God cannot be imagination or hallucination, for if one believes in God, he either knows that his belief is a hallucination or he does not. If he knows that he has imagined something unreal and wrong, why has he made so much effort toward proving it or defying it? If the imagination were in fact unreal, man should never have worshipped God so much throughout history. And if he does not know, there is no argument at all.

When studying this reasoning, we should keep in mind whether deep inside us we can recognize the most complete being or not. This is why merely recognizing the most perfect being brings about belief that He exists, just as simply as one accepts that 2×2=4. There is no need for a medium state here. In other words, the substance for its reasoning is included in itself.

Faith

The best way to define faith is: the confirmation of an active conscience. Some scholars have regarded faith as merely confirmation - so do some hadith - where it means expressing the distinct, understandable base of the public. Thus, we can conclude that the main idea here is the confirmation of an active conscience, for conformation alone cannot make any effect in the mind; there is great difference between confirming something and making effect based upon it Most conscious, aware people admit the necessity of justice for individual and social human life, but few men have actually executed justice. Man will definitely be just if he considers justice as part of his own life.

The Necessity of Faith

It is sometimes asked whether man can live without faith or not. In response, we must first see what life means here. If it means endeavor toward satisfying natural, animal-like desires, faith is not only unnecessary, rather even disturbing. Those who claim that man has no need for faith are in fact referring to animal life.

But if life means paying attention to all human potentials and talents, man cannot definitely do without faith.

If man has faith, all his thoughts and deeds will be in accordance with the law. Such a man will do things out of eagerness and enthusiasm, not reluctance that will later make him feel guilty.

There are three points of misunderstanding about faith nowadays:

1- Evil persons pretending to have faith. Machiavellians have no stronger tool for misleading others than pretending to have faith.

2- Mental errors concerning faith. Some people think that any kind of faith arises out of pure worship. In other words, the believer considers his every action or thought to be based upon worship.

3- Verbal manipulation. Instead of having faith in God and His prophets and considering the ultimate goal of the universe and obeying God's orders, some people confine faith to a series of concepts.

Nowadays, concepts like humanism or advocating science or freedom have become playthings in the hands of the selfish, who have deprived man of a series of realities, because they themselves have no faith in these concepts at all.

We must remember, however, that the three above-mentioned orientations cannot defy the necessity of faith for a human being who tends to live an interpretable life in this world.

The consequences of having faith are:

● Faith makes people be trusted by their fellow beings.

● Faith corrects man's thoughts.

● It makes man interpret and account for his life.

● It makes man morally dependent.

● Faith has man abandon personal desires and turn to serving people socially.

● It provides man with internal, constant liveliness.

● Man finds innate dignity and elegance through faith.

● Faith makes man himself carry the heavy load of his life instead of imposing it upon others.

● With faith, man is freed of mental anxieties and worries.

● Faith helps man accomplish great achievements.

● It makes man feel greatness in the universe, and observe moral principles.

If man's faith in God makes him constantly pay attention to God, he will always admit that God is watching him, and if man accepts God's continual supervision of what he does, the results will be:

1- Man will spend every moment of his life seeing God before him.

2- Man will act upon devotion and commitment, for he has realized without doubt that only God - and nothing else - can deserve to be man's goal in his deeds.

3- Man will make savings for his eternity in this world.

4- Man will avoid forbidden actions - even if they are not sins, like unsuitable actions or deeds based upon imagination or hallucinations.

5- Man will not waste his life.

6- It is only through recognizing God's constant supervision that man can harness his lusts and desires.

7- Such a man will realize that every action of his in this world leads to reactions.

    اين جهان کوه است و فعل ما ندا ســوی ما آيـــد نداها را صــدا

(This world is like a mountain, and our actions are shouts; their reactions come back to us.)

Jalal-addin Muhammad Molawi (Rumi)

8- Man will give up his far-reaching wishes, and will not allow baseless illusions replace facts and realities.

9- God's supervision makes man be patient and tolerant toward events.

10- Man will regard piety as the tool to pass the bridge of death.

11- Man tries to keep moving on the right path amidst all the dangerous cliffs and deviating ways full of thorns during his life.

12- Man considers every moment and aspect of his life as precious and valuable, and will not let apparently-fatalistic events disturb his life.

Such a man will adjust his life in a way that it seems he is on the verge of death:

Man's Mental States during Worship

When worshipping God, man may be in a state of fear or a state of flourish and joy.

Basically, man's mental state depends on his viewpoint of his position in the universe. If he does not see himself as of great meaning in the universe, his mental state will also suffer from meaninglessness; if, however, he interprets his life as related to the origin of the universe and regard his development and progress as due to God's kindness, he will always remember God, and his worship will be in an elevated mental state.

Of course, human beings differ in their degree of development and progress, and those who have achieved high levels of development intuitively see God while worshipping. This is why some perfected human beings weep strangely in their worship. It has been said, for example, that Imam Ali writhed like a snake when he worshipped God in the dark night.

When man pays attention to God's qualities of greatness and beauty, he will be in a state of hope; if man considers qualities of God's power and anger, he will feel fear of God. The reasons for fear of God can be:

1- Fear of the results and consequences of the sins man has committed; sins make the soul deteriorate and become evil, and developed man cannot remain insensitive about that.

2- Fear of the fact that man may not have put the blessings and potentials God has given him to correct use.

3- Fear of the significance and glory of the meaning of the universe and man's existence in it.

4- Fear of God, i.e. realizing God's immense glory and His absolute dominance over the universe; such a realization can fill man with awe and intimidation.

5- Fear of God's great, divine position, which makes man realize how absolutely dependent he is upon God - the originator of the universe - and this makes man terrified of disobeying God.

Since man has extremely numerous and diverse aspects, and God's qualities are also endless, man can thus make contact with a divine quality with each of his mental aspects, and each contact will lead to a different mental phenomenon. For example, if man feels God's absolute dominance as the Creator of the universe, he will realize the glory of God. And since God is constantly dominant over the whole universe, man will always feel that God, the extreme witness and supervisor, watches his every move and behavior.

Such a feeling is itself a special mental phenomenon, and realizing the fact that God is the absolute just and has accurately calculated every single detail about the universe and all of man's deeds and words, man will acquire a feeling of how just and fair God is. Furthermore, when man realizes that God has created man to bestow him with kindness, and is affectionate and merciful toward man, and when man realizes God's brilliant beauty by means of intuition, he will have a feeling of high joy.

Is Religion a Personal Matter?

Some Western thinkers have regarded religion as a persona; spiritual state irrelevant to all elements of life.

We must say that mismanagement on behalf of churches and other places of worship has led to this kind of viewpoint about religion, which should, in fact, provide man with awareness of himself, which leads to awareness about the universe, and eventually development on the path of intelligible life. As Iqbal Lahouri says:

    چيست دين؟ برخاستن از روی خاک تا که آگه گـردد از خود جان پــاک

(What is religion? It is rising from the earth - this world - so that you can be aware of your pure soul.)

If various educational systems used religion to develop the human character, such thoughts would have never arisen.

As we know, man needs to find answers to the six basic questions: Who am I? Where have I come from? Who am I with? Where have I come to? Where do I go from here? Why am I here? It is only religion that can provide him with the answers.

Those thinkers and intellectuals, who separate religion from man's life and try to confine it to something personal, are in fact throwing man into countless aspects of nervous and spiritual retardation; such people would only think about God on Saturdays or Sundays, never taking God into consideration in any other parts of their lives.

The Origins of Defying Divine Commandments

The factors that make man disobey God and defy the worship God has obliged His subjects to carry out are:

1- Ignorance and incapability: Those who suffer from mental handicap do not know that God exists, and have no blame; how, on the other hand, can someone of sound brain and spirit see all the discipline and harmony in the universe and ignore its source?

2- Neglect toward God: Some people ignore the supreme level of divinity, for they are drowned in their lusts and desires.

3- An illusion of independence: Some people do not understand the necessity of having a relationship with God and obeying His orders, so they believe themselves to be independent. This is the most degraded form of conceit and selfishness.

If man is aware that God exists, if man realizes how great and glorious God is, and if man understands that without contact with God he can never reach the supreme aim of life, he will not avoid worshipping God.

Devotion

There are two kinds of devotion:

1- Devotion in a general meaning: Regarding a fact as innately desirable, whether the fact or reality has an aspect of merit or not, like power, wealth, ethnic characteristics, science and freedom. Such a form of devotion is not a value or a merit, and cannot develop the human character.

2- Devotion in a specific meaning: Regarding a fact that if achieved potentials and talents are activated as innately desirable.

Devotion in the first meaning inflates man's natural ego, and throws him into grief. It is meritorious devotion, however, that can bring about man's development and perfection.

The greatest of all meritorious form of devotion that is the base of other valuable kinds of devotion is devotion to God. When man is devoted to God, he is aware of what is proper and appropriate to man, and progresses toward gaining them.

In fact, if something is to be innately desirable to man, it must be a reality that can make all of man's potentials flourish. It should be in accordance with man's sound logic, nature and his psychic observations about God.

Since complete devotion causes the true elixir of man's soul to flourish, there will be irreparable damage if such devotion is given to something other than God.

