The Objective of Creation In the Qur'an
In the previous discussion, with the help of both rational analysis and Qur'anic statements, we concluded that the creation of the world, as a whole, has an objective, and that the materialistic realms, besides their final objective, have middle objectives which altogether aim at obtaining perfection. Now we intend to refer to the Qur'anic ayahs which explain the divine acts and the reason, the wisdom and the management of the creation, the world and man. We shall read what is said in the Qur'an about the middle objectives which are in the world and man: "And He it is who created the heavens and the earth in six days - and His throne was upon the water-that He might try you, which one of you is best in conduct."
There are in this ayah expressions that need to be explained. Some are directly connected to our topic, and some will be explained in their more suitable places.
Stages of Creation
The heavens and the earth, which the Qur'an refers to, mean, as obtained from context indications that the whole world is material. Sometimes this is confirmed by saying: "and what is between them",
[the heavens and the earth]. Thus the total of the heavens and the earth denote the world of matter. Here a question may arise about the meaning of "day" in the ayah. It is clear that it is not the day which appears as a result of the rotation of the earth. Before the creation of earth there were no day and night as known to us now. They appeared after the creation of the earth and its rotation.
The Arabic term "yawm", meaning "a day", denotes "a period of time", with no definite length of time. The ayah itself does not make it clear, either. As to the narratives known to us, no definite conclusion can be derived from them, although there are some possibilities which may further be enforced.
But to say positively what definitely is meant by those "six days" is quite doubtful and no decisive explanation can be offered. The phrase under our consideration is, however, "...that He might try you, which one of you is best in conduct.". Undoubtedly, this ayah tells what the purpose, or the objective, of the creation is. Allah had created the heavens, the earth, the world, the nature, in general, with the objective of trying the human beings in order to make known those who behave more piously. Yet, the connection between the deed and the doer is a bit vague. How can the world be created so that man may be tried?
What connection is there between creation and trying man? Brevity in speech is a style of eloquance which is frequently used in the Qur'an. That is, when the subject is obvious, a lot of phrases are omitted from the speech, as long as it can be understood from the context, and there would be no need to express it openly, especially when the situation requires conciseness. This conciseness is used in the Qur'an in many instances, especially when relating stories. Looking into the stories of the Qur'an, we realize what an amazing style of brevity is used.
From among the stories one sentence is selected from hundreds of sentences which should have been said and singled out, because there had been a reason for selecting it, and disregarding the rest. This style had also been used in other instances, including the ayah being discussed, where instead of saying: "We had created the heavens and the earth as preliminaries for the appearance of man, then We created man in order to have the purpose of his creation (trying him) fulfuilled." The sentences before and after are discarded and omitted, while the stress is put on the purpose for which man was created: "We created the world to try you". At the time of creating the heavens and the earth no human being had been created as yet to be tried. So what relation is there between the creation of the heavens and the earth with man? By considering the style of brevity we find out that, at least, one sentence had been omitted, that is, the heavens and the earth had been created in preparation for the creation of man, who was to be later created in order to be tried to find out whose conduct was better.
Trying Man
Finally, the gist of this ayah is that the Qur'an regards trying man as one of the objectives of creation. What does trying man mean? Actually this is an elaborate subject which is handled in anthropological topics as well as in Divine laws of managing man. Generally speaking, trying, or examining is to arrange the grounds for bringing a potentiality to actuality, or implementing a potential matter. A scientist, in his laboratory, moves around, arranges certain materials, gives them particular shapes, etc., until a new phenomenon appears. Why does he do this? In some instances the scientist locks knowledge. He does not know what would happen if he mixed certain quantities of some chemical elements. So, he carries out an experiment to find out the answer. In some other instances the experiment is carried out for teaching purposes so that the others may see and learn, and there can be many other purposes.
At any case, the aim of an experiment is to prepare the grounds for the appearance of a new phenomenon, which has the potentiality to appear under certain conditions. The required grounds are arranged for, so that the new form may take shape. When a teacher wants to examine his student, he asks him a question which can have positive or negative answer, or a question with several suggested answers, of which only one is correct and the rest are incorrect, or one is correct and the other is more correct. The teacher prepares the grounds for the student to help him to choose one of the answers, to discover the hidden, in order to know how much he knows, or he wants to have an answer to show to the others, while be does know the extent of his student's standard of knowledge and capacity such that he can guess his marks even before looking into his paper. Yet he may need the paper as a document to be shown to anybody who may have an objection. However, preparing the grounds for the student to express himself is called "examination".
