the urafa )...

the urafa ), ilahiyyat and uluhiyyat are mostly applied to the station of tajalli at the plane of Act and the station of the Sacred Effusion ( fayd al-muqaddas ). ‘Allah’ is the Name of the Glorious One, applied mostly to the station of the Essence as encompassing all the Attributes. At other times, the usage is reversed.

In this noble tradition, it is probable that it is used in its common lexical sense-meaning, ‘I am the Worshipped One, and there is no object of worship except Me.’ And if this should be what is meant, the limitation of worship either implies that no other being is worthy of worship [besides God], though it should be worshipped mistakenly as a result of the error of men, or that-on the basis of the belief of the people of heart and the ‘urafa - worship of every manifestation is the worship of the Absolutely Perfect Being and that man is a seeker of absolute beauty in accordance with his God-given fitrat (innate nature): ﴿فِطْرَةَ اللَّهِ الَّتِي فَطَرَ النَّاسَ عَلَيْهَا.﴾ ( It is ) the nature ( framed ) of Allah in which He hath created man.

( 30:30 ) And this remains true despite man’s alienation from this fitrah and his imagining himself to be attached to finitude and things finite. Or, perhaps, the meaning intended for ilah is the station of Divinity itself, in accordance with the last part of the tradition wherein He attributes good and evil to Himself.

On this basis, this would be a reference to Divine Unity at the plane of Act ( tawhid al-af’ali ) , which has been expressed on the tongue of the great sages by their saying: لا مُؤَثِّرَ فِي الوُجُودِ إَلا اللهُ. No one is effective in the realm of existence except God. Further reference to this matter will be made later on, God willing.

As to al-khayr, the authority of the traditionists, Majlisi (M) states in his commentary under this tradition: Good and evil are applied to obedience and disobedience and to their causes and motives, and applied as well to the beneficial creatures, such as grains and fruits and the edible animals, and to the harmful creatures, such as poisons, serpents and scorpions, and to blessings and scourges. The Ash’arites say that all of these are the works of God.