۹ فروردین ۱۴۰۳ |۱۸ رمضان ۱۴۴۵ | Mar 28, 2024
 Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani

God is absolute perfection; therefore, His actions must also partake of perfection and be devoid of all defect and futility.

Hawzah News Agency ­- Attributes of Divine Activity
Now that we have dealt with the principal themes related to the attributes of the Essence, it is appropriate to turn our attention to some of the attributes of Divine Activity. Here we shall consider the following three attributes: speech (takallum), veracity (sidq) and wisdom (hikma).
 

Speech
The Quran has described God as one who ‘speaks’:
And God spoke directly with Moses. (Sura al-Nisa, IV:164)
And again:
And it was not vouchsafed to any mortal that God should speak to him unless [it be] by revelation or from behind a veil, or [that] He sendeth a Messenger...(Sura al-Shura, XLII:51)
 

There is thus no doubt that speech is one of the attributes of God. There is, however, debate over the question of the ultimate nature of this attribute: is it an attribute of the Essence of God or of His Activity? It is clear, to begin with, that speech in the form in
which it appears in man, cannot conceivably apply to God. Since the attribute of speech is given in the Qur>an, we ought to refer to the Scripture itself in order to understand the reality of this attribute.
 

As we have seen in the verse cited above, the Quran establishes the fact that God speaks to His slaves according to three modes of self-disclosure. It is impossible for the speech of God to reach man except by the following three modes: (a) ‘unless [it be] by revelation’—in other words, by divine inspiration; (b)‘or from behind a veil’—in other words, that man can hear God’s speech, but cannot see Him (God’s speech to Moses took this form); (c) ‘or [that] He sendeth a Messenger’—in other words, an angel is sent by God to man to convey the inspiration.
 

In this verse, the speech of God has been explained as having been brought into being by God, either directly without intermediary, or indirectly through the intermediary of an angel.
 

According to the first mode—divine inspiration—God sometimes casts His words directly into the heart of the Prophet, and sometimes He causes His words to enter the heart after having first been heard by the ear. In all three modes of speech, however, the
words of God are brought into being. The speech of God is therefore to be considered as one of the attributes of Divine Activity.
 

This is one explanation of the speech of God, derived from the guidance given by the Quran. Another explanation is as follows:
God has called all existent entities of the universe His ‘words’. As the Quran says:
 

Say: Were the sea to be ink for the words of my Lord, verily the sea would be
used up before the words of my Lord were exhausted, even if We were to
bring the like thereof to help. (Sura al-Kahf, XVIII:109)

 

In this verse, what is meant by ‘words’ is all of the creatures of God, which none but He can count. In the following verse, we find evidence of this [assimilation of all creatures as ‘words’ of God]. Jesus is explicitly referred to as the ‘Word of God’ (kalimat Allah):
 

The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a Messenger of God, and His
Word which He cast unto Mary. (Sura al-Nisa, iv:171)
 

Imam Ali, in one of his discourses, interprets the speech of God in terms of His creative activity: ‘When God wishes to bring something into being, He says unto it “Be!”, and it is; but [He does so] not with a voice that is sounded, nor with a call that can be heard. For the speech of God is one of His actions whereby a thing is endowed with existence.’
 

From the discussion above regarding the reality of God’s speech it should have become evident that the speech of God is originated in time (hadith), and is not eternal (qadim). For His speech constitutes His act, and, as the act of God takes place in time, it follows naturally that His speech possesses, likewise, a temporal condition.

Nonetheless, in order to uphold correct spiritual courtesy (adab), and in order to forestall any misconceptions, we cannot call the speech of God ‘created’, because of the many for whom the idea of being created connotes being artificial or constructed. But leaving aside this point of view, we can regard all that is other than God as His creature.
Sulayman al-Ja ‘fari related thus:

‘I asked the seventh Imam, Musa Ibn Ja ‘far, “Is the Quran created?” The Imam replied, “I say that the Quran is the speech of God”.’
 

At this point the following should be noted: At the beginning of the 3rd/9th century, the question of whether the Quran was created or uncreated was being hotly debated by the Muslims, and was a source of acute acrimony and divisiveness. Those who advocated the eternity of the Quran did not support their position with sound reasoning, with the result that some Muslims viewed the Quran as temporally originated, while others regarded it as eternal. If the purpose of the Quran and its words is that these words be read, and if they are words which the angel Gabriel was charged by God to reveal to the heart of the Prophet, it is obvious that all of these words are temporally originated. Also, if the purpose of the Quranic verses is to impart knowledge and meaning, and some of these verses relate the historical tales of the Prophets, and also relate the wars fought by the Prophet [of Islam], then these verses cannot be regarded as eternal.
 

To conclude, if the aim is to acquire knowledge of God through the Quran, by means of both words and underlying meanings, the knowledge of God is, evidently, eternal, being one of the attributes of His Essence—but knowledge is one thing and speech, another.

Veracity
 

One of the attributes of Divine Activity is veracity (sidq), that is to say, whatever He says is true; the blemish of falsehood does not tarnish His speech. The reason for this is clear: lying is the way of the ignorant, those in need, the afflicted and the frightened and God is utterly beyond all such conditions. In other words, lying is an abomination and God cannot be tainted by any evil.

Wisdom
 

Another of the divine attributes of perfection is wisdom (hikma), ‘The Wise’ (al-hakim) being one of His names. The meaning of God being wise is, first, that His actions are brought to ultimate fruition in a perfect, complete and definitive consummation. Secondly, God is utterly beyond performing any actions that are deficient or vain.
Evidence of the first fact is furnished by the marvellous order of the world of creation and by the beautiful way in which the awesome edifice of creation is raised up. As the Quran says:
... the fashioning of God, Who perfecteth all things. (Sura al-Naml, XXVII:88)
 

Evidence of the second fact is provided by the following verse:
And We created not the heaven and the earth, and all that is between them, in vain. (Sura Sad, XXXVIII:27)
God is absolute perfection; therefore, His actions must also partake of perfection and be devoid of all defect and futility.

 

Reference:

 Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, Doctrines of Shii Islam, A Compendium of Imami Beliefs and Practices, Translated and Edited by Reza Shah-Kazemi, published by I.B.Tauris Publishers, london • new york  2003

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