Glory be to my Master al-Rida! The questioner asked about God, "Body or not Body?" The Master did not answer him and say, "Glory be to my Lord above bodies." Rather, he answered him with a reply that neither al-Saduq nor anyone else paid attention to. The Master did not negate the concept of "Body," but he negated anthropomorphism and he negated negation. So he said: "The school of affirmation (of the Image) with anthropomorphism is not permissible." And "the school of negation (negating attributes) is not permissible." "And the path is in the third school: affirmation (of the Image) without anthropomorphism."

By my life, this, by God, is our school of thought and our path in the Gnosis of "Huna" (Here) and our Creator!

For whoever affirms the Image and the Body for Him in its literal reality is an anthropomorphist, and we seek refuge in God. And whoever denies His appearance and refers [Him] to an absent, non-existent [entity] has negated and disbelieved. As for the school of truth, it is the saying of His appearance and His existence among His creation, an illusion in the eyes of the beholders, in an image that the beholder sees from *his* own capacity, not from the capacity of the Truth (Glorified is He).

From 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Najran, he said: I asked our Master Abu Ja'far the Second (may his glory be exalted) about Tawhid. I said: "Can I imagine 'something'?" He said: "Yes, [but] non-rational and undefined. Whatever your imagination falls upon of 'something,' He is its opposite. Nothing resembles Him, and imaginations do not perceive Him. How can imaginations perceive Him when He is the opposite of what is rationalized and the opposite of what is pictured in the imagination? One can only imagine a 'something' that is non-rational and undefined."¹

So contemplate, my believing brother! The Master first affirmed the "imagining" and then negated it. Because the Image, in reality, is in the eye of the beholder, and it is like a mirage.

From 'Ali ibn Abi Hamza, I said to our Master Assadiq (may his glory be exalted): "I heard Hisham ibn al-Hakam narrating from you that God is a Body, eternally self-sufficient (Samadi), luminous (Nuri), whose Gnosis is a necessity, which He bestows upon whomever He wills of His creation." So he (may his glory be exalted) said: "Glory be to Him whom no one knows 'how He is' except Him. There is nothing like Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing. He is not defined, not sensed, not felt, not perceived by sights, nor by the senses. Nothing encompasses Him, no 'body,' no 'image,' no 'outline,' and no 'definition.'"²