ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Adab as-Salat: The Disciplines of the Prayer Second Revised Edition Section Five: Brief Hints At The Objectives, Subjects And Contents Of The Glorious Divine Book Know that the Glorious (Divine) Book, as it declares itself, is a book of guidance, showing the way to human conduct, to educate the souls, to cure the spiritual sicknesses and to throw light on the road to Allah.

Generally speaking, Allah, due to His All-Embracing mercy upon His servants, sent this Glorious Book from His Sacred state of proximity, down, in proportion to the descending worlds until it reached this world of darkness and prison of nature and was put in the dress of words and letters in order to release those imprisoned in this world's dark dungeon and to unite those chained by the fetters of hopes and desires, lifting them from the lowest level of shortcomings, weakness and animality to the peak of perfection, strength and humanity, taking them away from Satan's neighborhood to the company of heavenly people, and to lead them to the state of “proximity” so as to let them attain the stage of meeting Allah, which is the highest objective and the want of the people of Allah.

So, this is the Book of inviting to Allah and happiness, and explaining how to attain that stage. Its contents, generally, concern this same journey to Allah, or help the sālik and traveler to Allah. In short, one of its important objectives is to invite [mankind] to know Allah, and [another is] to explain divine knowledge concerning the affairs of the Essence, Names, Attributes and Acts.

At the top of this is the Unity of Essence, Names and Acts, some of which are explicitly mentioned and some others are only hinted at. It should be noted that this comprehensive Divine Book deals with the above-mentioned information, from knowing the Essence to knowing the Acts, in such a way that each class of the people comprehends of it according to its capacity.

The noble āyah s on tawhīd , and on the Unity of Acts in particular, are explained by the literalist scholars, the traditionalists and the faqīh s (may Allah be pleased with them) in such a way that their explanations are entirely contrary to the explanations of the people of knowledge and the scholars of the latent meaning of the Qur'an.

The writer believes that each of these explanations is correct in its own place, since the Qur'an cures the internal pains, and treats each patient in a certain way.