Understanding & Awareness

The Worldview of Tauhid-4
By: Murtadha Mutahhary

Every path and philosophy of life is based on a belief, outlook, and value system vis-a-vis being or on an explanation and analysis of the world. The kind of conception that a school of thought presents of the world and of being, the manner in which it contemplates it, is considered the intellectual foundation and support of that school. This foundation and support is termed the world view. All religions, customs, schools of thought, and social philosophies rest on a world view. A school’s aims, methods, musts and must nots all result necessarily from its world view.

Worship

To know the One God as the most perfect Essence, with the most perfect attributes, above all lack and imperfection, and to know His relation to the universe of creation, preservation, and emanation, of kindness and mercy, induce a response in us termed “Worship”. Worship is a kind of relation of humility, adoration, and thanks-giving that man establishes with his God and can establish only with his God. It is correct and permissible only in relation to God. To recognize God as the only Source of being, the only Master, and the Lord of all things entails our pairing no created thing with Him in worship. The Noble Qur.an repeatedly afirrms and stresses that worship must be reserved for God, that there is no sin like shirk toward God.

Two preliminary remarks are required to clarify the meaning of worship:

1. Worship is either verbal or active. Verbal worship consists in reciting a series of phrases and invocations, as in reciting the Opening and another sura of the Qur’an as well as invocations during the bows and prostrations of prayer and in pronouncing the tashahhud or by calling Labbayka during the hajj. Active worship is (exemplified by the motions of standing, bowing, and prostrating in prayer or, on the hajj, by the standing at ‘Arafat and the Mash’ar and by the circumambulation of the Ka’ba. Most acts of worship include both verbal and active components, as is the case with the prayer and the hajj.
2. Man’s actions are of two kinds. Some acts have no special referent; they are not accomplished as signs of something else but only for the sake of their natural and inherent results. For instance, a farmer carries out a series of labors connected with agriculture to reap the natural results of such labors. The farmer does not carry on agriculture as a sign and symbol, as an expression of a series of meanings and sentiments. But we do some things as signs with a series of meanings, as expressions of sentiments of certain kinds.

For instance, we nod our heads as a sign of assent; in a gathering, we sit by the door as a sign of humility; and we bow as a sign of veneration and honor to another. Most human actions are of the this first kind. But some human actions are of this second kind, done to represent a meaning, to express sentiments. Such actions have the force of words in conveying a meaning and expressing an intention.

Worship, whether verbal or active, is a significant action. Man through his words of worship expresses a truth, or rather truths, and through his acts of worship, such as bowing and prostration, halting and circumambulation, or commencing the fast, expresses the meanings he recites verbally

Man expresses five things in his verbal and active worship:

1. Praise of God by means of those attributes and qualities that are uniquely God’s that is, those qualities that refer to the Absolute Perfection, such as absolute knowledge, absolute power, absolute will. The meaning of absolute perfection, absolute knowledge, absolute power, and absolute will is that they are not limited or conditional upon anything. They entail God’s being free of need.
2. Praise of God by affirrming that He is beyond all lacks and defects, such as mortality, limitation, ignorance, miserliness, and injustice.
3. Thanksgiving to God as the original Source of all good things and blessings, affirmation that all the blessings we enjoy come from Him and Him alone, that things other than Him are means He has established.
4. Utter surrender and utter obedience toward Him, acknowledgement that He is to be obeyed unconditionally and deserves obedience and surrender. He, in being God, fittingly gives commands, and we, in being servants, fittingly obey and surrender to Him.
5. Acknowledgment that He has no partner in any of the four matters: There is no absolute perfection but Him; there is no essence beyond defect other than Him; there is no benefactor or original source of blessings to whom all acts of thanksgiving revert but Him; there is no being deserving of absolute obedience and absolute surrender but Him. Every act of obedience, such as obedience to the Prophet, the Imam, the legitimate Islamic ruler, one’s mother and father, or one’s teacher must in the end equal obedience to Him and satisfaction of Him; otherwise it is impermissible.

This is the response that is appropriate to a servant before the great God. It is neither correct nor permissible in reference to any other being

Next Issue: The Worldview of Tauhid-5 where the author discusses : Levels and Degrees of Tauhid
————-Editor