For, these qualities relate to limited and determinate...

For, these qualities relate to limited and determinate beings characterized by quiddity: He is with everything but not in the sense of [physical] nearness. He is different from every thing but not in the sense of separation. (Sermon 1 ) He is not inside things in the sense of physical [pervasion or] penetration, and is not outside them in the sense of [physical] exclusion [for exclusion entails a kind of finitude].

(Sermon 186) He is distinct from things because He overpowers them, and the things are distinct from Him because of their subjection to Him. (Sermon 152) That is, His distinctness from things lies in the fact that He has authority and control over them. However, His power, authority and sovereignty, unlike that of the creatures, is not accompanied with simultaneous weakness, subjugation, and subjection.

His distinction and separateness from things lies in the fact that things are totally subject to His power and authority, and that which is subject and subordinated can never be like the one who subjugates and commands control over it. His separateness from things does not lie in physical separation but is on account of the distinction which lies between the Provider and the provided, the Perfect and the imperfect, the Powerful and the weak. These kind of ideas are replete in 'Ali's discourses.

All the problems which shall be discussed later are based on the principle that Divine Essence is Absolute and Infinite, and the concepts of limit, form and condition do not apply to it. Divine Unity an Ontological, not a Numerical Concept Another feature of tawhid (monotheism) as propounded by the Nahj al-balaghah is that Divine Unity is not numerical, but something else. Numerical unity means the oneness of something which has possibility of recurrence.

It is always possible to imagine that the quiddity and form of an existent is realizable in another individual being. In such cases, the unity of an individual possessing that quiddity is numerical oneness and stands in opposition to duplicity or multiplicity. 'It is one,' means that there is not another like it, and inevitably this kind of unity entails the quality of being restricted in number, which is a defect; because one is lesser in number as compared to two or more of its kind.