Third Session

I seek refuge in God from Satan, the accursed. In the name of God, the All-merciful, the All-compassionate. Praise belongs to God, Lord of all the worlds, and blessings and peace be upon the noblest of the prophets and messengers, the beloved of the hearts of the truthful, Abu al-Qasim, al-Mustafa Muhammad. O God, bless Muhammad and the family of Muhammad and his pure and purified household, and let the eternal curse be upon all their enemies.

Divine Creation

أَنْشَأَ الْخَلْقَ إِنْشَاءً، وَابْتَدَأَهُ ابْتِدَاءً، بِلَا رَوِيَّةٍ أَجَالَهَا، وَلَا تَجْرِبَةٍ اسْتَفَادَهَا، وَلَا حَرَكَةٍ أَحْدَثَهَا، وَلَا هَمَامَةِ نَفْسٍ اضْطَرَبَ فِيهَا. أَحَالَ الْأَشْيَاءَ لِأَوْقَاتِهَا، وَلَاءَمَ بَيْنَ مُخْتَلِفَاتِهَا، وَغَرَّزَ غَرَائِزَهَا، وَأَلْزَمَهَا أَشْبَاحَهَا، عَالِمًا بِهَا قَبْلَ ابْتِدَائِهَا، مُحِيطًا بِحُدُودِهَا وَانْتِهَائِهَا، عَارِفًا بِقَرَائِنِهَا وَأَحْنَائِهَا.

We thank God for granting this gathering the opportunity to come together once a week and benefit from the words of the master of the Godwary, the Commander of the Faithful (a), and his valuable and lofty sermons. This is a great blessing. We hope that through our continued attendance we will appreciate this blessing and that God will not take it away from us, God willing.

In the previous two sessions, we said that the essence of God, Exalted is He, cannot be comprehended, and that we are incapable of understanding it. In the first session, we discussed some points about our inability to praise God, Exalted is He, and enumerate His blessings. In the second session, we also touched on the attributes of God, Exalted is He, and concluded by saying that God’s attributes differ from the attributes of contingent beings.

God is Necessary in Existence, whereas contingent beings are not. God is pure existence, while other beings are composed of existence and quiddity. Even if they have no external parts, they have intellectual parts—that is, existence and quiddity. Everything has existence and a whatness, which is called its quiddity, but God, Exalted is He, has no whatness. His existence is simple and pure. We discussed this briefly in the previous session.

We also said that, in one classification, the attributes of God, Exalted is He, are divided into attributes of essence and attributes of action. The attributes of essence are those that are identical with God’s essence, such as God’s knowledge and forbearance. Some attributes, however, have an object and refer to God’s relationship with beings and existence, such as God’s being the Provider. This is an attribute of action. God’s being the Creator and Originator are also attributes of action: «فاطر السماوات والأرض».

In this passage, the Commander of the Faithful (a) begins to discuss God’s action. Tonight’s discussion concerns the beginning of the attributes of action and creation.

God’s Creation and Human Creation

God’s creation may differ from the actions of other beings. God’s creation does not require thought. If we human beings want to make something, sometimes we have to think; we cannot get something done without thinking. At times, we also draw on other people’s experience to make something. Sometimes a person uses his own ingenuity and works according to his own ideas; sometimes he benefits from the experience of others. He may also examine previous ideas and compare them with what he has made. A person sometimes makes something and takes it apart many times until, at last, he achieves what he wants.

Thus, our actions involve thought, experience, and trial and error. Sometimes they also involve anxiety and worry. But God, Exalted is He, is not like this. He brings things into existence without needing to think or drawing on any experience. His action involves no trial and error, comparison, or anxiety. God’s creation cannot be compared with our human acts of creation and work.

The Commander of the Faithful (a) says: «أَنْشَأَ الْخَلْقَ إِنْشَاءً»; God created and brought creation into existence. «وَابْتَدَأَهُ ابْتِدَاءً»; He initiated creation.

«بِلَا رَوِيَّةٍ أَجَالَهَا»; without setting any thought in motion. A person puts his thoughts to work and lets them roam, but this does not apply to God.

