Unity of the Universe

Ayatullah Shaheed Murtuza Mutahhari
Is the universe (nature, the spatio-temporal creation of God) a real unity in its totality? Does Tawhid, the unity of God in Essence, attributes, and agency, imply that the creation enjoys a kind of unity in its totality?
If the whole universe is interrelated as a unity, what form does this interrelatedness take? Is it like the way the parts of a machine are connected, purely contingent and artificial, or is it like the relation of the members of a body to that body? In other words, is the relation of the parts of the universe mechanical or organic?
I have discussed the nature of the unity of the universe in my annotations to Usul-i Falsafa (Principles of Philosophy), volume 5. I have also spoken in Adl-i Ilahi (Divine Justice) of how nature is an indivisible unity, how the non-existence of one part of nature equals the non-existence of the whole, and how the removal of what are called “evils” from nature would amount to all nature's ceasing to exist. Modem philosophers, especially Hegel, affirm the principle of organicity, that is, the principle that the relation of the parts of nature to the whole is as the relation of the members to the body.
Hegel proves this point on the basis of principles whose acceptance is conditional upon acceptance of all the principles of his philosophy. Hegel's materialist followers, the partisans of dialectical materialism, have taken this principle from him and defend it vociferously as the principle of reciprocal influence, the principle of the universal interrelationship of things, or the principle of interdependence of opposites and advocate the position that the relationship of the part to the whole in nature is organic, not mechanical.
But all they can prove is a mechanical relationship. Materialistic philosophical principles cannot prove that the universe in its totality has the character of a body and that the relationship of the part to the whole is the relationship of the member to the body. The theosophies who have held from ancient times that the world is the “great man” and that man is the “little world” have had such a relationship in view. Among Islamic philosophers, the Ikhwan as-Safa particularly stressed this point.31 The 'urafa; too, in their turn looked upon the world and being with the eye of unity, more than did the hukama’ or the philosophers. According to the 'urafa all of creation and all creatures constitute one flash (jilva) bearing witness to the Preeternal: Your face mirrored in the cup Impelled the 'arif to raw craving, In the radiance of the wine.
Your face beautiful, making This one flash of vision mirrored All these images appearing In the mirror of illusion (Hafiz)32
The 'urafa’ term this other the “holy emanation” (Fayz-i muqaddas) and say analogically that the holy emanation is like a cone that at the apex, that is, where it impinges on the Essence of the Truth, is pure simplicity (pure Existence) and at the base, extended and ramified.
I am not going to develop any of the philosophers' or 'urafa‘s’ explanations here. I am pursuing the subject because it relates to my own preceding discussion. I said earlier that the universe has as its reality the properties of from Him-ness and to Him-ness. On the one hand, it is proven that the universe is not a moving, fluid reality; rather, it is motion and flux itself.33 On the other hand, research on motion has proven that unity of source, unity of end, and unity of course impart to motions a kind of unity and singularity. Therefore, considering that the whole universe runs on one evolutionary course from one source to one end, it necessarily takes on a kind of unity.

