 Peace be upon you all, and welcome to the live Facebook show that discusses theological arguments from the book Haqqal Yaqeen. Previously we've been discussing different topics in regards to the certain Isdashhad, and also the certain birthdays as well of our personalities with respect to holy personalities, but inshallah we'll be returning back to the book Haqqal Yaqeen by Sayyid Shabbar, and going through new discussions inshallah with myself and also Sheikh Mohammed Abbas, peace be upon you all. Peace be upon you all, and welcome to the live Facebook show. Good to have you back. Thank you, it's an honor to always be on Imam Hussein TV. Before we broke up for the season of Muharram and Safab, a quick recap on what we were discussing in regards to the book Haqqal Yaqeen by Sayyid Shabbar. So, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem, the idea was to embark upon a journey of faith where we are able to understand the five principle tenets of our religion much better. And the primary text that we were using as a guideline for our discussions was the text entitled Haqqal Yaqeen in the Ma'arifah of the religion authored by the late Imam Abdullah Shabbar, peace be upon him. And to recap, as you rightly said, we've had a bit of a break from the beginning of Shahram Muharram until last week, Milad al-Nabi. And to recap for our viewers, I believe all the previous lectures from the beginning of the book are available either online or on social media for those viewers who would like to follow the entire series in its entirety. However, to summarize where we have reached in regards to this text Haqqal Yaqeen, we first begin by understanding or discussing the importance of studying Usuluddin. This science known as Ilmul Qalam or Ilmul Aqa'id or Usuluddin, what is the importance of studying these five principle tenets within the Usuluddin? Tawheed, Adala Nabua, Imamah and Ma'ad. Why should a person study? And the summary or the khulasa, the natija, the answer if you were to summarize this is that a person twofold. Number one, a person cannot really find direction in life. A person cannot really live a life of purpose. Or say a person is not able to fulfill the purpose of his existence until and unless he or she understands to a certain degree these five major principles of the dina. This is number one. Number two, our acts of worship in terms of validity are dependent upon our correct understanding of Usuluddin. Like we mentioned in the previous series, a person, if he does not, if she does not understand Usuluddin from the right texts, from the right sources, it is very possible that he or she may be worshipping a creation of their imagination. And therefore, this in itself, they are either performing kufr or shirk in that they are worshipping someone or something other than Allah Azza wa Jalla. This is one. Number two, we came to the topic of proving the existence of Allah SWT. How is it that the rational intellectual human being, how is it possible that they are to worship and they are to submit to the command of a so-called God and abide by the prohibitions of this so-called God when they cannot see the God, they cannot feel the God, they cannot touch the God. He is outside of the parameters of the five senses. How do you obey and believe in the existence of a deity that you cannot physically see or touch? And we embarked upon this journey of proving the existence of the creator by contemplating over the creation, which is why we have a number of hadith to paraphrase them that an hour worth of contemplation, for example, is better than a hundred years of worship. Contemplation and using the mind by observing the surroundings in which we live, by observing the environment in which we function, and then using the mind to deduce conclusions which lead us to the existence of God. This thinking process in itself, known as Tadabbur and Tafakkur, is one of the most critical and most detrimental avenues through which a person is able to deduce the existence of God through pondering over the creation. And then we said another way to prove the existence of God is by looking at the perfection within the creation. So in the first option, or in the first model, in the first example that we have is that the person contemplates over the creation in its entirety. The second step is to pay attention to the intricate details and to pay attention to the perfection within the system. And the logical conclusion that the mind is able to deduce is that perfection throughout the creation cannot happen by coincidence. This is a mathematical impossibility for multiple acts of perfection to occur at the same time. This was number two. And number three, we said our fitrah, the fitrah, the default setting, if you could say, within us, leads us to call out and yearn for a belief system, which is why we say that even for those people who claim to be faithless and want to be identified as faithless, this is an illogical conclusion. Rather, it is a contradiction because they believe in something. What do they believe? They believe that they have no belief. The fact that you want to believe in something and your belief is that you do not believe in anything that initial need to believe in itself is a proof that the human being cannot function without a belief system. And this sense of yearning and wanting and needing default sense is what we call a fitrah that allows us to recognize Allah, after this we moved forward to understanding the concept of the oneness of Allah SWT. What does tawheed actually mean? And we looked at the four meanings of tawheed as explained by Amir al-Mu'minin, Ali ibn Abi Talib, where we established that there are some understandings of tawheed that are valid. And surprisingly, there are some understandings of tawheed that are invalid that actually lead towards kufr. The mind thinks, you may think that you are indulged in tawheed but according to the words of Amir al-Mu'minin, it is kufr or shirk. And then we ended by discussing the logical impossibility of the existence of multiple gods. And we had carried out a flow chart of a number of scenarios if this then that. And this was the last aspect of tawheed that we had touched on. And then we went in to introduce the characteristics or the attributes of Allah SWT. And we divided or the muhakkik, the alama, Sayyid Abdullah Shabbar are like majority of the classical Imamiyah scholars from Sheikh Tusi to Sheikh Mufeed and so on and so forth. They categorized the sifat or the attributes of Allah SWT into two. The sifat of thubutiyyah and you have the sifat salbiya. The sifat of