Thus the Commander of the Faithful 'Ali peace be upon him said...

Thus the Commander of the Faithful 'Ali peace be upon him said: I' Every mystery is manifest to You and every hidden thing present before You." ( 1 ) He is aware of the totality of the atoms that make up the earth and the oceans of the movements of all creatures great and small throughout the universe and of the manifest and hidden aspects of all things.

His knowledge is not restricted to that which has already occurred nor to creatures and phenomena presently existing; it also embraces the future. If we were present everywhere instead of occupying a particular point in time and space we too would be aware of all the truths and details of existence; nothing great or small would escape our expansive vision.

God's knowledge bears no similarity to human knowledge and is utterly incomparable with it; we cannot understand His knowledge by drawing an analogy with our own. Man's knowledge is dependent on the thing known having an ( 206 ) external existence; the thing known must first exist appear in tile manifest realm for man's knowledge to attach itself to it. Such is not the case with God's knowledge; there is nothing that is unseen for Him and everything is manifest for Him.

Whenever we attain knowledge of something by means of our outer senses it does not count as knowledge of the unseen. Conversely knowledge the attainment of which does not depend on the five senses is the knowledge of the unseen. Ali the phenomena of the material world can be said to have descended from a more perfect non-sensory world where they exist in a more elevated form.

Now if we perceive the external aspects of things by means of our senses thereby obtaining some portion of the truth such perceptions do not count as knowledge of the unseen. If on the other hand we observe the hidden essences of things by means of our inner eye discern their existential evolution and thereby find the inner aspects of things divulged to us without any involvement by our senses the resulting knowledge will count as knowledge of the unseen.