The Unseen and the Manifest
The Islamic world view of Tawhid regards the universe as a combination of unseen and visible worlds. That is, it divides the universe into two parts: the world of the unseen and the world of the manifest. In the Noble Qur'an repeated mention is made of the unseen and of the manifest, especially of the unseen. Faith in the unseen is the pillar of Islamic faith: “Those who believe in the unseen (2:2), “With Him are the keys to the unseen-none know them but He” (6:59).
The word ghayb (unseen) can also be translated as hidden. The unseen, the hidden, falls under two categories: the relative unseen and the absolute unseen. The relative unseen embraces things that are concealed from an observer's senses because of his remoteness from them or some similar reason. For instance, for someone who is in Tehran, Tehran is the manifest and Isfahan is the unseen. But for someone in Isfahan, Isfahan is the manifest and Tehran is the unseen.
In the Noble Qur'an, ghayb is sometimes used in this relative sense. For instance, where it says, “These are some of the stories of the unseen we have revealed to you” (11:49), it is clear that the stories of the ancients are unseen to present day people but were manifest to the ancients themselves.
But in other instances, the Noble Qur'an applies the term ghayb to realities that are inherently invisible. There is a difference between realities that can be sensed and touched but remain hidden because of distance or some other barrier, as Isfahan is hidden to people who are in Tehran, and realities that are unsusceptible to sensation by the outward senses because of their boundlessness and immateriality and so are hidden.
Where the Qur'an characterises the believers as those who have faith in the unseen, it does not mean the relative unseen. All people, believers and unbelievers alike, admit the existence of the relative unseen. Thus, where it states, “With Him are the keys to the unseen -none know them but He,” and so restricts knowledge of the unseen to the Divine Essence, it means the absolute unseen. It does not accord with the definition of the relative unseen. Where it refers to the manifest and the unseen together, as for instance: “the Knower of the manifest and the unseen, He is the Merciful, the Compassionate” (59:22) - that is, He knows the perceptible and the imperceptible - again it means the inherently invisible and not the relative unseen.
What sort of relationship have the world of the unseen and the world of the manifest? Does the perceptible world have a boundary, beyond which lies the world of the unseen? For instance, is from here to the celestial vault the world of the visible and from there onward the world of the unseen? Plainly, such conceptions are vulgar. On the supposition that a physical boundary separates the two worlds, the two worlds would themselves be manifest, physical, material.
One cannot explain the relationship of the unseen and the manifest in material, physical terms. The nearest we can come to a definition the mind can grasp is to say that it resembles the relationship between primary and secondary principles or that between figure and shadow. That is, this world amounts to a projection of that. It can be inferred from the Qur'an that whatever is in this world is a being sent down of the beings of the other world. “What are termed “keys” in a previously quoted verse are in other verses termed “treasuries”: “And there is not a thing but its treasuries are with Us, and. We send it down only in assigned quantities” (15:21).
It is by this reckoning that the Qur'an conceives of everything, even things like stone and iron, as sent down: “and We sent down iron” (57:25). Plainly, what is intended is not that “We have transported all things, including iron, from one place to another.” So the realities, the principles, and the essential substances of the contents of this world are in another world, which is the world of the unseen. What is in this world are their laminae (raqiqa), their shadows, or these things themselves at the level of descent into this world.34
Lo! The star-studded wheel, so beauteous and splendid!
What's above has a form here below correspondent.
Should this lower form scale the ladder of gnosis, It will ever find union above with its origin.
The intelligible form that is endless, eternal, Is compendious and single with all or without all.
No external prehension will grasp this discussion, Be it Bu Nasr Farabi or Bu 'Ali Sina.35
Just as the Qur'an presents a species of faith and vision of being under the heading of the unseen and accounts it necessary, it also at times expounds this topic under other headings, such as faith in the angels or in the prophetic mission of the prophets (faith in revelation): “The Messenger believed in what was revealed to him from his Lord, as do the believers: each believes in God, His angels, His books, and His messengers” (2:285).
“.. and whoever denies God, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day has gone far astray” (4:136).
In these two verses, faith in God's books is accorded independent mention. If the celestial books that were sent down to the prophets were meant, this belief in the prophets would suffice. The context shows that realities of a different kind, not that of tomes and pages, are meant. In the Qur'an itself, there is repeated mention of hidden, unseen realities named the Clear Book, the Preserved Tablet, the Mother of the Book, the Inscribed Book, and the Concealed Book.36 Faith in such supernal books is a part of Islamic faith.
Basically, the prophets have come to impart to man the kind of vision and worldview that would allow him to form an image, however sketchy, of the whole system of the creation, to the extent of his allotted powers. Creation is not confined to sensible, palpable phenomena within the scope of the physical and experimental sciences. The prophets sought to raise man's vision from the sensible to the intelligible, from the evident to the hidden, from the limited to the limitless.
Unfortunately, the tide of narrowly materialistic and sensualistic thought has washed so far that some urge that all the sublime, vast, far-reaching concepts of the Islamic worldview be brought down to the level of sense objects and material things.