Devotion to God brings about being devoted to all realities and facts of merit and value. If man acquires a certain kind of knowledge with devotion for God, for instance, the knowledge will be innately desirable. Or, if man acts with justice in all aspects of his life with devotion to God, he will enjoy both the individual and social benefits of justice and its divine aspect, too.

The Characteristics of Valuable Devotion:

1- Value-based devotion is not compatible with selfishness or egotism, for no supreme reality can become innately desirable to man unless the natural self is moderated.

2- Like true love, devotion based on value and merit is the strongest factor of self-possession - a perfectionist human being's greatest ideal of all.

3- Value-based devotion provides man with tranquility. When man's soul is devoted to a supreme reality, he is also guiding himself toward the highest aim of life.

4- Devotion helps man concentrate his mental and psychic forces and guards him against baseless hallucinations and soul-damaging temptations.

5- Being devoted to a supreme reality makes man's attention to it change dramatically. Devotion for something makes all other facts and realities fade away.

6- Devotion has two values - an innate, dispositional value and a value as a means. Its innate, dispositional value involves “the desirability of devotion itself which purifies man's relationship with the desired truth of all contaminating factors and selfishness.”

Its value as a means, on the other hand, consists of the innate desirable that attracts the soul. The most valuable form of devotion is the one that attracts man toward God.

7- When man considers something as desirable, his entire character is attracted to it, and he accounts for and justifies his whole life based on it. Since devotion, as an innately desirable thing, makes man choose his path in life, man must make great effort to choose a reality as his goal that is really worth being devoted to.

8- Devotion is a bipolar mental development - it has innately external and innately internal poles. Its internal pole consists of man's tendency toward a reality that is considered as innately desirable. Its external pole consists of the reality that is innately desirable to man. Such a reality should be able to activate all of man's potentials and aspects.

9- In value-based devotion man deals with everything logically.

One of the most fundamental characteristics of value-based devotion reveals itself when the desired reality shows its true face and attracts the soul; it's not that it cannot hear the disagreeing sounds or cannot see the protestors, or that it does not confront those who conflict with the reality. If it can, it defeats the protestors and destroys those who fight reality and righteousness; if it fails to do so, it continues on its way without the least attention or influence from them.

10- Having devotion in one's thoughts, deeds and speech purifies man's inside. Devotion in thoughts makes realities able to be received by man intuitively, and prevents the facts from being contaminated by hallucinations and illusions. Pure and devoted speech also keeps man away from deceitful words. Devoted deeds are the soul of deeds, and builds up man's existence on the path of intelligible life.

Having God in Mind

Remembering God at all times has various effects and benefits. Let us point out some of them:

1- Faith in God makes one always have God in mind. When one has faith in God, he sees nothing in the whole universe worth remembering and calling but God. When God infiltrates man's heart, there will be no more room for anything else at all.

2- Remembering God creates a special spiritual state in man which safeguards him from falling for worldly and materialistic affairs. This

spiritual state makes man's life become meaningful and logical, his purely natural life will be replaced by intelligible life.

3- Remembering God makes man fresh, and keeps him safe from the sorrow of the disorders that occur in purely natural life. Likewise, it does not allow the relative joys of purely natural life spoil the secret of human character.

4- Remembering God removes all temptations, imaginations and mental illusions, safeguarding the human mind and soul from being baselessly exhausted and used up.

5- Remembering God adjusts man's mental and psychic activities, and his existence will illuminate. The tranquility that remembering God creates in man will balance his entire existence. As Jalal-addin Muhammad Molawi (Rumi) says:

    اين قـــدر گفتيـم، باقی فکر کن فکر گر راکد بود، رو ذکـــر کن

    ذکـــر آرد فکـر را در اهتـــزاز ذکر را خورشيد اين افسرده ساز

(Now go and think about the rest, and if your thoughts lead nowhere, remember God and call out for him, for that will elevate your thoughts. It will be like a sun you’re your thoughts are down and depressed.)

6- Remembering God prevents man's character from being decomposed into the scattered components of this world; instead, by means of realizing the rules governing the universe and gaining complete knowledge of it, man will find a certain tranquility, and feel that he is always close to God.

7- Remembering God makes God's will start to purify and illuminate man internally, and man's positive internal potentials will flourish.

8- Remembering God frees man from all his imagining and hallucinating, and makes him speak of things that he will really act upon. Remembering God leads to living and speaking realistically.

9- Remembering God is a path to reach the truth and benefit from man's internal treasures. Remembering God makes God reveal some realities and secrets to man as a reward for remembering Him.

10- Remembering God leads to the knowledge of God's glorious blessings. Deep thought about God's blessings guides man toward constant remembrance of and calling out for God.

11- Remembering God makes man never weaken in the battle on the boundary of life and death. Those who remember God in a battlefield never forget God's rules and Godly values.

Remembering God is the strongest builder of human nature. Calling God's name is a comprehensive book including all the chapters of mental and spiritual development and training, a divine trainer and teacher that accompanies man day and night.

The Conditions for Calling and Remembering God

Of course, this does not mean merely utterances from the mouth; saying the word without considering what it means is worthless. In other words, attention to the meaning is the essential preliminary. Remembering God in one's heart also needs the attention of the soul.

● Man must remember God when his soul is eager to do so, not when he is forced to externally. And when an action becomes like a habit, it will be something compulsory, with little interference on behalf of man's free will. We must keep in mind that the habit of remembering and calling God should not be in a way that makes it deft man's free will and awareness.

● Man should act and behave in accordance with his remembering God. If someone says “God is great,” he must not drown in selfishness, greed for power or wealth.

● Remembering God must be considered as the factor that activates man's heavenly soul, not a tool for self-conceit. Man should not remember God in order to remove his frustrations over a monotonous life. It should not be the means for performing extraordinary acts either, like what ascetics do.

Divine Justice

The principles that make up our viewpoints on divine justice are:

1- The universe is orderly and harmonious. Otherwise, there would be no laws either, for laws are general theorems that arise out of the harmony and discipline in the world. We cannot understand the role of divine justice in the universe without accepting the existence of order, discipline and harmony.

2- The creatures in the world can be divided into two groups. First, creatures that are alive, and have a “self” (an ego) of their own, and second, creatures that are not alive, and submit to the flow of nature.

3- Order and harmony, where divine justice manifests itself, is different in the two mentioned groups of creatures. Something that applies to a living creature as a law may not be applicable to a non-living one. For instance, reproduction and avoiding unsuitable habitats is a law for living creatures, but for lifeless creatures it can be a violation of law and order.

4- Justice is equal to order and harmony for creatures that have a 'self.' When we come to harmony, law and orderliness for the universe (that has a 'self'), we are in fact speaking of justice.

5- When the human mind sees the universe, it sees the order and harmony it includes, but when it comes to creatures in the world, the concept of order and harmony fades, and concepts like joy and sorrow and justice and atrocity arise. Likewise, when discussing the issue of man and human relationships, we come to concepts such as right and wrong, good and evil, and justice and atrocity become deeper and clearer to us.

The more developed, deeper and more diluted the “self' (the ego) is, the more accurate and profound its imagination of justice and atrocity will be. A well-developed self will expect a higher level of justice from himself and others, and - at the highest level - from God, and if man were to picture justice himself and make it come true, it would be justice at its supreme level.

6- Each human being defines justice based on his/her own knowledge and tendencies. As Tolstoy says, “When a child is stung by a bee, it might think that bees live only to sting people; a beehive keeper, on the other hand, believes that bees live to gather honey, and to a poet, who enjoys watching bees on flowers, will see bees' mission as extracting nectar from flowers, and a botanist will call it fertilizing flowers. This example shows

how diverse viewpoints can be. Man may look upon justice from various points of view, and reach diverse interpretations.

7- Normal people associate justice with natural tendencies, but developed human beings see the root of justice in ideal tendencies. People like Napoleon and Tamberlaine see divine order and justice in there being nothing inhibiting their triumph and victory; however, developed human beings interpret justice not in regard to their own desires; they believe that the universe is based on order and harmony, and does not proceed in accordance with man's wishes. Thus, we must say that the more developed man is, and the deeper and more accurate his observations are, the more his view of justice will shine.

8- If man had abstract perception and had no sense of joy or sorrow, he would never think about justice, for then his mind would be like a mirror, reflecting everything equally; a human being's painful suffering would sound like the exquisitely beautiful bird singing. It is the feeling of pain and joy, the pleasure of joy and inconvenience of pain and sorrow that makes man see true justice in the fact that “everything, throughout all of life, be pleasant and good,” and the utmost pain and atrocity be regarded as suffering from pain at one point of the life of living things.

9- Since joy and pain depends on a variety of changeable factors dominating the world of creatures, man assumes an average level of justice to use as his criterion for assessing justice and interpreting it. Such a viewpoint makes some people consider death - even after a lifetime of 10,000 years - as contradictory to divine justice. They expect all people to be as handsome as Joseph and as fair and just as Imam Ali, and be able to conquer like Napoleon and travel around the globe like Alexander. Such a state of mind shows how intensely playful the human mind is.

10- If man takes a clear look at the universe, he will see the order and harmony in it, but if he attempts to interpret the universe from merely a natural point of view, he will fail to see any divine justice in the universe. Thus, we should be true observers, and eliminate all of our natural tendencies. In other words, we must change our natural tendencies into ideal ones. If that happens, the bitternesses and inconveniences we suffer will not make us protest to divine justice.

