Understanding & Awareness

The Worldview of Tauhid-5
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.

Levels and Degrees of Tauhid

Tauhid has levels and degrees, as does its opposite, shirk. Until one has traversed all the levels of tauhid, one is not a true muwahhid(monotheist).

(Tauhid is a belief, an ‘aqeedah’ and as such belongs to the class of knowledge, and, at the same time, Tauhid is an eternal movement towards Allah(SWT), which the author calls Tauhid in practice and belongs to the class of being and becoming. In this issue, levels and degrees of theoretical Tauhid are discussed with reference to Essence, Attributes, and Acts of Allah(SWT), and in the next issue Tauhid in practice will be taken up focusing on worship —– editor)

Essence

Tauhid as regards the Essence means to know the Essence of the God in its unity and uniqueness. The first knowledge anyone has of the Essence of God is of His self-sufficiency. This means that He is the Essence that stands in need of no other being in any respect. In the language of the Qur’an, He is the Self-sufficient. All need Him and receive help from Him, but He is free of need: “O people! You are those in need of God, and God is the Self-sufficient, the Praiseworthy” (35: 15). In the language of the hukama’, He is the necessary Being.

They also ascribe to Him priority, which refers to His role as Principle, source, and Creator. He is the Principle and Creator of other beings, which are all from Him, but He is from nothing. In the language of the hukama, He is the Primal Cause. This is the first knowledge and first conception anyone has of God. That is, whoever thinks about God, whether in affirmation or denial, belief or disbelief, has such a conception in mind: He asks himself, “Is there a Reality that is dependent upon no other reality, but upon Whom all realities depend, through Whose will all realities have come into being, and Who has not Himself come into being through any other principle?”

Tauhid as regards the Essence implies this Reality does not admit duality or multiplicity, has no likeness: “There is nothing like Him” (42: 11). There is no other being at His level of existence: “And there is none comparable to Him” (112:4).That a being should be considered an individual member of a species, as for instance that Hasan should be considered an individual member of the human species, such that the existence of other members of this species may automatically be inferred, is among the characteristics of creatures and contingent beings. The Essence of the Necessary Being is above such implications and thus free from them.

Because the Necessary Being is single, the universe is necessarily single in respect to its principle and source and in respect to its point of return and end: The universe neither arises from numerous principles nor reverts to numerous principles. It arises from one Principle, one Reality: “Say, God is the Creator of all things”(13:16). It returns to that same Principle, that same Reality: “Behold, all affairs course to God” (42:53).

The relation of God and the world is a relation of Creator and created, that is, a relation of creative cause and effect, not a relation such as that of light to the lamp or that of man’s consciousness to man. God is not separate from the world. He is with all things, but the things are not with Him: “He is with you wherever you may be”(57:4). But that God is not separate from the world does not imply that He is like light to the lamp or consciousness to the body. If this were so, God would be an effect of the world and not the world the effect of God, as light is an effect of the lamp, not the lamp the effect of the light. Likewise, that God is not separate from the world and man does not imply that God, the world, and man all have one mode of being and that they all live and move with one will and one spirit. All these are attributes of the created, the contingent. God is above the attributes of created beings. “Glory to your Lord! The Lord of Power! [He is free] of what they ascribe to Him” (37: 180).

Attributes
Tauhid as regards the attributes means to perceive and know the Essence of God in its identity with its attributes and the attributes in their identity with one another. Tauhid as regards the Essence means to deny the existence of a second or a likeness, but tauhid as regards the attributes means to deny the existence of any sort of multiplicity and compoundedness in the Essence itself. Although the Essence of God is described by the attributes of perfection -beauty and majesty-it does not have various objective aspects. A differentiation between the Essence and the attributes or between attributes would imply a limitation in being. For a boundless being, just as a second for it cannot be conceived, neither can multiplicity, compoundedness, or differentiation between essence and attributes be conceived.

