All that exists other than Allāh does not have existence of its own.

All that exists other than Allāh does not have existence of its own. To come into being and subsist in any state whatsoever requires the Divine Will. The following verse of the Qur’ān expounds the continual process of causation with relation to the creation:  قُلِ اللٌّهُ خَالِقُ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ وَ هُوَ الْوَاحِدُ الْقَهَّارُ  “Say, ‘God is the Creator of all things, and He is the One, the All-paramount.’” It should be noted that Khāliqu in the above verse denotes perpetual creation.

This concept is also beautifully expounded by Mullā Sadrā in his philosophical texts, where he intellectually establishes, through his well-known theory of transubstantial motion ( harakah jawhariyyah ), the fact that every contingent being receives existence every moment. Reflect over the following verses of the Holy Qur’ān:  أَفَعَيِينَا بِالْخَلْقِ الأَوَّلِ بَلْ هُمْ فِي لَبْسٍ مِنْ خَلْقٍ جَدِيدٍ  “Were We exhausted by the first creation?

Rather they are in doubt about a new creation.” [^5]  وَتَرَى الْجِبَالَ تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدَةً وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَابِ  “And you see the mountains, which you suppose to be stationary, while they drift like passing clouds...” [^6] The mystics also vision this reality when they behold this universe. ‘Ayn al-Qudāt al-Hamadāni says: “Small children, observing a lamp burning continuously, would naturally think that what we see is one single flame.

But the grownups know very well that it is a series of different flames appearing and disappearing moment by moment. And from the viewpoint of mystics this must necessarily be the case with everything in the world except God.”[^7] Having understood the aforesaid, we ask: Is it possible for the human being to lose his or her contingent identity and become Essential and Necessary in existence? In other words, is it possible for us to change from the utterly poor to the absolutely affluent?

Intellectually speaking, such a phenomenon can never transpire for it is evidently impossible. This is because, ‘a Necessary Being’ ( wājib al-wujūd ) is only necessary and essential when it did not and does not depend on any kind of cause whatsoever. If one says that a certain being was contingent ( mumkin ) and thereafter turned into a Necessary Being ( wājib ), this would depict nothing but absurdity.

This is because an entity changing from contingency ( imkān ) to necessity ( wujūb ) means change of the essence ( dhāt ) of the entity. This change either was causeless or needed a cause.

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