This is why the great men of history have tolerated cruelty and torture, and never had the least doubt in God's justice. If Imam Ali had a natural viewpoint as his spiritual guidelines, even a thousandth of the amount of cruelty and torture he bore was enough to make him skeptical about the whole universe and all of mankind, and defy divine justice.

11- Man's big mistake is losing ideal tendency, which makes him fail to fulfill his duty entirely and eventually fall into doubt about divine justice. When man achieves the supreme 'self,' attaining development and perfection, he can find with internal intuition that divine laws call for him to relieve others from pain and suffering. When man is at the level of natural tendencies, however, he does not think of the relief of others; all he thinks about is himself. Thus, being content with what there is, and watching God's geometry - in which human lives play the most important part of its illustration - being deformed is in fact fighting against divine justice.

12- Man's endeavors and actions can be divided into two basic groups:

a) Things man does out of his free will.

b) Non-voluntary actions that occur without the supervision and dominance of the human character. These actions are like the actions and movements seen in animals and other living creatures. All of the voluntary or non-voluntary actions of man and other living creatures affect the universe. In other words, the general destiny or interpretation of the universe is the product of various actions and fixed and changeable affairs.

13- Elaborating on physical and mental inconveniences and defections: we should first discuss two important issues:

a) Imperfect life: The handicaps and disabilities seen in some people and the pain and suffering they undergo is regarded as imperfect life.

b) The flame of life going out: When some living creatures, or even human beings, are destroyed in the fight for survival, it is a sign of the fire of life being put out.

There are several points we must mention concerning the relationship these issues have with divine justice:

a) The source and origin of the universe has no need for favoritism or unfairness. So the inconveniences seen in the creatures in the universe cannot be due to that.

b) It cannot be imagined that God acts cruelly. “Because cruelty happens when the object cruelty is done upon is somehow beyond the ability of the oppressor to conquer; there must be some issue or law absent in the cruel one to make it commit the cruelty. On the other hand, we know that all creatures are absolutely under control and possession of God, with all their laws and affairs.”

c) The base and foundation of life gives the same importance to the minimum level of life as it does to the highest level.

Serious defense of life indicates that the important thing is true life itself, not its time length. The absence of some of the characteristics or means of life does not make it bad. All creatures endeavor to make their life flourish and go on, and prevent any factor that tends to inhibit that. Wishing for death or tending toward suicide does not arise out of the origins of true life; it is despair and social problems that cause them. The flame of life being put out does not conflict with divine justice, for both the cruel and the oppressed ones' free will also has a part.

14- Feelings of evil, imperfection, and disorder in creation is due to man's limited thoughts and viewpoints; when discussing such imperfections we must always keep these three points in mind:

a) There is a difference between the universe and discovering the universe.

b) The order, harmony and discipline that governs the universe has not been established in accordance with man's wishes.

c) God's position is too great for us to be able to know about it completely.

The life-oriented viewpoint means that man's only criterion in determining the rules of the universe is considered his own wishes and desires; however, many of man's wishes and desires can never be fulfilled.

In other words, when studying the imperfections of the universe, we use standards that pertain to our own observations and desires, and practical reasons can never confirm them.

Handicapped or disabled people - though having become disabled or handicapped due to natural reasons and causes - never feel hatred for life, for life is the incredible phenomenon that man will always want to continue, unless a mental or spiritual blow is delivered onto it.

I once visited a nursing home for deaf and mute people in Isfehan, Iran, in order to study their handicaps and disabilities. I arranged with the officials of the nursing home, who were dear friends of mine, that I watch and observe the children and young people there alone for a while, so that I could have a better chance of seeing how their mental and spiritual state was considering the handicap they also had.

The result was quite near to what I had expected - they did not feel any suffering or defection due to their deafness or muteness, and their behavior clearly showed that they were not dissatisfied with their lives. There was no indication of feeling disabled or imperfect in how they played, treated each other or even others. I also studied young people who were paralyzed or crippled. I was amazed to see that they had no sadness or depression when they were alone, or were playing. They looked exactly like other, normal young people. So, it is obvious that life is the astonishing, incredible reality that will go on trying to survive, even if it means mere existence - unless, of course, man's own soul delivers it a crippling blow.

The Rule of Kind Favors

There are several preliminary explanations on the rule of kind favors:

1- Creating man has no benefit for God, and avoids no harm from God, either; God is too great to need anything or anybody to help Him.

2- Humans have been created so that their character can be developed. In other words, God has set a perfect existence for man, and wants man to reach it.

3- Man is not perfect when he is born.

4- Man cannot achieve the desired perfection that is considered as his aim without endeavor.

5- Not all kinds of endeavor can guide man to perfection; the endeavor that is based upon conscience and reason, and is supported by divine sermons given by prophets can do that.

6- The above-mentioned principles can flow through two kinds of affairs:

a) Non-voluntary affairs: Affairs that influence man's fate although he can do nothing to change them, like being born, having certain instincts, having wisdom and conscience, hereditary backgrounds, social and geographical conditions, etc. These non-voluntary affairs are related to God's justice, for if we suppose that the aim of creating man (evolution and improving and developing the human character) is related to these non-voluntary affairs, there is no way except God's justice to adjust them.

b) Voluntary affairs: These affairs also influence man's fate. Non-voluntary affairs are related to God's justice, but these affairs are up to man himself.

7- Now we can present a definition of kindness: Kindness consists of a certain effect of God's justice that motivates man in the boundaries of lack of clarity, and can be voluntary or non-voluntary.

The Consequences of the Rule of Kind Favors

The following four conclusions can be made from the rule of kind favors:

1- All the divine knowledge man can gain comes from the rule of kind favors.

2- According to the rule of kind favors, there is a series of duties and instructions which must be fulfilled if the human character is to develop.

3- The necessity to appoint leaders arises from the rule of kind favors.

4- The acceptance of the overall opinion of jurisprudential scholars, which is one of the sources of jurisprudence, is also based upon the rule of kind favors, for the rule of kindness says God prevents the leaders of a school of thoughts from falling into error - when the scholars confer, there is either disagreement or agreement, and the leader is in one of these two groups.

The Relationship between God and His Creatures

Ever since a long time ago, the relationship between “the existence that has to be” and “the existence that can be” - the creator and the creature - has been subject to debate. Since man gets most of his philosophical and scientific input from nature, he cannot discover exactly the relationship between God and the universe. Most of the material at hand on the subject is also mere personal ideas or literary metaphors that satisfy just a few. As the famous Iranian poet Sheikh Mahmoud Shabestari says,

    عدم آيينه، عالم عکــس و انســان چو چشم عکس در وی شخص پنهان

    تو چشم عکسی و او نـور ديده است به ديده ديده، را ديده که ديـده است؟

    جهان انسان شد و انسـان جهانــی از اين پاکيــزهتر نبــود بيـــــانی

(Absent is the mirror, and the universe is like a reflection. Someone is hidden in him, like the eye of the reflection. You are the eye of the reflection, and He is the light of the eyes; who has ever seen that true light with his/her eyes? Indeed, man becomes the universe, and the universe becomes man can it be worded any better than that.)

The universe being a picture of God in the mirror of oblivion is merely a metaphor, for oblivion is not a thing to be able to reflect the truth. Can infinity ever be reflected within finite components?

The relation we use in order to discover the relationship between God and the universe - the cause-and-effect relation - is not accurate. The law of causality is derived from things in this world, associating things with one another, but God cannot be compared to things found in nature. Normally, causes consist of a subject cause and also a material cause, whereas God, a subject cause, needs no material cause.

Things in this world occupy space and time in regard to one another, but God does not; His position is high above others. Thus, the concepts we conclude from the phenomena and effects in nature cannot be used to interpret God's relationship with the universe.

Man can see the relationship between God and nature by referring to his own self, his own nature, for though the human soul and body interact, they are not at all one of a kind. Likewise, although God created this world, He had no need for materiality. The human soul can invent imaginations that are not comparable with it at all.

The Relationship between God and His Creatures in the Qur’an

The Holy Qur’an mentions different forms of relationships between God and the universe. We can categorize them into ten groups:

1- Surrounding: The Qur’an believes that God surrounds and dominates everything, material or abstract.

    و کان الله بکل شی محيطا

“And God encompasses everything.”(4:126)

God dominates and surrounds everything, both in knowledge and in existence, like the human soul which controls its entire actions.

2- Establishing: The universe has its strength and foundation from God. God has established the universe, like man's existence is founded upon his soul.

    الله لا اله الا هو الحی القيوم

“God, there is no god but He, the Living, the Everlasting.” (2:255)

3- Accompaniment: God is with all creatures. This does not mean physically near; it is a relationship of soul with physique, far beyond time and place.

    و هو معکم اينما کنتم

“He is with you, wherever you are.” (20:111)

4- Creation and Production: Various verses in the Qur’an refer to this form of relation:

    لا اله هو خالق کل شی فاعبدوه

“That then is God your Lord; there is no God but He, the creator of everything. So serve Him.”( 6:102)

5- Absolute Possession: Here, possession does not mean conventional or credit-based ownership; we are referring to true possession. God's possession of creatures refers to the facts that God gave them their existence. It is similar to the relationship between the intellect and its creations.

