We recognize the things
around us through our sense-organs. Things that affect our sense-organs are
called beings or creatures. Beings’ effects on our five senses are called properties or attributes, by which they are
distinguished from one another. Light, sound, water, air and glass material are
all beings; they all exist. Beings that have size, weight and volume, in other
words, that occupy a place in space are called substances or matter. Substances are
distinguished from one another by their properties or qualities. Air, water,
stone and glass are each a substance. Light and sound are not substances
because they neither occupy space nor have weight. Every being carries energy or power, that is, it can do work.
Every substance can be in three states: solid, liquid and gas. Solid substances
have shapes. Liquid and gaseous substances take the shape of the container they
are in, and they do not have specific shapes. A substance having a shape is
called an object. Substances are mostly objects. For intance, key, pin,
tongs, shovel and nail are different objects having different shapes. But they
all may be made of the same matter, i.e. iron. Substances are of two kinds:
elements and compounds.
Changes always take place
in every object. For instance, it may move and change its place or become
bigger or smaller. Its colour may change. It may become sick or die if it is a
living being. These changes are called events. No change occurs in
matter unless there is an exterior effect. An event that does not make any
change in the essence of matter is called a physical event. Tearing a piece of paper
is a physical event. Some power must affect a substance so that a physical
event may happen to that substance. Events that change the composition or
essence of substances are called chemical events. When a piece of paper
burns and turns into ashes, a chemical event takes place. A substance has to be
affected by another substance so that a chemical event may happen in that
substance. When two or more substances interact and a chemical event takes
place in each, it is called a chemical reaction.
Chemical reaction between
substances, that is, their affecting one another, occurs between their tiniest
units (which can take part in a chemical change) called atoms. Every object is made of a
mass of atoms. Though the
structures of atoms are alike, their sizes and weights are different.
Therefore, we know of a hundred and five kinds of atoms today. Even the biggest
atom is so tiny that it cannot be seen through the most powerful microscope.
When similar atoms come together they form an element. Since there are a hundred
and five kinds of atoms, there are a hundred and five elements. Iron, sulphur,
mercury, oxygen and carbon are each an element. When different atoms come
together they form a compound. There are hundreds of thousands of compounds.
Water, alcohol, salt and lime are compounds. Compounds form by the compacting
of two or more elements or atoms.
All objects, e.g.
mountains, seas, all kinds of plants and animals are composed of the hundred
and five elements. The building stones of all living and lifeless substances
are the hundred and five elements. All substances are formed by the combination
of the atoms of one or more of these hundred and five elements. Air, soil,
water, heat, light, electricity and germs dissociate the compounds or cause
substances to combine with one another. No change happens without a cause. In
these changes, atoms, the units of elements, migrate from one substance to
another or leave one substance and become free. We see objects disappear but,
because we judge by their outlook, we are mistaken, for this outward
“disappearing” or “appearing” is nothing but a transformation into other substances;
the disappearing of an object, for example, that of a corpse in the grave, is a
change into new substances such as water, gases and earthen substances. If the
new substances that come into being through a change do not affect our
sense-organs, we cannot realize that they come into being. For this reason, we
say that the former object disappeared, though it only underwent a change. We
see also that the nature of each of the hundred and five elements changes and
that there happen physical and chemical events in each element. When an element
combines with another (or others) in a compound, it ionizes, that is, its atoms
lose or gain electron(s), and thus the element’s various physical and chemical
properties change. The atom of each element is made up of a nucleus and a
varying number of small particles called electrons. The nucleus is at the
center of the atom. The nuclei of atoms of all elements except hydrogen are
made up of particles called protons, which are charged with positive
electricity, and neutrons, which carry no electric charge. The electron is the
negative-electric-laden particle which moves round the nucleus. The
electrons do not revolve
in their orbits every moment; they change their orbits.
It is evidenced in the radioactive elements that there are
changes called fissions taking place in the nuclei of atoms, too. Further, in
these nuclear fissions one element turns into another; and some mass of matter
ceases to exist and turns into energy, and this change has even been formulated
by the Jewish physicist Einstein (d.