We have no doubt that Allah, the Exalted is not ignorant of His servants' conditions. Allah's knowledge includes their final destiny, their past, present and future. We had also understood from the former discussion that Allah's existence was not a temporal one, and that He encompassed both time and place. To Him all times are the same, and His knowledge of all is the same, too. Nothing, then, is concealed from Him, neither the past, the present nor the future. But He arranges the conditions for man to manifest themselves, or to bring to actuality what is potential, or to display what talents they have, especially that man is practically a gifted creature. Under certain conditions his talents manifest and blossom out. Allah, the Exalted arranges the grounds for everyone to show out his faculties, to demonstrate what is hidden in him, and, finally, to choose his own way, either a right or a deviated one, a way of development and perfection or a way of deterioration and degeneration.
The second ayah of Suratud-Dahr (or Insan) (The Time or Man), says: "We created man from a mixed sperm to try him, so We have made him hearing, seeing. We have shown him the way: either grateful or ungrateful." We are not intending to go into an exegesis on this ayah. We only refer to the word "try" which immediately comes after the creation of man, meaning "to examine" him. "We have made him hearing seeing." The one who is to be examined and to be left to choose a way, must have knowledge and be aware. Moreover, "We have shown him the way - the right way, and guided him to choose one of the two ways: either the way of being grateful, or the way of being ungrateful, and for either of them he will get the relevant result."
This is a fact which is repeated in the Qur'an many times: "We have made whatever is on the earth an embellishment for it, so that We may try them (as to) which of them is best in deeds."
If we had created the earth without any embellishments, it would not have been attractive to man. Whatever is there on the earth, such as plants, animals and the results of actions and reactions, all help in making the earth attractive to man, or, according to the Qur'anic expression, an embellishment of the earth. Had the earth been dry, waterless, without plants, and monotonous, it would have had not attraction, and man would have loathed to live on it. But the jungles, the flowers, the ups and downs of the mountains, valleys and seas, all have made the earth so attractive that man would not stop looking at it. But why was the earth created so? "... so that We may try them (as to) which of them is best in deeds", i.e. these are only means of examination. All are to be there to place man at a cross-road and see if he takes the aptor one. Thus, this ayah refers, too, to examining man as the purpose for creating the phenomena on the earth.
"Who had created life and death that He may try you which is best in deeds". Many exegeses had been suggested for this ayah. Generally, however, we gather that the objective of creating life and death in this world is to have man tried. So, to sum up, we gather from the Qur'an that the creation of the world, of the world's phenomena, which are the embellishments of the world, and of life and death, including human beings' life and death, are all for trying man. That is, the creation of lifeless world is a preliminary for the creation of the living world, and the creation of the living world is a preliminary for the creation of man, his development, perfection and means of existence.
There are other ayahs which explicitly state that everything had been created for man, such as: He it is who created for you all that is in the earth",
and many other similar ayahs, which we do not intend to explain.
Consequently, middle objectives can be seen in the world of matter. The objective of. the lifeless world of nature is to prepare the grounds for the living creatures. Naturally, the living creatures as regards their existence, are more perfect than the lifeless creatures, because whatever the latter have, the former also have, plus something else. Besides all the elements that are in lifeless creatures, as well as in the living creatures, the latter have, moreover, a phenomenon, namely, life, which makes them more perfect.
As far as we know, and as is confirmed by the Qur'an, no being is more perfect than man. The jinn, however, have their share of such perfections, as is gathered from some ayahs. It is not our concern, for the time being, to discuss what the jinns are. In many instances the Qur'an regards the Ins (man) and the jinn as to be equal and on the same footing: "O folks of jin and ins!"
and "Which, then, of the blessings of your Lord do you (both) deny?"
from which it is obvious that the hint refers to both the jinns and man, and that the jinns, like man, are also bound to perform religious duties.
At any rate, the Qur'anic ayahs do not state that there is any being more perfect than man on the earth. So, we may well say that the middle objective of the world of matter is to prepare the grounds for the appearance of a being called man. Therefore, we disregard what the philosophers, ancient and contemporary, ascribe to man, as to be a selfish creature, falsely claiming to be honourable, doubted whether he has any merits over other animals though a pessimistic view, it is also possible to intellectually prove that man is much more perfect than other beings and all kinds of animals. This is also gathered from the Qur'an.
We have to mention a parenthetical clause to the effect that the perfections ascribed to man, as the most honourable creature, are granted by Allah. Nevertheless, this man, with all his perfections, is placed at a crossroad so that he may by himself choose the way which would take him up to a position above that of the angels, while, by his ill-selection of his path, he would be the worst of all beasts. Thus, by saying that man is the noblest of all creatures we mean that there are among the human beings persons who choose the way leading to the highest positions known to any creature. But this does not mean that any man, under any condition and anywhere, is better than all creatures, because the Qur'an itself says that some .persons are even lower than the quadrapeds.