6- Protection: This is one of the most important issues in theology, for normally people think that God has created everything and then left them on their own, whereas God is always protective of the universe and everything in it.

    ان ربی علی کل شی حفيظ

“Verily, my Creator and Nurturer is the Protector over all things.” (11:57)

“I believe God is the protector and keeper of laws,” Einstein has said.

As we know, laws have no observable reality in the world; there is order and harmony in the external world, and from that laws are abstracted. It is God's will that makes events continue in a fixed, orderly fashion.

7- Creation and Nurture: Over 1000 verses in the Qur’an emphasize this form of relationship.

    و هو رب کل شی

“And He is the Creator-Nurturer of everything.” (6:64)

According to this relationship, the creator - or nurturer - constantly dominates and takes care of its creations.

8- Worship: Everything worships God.

    ان کل من فی السموات و الارض الا اتی الرحمن عبدا

“Nothing is there in the heavens and earth but it comes to the All-merciful as a servant. “ (19:93)

Here, worship means complete submission of all creatures to God's will.

9- Divinity: God is the absolute dominant upon all levels and basics of the universe.

    فسبحان الذی بيده ملکوت کل شی و اليه ترجعون

“So glory be to Him, in whose hand is the dominion of everything, and unto whom you shall be returned.” (36:83)

Here, “malakoot” in this verse refers to the supernatural picture of all things, for the human “ego” has two faces:

a) The observable, created face

b) The supernatural face

This face of the universe describes the relationship between divine absolute ownership and the supernatural face, nullifying the thoughts of some philosophers who believe that God has no control or dominance over the fundamentals of the universe.

10- Light: As the Holy Qur’an says:

    الله نور السموات و الارض

“God is the light of the heavens and the earth.”( 24:35)

This verse explains both the existence of God and God's dominance and control over the whole universe. God exists in the universe, illuminating it without becoming connected or united with it, just like light which penetrates into transparent things without becoming part of them.

God: From Seeking God to Faith in God

The History of Belief in God

The history of theism is probably equal to the history of mankind itself. Since man's mental structure, capabilities and forces have not undergone dramatic change throughout at least the last 40000 years, we must say that belief in God has at all times existed. The supernatural tendencies and prayers that have accompanied man's life ever since he came into being, prove that man has never been without believing in God.

Of course, man has at times erred in his supernatural tendencies and worshiped other beings rather than God. Some sociologists studying religions have attempted to prove that in order to evolve from ignorance to knowledge, man had to begin with idolatry, and subsequently turn to monotheism. They present these two reasons in defying the history of monotheism:

1- Man's worshipping idols and statues instead of God shows that monotheism has not existed since ancient times. In response, we must say that there are still a great many unsolved things about primitive men - such as the magic some say they did - that cannot be scientifically considered to be true and that man worshiped nothing but those; such findings should not be generalized as being the only things that really were. Even today, there are sacred places around the world in which people, although believing in God, still have deep respect for.

2- Throughout history, man has always been attracted by “gods.” Even after Abraham, “gods” were still very popular and were given specific duties. Some writers seem to have imagined that these gods were really worshiped instead of the one God.

There are several reasons proving that the word god has been used referring to particularly sacred or respected things and people.

a) As Abu -Reihan Biruni quotes from Galen, “Great men who have achieved extreme mastery and skill in industries or medicine deserve to be included among 'gods.' “

b) Abu -Reihan Biruni believes that the fact that the public are more interested in what they can sense rather than the rational is the reason why sculptures have been so popular in nations all over the world.

c) Plato, a monotheist philosopher, believed that human spirits were made by secondary gods. Plato used the term “gods” referring to abstract and adducent objects.

d) Some ignorant Arabs, although believing in God, called God at first and then their idol while performing the Haj pilgrimage.

e) The Holy Qur’an has also pointed out that Arabs thought idols would provide them with intercession with God:

    و يقولون هولاء شفعانا عندالله

“They say´ These are our intercessors with God. “ (10:18)

Void of Reasons for Defying God

None of those who defy God have ever been able to produce any reasons why God does not exist. Atheists and materialists have no reasons that show

there is no origin to the universe; they have merely criticized the reasons theists have for the existence of God. Debating on the reasons why God exists cannot logically prove that God does not exist. If one is to defy the existence of God, independent reasons that God does not exist are required.

Those who defy God mainly refer to the evil and discomfort in the world. If there really is a God, they say, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?

Such criticism will obviously never lead to the defiance of God, for the most we are able to conclude from it is that the order and harmony in the universe is not what we might expect or imagine. In fact, those who refer to evil in the world are concerned with divine justice rather than the actual existence of God itself.

As Voltaire says, those who attempt to defy the existence of God by referring to the evil and suffering in the world are like someone who enters a highly sophisticated mansion full of exquisite architecture, paintings and woodwork. Although the extremely skillful works he sees can only lead to the fact that a master must have built them, he says that since he found drops of blood and broken arms and legs on the stairs or in the hall, such a mansion cannot have a maker! This is clearly a baseless argument, for asking about the maker of a mansion is quite irrelevant to violations in the laws and rules that govern it.

Classifying People based on Their Belief in God

According to their belief in God, humans can be divided into three groups:

1- Believers in God: This group is dominant both qualitatively and quantitatively, for most scientists and great thinkers throughout history have believed in God.

2- The Indifferent: These people do not seem to have any belief in God, nor do they believe in the existence of any absolute being as God, either.

This group includes anyone who has no inclination, tendency or actions based on belief - anyone who doubts the existence of God, those who defy God in imitation of others, and those who may realize deep inside that there must be some kind of extreme origin or force, but fail to associate it with God.

These people have not turned indifferent about God in spite of their research, awareness or knowledge, for if they are provided with suitable instructions and guidance, they abandon their defiance and doubts.

3- Those who have turned against God: Some people lose their belief in God, and claim that they scientifically or philosophically doubt that God exists. Based on why they turn away from God, these people can be categorized as:

a) Personal: These people turn away from God because they fail to achieve the goals or ideals they set for themselves. For example, those who attempt to gain wealth, fame, or power, sulkily abandon their faith when they are unable to get what they aim for; in fact, they suffer from a multi-personality syndrome.

b) Ideological: Some people claim that the reasons theists have for the existence of God are baseless, because we cannot see or feel God or evil and suffering has filled the world.

Despite the philosophical and/or scientific justification these people have for their criticism, an intellectual will never accept them as reasons that can prove that there is no God; even if the theists' reasoning is baseless or the world is full of evil and suffering, it cannot mean God does not exist. How can such people claim that they have studies the universe carefully and found no God? If their criterion is feeling that God exists, why do they not observe their own thoughts, which is the base of all their activities?

Each human being knows that he/she has a “self,” an ego. In spite of this, the human body becomes ill, and suffers a lot at times. Does that mean that man has no ego, no “self,” for if he did, he would never suffer? Although man's ego adjusts his actions and behavior, it also warns him about things that might harm him physically or mentally. The ego's functions are not limited to man's physical, worldly life; yet, it is not comparable to God's role in the universe, for God influences everything about man infinitely, even things far beyond man's control. Thus, even the slightest attention to the human “self” will never lead to defiance of the existence of God.

Factors Inhibiting Obvious Recognition of God

Man can achieve faith and knowledge about the existence of God, for there are a great many logical reasons supporting it. There are, on the other hand, various veils that inhibit it. We can categorize the inhibiting factors as:

1- Those arising from practical deviations, like drowning in sins and lusts, which make man both fail to recognize God and communicate with Him, and darken the most obvious reasons supporting God's existence, changing them into a bunch of meaningless, ineffective words. There are many thinkers and intellectuals who are highly proficient in divine philosophy and have mastered the reasons that clearly prove that God exists, but still do not believe in God. Such people are empty of any supreme human-divine sense of responsibility. Their points of view have been blinded by both scientific factors and practical deviations.

2- Some scientific perceptions about the universe have also hindered true belief in God. As we know, there are many aspects to the universe, and man has made contact with it with specific aims and viewpoints. Sometimes our discoveries make us associate one characteristic of one component of the universe with all its other components. For example, when we observe the dominance of quantity, we may regard it as an absolute fact that dominates all aspects of the universe.

The less man's mental development, the more natural occurrences and appearances penetrate into his mind, which he uses to evaluate all facts about the universe.

The inhibitions caused by incorrect scientific receptions are due to mental and spiritual weaknesses of individuals themselves, for they are incapable of freeing their intelligence of the superficial occurrences and issues of nature. The most significant of “scientific veils” is absolutist perceptions of the law of causality, which the normal mind saturates with

absolute concepts and destroys his sense of absolutism toward discovering the basic principles of the universe. Inaccurate comprehension of the law of causality changes it into a thick barrier.

As we know, there is some definite information at hand on the law of causality. Some of these facts are:

● Every effect has a cause.

● A cause cannot transfer something it does not have to its effect.

● The principle of “same kinds” between the cause and its effect.

The problem with causality in regard to God starts when we extract the causes of things from nature, and suppose there is no room left for God as the creator of the whole world of nature. Thus, we put God aside from nature, considering Him as the cause of all causes among the chain of nature's components. In other words, God is regarded as the creator of the first natural reason, the manager of the whole of nature, and nature is considered to be the one controlling itself directly.