Every substance, living
or lifeless, changes, that is, the old one disappears and a new one comes into
being. Every living being, plant or animal that exists today used to be
nonexistent, and there were other living beings. And in the future, none of the
present living beings will remain, and some other living beings will come into
existence. So is the case with all lifeless beings. All living and lifeless
beings, for example, the element iron and the compounds stone and bone, and all
particles always change, that is, the old ones disappear, and others come into
being. When the peculiarities of the substance that comes into being and those
of the substance that disappears are alike, man, being unable to notice this
change, supposes that the substance is always existent. An example of this is
seen in a movie, where a different picture comes in front of the eye at certain
short intervals, yet, being unable to notice this, the watchers suppose that
the same picture moves on the screen. When a piece of paper burns and becomes
ashes, we say that the paper disappeared and ashes came into being, because we
notice this change. When ice melts, we say that ice disappeared and water came
into being.
It is written at the
beginning of the book Sharh al-Aqâ’id, “Because all beings
signify Allâhu ta’âlâ’s existence, all creatures are called the ’âlam. Also, each class of
beings of the same kind is called an ’âlam, for example, the ’âlam of human
beings, the ’âlam of angels, the ’âlam of animals, the ’âlam of the lifeless.
Or each object is called an ’âlam.”
It is writen on the 441st
page of the book Sharh al-Mawâqif,[1] “The ’âlam is hâdith, i.e. everything is a
creature. In other words, it came into being later while it had been
nonexistent. [And we have explained above that creatures always come into being
from one another.] Both matter and peculiarities of substances are
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[1] Sayyid Sherif Alî Jurjânî, the author of the
book Sharh-i mawâqif passed away in Shiraz in 816 [1413 A.D.].
hâdith. On this subject,
there have been four different beliefs: 1) According to Muslims, Jews,
Christians and fire worshippers (Magians), both matter and peculiarities of
substances are hâdith. 2) According to Aristotle and the philosophers following
him, both matter and peculiarities of substances are eternal. They said that
they had not come into being out of nothing and that they always existed.
Modern chemistry positively proves that this statement is wrong. A person who
believes or says so goes out of Islam and becomes a disbeliever. Also, Ibn Sînâ[1] (Avicenna) and Muhammad
Fârâbî [d. Damascus,
Muslims prove in several
ways that matter and its peculiarities are hâdith. The first way is based on
the fact that matter and all its particles are always changing. Something that
changes cannot be eternal, but has to be hâdith, since the process of each
substance’s coming into being from the one that precedes it cannot go as far
back as to the eternal past. These changes should have a beginning, that is,
some initial substances should have been created out of nothing. If there were
not an initial substance created out of nothing, that is, if the process of
succeeding a substance originating from the substance preceding it went far
back to the endless past, there would not be a beginning for substances coming
into being from one another, and no substance would exist today. The present
existence of substances and their originating from one another shows the fact
that they have multiplied from the initial substances which were created from
nothing.
Furthermore, a stone that
falls from the sky cannot be said to have come from infinitude, infinite space
(infinity) or time (eternity), since these words denote ‘having no beginning or
bound.’ Coming from infinitude, then, comes to mean coming from nonexistence,
and something which is said to have come from infititude should have not come
at all. It would be ignorant and preposterous to say, “It comes from
infinitude.” Likewise, men multiplying from one another cannot be coming from
eternity. They must have multiplied beginning with the first man
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[1] Ibni Sinâ Husain died in 428 [1037 A.D.].
who was created out of
nothing. If there had not been a first man created out of nothing and men’s
multiplying from one another had come from eternity, no man would have existed
today. The case is the same with every being. It would be ignorant and
incompatible with reason and science to say, “So has it come and so will it go.
There was no initial substance created out of nothing,” on the substances’ or
beings’ originating from one another. Change does not indicate being eternal,
but it shows being created out of nothing, that is, it shows not the quality of
being Wâjib al-wujûd but being mumkin al-wujûd.
Question: “The Creator of the ’âlam
Himself and His Attributes are etenal. Since His Attribute ‘Creativeness’ is
eternal, does not the ’âlam have to be eternal, too?”
Answer: We always witness the
fact that the Creator, who is eternal, changes substances and particles through
various means or causes, that is, He annihilates them and creates others in
place of them. The Eternal Creator creates whenever He wills, that is, He
always creates substances from one another. As He creates every ’âlam, every
substance and every particle through some means or causes, so He can create
them without any cause or means whenever He wills.
A person who believes
that the classes of beings are hâdith will also believe that they will be
annihilated again. It is obvious that the beings that were created at one time
while having been nonexistent can become nonexistent again. We see now that
many beings cease to exist or change into a state making them incapable of
affecting our sense-organs.
Being a Muslim requires
believing the fact that substances and objects and all beings were created from
nothing, and that they will cease to exist again. We have been seeing that
substances have been coming into existence while having been nonexistent and
ceasing to exist again; that is, their shapes and properties have been disappearing.