This World and the Hereafter
Another pillar of the Islamic world view is the division of the universe into this world and the hereafter. What I said in the previous section applies to a world prior to this world, a world that makes and governs this world. Although from one point ofview the world of the hereafter is the unseen and this world is the manifest, the world of the hereafter merits independent consideration, insofar as it is a world subsequent to this world. It is both the world from which we have come and the world to which we are going. This is the meaning of the discourse by Ali (upon whom be peace): “God has mercy upon one who knows: from where? through where? and to where?”37 Ali did not say, “God has mercy on one who knows from what? through what? and to what?” If he had said that, we would have taken him to mean, “Of what were we created? Of the earth. And into what shall we pass? Into the earth. And out of what shall we arise again? Out of the earth.”
If he had said this, he would have been alluding to this verse of the Qur'an: “From it We created you, into it We will return you, and from it We will extract you another time” (20:55).
But Ali’s assertion here refers to other verses of the Qur'an and bears a higher meaning: What world have we come from? “What world are we in? To what world are we going?
Within the Islamic world view, this world and the hereafter, like the unseen and the manifest, are both absolute concepts, not relative ones. In the language of the Qur'an, each is a separate emergence (nash'a). Works are relative: works of this world, works of the hereafter. That is, if a work has for its object egotism, it is a work of this world; if this same work is carried out for God, to satisfy God, it is a work of the hereafter. In a later volume of this series, Zindagi-yi Javid ya Hayat-i Ukhravi (Eternal Life, or the Afterlife), I will discuss this world and the hereafter in detail.38

Far-Reaching Wisdom and Divine Justice
Within the theosophical world view, some questions concerning the relationship between the world and God are discussed (such as questions of the createdness in time versus the eternality of the world, questions dealing with the order and system of the emergence of beings, and other questions discussed extensively in theology). What we might appropriately take note of here are the questions of God's far-reaching wisdom and of divine justice, two closely related questions.39
The question of God's far-reaching wisdom is set forth in this way: The system of being is a wise system; that is, not only do knowledge, consciousness, intent, and will enter into the workings of this world, but the existing system is the best and most fitting of systems - a better and more fitting system is impossible. The existing world is the most perfect world possible. Questions and objections arise here, given that events and phenomena falling under the categories of defect, evil, ugliness, and inutility are witnessed in the world. Divine wisdom requires that perfection should exist in place of defect, good in place of evil, beauty in place of ugliness, and utility in place of inutility.
Congenital defects, plagues and pestilences, ugly features, and superfluous organs and members on the bodies of persons and animals seem to prove the contrary of wisdom. That a system is just implies that injustice and discrimination should not exist in it, that disasters and misfortunes should not exist in it, that mortality and extinction should not exist in it, because it is unjust to bring a being into existence, give it to taste of the pleasure of existence, and then send it to the realm of oblivion. That a system is just implies that such defects as ignorance, impotence, weakness, and poverty should not be found in the beings of that system because it is unjust to withhold from a being the conditions and attainments of existence just as one clothes it in existence.
If the existing system is the just system, then why all this discrimination? Why is one ugly and another beautiful? 'Why is one healthy and another sickly? Why is one created a man and another a sheep, a scorpion, or an earthworm? Why is one created a devil and another an angel? Why are all not created alike? Why were not the opposite statuses assigned; for instance, why was the beautiful or the healthy not the ugly, or the ailing? The world view of Tawhid, which regards the world as the act of an absolutely wise and just God, must answer these questions.
My book on this subject, Adl-i Ilahi, presents the detailed means of resolving these difficulties.40 Here I will simply cite ten principles, acquaintance with which will constitute groundwork for resolving these difficulties I leave the task of arriving at conclusions to the reader.

Self-Sufficiency and Perfection of the Divine Essence
God Most High, in being the Necessary Being in the absolute and in lacking no perfection or activity, does nothing in order to attain a goal or a perfection or to compensate for a shortcoming. His work is not movement from defect to perfection. Accordingly, the meaning of wisdom as it applies to Him is not that He in His works elects the best goals and the best means of arriving at His goals. This meaning for wisdom holds for man, not for God. Divine wisdom means that His work is to bring beings to their highest attainments, to the apogee of their being. His work is creation, which itself means bringing things to the attainment of existence (from non-existence), directing and perfecting them, and impelling them toward their attainments and well-being, which is another kind of effulgence and work of bringing to perfection.
Some of the questions, objections, and difficulties arise from comparing God to man. Usually when it is asked, ““What is the use and wisdom of such-and-such a created thing?” the questioner is thinking of God as like a creature that seeks in its actions to employ available creatures and beings to its own ends. If he had borne in mind from the first that the meaning of divine wisdom is that His act, not His self-hood, has an end, that the wisdom of each creature is an end inherent within it, and that God is impelling it toward its essential end, he would find that many of his questions would be answered.