We see in the Holy Qur’an that every event and motion in the universe is directly related to God. All of nature is an act of God:

The big mistake is that we - consciously or unconsciously - derive the main operative cause out of material and superficial causes, concluding their independence of the direct creator, and putting God at the very beginning of the creation chain. Interestingly, we even call God the primary cause - the cause of all causes.

That, indeed, is the real point. We must realize that God, though being the primary reason and the cause of all causes, is in fact the actual creator of the whole universe.”

Jalal-addin Muhammad Molawi (Rumi) says that as long as we human beings are imprisoned in our natural senses and theoretical intelligence, all of our receptions will be confined to natural appearances; only if we can step far beyond these superficial causes may we find God, the direct truth behind all events:

    بی سبب بيند چو ديـده شـد گذار تو که در حبسی، سبب را گوش دار

    با سببــــها از مسبـّـب غافلــی سـوی اين روپوشـها زآن مايلــی

    هين ز سايه شخص را ميکن طلب در مسبــب رو گذر کـن از سبب

(Those who have made great effort in life and succeeded in ignoring the pleasures of natural life, stepping beyond their natural self, achieve the level in which the causes and reasons of the world are revealed to them. Their penetrative eyes can now see the underlying foundation of the universe which is independent upon the cause-and-effect relationships. But you, drowning in your mortal lusts and animal-like desires! You, who have sold the gem called 'your life' for meager selfishness!

Now that you are indeed imprisoned in this ring of senses and superficialities, keep struggling in the fatal whirlpool of causalities, and just go on desperately grabbing for something to cling to. You are so absorbed in causes and effects that you are ignoring the creator of them all; all you see is superficial effects. From these shadows you see (in fact, man's

existence), you can find the shadow-maker; indeed, these apparent causes can lead you to the Master of All Causes.)

Our theoretical intelligence sometimes pays attention only to superficial reasons, failing to penetrate deep into the mysterious ways the universe works.

    اين سبــب را محـرم آمد عقــل ما و آن سبـبها راسـت محـــرم انبيا

    وآن سببــها کانبيـا را رهبــر است آن سببها زين سبـبها برتـر است

(It is indeed the very hidden causes that guide prophets on their mission. By contact with these causes, they can perform miracles in this world. The hidden causes are much greater than their natural counterparts in this world. We can only realize these natural causes, whereas prophets of God can use those supreme causes and reasons.)

Jalal-addin Muhammad Molawi (Rumi)

Essentiality Reasoning

Saint Anslem, the Christian thinker, presented this form of reasoning, and later on philosophers like Descartes continued using it. It is based upon the image man makes of God in his mind. First, man defines God as the greatest being imaginable, and then as the most complete, perfect being imaginable. Anslem believes that if God is not considered as the most perfect, things more perfect than God can exist. If God is not a being, we cannot consider God as the most perfect thing of all, and that is not what we believe. Here, we have proved that the opposite of what we want to prove is wrong; since God cannot be non-existent, He must exist. Thus, the basics of this reasoning are:

1- We imagine God as the greatest or most perfect existence of all.

2- What we imagine must exist, for if it does not, we have not imagined the most perfect being.

3- Thus, God, as the most perfect, complete being, must exist.

The biggest problem with this reasoning is the mixing of the first, natural concept and the secondary, popular one. Anslem has mixed up primary, natural being with consequential creation. God being existent and perfect as the primary nature is fine, but the latter is inaccurate. Merely imagining the most perfect being does not lead to the external occurrence of the most perfect. We can, for instance, consider a partner for the primary nature that must exist - God - as the first, natural idea, but that will not make such a partner for God exist externally, too.

All in all, if a concept is in nature perfect, but when actually existent is not, this does not create a contradiction for us to use this form of reasoning for.

This reasoning is called the essentiality reasoning, also called the perfection reasoning. Here, existence arises from essentiality. This reasoning has roots in Islamic prayers and hadith. As the Sabah prayer by Imam Ali reads:

    يا من دلّ علی ذاته بذاته

“O God, the God Whose nature is itself a reason for the existence of His nature.”

And let us quote from Imam Zain-ul-abedin in the Abu Hamzeh Thumali prayer:

    بک عرفتک و انت دللتنی عليک و لو لا انت ما ادر ما انت

“I discovered You through You Yourself; You reasoned me toward Yourself. If not for You, how could I ever know You?”

Now let us describe this reasoning:

1- All human beings of sound mind and soul pay attention to the concept of God. Even those who defy God must pay attention to the concept of God's existence at first. If one says that God exists, he has undoubtedly understood that God is a concept that can exist. One who says that God doesn't exist also understands that God is a concept that cannot exist. In fact, the concept of God has been distinguished from the imagination of God, because the concept of God can be paid attention to, but it cannot be imagined. We realize that we are enjoying something, but we cannot imagine it.

2- The concept of God in developed minds is, “the most perfect truth, the richest existence and the most powerful,” for even the slightest imperfection would tarnish the concept of being God.

The god some thinkers have cast doubt on has characteristics that are not compatible with the real God, so their doubt is not justifiable. Bertrand Russell, for instance, who is doubtful about God, has failed to understand God correctly; the god Russell has recognized does not exist at all.

Having recognized God as the most complete, perfect being, we must say that God needs no other being - even Himself - and if someone claims that he can understand the highest of beings in a way that it also needs something, he has not recognized the highest of beings at all.

3- God, as the most perfect, complete being, exists. In other words, recognizing God as the greatest, most perfect, is a necessity for His reality, just like confirming the fact that a triangle has three sides when we see it. Merely recognizing God as the highest, most complete being is a sign that God exists, and if one claims that such recognition cannot prove God's existence - as Anslem was criticized - we can consider his claim as due to three factors:

a) The impossibility of God's existence

b) The absence of reasons

c) Inhibiting barriers

Firstly, as we have said before, no reason can defy that God exists. Secondly, this concept needs no reason. Thirdly, even if it had inhibiting barriers, it would not be recognized as the most perfect being at all. In other words, being the absolutely perfect contradicts with having reasons (causes) and also with having barriers inhibiting its existence.

Actually, the difference between these statements and Anslem's reasoning is that Anslem insists on the image of God, whereas we emphasize recognizing and understanding God. In other words, natural recognition is significant here.

In brief, this deduction consists of making man understand his own disposition, rather than having a reality outside the human mind reflected upon it. Man can understand and recognize what he has in himself my means of this deduction.

As we said about Anslem's reasoning, merely imagining something is not a sign that it really exists externally; we can imagine many things without them having any external existence.

Considering normal knowledge, such an objection is correct and logical, but we should not forget the fact that no imagination leads to its subject actually existing in the real world; thus, the existence of a fact always needs a cause. Just imagining does not imply its existence. Concerning our topic, however, our supposition is that our mind has been able to recognize a being that needs no cause.

Of course, the mere imagining of a being that needs no cause does not make us accept its reality, unless we intuitively recognize it; gained imagination is not enough. And intuitive recognition is nothing more than man's God-seeking disposition.

Some may claim that imagining such a being is hallucination. In other words, the human mind can have a wrong image of God, a God that is scared and coward, just like other cases when the human mind can imagine an effect without imagining its cause.

In response, we must say that the issue of God cannot be imagination or hallucination, for if one believes in God, he either knows that his belief is a hallucination or he does not. If he knows that he has imagined something unreal and wrong, why has he made so much effort toward proving it or defying it? If the imagination were in fact unreal, man should never have worshipped God so much throughout history. And if he does not know, there is no argument at all.

When studying this reasoning, we should keep in mind whether deep inside us we can recognize the most complete being or not. This is why merely recognizing the most perfect being brings about belief that He exists, just as simply as one accepts that 2×2=4. There is no need for a medium state here. In other words, the substance for its reasoning is included in itself.

Faith

The best way to define faith is: the confirmation of an active conscience. Some scholars have regarded faith as merely confirmation - so do some hadith - where it means expressing the distinct, understandable base of the public. Thus, we can conclude that the main idea here is the confirmation of an active conscience, for conformation alone cannot make any effect in the mind; there is great difference between confirming something and making effect based upon it Most conscious, aware people admit the necessity of justice for individual and social human life, but few men have actually executed justice. Man will definitely be just if he considers justice as part of his own life.

The Necessity of Faith

It is sometimes asked whether man can live without faith or not. In response, we must first see what life means here. If it means endeavor toward satisfying natural, animal-like desires, faith is not only unnecessary, rather even disturbing. Those who claim that man has no need for faith are in fact referring to animal life.

But if life means paying attention to all human potentials and talents, man cannot definitely do without faith.

If man has faith, all his thoughts and deeds will be in accordance with the law. Such a man will do things out of eagerness and enthusiasm, not reluctance that will later make him feel guilty.

There are three points of misunderstanding about faith nowadays:

1- Evil persons pretending to have faith. Machiavellians have no stronger tool for misleading others than pretending to have faith.

2- Mental errors concerning faith. Some people think that any kind of faith arises out of pure worship. In other words, the believer considers his every action or thought to be based upon worship.

3- Verbal manipulation. Instead of having faith in God and His prophets and considering the ultimate goal of the universe and obeying God's orders, some people confine faith to a series of concepts.