«وَلَا تَجْرِبَةٍ اسْتَفَادَهَا»; in creation, He drew on no experience. As stated, a person sometimes begins a task through his own ingenuity and thought, and sometimes draws on the experience of others; God, however, draws on no experience.

«وَلَا حَرَكَةٍ أَحْدَثَهَا»; creation did not come about through any movement on God’s part. Some have taken this movement to be intellectual, and others physical. God is exalted above both: He has neither intellectual nor physical movement. A human being’s intellectual movement means that he first conceives of something and then affirms it. Physical movement may also require a change of place and relocation. Neither of these movements applies to God.

In discussions of movement, in addition to classifications such as translational and spatial movement, there is also movement in quantity, movement in quality, and substantial motion. Spatial movement is like someone getting up from one place and going to another. An example of movement in quality is a flower changing color. Quantity can also change. Substantial motion is an internal movement; that is, beings change from moment to moment. This change occurs in their substance and essence, and it is a lengthy discussion that Mulla Sadra has presented. None of these movements can be conceived of with respect to God, Exalted is He.

«وَلَا هَمَامَةِ نَفْسٍ اضْطَرَبَ فِيهَا»; creation involved no inner agitation or anxiety. A person makes something, but may worry that what he has made will not be what he intended; sometimes he also changes his design several times until he arrives at the design he wants. No such agitation or anxiety applies to God.

The first point, then, is that God created creation and beings without any thought, experience, movement, or anxiety.

Order in Creation and the Connections Among Beings

The Commander of the Faithful (a) says: «أَحَالَ الْأَشْيَاءَ لِأَوْقَاتِهَا»; God has assigned everything to its proper time. There is order in the creation of beings. It is not the case that things are created without any rule or measure; everything comes into being at its proper time and according to order and sequence.

He then says: «وَلَاءَمَ بَيْنَ مُخْتَلِفَاتِهَا»; God established connection and harmony among different and diverse things. In this world there are strange and diverse beings, and God has established relations and harmony among them. For example, He has established a connection between the spirit and the body, which belong to two different realms. The spirit is an immaterial and subtle being, while the body is heavy. God has also established connections between water and fire, and among the various components of beings. The very tree you see is made up of the elements within it; God has brought these elements into harmony.

Instincts and Characteristics of Beings

«وَغَرَّزَ غَرَائِزَهَا»; God placed an instinct in every being. The word «غَرَّزَ» means to insert a needle or inject something inside. The point is that God placed the inner attributes of beings within them.

Human beings have various instincts, such as curiosity, sexual instinct, and love of knowledge. Animals, too, have different instincts. All beings, even inanimate objects, have inner characteristics. For example, a physical object may be flexible and capable of being shaped. This characteristic, too, has been placed within it. An instinct, then, is an inner attribute or characteristic that God has placed in beings.

The Holy Qur’an says of the honeybee:

﴿ وَأَوْحَىٰ رَبُّكَ إِلَى النَّحْلِ أَنِ اتَّخِذِي مِنَ الْجِبَالِ بُيُوتًا ﴾

And your Lord revealed to the honeybee: Take for yourselves houses in the mountains.

It is the honeybee’s instinct to go to high places and flowers, gather their nectar, and then produce honey in a particular place. All of this comes from the instincts God has placed within beings.

The Commander of the Faithful (a) continues: «وَأَلْزَمَهَا أَشْبَاحَهَا». In addition to their inner attributes, beings also have external attributes, which in this statement are referred to as «اشباح». A «شبح» is something that suddenly appears before a person. What is meant is the outward appearance and characteristics of things, such as their place, shape, appearance, body, and weight. What we see when we first encounter things is not their inner attributes, but their outward appearance. Thus, «اشباح» refers to the outward attributes of things: characteristics that are visible to us and distinguish one thing from another.

God’s Knowledge of Beings

He then says: «عَالِمًا بِهَا قَبْلَ ابْتِدَائِهَا»; God had knowledge of beings before the beginning of creation.