Tauhid as regards the attributes, like tauhid as regards the Essence, is among those principles of the Islamic sciences and among those most sublime and elevated of human ideas that have been crystallized most especially in the Shi’i school of thought. ‘Ali says in the first sermon of the Nahj al-Balagha: “Praise to God, Whom the praise of the speakers does not attain, and Whose blessings the counters do not reckon, and Whose due the strivers do not fulfill, Whom the far-reaching aspirations do not reach, and Whom the plummetings of the sagacious do not attain, of Whom there is no limit to the description, and of Whom there is no qualification.” He mentions the limitless attributes of God. A few sentences later, he says: “The perfection of devotion to Him is the rejection of attributes to Him, because any object of attribution bears witness that it is other than the attribute, and any attribute bears witness that it is other than the object of attribution, so whoever ascribes attributes to God (praise Him!) has associated Him, and whoever has associated Him, … “ In this passage ‘Ali has both affirmed attributes of God (“to Whom there is no limit to the description”) and negated them (“any attribute bears witness”). The attributes by which God is characterized are clearly the boundless attributes to the boundlessness of the Essence, identical to that Essence, and the attributes God is above and free of are the limited attributes distinct from the Essence and from other attributes. Therefore, taluhid as regards the attributes means perceiving and knowing the unity of the Essence and the attributes of God.

Acts
Tauhid as regards acts means perceiving and knowing that the universe, with all its systems, norms, and causes and effects, is God’s act and God’s work and arises from His will. Just as the beings of the universe are not independent in essence, all subsisting by Him and dependent on Him, He being in the language of the Qur’an the one Self-subsistent by means of whom the universe subsists, neither are these beings independent in terms of effecting and causality. In consequence, just as God has no partner in essence, neither has He any partner in agency. Every agent and cause gains its reality, its being, its influence and agency from Him; every agent subsists by Him. All powers and all strength are by Him: “Whatever God intend, and there is no strength except by Him-no power and no strength except by God.”

Man, like all other beings, has a causal role in and effect on his actions. He is indeed more inf1uential in shaping his own destiny than are the others, but he is by no means a fully empowered being, one left to his own devices. “I stand and sit by God’s power and strength”.

Belief in complete empowerment of a being, human or otherwise, by way of assignation, entails belief that that being is a partner with God in independence of agency, and independence of agency further entails independence in essence, which is inimical to tauhid as regards the Essence, not to speak of tauhid as regards acts. “Praise to God, Who does not take a wife and has no son, and with Whom there is no partner in rule, and Who has no supporter from inability, so magnify Him.”

Is theoretical tauhid, that is, to know God in His unity of essence, unity of essence and attributes, and unity of agency, possible? If it is possible, does such knowledge contribute to human happiness or is it superf1uous? I have discussed the possibility or impossibility of such knowledge in Usul-i Falsafa va Ravish-i Ri’alism (Principles of Philosophy and the Method of Realism), but how we envision it depends on how we understand man and his happiness. The tide of materialistic thought about man and being has led even believers in God to conceive of questions of theology as useless and vain, as a kind of abstractionism and flight from reality. But a Muslim who views the reality of man as not just the corporeal reality, who views the basic reality of man as the reality of his sipirit, whose substance is the substance of knowledge, sanctity, and purity, well understands that so-called theoretical tauhid (the three levels I have described),in addition to being the foundation of tauhid in practice, is itself in its essence the highest perfection of the soul. It truly elevates man to God and grants him perfection. “To Him ascends the good word, and He exalts the righteous deed” (35: 10). Man’s humanity is dependent upon his knowledge of God. Man’s knowledge is not separate from man; it is the most basic and dearest part of his existence. To whatever extent man attains knowledge of being, the system of being, and the source and principle of being, he has realized half his substance, which is knowledge, science, gnosis.

Next Issue: Tauhid in practice as it relates to realm of being and becoming
————-Editor