مكتبة كتيبة محمّد بن نصير Muhammad bin Nusayr's Library Bibliothèque de Muhammad bin Nusayr کتابخانه کتیبه محمد بن نصیر

مَكْتَبَةُ كَتِيبَةِ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ نُصَيْرٍ

Al-Usayfir - Muhammad ibn Shu‘ba al-Harrani

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So, whoever claims that he saw a "part," has partitioned Allah1. And whoever says: "He is Allah appearing how He wills to whom He wills of His creation, neither described, nor limited, nor subject to cessation, nor movement, nor transfer, nor limit, nor likeness," then you have inferred correctly upon knowing Him through His Power.

And whoever infers Him through His knowledge and His Form 2 has arrived, through the knowledge of Allah, at the path of salvation3.

And [it is narrated] from Abu Shu'ayb—peace be upon him—that he said: He lied who claimed that Allah is in a thing, or from a thing, or upon a thing. So whoever claims that He is from a thing has made Him originated [Muhdath]. And whoever claims that He is in a thing has made Him contained [Mahsur]. And whoever claims that He is upon a thing has made Him carried [Mahmul].

Footnotes

1Whoever affirms upon Him the human corporeal attribute has assigned to Him a known quality capable of partition, and has made Him a limited, finite person. By doing so, he has described Him with that which does not befit His Grand Majesty. For the beholder of Him, the Exalted, sees nothing but His attributes; therefore, a created being has no right to describe the Creator, the Exalted, except by that with which He has described Himself. The Master [Mawla] Al-Sadiq—may his might be exalted—said: "Knowing Allah through bodies is like the worship of idols."
2The Questioner said: How did He come to have a Form? The Knower [al-Alim]—may his might be exalted—said: The need of created beings for it is like their need for speech, because there is no speech except from a Form, and no knowledge except through Power. So He came to them from where they know.
3The Saved Gnostic [Arif] knows Him by the Power, while the Idolatrous Ignorant affirms upon Him the Form and the necessities of corporeality [Jismiyyah] which are subject to localization and transfer from one state to another. Yet He, the Exalted, has no state, nor did He cease, nor did He transfer from one state to another. So Glory be to Him who did not cease from His Being even if He appeared to [their] eyesight... Indeed, the believing Gnostics inferred the Lordship of the Essence [al-Ayn] by what He manifested of miracles and destines (such as reviving the dead, sending down rain, returning the sun, and foretelling the Unseen) and other dazzling miracles. So they attained certainty and said: "He whose Power this is, this Form is not His [essential] Form."
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