Order
The divine emanation, that is, the emanation of being which envelops the entire universe, has a particular system. An inviolable priority and causality prevail among beings and creatures. That is, no being can exceed or avoid its own particular rank and occupy the rank of another being. Because the ranks of being have degrees and stations, differences and discrepancies from the standpoints of defect or perfection and of vigour or weakness prevail. Differences and discrepancies do not constitute discrimination, which would be considered contrary to wisdom and justice. Discrimination exists when two beings have the capacity for the same specific degree or perfection and it is granted one and withheld from the other. But when discrepancies and differences are traceable to essential deficiencies, they do not constitute discrimination.

Universality
Another human error arising from comparing God to oneself lies here: Man resolves to build a house within a certain time or in a place - of course, under certain prevailing conditions - and he builds it. By a series of artificial bonds, he brings into relation quantities of brick, clay, cement, and iron that have no essential connection with one another. And the product is a certain kind of building called a house. What about God? Is God's work of this nature? Does God's perfectly precise workmanship have this character of an artificial and derivative bond among several unrelated phenomena?
To produce such artificial and derivative bonds is the work of a creature such as man, who is part of this system and avails himself of the existing, created powers, forces, and properties of things, within determinate limits. It is the work of a creature whose agency and creativity are limited to a dynamic agency. That is, they are limited to inducing a motion, a superficial motion at that, not an organic one, in an existing thing. But God is the Creative Agent; He is the Creator of things, with all their faculties, powers, properties, and traits.
For instance, man uses fire and electrical energy when it is advantageous to him and prevents their appearance when they would harm him. But God is the Creator and Originator of fire and electricity with all their properties. The existence of fire or electricity entails that it give heat, create motion, or cause combustion. God has not created fire or electricity for a particular person or occasion (for instance, to heat a poor man's shack, but not to burn his clothing should it fall into the fire). He has created it with the property of combustion.
Therefore, if one is to see that the existence of fire is necessary, useful, and consistent with wisdom, one must consider its total role in the system of the universe, not some particular role it has in some narrow circumstance in regard to some individual and personal motive.
In the case of divine wisdom, the end must be taken to be the end of the act, not the end of the agent. God's wisdom means not God's effecting the best means to deliver Himself from defect to perfection, from potentiality to act, and to arrive at His own objects of perfection, but His creating the best possible system to bring beings to their ends. Further, the ends of divine acts are universal, not particular. The end of the creation of fire is combustion in general, not some particular instance of combustion that might prove useful to some individual or some other particular instance that might prove harmful to another.

Subject's Capacity
For a truth, a reality, to come into being, the effulgence and completeness of agency of the agent are not sufficient; the subject's capacity is also necessary. The absence of this capacity becomes in many instances the source of deprivation for some beings of some boons and attainments. This is why some deficiencies, such as ignorance and weakness, crop up from the standpoint of the total system and the aspect of relationship with the Necessary Being.

Necessary Being
Just as God Most High is the Necessary in Essence, He is the Necessary Being in every respect. Accordingly, it is impossible that a being should find the capacity for existence but fail to be filled with His effulgence and so grow impoverished.

Categories of Evils
Evils belong either to the category of non-being (ignorance, weakness, and poverty) or to the category of being, but derive their evilness from the fact that they become sources of non-being (earthquakes, microbes, floods, hailstorms, and the like). The evil of beings that become sources of non-being arises from their existence incidental and relative to other beings, not from their intrinsic existence. That is, whatever is evil is not evil in and of itself but for something else. The real existence of any thing is its intrinsic existence; its incidental and relative existence is a nominal and abstract circumstance that is an inseparable concomitant of its real existence.

