“ God supports and sustains all existence at every moment by His will and His thought. Outside His will, outside His thought, all is nothing, even the things which seem to us absolutely self-evident such as space and time. Allāh alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine will.” – Imām Sulṭān Muḥammad Shāh Āgā Khān III, (Islam: The Religion of My Ancestors, extract from The Memoirs of Aga Khan: World Enough and Time)
God is described in the Holy Qur’an as badi‘ al-samawati wa’l-ard:
In Arabic word ‘badi’ is used to refer to the creation of something from nothing,without any previous example and without the use of any other matter or substance, as opposed to word ‘Khalq’ which means to create something from anything already present.[1]"To Him is due the primal origin(badi) of the heavens and the earth;When He decreeth a matter(amaran),He saith to it:Be (‘kun’) and it is (fa ya kun)"(2:117)
Another word used in the Quran for God as Originator of heavens and the earth is Fatir (6:14), However we see following pattern adopted by various Ismaili thinkers
- God as Mubdi —the Originator
- His Divine command as Ibda — the act of originating
- Intellect as Mubda — that which gets originated
Intellect is considered as Mubda-al-awal—directly originated or brought into existence from non existence and out of nothing ,or to say it is invented through Ibda — the Divine Act of Origination.Various traditions of prophet Muhammad also confirm that first thing created by God was Intellect;as:
God – may He be glorified and exalted – created Intellect (‘Aql) first among the spiritual entities.[2]
Intellect was,however, originated out of nothing - not from any pre-existing substance or materiel,rather it was invented altogether.
"It did not exist, then it came into existence via ibda and ikhtira, neither from a thing, nor upon a thing, nor in a thing, nor by a thing, nor for a thing and nor with a thing."-Hamid al din al-Kirmani,(Rahat al-‘Aql, trans. Hunzai, p. 165)
Ismaili thinkers differentiate between creation out of nothing and call it invention (Ibda);while creation from already present thing as true creation (khalq).Nasir khusrau explains the difference between the two in these words:
They term bringing something not out of something else ‘origination’ (ibdāʿ) or ‘invention’ (ikhtirāʿ), while they call ‘creation’ (khalq) the determination (taqdīr) of a thing from another thing. In just this way, the carpenter makes a throne out of wood; he is the creator (khāliq) of the throne and he is also the originator (mubdiʿ) of the form of the throne. Man does not have the capability to originate the body (ibdāʿ-i jism) from nothing.
-Sayyidina Nasir khusrau, (Kitāb-i Jāmiʿ al-ḥikmatayn,tran Ormsby,p 189)
Thus Command is the innovative act of God and the effect of it is Intellect.It can be better understood by the example of Sun and its light.Command is the sun and Intellect its light while their is no difference between the two — apparently they are two different things but in essence they are one;similarly, command is not separate from Intellect,as is light not separable from sun.The Universal Intellect is united with the Command and there is no intermediary separating between the two; in this way, the perfect state of the Intellect and its high spiritual status is assured.
There is not any temporal difference between Command and the Intellect,the only difference is at the conceptual level.We cannot say which one came first or which afterwards,because there was no time created then;all that happened at once without time itself being involved.
There is not any temporal difference between Command and the Intellect,the only difference is at the conceptual level.We cannot say which one came first or which afterwards,because there was no time created then;all that happened at once without time itself being involved.
“The command of God is Being-Making.And Being-Making does not subsist except in Intellect,that is to say,if there were not intellect,no Being would be.The proof of this thesis is that no artist in the world would make art without Intellect.Another is that the first Being,namely,Intellect,is the result of Perfect Liberality,and the Perfect Liberality is that for which Intellect becomes a mediator(wasilah) through its excellence ;and it is not possible for a thing (Intellect) to become a mediator except at that time when it (Intellect) is itself in Being.Therefore,the first Intellect does not appear after Being Making,and two do not have priority over each other.We say that the Command of the Originator,the most High,is Being Making,and Intellect is the first Being Made.Therefore the command,namely Being-Making ,and Intellect ,namely the first Being-Made,do not have priority over each other.”
-Syyidina Abu Yaqub al-Sijistanii, (Kashf-al-Mahjoob,p22)
Nasir khusrau in his book Gushayish wa Rahayish explains this Word-Intellect relation.Example of Word and intellect,as he asserts, is like that of blackness and black.As blackness has received its name from the color black.Blackness is found only when one looks at black and former is the essence of later.Both depend on each other as blackness can only be perceived when black exists.
Another way to understand this relationship,as Nasir khusrau explains, is to consider Word as Oneness and and Intellect as One.As oneness only manifests its existence in one.So the two cannot be considered separate from each other but they are actually one in essence.Word is the cause and Intellect its effect,an effect cannot be separated from its cause and if we remove cause then effect itself ceases to exist.Existence of Intellect depends on Word which serves as an intermediary between God and Intellect.In the other words, God’s action is the Word and what results is Intellect.
Another way to understand this relationship,as Nasir khusrau explains, is to consider Word as Oneness and and Intellect as One.As oneness only manifests its existence in one.So the two cannot be considered separate from each other but they are actually one in essence.Word is the cause and Intellect its effect,an effect cannot be separated from its cause and if we remove cause then effect itself ceases to exist.Existence of Intellect depends on Word which serves as an intermediary between God and Intellect.In the other words, God’s action is the Word and what results is Intellect.
“That there was no form for the world with the originator prior to the origination.”
Walker, The Wellsprings of Wisdom, pp. 96–98.
- Syyidina Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani; (Ithbat al-Nubuwa, p. 3)“…He by a single command originates (ikhtara) beings all at once without the need afterward to alter or change,"
Thus creation occurs primarily in the form of intelligible world of Intellect as a result of Ibda —creation out of nothing (or ex nihilo);and this takes place all at once(without involvement of time) as a result of Command of God (which itself is like a date seed,for it contains everything in it).The various parts of the universe, however, became only gradually manifested through the process of causation and emanation. Al-Sijistani emphatically denies that the world was created thing by thing or moment by moment. It was, he maintains, originated at once (daf‘atan wahidatan).[3]
The ontological difference between the intelligible realm (dar al-ibda) and the sensible realm (dar al-makhluq) is a direct result of their different processes of coming into being. The intelligible realm originates in the Word of God, in no time, while the sensible realm (consisting of the created beings (makhluq) after Soul is produced (khalq) over time. [4]
God’s creating act(His Command) is undeniable, unstoppable and unending,although the creation may not be eternal.Thus the universe is consequently makhluq (Creation) of God and He is not separate from creation,for His command or word act as intermediary between Him and His creation.
The creative act of God is not bound to time,so the Universal Intellect,which is its effect is also eternal and timeless.Its beginning is the same as its end.The creative act of God (Command) is eternally creating act and so is Intellect when it emanates Soul ,so we can say that God continuously creates and sustains creation.He creative act is not time bounded,but Eternal and outside the realm of time.
Creation as origination does not have any relationship to time;before and after have no scope or meaning at the stage of origination.God’s origination is atemporal ,as is the emanating of the intellect bring soul into existence.Both are eternal.Time can apply to a process only within the soul,it is only there that a prior and posterior exist as two aspects of a single point or a single perspective.[5]
References:
1.tafsir Ibn Kathir 1/241
2.Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shi ‘ism, (SUNY Press, 1994),31
3. The Ismaili Vocabulary of Creation, Walker
4.Nasir Khurau’s Doctrine of Soul;Dr A.Hunsberger Dissertation;p 132
5.Abu ya’aqub al Sijistani-Intellectual missionary,Paul E.Walker,933