Nowadays, concepts like humanism or advocating science or freedom have become playthings in the hands of the selfish, who have deprived man of a series of realities, because they themselves have no faith in these concepts at all.

We must remember, however, that the three above-mentioned orientations cannot defy the necessity of faith for a human being who tends to live an interpretable life in this world.

The consequences of having faith are:

● Faith makes people be trusted by their fellow beings.

● Faith corrects man's thoughts.

● It makes man interpret and account for his life.

● It makes man morally dependent.

● Faith has man abandon personal desires and turn to serving people socially.

● It provides man with internal, constant liveliness.

● Man finds innate dignity and elegance through faith.

● Faith makes man himself carry the heavy load of his life instead of imposing it upon others.

● With faith, man is freed of mental anxieties and worries.

● Faith helps man accomplish great achievements.

● It makes man feel greatness in the universe, and observe moral principles.

If man's faith in God makes him constantly pay attention to God, he will always admit that God is watching him, and if man accepts God's continual supervision of what he does, the results will be:

1- Man will spend every moment of his life seeing God before him.

2- Man will act upon devotion and commitment, for he has realized without doubt that only God - and nothing else - can deserve to be man's goal in his deeds.

3- Man will make savings for his eternity in this world.

4- Man will avoid forbidden actions - even if they are not sins, like unsuitable actions or deeds based upon imagination or hallucinations.

5- Man will not waste his life.

6- It is only through recognizing God's constant supervision that man can harness his lusts and desires.

7- Such a man will realize that every action of his in this world leads to reactions.

    اين جهان کوه است و فعل ما ندا ســوی ما آيـــد نداها را صــدا

(This world is like a mountain, and our actions are shouts; their reactions come back to us.)

Jalal-addin Muhammad Molawi (Rumi)

8- Man will give up his far-reaching wishes, and will not allow baseless illusions replace facts and realities.

9- God's supervision makes man be patient and tolerant toward events.

10- Man will regard piety as the tool to pass the bridge of death.

11- Man tries to keep moving on the right path amidst all the dangerous cliffs and deviating ways full of thorns during his life.

12- Man considers every moment and aspect of his life as precious and valuable, and will not let apparently-fatalistic events disturb his life.

Such a man will adjust his life in a way that it seems he is on the verge of death:

Man's Mental States during Worship

When worshipping God, man may be in a state of fear or a state of flourish and joy.

Basically, man's mental state depends on his viewpoint of his position in the universe. If he does not see himself as of great meaning in the universe, his mental state will also suffer from meaninglessness; if, however, he interprets his life as related to the origin of the universe and regard his development and progress as due to God's kindness, he will always remember God, and his worship will be in an elevated mental state.

Of course, human beings differ in their degree of development and progress, and those who have achieved high levels of development intuitively see God while worshipping. This is why some perfected human beings weep strangely in their worship. It has been said, for example, that Imam Ali writhed like a snake when he worshipped God in the dark night.

When man pays attention to God's qualities of greatness and beauty, he will be in a state of hope; if man considers qualities of God's power and anger, he will feel fear of God. The reasons for fear of God can be:

1- Fear of the results and consequences of the sins man has committed; sins make the soul deteriorate and become evil, and developed man cannot remain insensitive about that.

2- Fear of the fact that man may not have put the blessings and potentials God has given him to correct use.

3- Fear of the significance and glory of the meaning of the universe and man's existence in it.

4- Fear of God, i.e. realizing God's immense glory and His absolute dominance over the universe; such a realization can fill man with awe and intimidation.

5- Fear of God's great, divine position, which makes man realize how absolutely dependent he is upon God - the originator of the universe - and this makes man terrified of disobeying God.

Since man has extremely numerous and diverse aspects, and God's qualities are also endless, man can thus make contact with a divine quality with each of his mental aspects, and each contact will lead to a different mental phenomenon. For example, if man feels God's absolute dominance as the Creator of the universe, he will realize the glory of God. And since God is constantly dominant over the whole universe, man will always feel that God, the extreme witness and supervisor, watches his every move and behavior.

Such a feeling is itself a special mental phenomenon, and realizing the fact that God is the absolute just and has accurately calculated every single detail about the universe and all of man's deeds and words, man will acquire a feeling of how just and fair God is. Furthermore, when man realizes that God has created man to bestow him with kindness, and is affectionate and merciful toward man, and when man realizes God's brilliant beauty by means of intuition, he will have a feeling of high joy.

Is Religion a Personal Matter?

Some Western thinkers have regarded religion as a persona; spiritual state irrelevant to all elements of life.

We must say that mismanagement on behalf of churches and other places of worship has led to this kind of viewpoint about religion, which should, in fact, provide man with awareness of himself, which leads to awareness about the universe, and eventually development on the path of intelligible life. As Iqbal Lahouri says:

    چيست دين؟ برخاستن از روی خاک تا که آگه گـردد از خود جان پــاک

(What is religion? It is rising from the earth - this world - so that you can be aware of your pure soul.)

If various educational systems used religion to develop the human character, such thoughts would have never arisen.

As we know, man needs to find answers to the six basic questions: Who am I? Where have I come from? Who am I with? Where have I come to? Where do I go from here? Why am I here? It is only religion that can provide him with the answers.

Those thinkers and intellectuals, who separate religion from man's life and try to confine it to something personal, are in fact throwing man into countless aspects of nervous and spiritual retardation; such people would only think about God on Saturdays or Sundays, never taking God into consideration in any other parts of their lives.

The Origins of Defying Divine Commandments

The factors that make man disobey God and defy the worship God has obliged His subjects to carry out are:

1- Ignorance and incapability: Those who suffer from mental handicap do not know that God exists, and have no blame; how, on the other hand, can someone of sound brain and spirit see all the discipline and harmony in the universe and ignore its source?

2- Neglect toward God: Some people ignore the supreme level of divinity, for they are drowned in their lusts and desires.

3- An illusion of independence: Some people do not understand the necessity of having a relationship with God and obeying His orders, so they believe themselves to be independent. This is the most degraded form of conceit and selfishness.

If man is aware that God exists, if man realizes how great and glorious God is, and if man understands that without contact with God he can never reach the supreme aim of life, he will not avoid worshipping God.

Devotion

There are two kinds of devotion:

1- Devotion in a general meaning: Regarding a fact as innately desirable, whether the fact or reality has an aspect of merit or not, like power, wealth, ethnic characteristics, science and freedom. Such a form of devotion is not a value or a merit, and cannot develop the human character.

2- Devotion in a specific meaning: Regarding a fact that if achieved potentials and talents are activated as innately desirable.

Devotion in the first meaning inflates man's natural ego, and throws him into grief. It is meritorious devotion, however, that can bring about man's development and perfection.

The greatest of all meritorious form of devotion that is the base of other valuable kinds of devotion is devotion to God. When man is devoted to God, he is aware of what is proper and appropriate to man, and progresses toward gaining them.

In fact, if something is to be innately desirable to man, it must be a reality that can make all of man's potentials flourish. It should be in accordance with man's sound logic, nature and his psychic observations about God.

Since complete devotion causes the true elixir of man's soul to flourish, there will be irreparable damage if such devotion is given to something other than God.

Devotion to God brings about being devoted to all realities and facts of merit and value. If man acquires a certain kind of knowledge with devotion for God, for instance, the knowledge will be innately desirable. Or, if man acts with justice in all aspects of his life with devotion to God, he will enjoy both the individual and social benefits of justice and its divine aspect, too.

The Characteristics of Valuable Devotion:

1- Value-based devotion is not compatible with selfishness or egotism, for no supreme reality can become innately desirable to man unless the natural self is moderated.

2- Like true love, devotion based on value and merit is the strongest factor of self-possession - a perfectionist human being's greatest ideal of all.

3- Value-based devotion provides man with tranquility. When man's soul is devoted to a supreme reality, he is also guiding himself toward the highest aim of life.

4- Devotion helps man concentrate his mental and psychic forces and guards him against baseless hallucinations and soul-damaging temptations.

5- Being devoted to a supreme reality makes man's attention to it change dramatically. Devotion for something makes all other facts and realities fade away.

6- Devotion has two values - an innate, dispositional value and a value as a means. Its innate, dispositional value involves “the desirability of devotion itself which purifies man's relationship with the desired truth of all contaminating factors and selfishness.”

Its value as a means, on the other hand, consists of the innate desirable that attracts the soul. The most valuable form of devotion is the one that attracts man toward God.

7- When man considers something as desirable, his entire character is attracted to it, and he accounts for and justifies his whole life based on it. Since devotion, as an innately desirable thing, makes man choose his path in life, man must make great effort to choose a reality as his goal that is really worth being devoted to.

8- Devotion is a bipolar mental development - it has innately external and innately internal poles. Its internal pole consists of man's tendency toward a reality that is considered as innately desirable. Its external pole consists of the reality that is innately desirable to man. Such a reality should be able to activate all of man's potentials and aspects.

9- In value-based devotion man deals with everything logically.

One of the most fundamental characteristics of value-based devotion reveals itself when the desired reality shows its true face and attracts the soul; it's not that it cannot hear the disagreeing sounds or cannot see the protestors, or that it does not confront those who conflict with the reality. If it can, it defeats the protestors and destroys those who fight reality and righteousness; if it fails to do so, it continues on its way without the least attention or influence from them.