The Qur'an does not look at man as the humanitarians look at him man, being man, is a noble creature. It says that man is more perfect than other creatures because he possesses God-given faculties and can utilize them. He can also be the noblest only when he, with his good choice, selects the best way: "Surely, the vilest of animals in the sight of Allah are those who disbelieve, and would not have faith".
For "animals" the Arabic word dabbah is used, which means any "moving" creature, even worms and microbes, which move, too. The one who would not believe because of his obstinacy and would not accept what is right, is looked at by the Qur'an as to be worse than any moving creature and the beasts of prey, and is worthless. Hence, the Qur'an regards the killing of some men as a must, whereas it does not allow the killing of any animal as long as it shows no sign of an offensive intention that may endanger one's life.
In such cases one is allowed to kill the harmful animals. Even so the animals which disturb one's comfort and prevent one's growth. Otherwise the Qur'an does not permit killing living creatures for no good purpose. As regards the animals which are slaughtered for their flesh, they may be killed only after remembering the name of Allah over them, so as to be done with Allah's permission. Otherwise man must not bother any other moving creature. But despite all these advices and instructions, to the effect that even an ant must not be harmed, the Qur'an orders that certain persons to be killed.
Amirul Mu'minin Ali (A.S.) says: "By Allah, even if I am given all the domain of the seven (stars) with all that exists under the skies in order that I may disobey Allah to the extent of snatching a husk of a barley grain from an anti would not do it".
This is the Islamic education. This same Ali (A.S.) draws his sword and chops off men's heads as autumn wind chops dry leaves off the trees. That is, those people were even lower than the ants, according to the Qur'anic view: "Surely the vilest of animals in the sight of Allah are those who disbelieve and would not have faith".
Therefore, Islam does regard every person to be honourable, but it regards man more perfect than other creatures, because of the faculties bestowed upon him. His destination, however, is up to his own freewill choice. If he could well benefit from those faculties, he would progress and advance to reach a position even higher than that of the angels.
But if he misused them, he would be debased and worthless, even lower than a worm in the swamps. Man, therefore, is at a crossroad, which is, expressed in the Qur'anic term, as "trying". This can be regarded as middle objective for creating him. But can either one of these two roads be chosen as the intended one, or only a particular one of them is to be chosen? That is, if he chose the good one, would, the bad one be a subsequent to that?
From some ayahs we gather that the original objective is that man should himself choose the way of Allah: "And I have not created the jinn and the ins(man) except that they should worship Me".
This is the same as in Surat Yasin: "And that you should worship Me: This is the straight path."
The straight path, in the viewpoint of the Qur'an, is the path which has the tint of servitude to Allah and worshipping Him. If a man performed an act with a tint of godliness, this would be a movement towards perfection. But if it was not so, then it would mean either to mark time or a turn back. Any movement which is not a kind of worshipping Allah is either nonsense, as the one who tries a movement but keeps marking time in his place, or falls down (may Allah protect us against that), i.e. it is a movement, but towards Hell. The movement which leads to perfection is that which is regarded by the Qur'an to be a sort of worshipping Allah, while other roads lead to the worship of Satan: "Did I not charge you, O children of Adam that you should not worship Satan? Surely he is your open enemy."
Only one road is straight. The others are crooked and deviated.
The Final Objective
We can say, then, that the purpose of creating man is that he should worship Allah. Why? Because his perfectness depends on worshipping Allah. Undoubtedly, Allah is absolutely needless of everything. So, when He says that He created the people - "that they should worship Me", is because their perfectness cannot be achieved without worshipping Him. This point will be explained, by Allah's will, later on.
Consequently, we must worship Allah in order to be worthy of obtaining the blessings which otherwise we will not have the merit of receiving them: "Yet they cease not differing, except those on whom your Lord has mercy, and for this did He create them.
It has never happened that all people were on the straight path. It has also never happened that all people were on the wrong path. There have always been differences among people in choosing the right and wrong, except for those who had been favoured with Allah's mercy, as they would not deviate from the right path, and keep proceeding along the road of truth: "and for this did He create them". Concerning the phrase "and for this" the commentators offer two explanations.
A group say that "this" refers to their "differing". Another group say that it refers to the word "mercy". Therefore, "this" may point to "differing" or to "mercy". If it refers to "differing", that is, if man had been created with a free will to freely choose his way, then, naturally, one would choose the right and another the wrong way. So, man's free will naturally leads to different choices. Consequently, it can be said that man had been created for differing and dividing into two groups: "...a party shall be in Paradise and a party in Hell"
But if "this" refers to "mercy", i.e. Allah has created man to receive His mercy, then man's final objective, brought about by his voluntarily done good deeds, would make him worthy of receiving Allah's mercy, which is a merit of the pious people. Hence, the final objective behind creating man is to attain to the highest degrees of Allah's mercy that is possible for His creatures to attain to.
