ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Learnings of the Glorious Quran The Stages and the Degrees of the Act The Glorious Qur'an ascribes the world to Allah, the Exalted in the form of some concepts which conform with the attributes and the stages of act. The noble narratives state a certain system for those concepts. For example, some narratives say that the happening of everything in this world depends on four things: knowledge, will, measurement and decree.

Some other narratives count them to be five or seven. These, however, are sporadically stated in the Qur'an. But there is not a single ayah to count all the four, five or seven of them. The origins, the stages or the degrees of the act are the same as that named as to be the origin of, and the prelude to, our acts. The mind, after abstracting and purifying these concepts, ascribes them to Allah.

We may not forget that, in respect to Allah, time is of no concern, and it does not appear in the Essence of Allah as an accidental event. Actually, they are concepts which the mind abstracts them from the connection between Allah and the world. Allah's Knowledge Knowledge is one of the said concepts.

Talking about the Divine Attributes, we said that one of the essential attributes is knowledge, and, whether there is a world or not, the Holy Essence of Allah, the Exalted, is the very Knowledge itself. Allah is aware of His own Essence, because His Divine Existence is such that He cannot be unaware of Himself. This awareness, in a sense, awareness of all other things, as is explained in its place. Besides the essential knowledge, the Qur'an ascribes other kinds of knowledge to Allah.

In some ayahs we read about a knowledge which is registered in a book, such as: "He said: The Knowledge thereof is with my Lord in a Book; my Lord neither errs nor forgets,"[^175] or "And with Him are the keys of the unseen, no one knows them but He," up to "neither anything green nor dry is but in a clear Book."[^176] These ayahs say that Allah is aware of everything. No leaf of a tree falls down unless Allah is aware of it. No event happens unless Allah knows it.

The ayah ends with "...neither anything green nor dry is but in a clear Book". It is quite clear from these ayahs that the divine knowledge, or a part of it, is registered in a book. A number of scholars wrote analysis about this Book. They expanded on the meaning of the "Book" so much that it may include Allah Himself.