Goods and Evils
Goods and evils do not form two separate and independent ranks; rather, evils are inseparable concomitants and attributes of goods. The root of evils that belong to the category of non-being is the lack of capacity of the subject; given the subject's capacity, the effulgence of being from the Necessary Being is certain and inevitable. On the other hand, the root of evils that do not belong to the category of nonbeing is their inseparability from goods.

Good in Evil
No evil is absolute. Deprivation and non-being are in their turn the antecedents of beings, goods, and attainments. Evils in their turn are the thresholds and steps of evolution. Thus a good lies hidden in every evil, and a being is hidden in every non-being.

Laws and Norms
The universe of being, in functioning according to a universal cause-and~effect system, operates according to laws and norms. The Noble Qur'an affirms this point explicitly.

Essential Unity
Just as the universe has a universal and inviolable system, it is an indivisible unity in its essence. That is, the whole creation forms a unity like that of the body with its members. Therefore, not only are evils and non-being inseparable from goods and being, but all the parts of the universe, in composing a unity and a single manifestation are inseparable from one another.
In accordance with these ten principles, what has the possibility to exist is a determinate, universal, and immutable system. Therefore, the phenomenon of the universe has the possibilities of existing with this determinate system and of not existing at all. That it should exist and have no system or have a system with a different configuration as, for instance, one in which causes replace effects and effects, causes, is absurd. Therefore, either the universe exists with a determinate system or nothing exists. Wisdom requires the optimum, that is, being, not non-being.
Furthermore, things have the possibility to exist only with all their inseparable concomitants and attributes. That goods and beings, however, should prove separable from evils and non-being is no more than sheer fantasy and absurd illusion. Therefore, from this standpoint as well, the paired existence or nonexistence of goods and evils, not the existence of goods and the nonexistence of evils, is the choice confronting wisdom.
Lastly, the whole universe as an interdependent unity, not one part in the absence of another, has the possibility to exist. Therefore, what can be contemplated by wisdom is the existence or nonexistence of the whole, not the existence of one part and the nonexistence of another part.
These principles, if rightly assimilated, reduce all the uncertainties and problems of far-reaching wisdom and perfect divine justice to the level of a phantasm. I again refer those requiring more detail to my work Adl-i Ilahi (Divine justice)

