Shaykh ʿUbayd al-Jābirī (رحمه الله) was asked:[1]
Esteemed Shaykh, what is the meaning of the statement of Shaykh al-Islām (رحمه الله) that the category [or genus] of creating is eternal, and does he intend the attribute or the action [of Allāh]?
The Shaykh responded:
I say: Creating, in what I have understood is similar to the [attribute] of speech (kalām), it is an attribute pertaining to action from one consideration and an attribute of the essence from another consideration.
So as it relates to the category of [creating] and that Allāh is the Creator, eternally and perpetually, then it is an attribute of the essence. And as it relates to the individual instances which occur sequentially, then it is an attribute pertaining to action. So his statement (رحمه الله), “the category of creating” relates to it being an attribute of the essence.
Notes
01 Allāh (عز وجل) is the Creator (الخالق), He has been so eternally, without beginning. His acts of creation are tied to His will (مشيئة) and power (قدرة). Thus, when it is said that creating, as a category, is eternal, it means that Allāh is described eternally as one who creates, and His name is the Creator, and this relates to creating as an attribute (صفة).
02 As it relates to the act (فعل), then Allāh’s actions are tied to His will, and hence, each act of creation is not eternal, but is something that occurs, it is a chosen action (فعل اختياري) and created entities come to be through these chosen actions of Allāh.
03 Without affirmation of this reality, then there are only these options:
- That Allāh acts through His essence (and not through will and choice), this is the saying of the Philosophers, that Allāh’s essence is acting, and thus the creation is eternal with Him, because it is necessitated by His essence (موجَب بالذات). They deny that Allāh acts through His will and choice.
- Or that no act of creation is ascribed to Allāh as an actual act of His, and this is the reality of the saying of Ahl al-Kalām, the people of speculative theology. They operate on the principle of (الفعل هو المفعول), which means the act is nothing but the thing resulting from the act, saying this in order to avoid affirming chosen actions for Allāh.
04 To explain this, we know from experience that there is a baker and a loaf of bread which can only come to be through an act of baking done by the baker. So we have three things, the doer (فاعل), the act (فعل) and the thing resulting from the act, the thing done (مفعول).
In order to escape from ascribing an act to Allāh—in observance of Aristotelian Metaphysics—they make the act synonymous with the thing resulting from the act. So in our example, it would be said, there is only the baker and the loaf of bread which is his act, and they do not mean by "act", an actual act performed by the baker himself, but only the end result. So in essence, keeping to our example, they deny any act of baking and assert the loaf came to be without any act established with the baker. They say the loaf is itself the "act" of the baker, without there being any act established with the self of the baker.
05 Therefore, as it relates to creation, they do not really affirm an actual act of creation for Allāh through which the creation came to be, as they consider a non-eternal chosen act to be from the (حوادث), from the newly-occurring events, which they consider, upon Shaykh Aristotle bin Nicomachus's metaphysics, to be the properties only of originated, created things, and they say Allāh is other than the newly-occurring events. This clashes with the Qurʾān which explicitly affirms that Allāh indeed has actions tied to His will. They are simply trying to qualify their belief in Allāh with Aristotelian Metaphysics.
06 The word (خلق) is among those words in the Arabic language that can refer to either the act, meaning, the act of creating. Or it can refer to the result, the product of the act, which in this case would be the creation.
The Ashʿarites are refuted in the Qurʾān by the verse:
"The creation of the heavens and earth is greater than the creation of mankind, but most of the people do not know." (40:57).
Allāh distinguished between the act of creation (خلق) and the result of that act of creation, which is the Heavens and Earth (ٱلسَّمَـٰوَ ٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضِ), they are mentioned separately. Which means that the act is other than the result of the act. This is textual evidence, though this is also known by necessity and by reason, that an ocurrence or event, is other than the act that brought it about.
07 The Ahl al-Kalām oppose both reason and revelation in their speculative theology, and all they have are flawed, dubious proofs that are tainted with the poison of Greek philosophical baggage.
08 Thus, there are three sayings:
- That of the Revealed Books and Sent Messengers, that of the Salaf of this ummah, that Allāh’s speech and action is tied to His will, He speaks and acts as and when He wills, with whatever He wills. That He created the Heavens and the Earth with an act that was tied to His will and choice, and that He has never ceased, in eternity, to be one who speaks, creates and acts according to His will, power and wisdom. Hence, "creating" is His attribute from one consideration and His action from another consideration.
- That of the Philosophers who say Allāh is permanently acting with His essence (not through His will) and that the universe is eternal because it is necessitated by His essence.
- That of the Mutakallimūn who cannot establish that an actual act of creation took place through which the creation came to be, because in their polemics, in their attempts to lay a foundation for establishing Allāh’s existence, they adopted the philosophical baggage of the misguided philosophers, and wrangled in vain for centuries on end.
Footnotes
1. Refer to Majmūʿ al-Rasāʾil al-Jābiriyyah (Al-Mīrāth, 1433H) p. 59.
