ali's description of Allah (Creator, Moses, Earth, creation, eternal)

[john313]

Narrated by al_Nauman bin Saad

I was in the city of Kufa, visiting the Prince and Commander of the Believers, Ali bin Abi Talib,when Nawf bin Abdullah came to see him and said: O Amir al Mumineen there are forty Jews at the door requesting to see you. Ali RA replied: 'Let them in'. When the visitors stood before him their spokesman said: 'O, Ali, describe to us your Lord who is in the heavens, how is that, how was He before, when was He, and what is He'.

Ali RA immedietly straighteded up his sitting posture,and he replied,'Hearken to me and do not worry! You need not ask anyone else beside me about this subject.' Ali then added: 'My Lord was there first, and nothing ever existed besides Him. He did not commence from what was or was intermingled with what!

His attributes cannot be fixed or limited. He is not an apparition that can be pursued or delimited, nor is He veiled to be contained. He did not issue from what was not, and thus He is not an occurrence. Excalted, and most glorius is the Creator and Maker of everything, Lord of the universe, Whose divine majesty is most awesome and beyond having to explicate His essence to His creation, and instead, we say (as He described Himself, Quran 57:3) that He was there from the beginningless beginning,and He is the eternal without end. He is not subject to changes, nor is He affected by what He causes to change. How can He be described by an occurrence He created, and how can His divine being be limited to the best fathom of the greatest rhetoricians of all times.

He did not emerg from something else that can lead one to assume His manifestation, nor did He emanate from anything else that brought Him into being. He is without how, and He is closer than one's jugular veing, and yet, He is beyond descritption in the widest perceivable realms. Not a single glaring of anyone of His entire creation combined is ever hidden to Him, nor the sequence of any uttering or a sound is ever veiled to Him or is unperceived by Him, and neither is a single progression of any toddler is obscure to His divine knowledge, and nor is the strech of the tiniest step taken by any of His creation in a dark gloomy night, or at any depth or layer of this world is not visible to Him. The brilliant moon in its fullness does not veil His magnificent effulgent presence, nor can the radient sun and full gamut of its rays brighten and make His presence more luminous. The orderly changing streches of the nights and what they bring, and the prolongation and shortening of the daylight hours are within His knowldege, for He alone has the knowledge of what He wills to exist, and the wisdom behind their alterations. He is the omniscient Lord who is full of knowledge of every space, time, sequence, duration and term.

The time allotted for the existence of His creation is predetermined solely by Him, and boundaries are not His attributes. He did not create things from preexisting matters nor from elements that were known before Him rather, He created everything from inception, He made their nature perfect for their respective needs, and He fashioned everything and rendered it its best complementary form. Exalted is He in His glory, for there is nothing that can prevent or limit His reach, nor can anything interfere in His will. He does not benefit from the obedience of His creation, and He is swift in answering their prayers.

The countless myriads of angels in the heavens as well as the two earths are subservient to Him. His knowledge of the annihilated beings and past souls is as intricate as His knowledge of the ever-expanding universe and changing lives. His knowledge encompasses everything in the highest heavens and what is in the deepest layers of the earth. He knows everything. He distinguishes the multitude of sounds He created, and each of them stands distinct from the others beofre Him. Languages do not preoccupy HIm. He is the All-hearing Lord without the extremities of a body, and He alone manages the entire universe, and He is the All-seeing Lord, the LIving and the sole Sustaining power behind the entire existence.

Glory be to HIm, He spoke to Moses with words without the need for limbs or tools, nor lips nor through the vibration of a uvular sound. Exalted is He beyond ascription of mechanical attributes. He who alleges that our Lord is limited is indeed ignorant of the Creator who is worshipped in the heavens and earth. The one that imagines Him contained within boundaries will live his life confused and mixed up. Instead, it is God Almighty, Allah, who encompasses everything. Threfore, if you are troubled, and if you have gone to the extent of asking questions to describe the Merficful Lord, seeking an explation beyond what He already revealed about Himself, inquiring in excess of the manifest proof of His sovereignty then describe to me the archangels Gabriel, Michael or Israfil. How can you? Thus, if you are incapable of describeing the created (angels) then how can you describe the Creator? What you can understand is limited to recognising the attributes and the essence of perceived matter, but when it comes to describeing the One Whom no slumber nor sleep can seize Him, you will surely fail. To HImbelongs what the two earths, the heavens and all what they embody, and He is the Lord of the magnificient throne."

(Also narrated by al-Numan and Ishaq)

Extracted from:
The beauty of the righteous and the ranks of the elite--A collection of over 1000 rare accounts of the blessed companions of God's Messenger Muhammed Saws based on the classic 10th century work of Imam abu Naim Alasfahani (948-1038 CE) Hiyat-ul Awliya wa Tabaqat Al-Asifya

English by Shaykh Muhammed AlAkili Perl Publishing House--1995 PA, USA

[time_spender]

Hi and greetings!
wow...ALi is one of the most pious men i know!
I have read his nahjul balagha once & i should say he talks about everything...good and complete !
let me paste one part oh his sermons here:


Praise is due to Allah whose worth cannot be described by speakers, whose bounties cannot be counted by calculators and whose claim (to obedience) cannot be satisfied by those who attempt to do so, whom the height of intellectual courage cannot appreciate, and the divings of understanding cannot reach; He for whose description no limit has been laid down, no eulogy exists, no time is ordained and no duration is fixed. He brought forth creation through His Omnipotence, dispersed winds through His Compassion, and made firm the shaking earth with rocks.

The foremost in religion is the acknowledgement of Him, the perfection of acknowledging Him is to testify Him, the perfection of testifying Him is to believe in His Oneness, the perfection of believing in His Oneness is to regard Him Pure, and the perfection of His purity is to deny Him attributes, because every attribute is a proof that it is different from that to which it is attributed and everything to which something is attributed is different from the attribute. Thus whoever attaches attributes to Allah recognises His like, and who recognises His like regards Him two; and who regards Him two recognises parts for Him; and who recognises parts for Him mistook Him; and who mistook Him pointed at Him; and who pointed at Him admitted limitations for Him; and who admitted limitations for Him numbered Him. Whoever said in what is He, held that He is contained; and whoever said on what is He held He is not on something else. He is a Being but not through phenomenon of coming into being. He exists but not from non-existence. He is with everything but not in physical nearness. He is different from everything but not in physical separation. He acts but without connotation of movements and instruments. He sees even when there is none to be looked at from among His creation. He is only One, such that there is none with whom He may keep company or whom He may miss in his absence.

thats it!
Enjoy & wasalam

[Nehustan]

What a beautiful, measured, yet succinct exposition of Tawheed.