When objects cease to exist their substances remain, but, as we have explained
above, these substances are not eternal, either; they were created a very long
time ago by Allâhu ta’âlâ, and He will annihilate them again when the end of
the world comes. Today’s scientific knowledge does not deter us from believing
this fact. Not to believe it means to denigrate science, and signifies
hostility against Islam. Islam does not reject scientific knowledge. It rejects
omission of learning religious knowledge and of the duties of worshipping. Nor
does scientific knowledge deny Islam. On the contrary, it confirms and verifies
it.
Because the ’âlam is
hâdith, it must have a creator who created it from nothing, since, as we have
explained above, no event can take place by itself. Today, thousands of
medicines, household appliances, industrial and commercial goods, electronic
equipments, and weaponry are manufactured in factories. Most of them are
produced through sophisticated calculations and after hundreds of tests. Do
they say that even one of them became existent by themselves? No, they say that
these are made consciously and with discretion and each and every one of them
requires a maker; yet they claime that millions of substances related to the living
and lifeless and the newly found things and events, the structures of which are
still unknown, were self-produced accidentally. What could this be, if not
hypocrisy, strong obstinacy or clear stupidity? It is evident that there is
only one Creator who makes the existence of every substance and motion
possible. This creator is Wâjib al-wujûd, that is, He did not come
into being after being nonexistent; He must necessarily be eternally existent.
He does not need anything for His existence. If He had not necessarily existed
eternally, He would have been of mumkin al-wujûd, or hâdith, a creature as the
’âlam is; like a creature, He would have been created out of nothing or,
through changes, out of another creature which, too, had to be created by
another creator, thus an infinite number of creators being necessary; if we
think in the same way as we have explained above that changes in creatures
cannot be infinite, it will be understood that there cannot be an infinite
number of creators and that creation was begun by a first and only creator.
Because, if creators’ creating one another one after the other had gone back to
eternity, there would have been no creator to begin with, and no creator would
have to exist. Therefore, the first non-created creator is the Unique Creator
of all creatures. There is no creator before or after Him. The Creator is not
created. He always exists. If He ceased to exist for a moment, all creatures
would also cease to exist. Wâjib al-wujûd does not need anything in any
respect. He who has created the earth, the heavens, atoms and the living in
such a regular and calculated order should be omnipotent, omniscient, able to
create at once whatever He wishes, and should be one, but there should be no
change in Him. If His power were not infinite, if He were not omniscient, He
would not have been able to create creatures in such a regular and calculated
order. If there were more than one creators, and when their wishes for creating
something would not concur, the ones
whose wishes were left
undone would not be creators and the things that would have been created would
be all mixed up. For further information, please read the Arabic and Turkish
commentaries to ’Alî Ûshî’s [d.
No change occurs in the
Creator. Before creating the universe He was the same as He is now. As He
created everything out of nothing, so He always and still cerates everything;
otherwise, any change would indicate being a creature and having been created
from nothing. We have explained above that He always exists and will never
cease to exist. Therefore, no change occurs in Him. As creatures needed Him in
their creation initially, so they need Him every moment. He alone creates
everything, makes every change. He creates everything through a means so that
men can survive and be civilized, so that everything will be in order. As He
creates causes, so He creates the power, the effect in causes. Man cannot
create anything. Man’s work is only to be a medium in causes affecting substances.
To eat when hungry, to
take medicine when sick, to strike a match
for lighting a candle, to pour some acid on zinc for obtaining hydrogen,
to mix lime with clay and to heat the mixture up for making cement, to feed the
cow for getting milk, to build a hydro-electric power-station for generating
electricity and to construct any kind of factory are all examples of acting as
mediums, using the causes, so that Allâhu ta’âlâ will create new things. Man’s
will and power, too, are the means created by Him. And men are means for Allâhu
ta’âlâ’s creating. Allâhu ta’âlâ wants to create in this manner. As it is seen,
it would be an ignorant, absurd word incompatible with reason and science to
say, “So and so created,” or “We created.”
Men have to love the
unique Creator, who creates them, makes them survive and creates and sends the
things they need. They should be His servants and slaves. That is, every
creature has to worship and obey and respect Him. This is written at length in
the letter on page 7. He Himself declared that the name of this Wâjib al-wujûd,
of this deity, of this god, who is one, is Allah. Men have no right to
change His Name which He Himself made known. An act which would be done
unjustly would be a very wrong, loathsome deed.