The Principle of Justice in Islamic Culture
In Shi'ism, the principle of justice is one of the principles of religion. Justice in Islamic culture is divided into divine justice and human justice. Divine justice is subdivided into creative justice and legislative justice. Human justice is subdivided into individual justice and social justice. The concept of justice considered unique to Shi'ism that has taken its place among the principles of religion in Shi'ism is divine justice. This type of justice specifically arises in the context of the Islamic worldview.
To believe in divine justice means to believe that God acts in accordance with truth and justice, both in the system of the creation and in the system of legislation, and never shows injustice. Justice has become one of the principles of Shi'ism because some who denied human choice and freedom appeared among the Muslims.
They arrived at a belief regarding divine decree and foreordination that was wholly inconsistent with human freedom. They denied the principle of cause and effect in the overall system of the universe and in the system of human conduct. They came to believe that divine decree acts directly and without intermediation. According to this belief, fire does not cause to burn, but God causes to burn; a magnetic field in no way attracts iron, but God directly draws the iron to the lines of the magnetic field; man does not the good or evil deed, but God directly carries out the good or evil deed through the human form.
Here a major question arose. If the system of cause and effect has no reality, and if man himself has no real role in choosing his actions, then what function is served by rewarding or punishing the individual for his acts? Why does God mete out rewards to some people and take them to paradise and punish others and take them to hell when He Himself has carried out both the good deed and the evil one? To punish human individuals when they have not possessed the least choice and freedom of their own is injustice and contrary to the categorical principle of divine justice.
The Shi'a at large and a party among the Sunnis called the Mu'tazilites, relying on decisive rational and transmitted proofs, denied that man is determined and that divine decree and fore-ordination act directly on the universe; they regarded these ideas as immical to the principle of justice and so became known as the People of Justice (‘adliyya).
Although justice is a divine principle (that is, linked with one of the attributes of God), it is likewise a human principle because it is linked with human freedom and choice. Therefore, among the Shi'a and the Mu'tazilites, belief in the principle of justice means belief in the principle of human freedom, human responsibility, and human creativity.
The question concerning divine justice that generally - especially in our own time - draws the most attention has to do with certain social inequalities: How is it that some individuals are beautiful and others ugly, some healthy and others sickly, some comfortable and affluent and others empty-handed and indigent? Would divine justice not require all individuals to be equal with respect to wealth, lifespan, offspring, social position, reputation, and receipt of love? Can anything but divine decree and foreordination be responsible for these inequalities?
The roots of this question and the confusion underlying it are two. One is inattention to the nature of the operation of divine decree and foreordination. The questioner has imagined that they work directly.41 For instance, wealth would be directly and without the intervention of any cause or agency transported from the divine treasuries of the unseen and parcelled out at people's doors, and the same would hold for health, beauty, power, position, love, offspring, and other blessings.
The questioner has failed to note that no sort of sustenance, whether material or spiritual, is apportioned directly from the treasury of the unseen. Rather, divine decree has produced a system and originated a series of norms and laws. Whatever anyone seeks, he must seek through that system and those norms. The second root of this error is inattention to the station and situation of man as a being who seeks to better his own life, to struggle with the factors in nature on the one hand and to struggle with the evil factors in society and the misdeeds and oppression of human individuals on the other - who has these as his responsibilities. If there are certain inequalities in society, if some are rich and have wealth by the shiploads at their disposal, while others are destitute and in despair on oceans of affliction, the divine decree is not responsible. Man, free, empowered, and responsible, bears the blame for these inequalities.
1. The first essay in the series, “Darsha’i az Ma’arif-i Qur’an” (Lessons from the teachings of the Qur’an), to be titled Shinakht dar Qur’an (Knowledge in the Qur’an), in which the problems of knowledge will be considered, will be published soon through the Hawza-i ‘Ilmiya-yi Qum, God willing. [This essay was later published in an undated pamphlet of sixty-eight pages. Trans.]
2. See The Scientific Outlook (New York, 1931), “Limitations of Scientific Method”, the chapter title being a polite way of denying the theoretical value of science.
3. See my Insan va Sar Nivisht (“Man and Fate”), Tehran, 1345 Sh./1966.
4. Shaykh Abu Muhammad al-Halabi, Tuhaf al-‘Uqul, p.198.