There is a scholarly discussion here, which I will only touch on briefly for now: How does human knowledge of things work? Knowledge is defined as «صورت الشیء عند الذهن»; the form of a thing in the mind.

Acquired Knowledge and Presential Knowledge

The forms of things—that is, the images of things reflected in the human mind—are called knowledge. The human mind is like a mirror in which images of things appear. When we see the sea, the sea itself does not enter our mind; rather, an image of it appears in our mind. Likewise, when we see this room, the room’s image is in our mind, not its external existence.

The knowledge we have of these forms is termed «acquired knowledge»; that is, knowledge that a person acquires.

A person also has another kind of knowledge, called «presential knowledge». In this kind of knowledge, an image of something does not take shape in the mind, through which a person then becomes aware of that thing. For example, a person’s knowledge of himself is presential knowledge. A person also knows that he knows a particular point. The point is in his mind and he is aware of it, so this awareness is presential knowledge.

God, Exalted is He, created all things, and His knowledge of things is not acquired knowledge; everything is present before God. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow have meaning for us, but God has no yesterday, today, or tomorrow. This division of time is limited to the human perspective. For God, who is unlimited, all things are present, and there is no difference between the past and the future. If someone died hundreds of thousands of years ago, he is absent from our perspective, but present before God. Therefore, God’s knowledge of things is presential knowledge.

The Imam alludes to this meaning:

ثُمَّ أَنْشَأَ سُبْحَانَهُ فَتْقَ الْأَجْوَاءِ، وَشَقَّ الْأَرْجَاءِ، وَسَكَائِكَ الْهَوَاءِ

God was «عَالِمًا بِهَا قَبْلَ ابْتِدَائِهَا»; He knew everything before creation began. He also encompassed the limits and ends of things. We do not encompass things; they lie outside our existence, and we do not encompass one another either. But God encompasses everything and knows the limits, aspects, and ends of every thing.

«عارِفًا بِقَرائِنِها وَأَحْنائِها»; God knows the accompanying circumstances and connections of everything. «أحناء» is the plural of «حَنو», and refers to bends, curves, and crookedness. For example, He knows whether a bone is straight or crooked. Thus, God knows the things themselves, their accompanying circumstances and connections, and their bends and crookedness.

Up to this point, the discussion has been about creation. Creation is one of God’s attributes of action.

The Creation of Space

The Imam says:

ثُمَّ أَنْشَأَ سُبْحَانَهُ فَتْقَ الْأَجْوَاءِ، وَشَقَّ الْأَرْجَاءِ، وَسَكَائِكَ الْهَوَاءِ

«ثُمَّ أَنْشَأَ» means, then He brought into existence. «فَتْق» is the opposite of «رَتق». Fatq means to open and split apart, while ratq means to close and join together. The Qur’an says of the heavens and the earth:

﴿ كَانَتَا رَتْقًا فَفَتَقْنَاهُمَا ﴾

The heavens and the earth were joined together, and We split them apart.

The Imam says that the first thing God created was space. «جَوّ» means space, and «أجواء» is its plural. In this space are billions of galaxies, solar systems, and stars, and everything occupies space.

The word “atmosphere” is a term whose root goes back to Greek and which later became widespread in English and other languages. The expression «أجواء» in the words of the Commander of the Faithful (a) is plural; from this expression, we can understand that space has layers and levels, rather than consisting of just one layer. Scientists today also say that the atmosphere has five layers.

Astronomy and the Science of the Celestial Configuration

The sciences of astronomy and the celestial configuration are very ancient. In the past, these subjects were also studied in seminaries, and our great scholars were experts in them. The late Ayatollah Hasan Hasanzadeh was an expert in these sciences. Geometry, trigonometry, and the science of the celestial configuration were discussed in classical books; medicine and occult sciences were also among the subjects studied in seminaries. Avicenna and many of the great scholars of the past knew these sciences as well.

Astronomy is the study of stars, including knowledge of their number, the intensity of their light, and their movement. The science of the celestial configuration concerns the celestial spheres: how many spheres there are, how many stars are in each sphere, and whether the placement of stars in different spheres has any effects on the earth.

