“Allah alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine will.” – Imām Sultān Muḥammad Shāh Āgā Khān III, (Memoirs of the Aga Khan: World Enough and Time)
According
to several verses in the Quran,we can find this idea very evident, that
in the beginning,God created this world by uttering a single word,’Kun’:
“He it is who created the heavens and the earth in truth.In that day when He saith:Be! it is.His Word is the truth and His Will be the sovereignty on the day when trumpet will be blown.Knower of the visible and the invisible,He is the Wise and the Aware”(Quran 6:73)
His command is only when He intends a thing that He says to it, “Be,” and it is (36:82)
In the New Testament as well,we can find a similar idea that God created this whole world through a ‘Word’:
All things were made by the Word (logos); without it nothing was made that was made. It was by it (Word) that all things came into existence.(John 1:1–5)
The Divine Command ‘Kun’ is seen as Word (kalima) or Commandment (amr), Will (irada) or Intention (mashiyyat) of God.The divine will is revealed in the Word ‘Kun’,which
serves as the creative intermediary between God and the intellect and
thus bridges the gap between the transcendental God and the created
world .This Amr is ultimately responsible for directing and sustaining what ever has been created.
“The command of God is not a part of Him,but a trace which is like a writer’s script,in which there is nothing of his essence.Since God’s epseity is above matter,instrument,power,form,likeness,and act,His command is to be understood in the sense that it is self subsistent and all existences and existents are contained in it.” Sayyidnia Nasir khusrau, Gushayish wa Rahayish (Hunzai’s trans, 27)
While giving spiritual exegesis of this Word ‘Kun’,Nasir Khusrau explains:
“The existence of the world together with all that is in it occurs through the command (amr) of God. They [Ahle-Tawil] term this ‘originator’ (ibdāʿ), denoting a single word of two consonants, which they identify as ‘Be!’ (kun).The meaning of this statement is that from the Creator’s command emerged the First Intellect to which the imperative [mode] was united, on the pattern of this one word of two consonants; The completeness [of the Word] is of the highest rank. This means that to whatever the name of existence is applicable, all that in its entirety has to be contained within the Word.” Sayyidina Nasir khusrau,Gushayish wa Rahayish,(Hunzai’s trans, 84)
The Divine Word
is the source of all the causes and effects of all that follow it.It is
seen as a First Cause and its effect is the First Existent Being called
Universal Intellect.Universal Intellect contains all existents in their
perfect form.Divine Word is thus cause and source of all that exists.
“Ultimately the cause of both the material and spiritual worlds is Intellect and the divine Word or Command, which are nominally distinct but in reality one and inseparable from each other.Everything in the world is contained within the Intellect or divine Command in the same way that an effect is comprised within its cause.”
- Sayyidina Nasir khusrau , Knowledge and Liberation [1]
God’s Command
is thus the ultimate cause of everything that exists in the spiritual
and physical worlds.It is a matter of common observation that everything
that exists,its existence depends upon some cause;day light,for
example, is the the effect of its cause that is sun,so everything that
follows the Divine command,the existence of it depends upon the other
that proceeds it.This physical world exists because of Universal
Soul,which exists due its cause that is Universal Intellect and
Universal Intellect ultimately depends upon its cause that is Divine
Command.As Wilferd Madelung notes:
The [Divine]Order (or Command) was, however, addressed to the whole universe, and the Intellect contained the forms of all things in the spiritual and physical worlds which were, thus, originated all at once (daf‘atan wahidatan) in the ibda‘. They were all directly related to God in their origination, though they were manifested only gradually in the process of emanation and causation proceeding from the Intellect in accordance with the divine ordination (taqdir)[2]
All entities that were formed were as a result of this Divine Command which is cause of all other causes and effects. Nasir khusrau in his ‘Guzayish wa Rahayish’
likens God to be such a teacher who cannot teach or cause any effect
unless he has brought out tools of teaching for example paper,ink,pen
etc.This can also be illustrated by an example of a man who commands
others to build a building.To do so he will need workers and material
that will be needed to construct that building.At the end when building
is complete,it is obvious that he actually did no work except to command
the workers.Here in cosmological sense also all creation occurs through
the agents of creation- Universal Intellect and Universal Soul,both of
which work under the Universal Command of God.
“.. the whole world with all it contains sprang forth from those two letters, just as God says, ‘All We say to a thing when We desire it is to say to it, “Be!” and it is.’ The Universal Soul originates from the Universal Intellect by the power of the Creator’s command — glory be to Him! They say that the letter kāf represents the Universal Intellect and the letter nūn represents the Universal Soul with respect to the world’s creation.(Nasir khusrau, Kitāb-i Jāmiʿ al-ḥikmatayn, trans. Ormsby, p75)
- -First originated being is Universal Intellect with which Divine command immediately becomes One.
- -The First created being is Universal Soul,whose help comes from the Divine Command through mediation of Universal Intellect and is both Creator and agent of creation of this physical world.
Universal Intellect is
both all things in their actuality and One.Intellect is not
theoretically God,but much of the language that is used to describe God
in conventional theology,actually applies the Intellect.
Divine command, thus, serves as link between God’s all transcendent Ipseity and
creation.Although creation takes place at many stages but all creation
whether it is of spiritual cosmos or physical,has its origins in this
God’s Word ‘Kun’
Another unification of Intellect with God’s Oneness is Intellect’s knowing itself.For God’s Oneness is a cause separate from all causes,which eliminates from itself attributes of things(chiza) and beings(hastiha);rather ,the Oneness is the [ultimate cause of beings and things.Then Intellect ,when it looks at things,evidently sees all things in itself and does not see anything but itself,though things are far from it in substance and their modes are various.Intellect,when it looks at itself,because of the Oneness,sees things as neither multiple nor various,but rather sees pure origination or sheer Being Making without differentiation.Therefore it becomes one with the Oneness through this aspect that we have mentioned.
Abu Yaqub -al-Sijistani, Kashf-al-Mahjub ed H.Corbin (Tehran), p 18
In Ismaili
cosmology,the First Cause is Oneness and its Effect-Intellect is
One.In-fact,Oneness of God manifests in the Intellect; just as One exist
because of Oneness so does Intellect.Intellect existence is because of
its Cause;and both of them are not separable from each other just like
light cannot be separated from Sun.Command and Intellect have also been
explained by the example of Sun and its light;Command is analogous to
Sun and Intellect is its light,while fruit is this physical world.
God is thus seen as the
author of this universe in the sense that He issues a Command and
Intellect comes into being as the First Existent.Intellect is itself a
simple luminous substance which encompass all things in their form.God’s Command is the Ultimate source of the whole cosmos,as ultimate effect of his Command ‘Kun’,through mediation of Intellect and Soul ,is this physical world.
Sources :
‘Nasir Khusrau reasearch Dissertation’ by Dr Alice Hunsberger
‘Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani-An Intellectual Missionary’ by Paul A Walker
‘Aspects of Ismaili Theology: The Prophetic Chain and the God Beyond Being’ byWilfred Madelung‘Nasir Khusrau reasearch Dissertation’ by Dr Alice Hunsberger
‘Abu Yaqub al-Sijistani-An Intellectual Missionary’ by Paul A Walker
References:
1.(quoted in’ HIEROCOSMIC INTELLECT AND UNIVERSAL SOUL IN A QASIDA BY NASIR-I KHUSRAW’ By ‘Leonard Lewisohn’ ,p 207)
2. Wilferd Madelung,IIS article ‘Aspects of Ismaili Theology: The Prophetic Chain and the God Beyond Being’