Arranging these objectives together, we realize that they have a longitudinal sequence. They do not cross each other. It cannot be said that man has been created to be tried, and crosswisely, he has been created to worship Allah, and, also crosswisely, he has been created to receive His mercy. No, they are arranged in successive sequence.
If man wants to receive Allah's mercy specially prepared for him, he must follow the path of servitude, that is, he is to choose the way of Allah, and in order to choose the way of Allah, there must be two different ways: the way of Allah and the way of Satan. So, man must be tried. In order to let him choose the way of servitude on his own free will, the grounds for trying him must be prepared so as to find out whether he will choose the way of Allah or the way of Satan.
Therefore, trying comes prior to worshipping Allah, and worshipping comes before receiving Allah's mercy. So, we may say that man has been created to be tried, then to voluntarily choose worshipping Allah, and then to attain to Allah's final and eternal mercy.
Consequently, there can be many longitudinal objectives, none of them contradicting the other. Those who are not acquainted with the Qur'an, or with its style, probably think that these are a number of crossing objectives, or there is contradiction in the statements of the Qur'an. No, it is not so. In an instance, the art of eloquence required that a different objective should be mentioned. These objectives are not contradictory, because they are longitudinal and are middle ones, while the final objective is the attainment of Allah's mercy.
Stages of Allah's Acts
The acts which we purposely do are preceded by preliminaries and pass through stages. One of these stages is to regard the act as to be correct, and it appears in a scientific and intellectual image in the mind.
The second stage is getting interested and inclined to it. After becoming interested, one is to consider whether it contradicts one's other interests or other people's. We have to study and investigate to see if this act, to which we are inclined, is really to our interest and if our interests necessitate it. Having done so, it will, then, be the turn for taking the necessary decision. The implementation of many acts requires conditions and preliminaries outside ourselves. That is, it is not that whenever we willed to do an act, it would be done immediately solely according to our will. We would have to do something upon the matter, to prepare the required conditions. Studying the outside preliminaries, causes and conditions are considered as part of the preliminaries of the act. Before starting a journey we must first select the means, know what we need during the journey, know what we need at destination. We have to reckon all these questions.
So, a correct plan of the act is to be drawn in our mind. It is possible that the onside conditions for an act are changeable. This must also be taken into consideration. Suppose if you want to travel by air, you will have to take into your consideration the possibility of the late arrival of your plane. In such a case you must have a plan to know what to do. All these considerations, thoughts, inclinations, desires, measurements, etc. are regarded to be the stages and the preliminaries of an act.
But how is it with Allah's acts? Have His acts to go through similar stages and preliminaries, or not? Most of the preliminaries which we need for our acts are caused by our ignorance and incompetence. We have, for example, to consider whether the act is advisable. Why should we consider this? Because originally we do not know. Had we known from the beginning, we would not have to consider anything. Why should we think about the pros and cons of an act? Because we do not know which one is better, which one is profitable, which one is harmful. If we knew from the beginning, we would not be in need of thinking.
So, this sequence of the matters - i.e. first we must imagine the case, then an inclination is to rise in us, then we are to think about it, then the pros and cons are to be compared besides considering the conditions. All these are caused by the fact that we are incompetent and ignorant creatures, as our knowledge does not cover everything. There is no doubt that such suppositions about Allah, the Exalted are incorrect. That is, we must not think when Allah wants to do something, He sits down to think whether it is profitable to do it or not. Allah does not need to think over. To think over is the characteristic of ignorant people, while Allah knows everything. We are never to think that there appears in Allah a desire which formerly was not there, as this will be another incorrect thought about Allah. It is impossible to think that there appears in the Exalted Divine Essence a thing that was not there before. In other words, bereavement has no way to Allah. Or, in the philosophic terms, the Holy Essence of Allah is never subject to events.
In religious expressions, especially in Nahjul Balaghah, it is said: "...for whom one condition does not proceed another."
That is, it cannot be supposed that Allah may be in a mood at a time, and in a different mood at another, like man who may be happy now and miserable later, or content at a time and discontent at another. Allah has no diverse conditions. Therefore, we are not to imagine that Allah thinks, is subject to moods or inclinations which may intensify into eagerness. These are impossible to happen to Allah. But how can we put our questions? How can Allah's acts happen? Do they happen randomly, unknowingly, unmeasured and unconsidered? Of course, Allah, the Exalted is far above doing things without consideration and unawares. So, what are we to say in such instances?