thubutiyyah being the positive attributes of Allah while the sifat salbiya referred to the negative attributes of Allah SWT. Can Allah SWT have negative attributes as per the loose English translation? This is something we will delve into to clarify this concept when we discuss the sifat salbiya. There is always a theological debate in regards to these attributes. Are they part of Allah SWT's essence or were they in addition as in from my research and look at different theological schools. We have those who say that there was a time when Allah SWT was not all knowing and later on attained the knowledge. So at one time he didn't have this complete sifat and later on it evolved and developed and he reached to that. And then there are those who say no, there was never a situation where the attribute increased or decreased. It was unlimited from the beginning and it was essentially a part of his being and not that it was in addition to his being. Care to elaborate a little bit more? This is in itself a very fine discussion where a person can knowingly or unknowingly fall into kufr. We also have traditions, if I'm not mistaken by Imam Ali ibn Musarridah, where he prohibits his companions in talking about the essence of Allah, what is known as the that of Allah. Because the human mind is not able to comprehend the reality of the essence of the creator of the universe. Then what happens is that and this is what you find through atheistic philosophy and deviant Irfan where the mind tries to delve in to a higher level of ma'rifah by trying to understand the that of Allah Azza wa Jalla and in the process because the mind is limited and it is attempting to understand a deity which is unlimited and entering into a realm which is forbidden by Ahlul Bayt it enters into the realm of speculation. Speculation? A lot of these theological arguments are nothing but speculation. Every conclusion deduced by the mind not based on evidence is counted as speculation and therefore we have hadith in specific forbidding and prohibiting man from delving into conversations in regards to the that of Allah Azza wa Jalla for obvious reasons. However in regards to your particular question and to the scope of our discussion in the words of Alama al-Majlisi r.a which is echoed within the hadith of Ahlul Bayt a.s he says The attributes of Allah are the core of his essence. You cannot separate between the attributes of Allah and the essence of Allah Azza wa Jalla. His attributes are his essence. His essence are his attributes. They cannot be separated. This is one. Number two, to claim by way of example what you have put forward that Allah Azza wa Jalla at one time was not Alim. And then became Alim. This supposition would mean that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala is going through a constant change and is in a constant form of development and this would necessitate the imperfection of the creator because there was a time where he didn't know and now he knows the fact that there was a time there was a particular time where he didn't know then that moment in time captures imperfection of the creator and we have established in the previous chapters that the imperfection of the creator is a logical impossibility. If there is an imperfection he does not deserve to be a deity to begin with. And therefore this concept of the Wajib al-Wujud having infinite kamal and jamal is a necessary conclusion that the mind deduces when it comes to identifying who is the ma'bud, who is the lord, who is the one to be worshipped. To answer your question the way Alama Majlis says Sifatuhu Ainu Zatih and this is something which is established by Sayyid Abdullah Shabbar over here as well there cannot be any infiqaq. See, for a human being and the ilm by the way this is just something that has come to my mind and insha'Allah when we speak about the Sifatuhu Allah SWT the ilm of Allah is different from the ilm of the human being. You and I the ilm or the knowledge that we possess is not an essential part of our existence. It is an additional part to our existence. The fact being that we began as juhala or I began as a jahil and then made the effort to gain this ilm I didn't know and now I know there is a process this ilm is ilm which is iqtasabi it is something that is additional to my essence as a human being. The affair in its entirety is different when it comes to Allah SWT and the ilm of Allah the Creator cannot be compared to the ilm of the creation. Having said this if we were to move on the Sifatuhu of Allah SWT as we said divided into two the positive attributes and the negative attributes the Sifatuhu of Allah SWT and we spoke a little bit about the Sifatuhu of Allah SWT in the aspect of perfection and how perfection cannot be captured if perfection is to be captured then that in itself is a limitation and that limitation is not Allah SWT Moving on the first attribute that the author discusses within the book is the Sifatuhu of Qudrah what is translated as all powerful or omnipotent if I am pronouncing it correctly omnipotence in that Allah SWT has unrestricted uncontrolled power and domain over everything in existence and not in existence I was talking more of an authority and power I was talking about power as in control and strength both of them and each one is a different shade of this Qudrah it is, Alhamdulillah you mentioned this you find that within the Quran we have about just over give or take roughly you have about 50 verses within the Quran that use the word Qadir or Qadir or Muqtadir in its different variations wa huwa ala kulli shay'in qadir for example 50 verses within the Quran that speak about 50 shades of this Qudrah power of Allah SWT sometimes the power is in regards to that which exists and that which does not exist from a level of creation from a level of control from a level of domain and hence this is advice for myself for yourself and for our dear viewers that as you embark upon a journey of learning usuluddin or even teaching usuluddin and in particular this can be very beneficial for those brothers and sisters who teach in the madaris in the madrasa on the weekend, Saturday or Sunday or even researchers for us researching in the way of Islam is that when you look at for example the classical texts like Haqqul Yaqeen and the topic on Qudrah then a person searches up all the verses of the Quran with its different verbal constructions to look at how the word Qudrah Qadr is used within the Quran and from here a person is able to understand the concept of Qudrah through the words of Allah SWT you find that when we talk about Qudrah this