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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Wilayah, the Station of the Master What Does Nearness To Allah Mean? Our familiarity with the derived and colloquial meanings that we use in social life often results in error and mistake. It happens that words which are used in Islamic sciences have abandoned their real meaning, and have found a derived and commonly used meaning.

Now, when we use the word `nearness' outside of its colloquial meaning, we intend it in its real meaning: that is, we may say: `there is a spring near that hill', or `I myself went near that hill'. Here we are using `near' in its real sense. That is to say that we really do conceive of distance and nearness as the intermediate space as far as the hill, and we use the word` nearness' to indicate that that distance which is a real fact, not just something we have agreed upon - has been reduced.

But when we say that so-and-so is close or near to someone of eminence in society, or we say that so-and-so, because of some service he rendered, became close to this or that person of social standing, what do we mean? Is the meaning that the distance between the two has decreased; for example, before he was within five hundred meters and now he is within a hundred meters?

Of course not; if it were so, than a servant in someone's house would automatically be more favored than anyone else in nearness to him. Our meaning is rather that the servant, as a result of his service, influences his master's state of mind, and thus the latter becomes pleased with him when before he was not pleased, or he becomes more pleased, and in the end, because of this, the master bestows more favor on him than before.

So the use of nearness here is a figurative use, not a literal one; in reality, the external existence of one person is not fixed in nearness to the external existence of another. Rather, because of the special psychological relationship which exists between the master and the servant and its effects, which in this particular relationship derive from the psychological situation, the term `nearness' is defined figuratively and by comparison. What, then, is `nearness' to the being of al -Haqq?

Is it literal nearness or figurative nearness? Are the slaves of Allah, through submission, worship, conduct and purity moving up towards Allah, and thus becoming nearer to Him?