The study of the celestial configuration begins with geometry and trigonometry. Among geometric shapes, the circle is one of the simplest, and the first shape that fits inside a circle is a triangle. For this reason, the discussion begins with trigonometry. In this science, the celestial spheres are also depicted as various circles, and geometric shapes, especially the triangle, are discussed.

The Origins of the Sciences in the Account of Prophet Idris (a)

What we know in this field has come to us from the prophets. In ancient Greece, there was a sage named Hermes, one of the very ancient sages. The Greeks were so fond of him that many people chose the name Hermes for themselves. To distinguish the original Hermes from the others, they called him «هرمس‌الهرامسه», meaning the foremost of the Hermeses. He was also referred to as «حکیم‌الحکما».

In Islamic terminology, Hermes Trismegistus is Prophet Idris (a), a prophet of God. Ninety-nine percent of human knowledge has its origins in Hermes Trismegistus. Tailoring, mathematics, medicine, and other sciences trace their origins to Prophet Idris (a).

Prophet Idris (a) lived in very ancient times. After Prophet Adam (a) came Prophet Seth (a), and after him Hermes, that is, Prophet Idris (a). According to what has been narrated, Prophet Idris (a), like the Imam of the Age (may God hasten his reappearance), was also in occultation, and remained in occultation for three hundred and sixty years. Hermes is the name the Greeks used for him; we call him Idris.

In Islamic sources, Idris and Elijah are one person, not two. The same person is known as Prophet Idris before his occultation and as Elijah after it. The Qur’an says:

﴿ وَإِنَّ إِلْيَاسَ لَمِنَ الْمُرْسَلِينَ ﴾

Elijah was indeed one of the messengers.

Thus, sciences such as astronomy and the science of the celestial configuration also trace their origins to Prophet Elijah, that is, Prophet Idris (a).

This knowledge reached the noble Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (s), and the Commander of the Faithful, Ali (a), through this chain.

Thus the first thing that God, Exalted is He, created was the atmosphere, or space—the very thing called the atmosphere today. Space has various layers and levels. Amir al-Mu'minin (a) says:

ثُمَّ أَنْشَأَ سُبْحَانَهُ فَتْقَ الْأَجْوَاءِ، وَشَقَّ الْأَرْجَاءِ، وَسَكَائِكَ الْهَوَاءِ.

God separated the various spaces and their layers from one another. «فتق» means to open and separate. «أرجاء» also means surroundings; thus, «شق الأرجاء» means that He opened up the surroundings and separated them.

The concluding phrase is «وسکائك الهواء». «سکائك» is the plural of «سکاکه». To investigate the meaning of this word, one may consult important Arabic dictionaries, including Maqayis al-Lugha, Mufradat al-Raghib al-Isfahani, and Lisan al-Arab. «سکاکه» has various meanings; one of them is «ابن‌السبیل», meaning someone stranded on a journey. But the meaning under discussion here is the space between the sky and the earth. Therefore, «سکائك الهواء» refers to the space between the sky and the earth—that is, the air.

In common usage, «هوا» means empty space. When we ask what is inside a vessel and are told «هوا», it means there is nothing in it; it is empty. One of the meanings of «هوا» is also a place of falling: a person cannot stand in the air and will fall. This is also why «هوای نفس» is called by this name: following one’s base desires causes a person to fall, both in this world and in the Hereafter. «هوای نفس» is vain, containing nothing but delusion and futile thoughts; to follow it is to follow what is empty, and it brings a person down.

Thus God, Exalted is He, separated the various levels and layers of space from one another, opened up their surroundings, and placed empty space—that is, air—between them.

There are many scientific discussions on this subject, which, due to lack of time, we will leave until the next session. We ask God, Exalted is He, to grant us the success to appreciate the blessing of this gathering and of benefiting from the words of Amir al-Mu'minin (a); to understand these beautiful sentences, whose worth few people appreciate; and that this blessing not be taken away from us.

والسلام علیکم و رحمة الله و برکاته. اللهم صلّ علی محمد و آل محمد.