Intellect, the Command of God and the Word

  July 09, 2022   Read time 2 min
Intellect, the Command of God and the Word
In the terminology of the dialectical theologians, it is understood that a single utterance (sukhan-i mufrad) when referring to a substance is called ‘word’ (kalimah). For example, you can say ‘healthy’ and ‘sick’ when these two utterances refer to Muhammad and Khālid, [respectively].

That is to say, ‘Muḥammad is healthy’ and ‘Khālid is sick’. Therefore, with regard to the ‘Word’, Intellect became one with the Command of God in the sense that it links all Being with God by virtue of the Creative Act (āfarīnish) and makes the creatures cognizant of the fact that every particle and every drop has come to be there (ẓāhir shud) through the Command of God. And the Command of God is inseparable from it, for if it were separable, that thing would be divested [of its very existence, muʿaṭṭal]. Thus, Intellect becomes one with the Word in the sense that it necessitates that every particle of the Creation has a share of the Command of God because every creature shares a part of the Command of God through which it has come to be there and by virtue of which it remains in being (pāyandih buwad), and the light of the Command of God shines in it. Understand this!

Another meaning of Intellect’s becoming one with the Word is this: It is the [creative] Word which brought forth the single utterance, although the utterance did not come into being-there [initially] at Creation’s transition from the stage of Origination (gāh-i ibdāʿ) to the stage of generation (gāh-i tawlīd). You should know that as long as things did not come from the limit of Origination (ḥadd-i ibdāʿ) to the limit of existentiation (takwīn) and generational (tawlīd), neither Intellect came into being-there, nor did that Seed [i.e., the ‘Form of Man’] which was found to be in Intellect. And Intellect was not [even] aware of its own existence (inniyyat or anniyyat-i khwīsh) before that, as long as that thing [the ‘seed’] had not come from the limit of Origination to the limit of existentiation and generation. Therefore, at the time when the Command of God, which is the Origination, reached the human being (mardum), the human being became [what it is, i.e.] a ‘word-speaker’ [sukhan-gūy=nāṭiq=rational] and one capable of discernment, and Intellect became one with it. As a result, whatever utterances the human beings bring forth, such as naming things and differentiating between names and attributes and between judgments and between the outcome of these judgments, [all this] belongs to it [i.e., the Intellect]. In view of this [also], Intellect’s becoming one with the Word of God is conceivable. Understand this!


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