10- Having devotion in one's thoughts, deeds and speech purifies man's inside. Devotion in thoughts makes realities able to be received by man intuitively, and prevents the facts from being contaminated by hallucinations and illusions. Pure and devoted speech also keeps man away from deceitful words. Devoted deeds are the soul of deeds, and builds up man's existence on the path of intelligible life.

Having God in Mind

Remembering God at all times has various effects and benefits. Let us point out some of them:

1- Faith in God makes one always have God in mind. When one has faith in God, he sees nothing in the whole universe worth remembering and calling but God. When God infiltrates man's heart, there will be no more room for anything else at all.

2- Remembering God creates a special spiritual state in man which safeguards him from falling for worldly and materialistic affairs. This

spiritual state makes man's life become meaningful and logical, his purely natural life will be replaced by intelligible life.

3- Remembering God makes man fresh, and keeps him safe from the sorrow of the disorders that occur in purely natural life. Likewise, it does not allow the relative joys of purely natural life spoil the secret of human character.

4- Remembering God removes all temptations, imaginations and mental illusions, safeguarding the human mind and soul from being baselessly exhausted and used up.

5- Remembering God adjusts man's mental and psychic activities, and his existence will illuminate. The tranquility that remembering God creates in man will balance his entire existence. As Jalal-addin Muhammad Molawi (Rumi) says:

    اين قـــدر گفتيـم، باقی فکر کن فکر گر راکد بود، رو ذکـــر کن

    ذکـــر آرد فکـر را در اهتـــزاز ذکر را خورشيد اين افسرده ساز

(Now go and think about the rest, and if your thoughts lead nowhere, remember God and call out for him, for that will elevate your thoughts. It will be like a sun you’re your thoughts are down and depressed.)

6- Remembering God prevents man's character from being decomposed into the scattered components of this world; instead, by means of realizing the rules governing the universe and gaining complete knowledge of it, man will find a certain tranquility, and feel that he is always close to God.

7- Remembering God makes God's will start to purify and illuminate man internally, and man's positive internal potentials will flourish.

8- Remembering God frees man from all his imagining and hallucinating, and makes him speak of things that he will really act upon. Remembering God leads to living and speaking realistically.

9- Remembering God is a path to reach the truth and benefit from man's internal treasures. Remembering God makes God reveal some realities and secrets to man as a reward for remembering Him.

10- Remembering God leads to the knowledge of God's glorious blessings. Deep thought about God's blessings guides man toward constant remembrance of and calling out for God.

11- Remembering God makes man never weaken in the battle on the boundary of life and death. Those who remember God in a battlefield never forget God's rules and Godly values.

Remembering God is the strongest builder of human nature. Calling God's name is a comprehensive book including all the chapters of mental and spiritual development and training, a divine trainer and teacher that accompanies man day and night.

The Conditions for Calling and Remembering God

Of course, this does not mean merely utterances from the mouth; saying the word without considering what it means is worthless. In other words, attention to the meaning is the essential preliminary. Remembering God in one's heart also needs the attention of the soul.

● Man must remember God when his soul is eager to do so, not when he is forced to externally. And when an action becomes like a habit, it will be something compulsory, with little interference on behalf of man's free will. We must keep in mind that the habit of remembering and calling God should not be in a way that makes it deft man's free will and awareness.

● Man should act and behave in accordance with his remembering God. If someone says “God is great,” he must not drown in selfishness, greed for power or wealth.

● Remembering God must be considered as the factor that activates man's heavenly soul, not a tool for self-conceit. Man should not remember God in order to remove his frustrations over a monotonous life. It should not be the means for performing extraordinary acts either, like what ascetics do.

Divine Justice

The principles that make up our viewpoints on divine justice are:

1- The universe is orderly and harmonious. Otherwise, there would be no laws either, for laws are general theorems that arise out of the harmony and discipline in the world. We cannot understand the role of divine justice in the universe without accepting the existence of order, discipline and harmony.

2- The creatures in the world can be divided into two groups. First, creatures that are alive, and have a “self” (an ego) of their own, and second, creatures that are not alive, and submit to the flow of nature.

3- Order and harmony, where divine justice manifests itself, is different in the two mentioned groups of creatures. Something that applies to a living creature as a law may not be applicable to a non-living one. For instance, reproduction and avoiding unsuitable habitats is a law for living creatures, but for lifeless creatures it can be a violation of law and order.

4- Justice is equal to order and harmony for creatures that have a 'self.' When we come to harmony, law and orderliness for the universe (that has a 'self'), we are in fact speaking of justice.

5- When the human mind sees the universe, it sees the order and harmony it includes, but when it comes to creatures in the world, the concept of order and harmony fades, and concepts like joy and sorrow and justice and atrocity arise. Likewise, when discussing the issue of man and human relationships, we come to concepts such as right and wrong, good and evil, and justice and atrocity become deeper and clearer to us.

The more developed, deeper and more diluted the “self' (the ego) is, the more accurate and profound its imagination of justice and atrocity will be. A well-developed self will expect a higher level of justice from himself and others, and - at the highest level - from God, and if man were to picture justice himself and make it come true, it would be justice at its supreme level.

6- Each human being defines justice based on his/her own knowledge and tendencies. As Tolstoy says, “When a child is stung by a bee, it might think that bees live only to sting people; a beehive keeper, on the other hand, believes that bees live to gather honey, and to a poet, who enjoys watching bees on flowers, will see bees' mission as extracting nectar from flowers, and a botanist will call it fertilizing flowers. This example shows

how diverse viewpoints can be. Man may look upon justice from various points of view, and reach diverse interpretations.

7- Normal people associate justice with natural tendencies, but developed human beings see the root of justice in ideal tendencies. People like Napoleon and Tamberlaine see divine order and justice in there being nothing inhibiting their triumph and victory; however, developed human beings interpret justice not in regard to their own desires; they believe that the universe is based on order and harmony, and does not proceed in accordance with man's wishes. Thus, we must say that the more developed man is, and the deeper and more accurate his observations are, the more his view of justice will shine.

8- If man had abstract perception and had no sense of joy or sorrow, he would never think about justice, for then his mind would be like a mirror, reflecting everything equally; a human being's painful suffering would sound like the exquisitely beautiful bird singing. It is the feeling of pain and joy, the pleasure of joy and inconvenience of pain and sorrow that makes man see true justice in the fact that “everything, throughout all of life, be pleasant and good,” and the utmost pain and atrocity be regarded as suffering from pain at one point of the life of living things.

9- Since joy and pain depends on a variety of changeable factors dominating the world of creatures, man assumes an average level of justice to use as his criterion for assessing justice and interpreting it. Such a viewpoint makes some people consider death - even after a lifetime of 10,000 years - as contradictory to divine justice. They expect all people to be as handsome as Joseph and as fair and just as Imam Ali, and be able to conquer like Napoleon and travel around the globe like Alexander. Such a state of mind shows how intensely playful the human mind is.

10- If man takes a clear look at the universe, he will see the order and harmony in it, but if he attempts to interpret the universe from merely a natural point of view, he will fail to see any divine justice in the universe. Thus, we should be true observers, and eliminate all of our natural tendencies. In other words, we must change our natural tendencies into ideal ones. If that happens, the bitternesses and inconveniences we suffer will not make us protest to divine justice.

This is why the great men of history have tolerated cruelty and torture, and never had the least doubt in God's justice. If Imam Ali had a natural viewpoint as his spiritual guidelines, even a thousandth of the amount of cruelty and torture he bore was enough to make him skeptical about the whole universe and all of mankind, and defy divine justice.

11- Man's big mistake is losing ideal tendency, which makes him fail to fulfill his duty entirely and eventually fall into doubt about divine justice. When man achieves the supreme 'self,' attaining development and perfection, he can find with internal intuition that divine laws call for him to relieve others from pain and suffering. When man is at the level of natural tendencies, however, he does not think of the relief of others; all he thinks about is himself. Thus, being content with what there is, and watching God's geometry - in which human lives play the most important part of its illustration - being deformed is in fact fighting against divine justice.

12- Man's endeavors and actions can be divided into two basic groups:

a) Things man does out of his free will.

b) Non-voluntary actions that occur without the supervision and dominance of the human character. These actions are like the actions and movements seen in animals and other living creatures. All of the voluntary or non-voluntary actions of man and other living creatures affect the universe. In other words, the general destiny or interpretation of the universe is the product of various actions and fixed and changeable affairs.

13- Elaborating on physical and mental inconveniences and defections: we should first discuss two important issues:

a) Imperfect life: The handicaps and disabilities seen in some people and the pain and suffering they undergo is regarded as imperfect life.

b) The flame of life going out: When some living creatures, or even human beings, are destroyed in the fight for survival, it is a sign of the fire of life being put out.

There are several points we must mention concerning the relationship these issues have with divine justice:

a) The source and origin of the universe has no need for favoritism or unfairness. So the inconveniences seen in the creatures in the universe cannot be due to that.

b) It cannot be imagined that God acts cruelly. “Because cruelty happens when the object cruelty is done upon is somehow beyond the ability of the oppressor to conquer; there must be some issue or law absent in the cruel one to make it commit the cruelty. On the other hand, we know that all creatures are absolutely under control and possession of God, with all their laws and affairs.”

c) The base and foundation of life gives the same importance to the minimum level of life as it does to the highest level.

