بحُسْن حَالِكَ Hāl حَال denotes ‘a changing state.
بحُسْن حَالِكَ Hāl حَال denotes ‘a changing state.’ Due to his imperfect nature, the human being undergoes a movement of perfection and thus “hāl” can be correctly attributed to him or her. But is it correct to employ it for Almighty Allāh? Does His Exalted Essence undergo change? Intellectually speaking, God, Who is Absolutely Perfect, can never undergo change. Change manifests deficiency and imperfection, while Almighty Allāh is Absolutely Perfect.
Thus, it would be incorrect to talk about change with regard to His Sublime Essence. In a morning supplication narrated in the prayer manual Balad al-Amīn[^6], we glorify Almighty Allāh saying: ياَ مَنْ لاَ يتغيّر مِنْ حَالٍ إِلـى حَالٍ! “O One Who does not change from one state to another!” And in one of his sermons, while glorifying Almighty Allāh, Amīru‘l Mu’minīn’Alī (as) says: ...الَّذِيْ لا يَحُوْلُ وَلاَ يزولُ وَلاَ يَجُوْزُ عَلَيْهِ الاًفُولُ ...
“One Who neither changes nor ceases to exist, nor is He transitory.”[^7] In expounding the meaning of “ lā yahūlu ” ‘Allāmah Majlisī[^8] in his remarks says: lā yahūlu ay lā yataghayyaru [ lā yahūlu means ‘He does not change.’] Then what does ‘ bi husni Hālika ’ mean in this noble supplication?
To answer this, we need to understand that the extensions of concepts employed to describe different attributes of contingent entities ( mumkināt ), are not completely the same as those of the Absolute Perfect Being. When we say that a certain person, for example, is kind and merciful, we mean that he or she has a sense of pity which follows acts of support to others. But we can never conceive the state of pity which is an experience of change in the heart with regard to the Exalted Being.
Similar is the case with ‘ hāl ’ which when employed for Almighty Allāh is not ‘a changing state’ but rather His Exalted Reality of Absolute Perfection that always was and will ever be. Small wonder it is that Imām Abu’l Hasan al-Ridā (as) in one of his debates with a theologian hired by Ma ‘mūn is reported to have employed the word “ Hāl ” for Almighty Allāh, which of course does not depict “a changing state”.