5. Tashahhud: the pronouncement of the Islamic declaration of faith, “Ashhadu an la ilaha illa ‘llah, wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan Rasulu ‘llah” ( I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is God’s Messenger), in prayer. Trans.
6. ‘Arafat: The plain just outside of Mecca dominated by a low mountain where all the pilgrims on the haj must be present on the ninth day of Dhu’l-Hijja, the pilgrimage month.
Mash’ar: More fully, the Mash’ar al-Haram, literally, “the Sacred Waymark” and also known as Muzdalifa, a site eight kilometres from ‘Arafat where the pilgrims must perform the sunset and night prayers on the ninth day of the pilgrimage month. Trans.
7. Muwahhid: Practitioner of tawhid. Trans.
8. “He is not external to things, and He is not internal to them”. (Nahj al-Balaghah)
9. Exact place of occurrence not found. Trans.
10. ‘Ali Shari’ati has compared the concept of assignation (tafviz, passive participle mufavvaz) in Muslim philosophy with that of delaissement in the existentialism of Satre. See his Marxism and Other Western Fallacies (Berkeley, 1980), p.46. Trans.
11. This is virtually the Qur’anic verse 17:111. Trans.
12. “This party” is interpreted to mean the Sufis. Trans.
13. Phrases such as, “Say, We make no distinction among the prophets” are found in 2:136, 2:285 and 3:84. Trans.
14. The taghut is a typification of evil mentioned in the Qur’an (e.g. 4:76) and characterized by an overrunning of all bounds, as in tyranny. (For a discussion of the term see Mahmud Taleghani, Society and Economics in Islam (Berkeley 1982) pp.80-82. Revolutionary figures often characterized the Shah’s regime as the regime of taghutism. Trans.
15. Nahj al-Balagha, Shaqshaqiya sermon.
16. Virtuous City: Madina-yi Fazila, a conception of an idealized political order having its roots in Plato’s Republic and in Muslim philosophy associated most closely with Abu Nasr Muhammad Farabi (259/872-339/950). Trans.
17. The Meccan mercantile family into which the Prophet Muhammad was born and which was, as an influential ruling family, the source of many of Islam’s early enemies. Trans.
18. Abu Sufyan, Abu Jahl, Walid bin Mughira: early Qurayshi opponents of the Prophet and of Islam. Trans.
19. Salman Farsi: An early companion of the Prophet of Iranian origin, also closely associated with ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib. Trans.
20. I have discussed the import of this verse earlier in this chapter (see “The Uniqueness of God”). For an account and explanation of this demonstration, called demonstration of interobstruction (burhan-i tamanu’), refer to my annotations to ‘Allama Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba’i, Usul-i Falsafa va Ravish-i Ri’alism (“The Principles of Philosophy and the Method of Realism” Qum 1350 Sh./1971 [Hereafter referred to as Usul-i Falsafa]), vol.5.
21. They term misfortunes, deformities, defects, deficiencies and all unshought-for occurrences “evils”. I have discussed in detail the manner evils are to be predicated of God in the book ‘Adl-i Ilahi (“Divine Justice”, Tehran 1349 Sh./1970).
22. See Tafsir al-Mizan under the above verse (3:31).
23. From Ibn Abi’l-Hadid’s Sharh to the Nahj al-Balagha, the section treating Discourse 128.
24. People living under the influence of Wahhabism without acknowledging it. Trans.
25. I discuss the question further in Muqaddima’i bar Jahan Bini-yi Islami, volume 7: “Hayat-i Javid, ya Hayat-i Ukhravi” (“Eternal Life, or the Afterlife”), Qum, 1358 Sh./1979.
26. See following note.
27. All three quotes are from Ziyarat-i Jami’a-yi Kabira [a litany recited when visiting the tombs of the Imams; for the text, see ‘Abbas Qummi, Mafatih al-Jinan, Tehran, n.d., pp.750-759. Trans.]
28. See my treatise, Vala’ha va Vilayatha (“Allegiances and Sovereignities”), Tehran, 1349 Sh./1960.
29. Unknown. Trans.
30. Ikhlas is the verbal noun, mukhlis is the active participle, and mukhlas is the passive participle. Trans.
31. Ikhwan as-Safa: A philosophical association of fourth century Basra and Baghdad, noted for their collective authorship of the Rasa’il, an encyclopedia of the philosophy and high culture of that time, written in a notably simple and clear Arabic. Trans.
32. See Hafiz Shirazi, Divan, Na’ini and Ahmad, eds. (Tehran, 1352 Sh./1973), p.268. Trans.
33. Only Islamic philosophy has demonstrated that the natural universe is motion and flow. Some Western systems have advanced this idea, but they are incapable of demonstrating it. For further consideration of this point, refer to the essay “Tazadd va Harakat dar Falsafa-yi Islami” (Contradiction and Motion in Islamic Philosophy) in my collection Maqalat-i Falsafi (“Philosophical Essays”). [See also “The Mutable and the Constant” in the third essay, “Philosophy” in this book. Trans.]
34. See Tafsir al-Mizan (Arabic text), vol.7, under the Sura An’am, verse 59.
35. Bu Nasr Farabi: Abu Nasr Muhammad Farabi, the tenth-century philosopher. Bu ‘Ali Sina: the famous philosopher and physician better known to the West as Avicenna (d.1037 C.E.). The poem is by the Safavid era philosopher, Mir Abu’l Qasim Findiriski (d.1640 C.E.). See “Illuminationism and Peripateticism” in the third essay “Philosophy” in this book.
36. See Tafsir al-Mizan, under the veses in which these terms occur.
37. Unknown.
38. Published in Qum in 1358 Sh./1979. Trans.
39. “Far-reaching wisdom” (hikma baligha): a term found in the Qur’an, 54:5. Trans.
40. Published in Qum in 1349 Sh./1970. Trans.
41. Refer to my Insan va Sar Nivisht (“Man and Fate”) where questions related to divine decree and foreordination are discussed at length.