Serious defense of life indicates that the important thing is true life itself, not its time length. The absence of some of the characteristics or means of life does not make it bad. All creatures endeavor to make their life flourish and go on, and prevent any factor that tends to inhibit that. Wishing for death or tending toward suicide does not arise out of the origins of true life; it is despair and social problems that cause them. The flame of life being put out does not conflict with divine justice, for both the cruel and the oppressed ones' free will also has a part.

14- Feelings of evil, imperfection, and disorder in creation is due to man's limited thoughts and viewpoints; when discussing such imperfections we must always keep these three points in mind:

a) There is a difference between the universe and discovering the universe.

b) The order, harmony and discipline that governs the universe has not been established in accordance with man's wishes.

c) God's position is too great for us to be able to know about it completely.

The life-oriented viewpoint means that man's only criterion in determining the rules of the universe is considered his own wishes and desires; however, many of man's wishes and desires can never be fulfilled.

In other words, when studying the imperfections of the universe, we use standards that pertain to our own observations and desires, and practical reasons can never confirm them.

Handicapped or disabled people - though having become disabled or handicapped due to natural reasons and causes - never feel hatred for life, for life is the incredible phenomenon that man will always want to continue, unless a mental or spiritual blow is delivered onto it.

I once visited a nursing home for deaf and mute people in Isfehan, Iran, in order to study their handicaps and disabilities. I arranged with the officials of the nursing home, who were dear friends of mine, that I watch and observe the children and young people there alone for a while, so that I could have a better chance of seeing how their mental and spiritual state was considering the handicap they also had.

The result was quite near to what I had expected - they did not feel any suffering or defection due to their deafness or muteness, and their behavior clearly showed that they were not dissatisfied with their lives. There was no indication of feeling disabled or imperfect in how they played, treated each other or even others. I also studied young people who were paralyzed or crippled. I was amazed to see that they had no sadness or depression when they were alone, or were playing. They looked exactly like other, normal young people. So, it is obvious that life is the astonishing, incredible reality that will go on trying to survive, even if it means mere existence - unless, of course, man's own soul delivers it a crippling blow.

The Rule of Kind Favors

There are several preliminary explanations on the rule of kind favors:

1- Creating man has no benefit for God, and avoids no harm from God, either; God is too great to need anything or anybody to help Him.

2- Humans have been created so that their character can be developed. In other words, God has set a perfect existence for man, and wants man to reach it.

3- Man is not perfect when he is born.

4- Man cannot achieve the desired perfection that is considered as his aim without endeavor.

5- Not all kinds of endeavor can guide man to perfection; the endeavor that is based upon conscience and reason, and is supported by divine sermons given by prophets can do that.

6- The above-mentioned principles can flow through two kinds of affairs:

a) Non-voluntary affairs: Affairs that influence man's fate although he can do nothing to change them, like being born, having certain instincts, having wisdom and conscience, hereditary backgrounds, social and geographical conditions, etc. These non-voluntary affairs are related to God's justice, for if we suppose that the aim of creating man (evolution and improving and developing the human character) is related to these non-voluntary affairs, there is no way except God's justice to adjust them.

b) Voluntary affairs: These affairs also influence man's fate. Non-voluntary affairs are related to God's justice, but these affairs are up to man himself.

7- Now we can present a definition of kindness: Kindness consists of a certain effect of God's justice that motivates man in the boundaries of lack of clarity, and can be voluntary or non-voluntary.

The Consequences of the Rule of Kind Favors

The following four conclusions can be made from the rule of kind favors:

1- All the divine knowledge man can gain comes from the rule of kind favors.

2- According to the rule of kind favors, there is a series of duties and instructions which must be fulfilled if the human character is to develop.

3- The necessity to appoint leaders arises from the rule of kind favors.

4- The acceptance of the overall opinion of jurisprudential scholars, which is one of the sources of jurisprudence, is also based upon the rule of kind favors, for the rule of kindness says God prevents the leaders of a school of thoughts from falling into error - when the scholars confer, there is either disagreement or agreement, and the leader is in one of these two groups.

The Relationship between God and His Creatures

Ever since a long time ago, the relationship between “the existence that has to be” and “the existence that can be” - the creator and the creature - has been subject to debate. Since man gets most of his philosophical and scientific input from nature, he cannot discover exactly the relationship between God and the universe. Most of the material at hand on the subject is also mere personal ideas or literary metaphors that satisfy just a few. As the famous Iranian poet Sheikh Mahmoud Shabestari says,

    عدم آيينه، عالم عکــس و انســان چو چشم عکس در وی شخص پنهان

    تو چشم عکسی و او نـور ديده است به ديده ديده، را ديده که ديـده است؟

    جهان انسان شد و انسـان جهانــی از اين پاکيــزهتر نبــود بيـــــانی

(Absent is the mirror, and the universe is like a reflection. Someone is hidden in him, like the eye of the reflection. You are the eye of the reflection, and He is the light of the eyes; who has ever seen that true light with his/her eyes? Indeed, man becomes the universe, and the universe becomes man can it be worded any better than that.)

The universe being a picture of God in the mirror of oblivion is merely a metaphor, for oblivion is not a thing to be able to reflect the truth. Can infinity ever be reflected within finite components?

The relation we use in order to discover the relationship between God and the universe - the cause-and-effect relation - is not accurate. The law of causality is derived from things in this world, associating things with one another, but God cannot be compared to things found in nature. Normally, causes consist of a subject cause and also a material cause, whereas God, a subject cause, needs no material cause.

Things in this world occupy space and time in regard to one another, but God does not; His position is high above others. Thus, the concepts we conclude from the phenomena and effects in nature cannot be used to interpret God's relationship with the universe.

Man can see the relationship between God and nature by referring to his own self, his own nature, for though the human soul and body interact, they are not at all one of a kind. Likewise, although God created this world, He had no need for materiality. The human soul can invent imaginations that are not comparable with it at all.

The Relationship between God and His Creatures in the Qur’an

The Holy Qur’an mentions different forms of relationships between God and the universe. We can categorize them into ten groups:

1- Surrounding: The Qur’an believes that God surrounds and dominates everything, material or abstract.

    و کان الله بکل شی محيطا

“And God encompasses everything.”(4:126)

God dominates and surrounds everything, both in knowledge and in existence, like the human soul which controls its entire actions.

2- Establishing: The universe has its strength and foundation from God. God has established the universe, like man's existence is founded upon his soul.

    الله لا اله الا هو الحی القيوم

“God, there is no god but He, the Living, the Everlasting.” (2:255)

3- Accompaniment: God is with all creatures. This does not mean physically near; it is a relationship of soul with physique, far beyond time and place.

    و هو معکم اينما کنتم

“He is with you, wherever you are.” (20:111)

4- Creation and Production: Various verses in the Qur’an refer to this form of relation:

    لا اله هو خالق کل شی فاعبدوه

“That then is God your Lord; there is no God but He, the creator of everything. So serve Him.”( 6:102)

5- Absolute Possession: Here, possession does not mean conventional or credit-based ownership; we are referring to true possession. God's possession of creatures refers to the facts that God gave them their existence. It is similar to the relationship between the intellect and its creations.

6- Protection: This is one of the most important issues in theology, for normally people think that God has created everything and then left them on their own, whereas God is always protective of the universe and everything in it.

    ان ربی علی کل شی حفيظ

“Verily, my Creator and Nurturer is the Protector over all things.” (11:57)

“I believe God is the protector and keeper of laws,” Einstein has said.

As we know, laws have no observable reality in the world; there is order and harmony in the external world, and from that laws are abstracted. It is God's will that makes events continue in a fixed, orderly fashion.

7- Creation and Nurture: Over 1000 verses in the Qur’an emphasize this form of relationship.

    و هو رب کل شی

“And He is the Creator-Nurturer of everything.” (6:64)

According to this relationship, the creator - or nurturer - constantly dominates and takes care of its creations.

8- Worship: Everything worships God.

    ان کل من فی السموات و الارض الا اتی الرحمن عبدا

“Nothing is there in the heavens and earth but it comes to the All-merciful as a servant. “ (19:93)

Here, worship means complete submission of all creatures to God's will.

9- Divinity: God is the absolute dominant upon all levels and basics of the universe.

    فسبحان الذی بيده ملکوت کل شی و اليه ترجعون

“So glory be to Him, in whose hand is the dominion of everything, and unto whom you shall be returned.” (36:83)

Here, “malakoot” in this verse refers to the supernatural picture of all things, for the human “ego” has two faces:

a) The observable, created face

b) The supernatural face

This face of the universe describes the relationship between divine absolute ownership and the supernatural face, nullifying the thoughts of some philosophers who believe that God has no control or dominance over the fundamentals of the universe.

10- Light: As the Holy Qur’an says:

    الله نور السموات و الارض

“God is the light of the heavens and the earth.”( 24:35)

This verse explains both the existence of God and God's dominance and control over the whole universe. God exists in the universe, illuminating it without becoming connected or united with it, just like light which penetrates into transparent things without becoming part of them.