It informs us...

It informs us, at the same time, that as we cannot know well the Divine Essence, we also can neither know the truths of the Divine Attributes as they should be, nor the truths of the Divine Acts. Nevertheless, we shall try, through a special method, to explain man's knowledge of the Divine Acts and Allah's connection to man and the world. Perhaps our expression that we cannot even comprehend the truths of the Divine Acts appears to some a bit heavy.

A brief explanation is necessary here, in order to throw light on the fact that we actually cannot very well understand the connection between Allah as Creator and the Divine activity and creativity. The concepts which we use in this instance, such as the concepts of creativity, causity, activity and the like, are concepts extracted from possible evidences. That is, we first found something in ourselves, or we knew the connection between two material things.

We then derived from that which we found, or that connection which we knew, a concept, then we generalized that concept in order to cover Allah, too. When I say I did a certain task, I use the concept of "task" and doing it, and ascribe the same concept to Allah and say that Allah, too, did it.

Or when they say that somebody managed to rule a given community, or directed a group, or looked after a machine - these are concepts which are obtained from special connections between man and nature, or between a person and other persons. Making, finishing, directing, managing and the like are concepts which result from man's connection with nature.

For example, take the making of a machine, or the talking about man's connection with other men, or when reference is made to managing a society, we usually expand the concepts of these experiences, which we ourselves see or know, and omit from them certain limitations, so that we can say: Allah, too, made the world, meaning the same "making" which we use when talking about what a worker, a constructor or an architecture makes.

We use the same word "management", which we use in respect of the manager of a community, to say that Allah is likewise managing or directing the world. But what we find in ourselves are certain connections which are characterised by deficiencies and limitations. So, when we want to ascribe them to Allah, those deficiencies and limitations, which do not befit Allah, the Glorified, are to be left out. When we want to do something, how do we do it?