The Acts of Allah
As regards the Attributes of the Necessary Being, the Blessed, the Most High, it had already been said that, concerning our own attributes and acts, we first comprehend certain concepts, then we omit their deficiencies, and, having cast away these privational aspects, we ascribe those concepts to Allah. For example, we first realize in ourselves the faculties of knowledge, power and life, then we regard them as abstract concepts. The evidences of knowledge, power and life are limited ones, and being so, they are not becoming of Allah.
In order to make them suitable to be ascribed to the Glorified Essence of Allah, the Exalted, we drop off the negative and deficient sides of those attributes and say that Allah's knowledge, unlike ours, is limitless. It is knowledge, but boundless. It is knowledge, but essential, not acquired. Despite the fact that we do not have an outside evidence showing an essential, not acquired and limitless knowledge, yet we can imagine such a wide concept of knowledge that it can cover the limitless knowledge, too. Then we say Allah is knowing, but unlike our knowledge. Similarly we may apply abstraction to acts, i.e. the concepts, which are true of our acts, are accompanied by aspects of deficiency and negation, and so they cannot be ascribed to the Sacred Essence of Allah, the Exalted. But by discarding these deficiencies off the acts and looking at them as to be suitable to be ascribed to Allah, the Exalted, we may do so. Concerning the attributes too, after ascribing abstracted concepts of perfection to Allah, reason is used to offer evidences to prove that those attributes were the very Essence of Allah. As for acts we also consider similar ways, such as:
Firstly, when we ascribe the origin of the act to Allah, we must take into our consideration that, in respect to His acts, time is irrelevant. When we say that Allah knows, wants and likes to do this act, it does not mean that in a particular period of time He knows it, but He does not want it yet, and in another period of time He wants it, but has not considered it yet, etc. No, it is not like that. We did say that time is irrelevant in respect to the Essential Being. Time has to do with the material beings. Therefore it is impossible to imagine that there are in His Essence things arranged according to a sequence of time, requiring Him to be a place for the events.
Secondly, we must know that these concepts are abstracted from a state of action, i.e. they are abstract concepts which are derived by reason from comparing the Holy Essence of Allah with His creatures. In the outside we have nothing except the Holy Essence of Allah, the Exalted - Who is a Being of utmost greatness, void of all kinds of limitedness and deficiency - and His creatures whom He created in the outside according to His will. There is nothing except these two.
The acts which are ascribed to Allah are concepts which are abstracted by the mind. When it is realized that the issuance of acts, and the appearance of creatures, are caused by the will of Allah, not per force or pressure, not it is imposed upon Him to create the world, the mind abstracts the concept that the act is performed by Allah's "will".
Allah never does anything without a will, though it does not mean that His Will is something accidental and comes from outside. This does not coincide with Allah's divinity. No change whatsoever may happen in the Holy Essence of Allah, the Exalted, neither in His Essence nor in His Attributes. The same is true in respect to moods. In fact, ascribing moods to Allah is incorrect.
When the mind notes that something happens in a particular time, and is not against Allah's will, i.e. it is not imposed per force upon Him, it says that Allah wanted and performed it. But does wanting mean that it was caused by a certain state that appeared in Allah? No, no changings occur to the Divine Essence. When we ascribed the attributes of knowledge and power to Allah we did not mean to say that He had strong and muscled hands.
In fact, the mind noticed that the One Who created such a great world cannot be an impotent being. On this basis we used to aseribe power to Allah, but this power is nothing but His very Essence, His simple divine self. The same is true in respect to the divine attributes of action, as there is nothing, except the Essence of Allah and His creatures. There is nothing that can be named: will, want, permission, destiny and the like. These are mere abstract concepts.
Thirdly, there is no multiplicity in His Attributes of Action. That is, just as all His Attributes are His very Essence, His knowledge also is nothing but His Power, and His Power is nothing but His Life, and all these are nothing but His Essence. Similarly His acts. There is Allah and the world which He created. The other entities called: permission, will, want, etc. do not exist. It is the mind that abstracts other additional concepts - concepts which have two basis and two ends: one is linked to Allah and the other to Allah's creatures.
The evidence for all these is, in fact, the very divine act, which is of automatic function. Just as the Attributes are abstracted from Allah's Essence, without meaning any multiplicity in His Essence, similarly the Attributes of acts are also abstracted from His acts, without there being any multiplicity. This was an analysis which must be considered so that one may not commit a mistake in respect to Allah's act and attributes of acts.
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Author: Ayatullah Muhammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi
