The relation between Allah and the world is that of the...

The relation between Allah and the world is that of the Creator and the created that is the relation of the cause and the effect, not that kind of relation which exists between light and lamp or between human consciousness and man. It is true that Allah is not separate from the world. He is with everything.

The Holy Qur'an says: "He is with you wherever you are." (Surah al-Hadid, 57:4) Anyhow, the non-separation of Allah from the world does not mean that He is to the world as light is to a lamp or as consciousness is to a body. Had it been so, Allah would have been the effect of the world, not the cause of it, as light is the effect of a lamp.

Similarly the non-separation of Allah from the world does not mean that Allah, the world and man, have the same orientation and they all move and live with the same will and spirit. All these are the attributes of the created and non-self-existing beings. Allah is free from them. The Holy Qur'an says: "Glorified be your Lord, the Lord of Majesty, from that which they ascribe to Him." (Surah as-Saffat, 37:180) II.

Unity of the Attributes of Allah The unity of His attributes means to recognize that the essence and the attributes of Allah are identical and that His various attributes are not separate from each other. The unity of essence means the negation of there being any peer or likes of Allah and the unity of His attributes means the negation of any kind of multiplicity or plurality within His essence.

Allah has all the attributes implying the perfection of majesty and beauty, but His attributes have no aspect really separate from Him. The separation of the essence from the attributes and the separation of the attributes from each other, are the characteristics of the limitation of existence, and are not conceivable in the case of infinite existence. Multiplicity, combination and the separation of the essence and the attributes are inconceivable in the case of the Absolute Being.

Like the unity of the Divine essence, the unity of the Divine attributes is an Islamic doctrine and one of the most valuable human ideas which has exclusively crystallized in the Shi'ah school.