omnipotence unlimited unrestricted power in contrast to the fact that Allah is not incapable sometimes you can have a concept but in order to understand that concept you can only understand the concept by analyzing that which is opposite to the concept because the power of Allah the domain and the authority of Allah SWT is unrestricted and the mind in itself is restricted we are able to understand this concept by looking at that which is opposite so the fact that Allah is not incapable Allah SWT's authority is not restricted from looking at the opposite we are able to ascertain this concept in its entirety or we are able to understand this concept we can never understand the Qudrah of Allah SWT get a better idea otherwise we cannot understand or comprehend the Qudrah of Allah SWT in its entirety so therefore the author says over here when he begins by describing the Qudrah of Allah SWT and the proof in establishing that Allah has power and domain over everything he begins by saying means he is not incapable there is nothing which he is incapable of doing or of performing and he says that the proof of this Qudrah the author says the proof of this Qudrah is divided or can be understood through three different faculties or through three different dimensions the first one is the impossibility of the creation or the act of creation to occur without the attribute of power if the Lord is incapable to begin with then how can he create because the creation is a demonstration of that power which is possessed by the deity if the power or the deity does not have power to begin with doesn't have the ability to create and the creator can't come into existence you have to have that ability this is one number two inability which is the opposite of Qudrah of being all powerful or to be restricted in your power this in itself is a limitation and we established from the previous chapters anything that is limited does not deserve to be a creator and the third aspect over here is that he says the amazing act of creation from it is the ability and this is where the discussion is Inshallah Inshallah Thank you very much We have to go for a short break now Inshallah We will discuss more in the next chapter After the break Inshallah Peace be upon you And peace be upon you And peace be upon you Welcome back to the live Facebook We're discussing Sifat and we wanted to discuss Qadr and Allah SWT being all powerful and omnipotent You mentioned three points here and the first one was the creator cannot be perfect without having a perfect creation So do you think that a perfect creation shows the power and perfection in its creator Of course the perfection of Allah SWT is a demonstration of the power of the creator What needs to be what needs to be understood over here is that in regards to Qudrah the power of Allah the scope of this power is that Allah Azza wa Jal has one absolute power over everything that exists and everything that does not exist A person might ask you how can you have power over something that doesn't exist if it doesn't exist to begin with how can you have power over it I was to come and tell you the Murtaza's son is very naughty you tell me what do you mean Murtaza's son is naughty he's not even married he doesn't even have a son yet so how can you put the hukum that his son is naughty and his son is not even born yet so how can you say that Allah SWT you like that example how can you say that Allah SWT has Qudrah over things that don't even exist and over here the ulama come forward and they say that the fact that Allah SWT has the power to bring something from non-existence into existence shows the power that he has over the realm of non-existence because he has that power to bring that non-existence into existence or keep that non-existence within the realm of non-existence he has absolute authority and power over it and act with it or deal with it in the manner that he wishes Allah SWT so this is one and then you have in this regards to your question the perfection within the creation is an exhibition of this unrestricted unlimited infinite power of Allah SWT and you find that within this Qudrah when you try and contemplate over those aspects of creation that are an exhibition of this Qudrah you find that together with Qudrah there are other sifat of Allah SWT that also come into mind and from here we begin to understand that the attributes of ilm and Qudrah and idrak and irada and hikmah are all one in essence with yani is one in essence not only are the attributes inseparable from the essence but the attributes in themselves with their differences in names are one and intertwined and when I use the word intertwined use it very cautiously from a manner in which we are able to understand otherwise the way we established in the first part of the show the sifat of Allah SWT are the ayn are the qur of his that of the essence of Allah SWT Shaykhna what do you say to those who say that there are imperfections in the creation for example they may say the human errors and the human makes mistakes and causes destruction or this is not right in the world and that's not right in the world there's no imperfection is this correct does this premise actually have any weight? imperfection in terms of creation or imperfection in terms of the actions by the creation if you're talking about the actions of insan bani adam this is a separate discussion there's an answer for that but it's a separate discussion imperfection within the creation yani what? for example you have imperfection in the manner that for example a tree that grows out from the ground that was supposed to yield fruit didn't yield fruit this is an imperfect creation and how can Allah SWT create something imperfect this is one or the non-believer the one who doesn't believe in tawheed will come and say that this is proof that your God that who you say is perfect is imperfect because we have proof over here that a tree or the seeds that were planted within the ground came and yielded no or didn't yield any fruit when it was supposed to yield fruit and hence this is an example of imperfection now we say that in your eyes what you perceive to be an imperfection in reality is perfection why? because this tree that has sprouted out from the ground not yielding fruit is a product of a system known as cause and effect so perhaps the soil being infertile or the seed in itself being corrupt from the beginning or the chemicals added into the ground for this tree to grow up in an imperfect way the tree responds perfectly to this system of cause and effect in itself is a demonstration of the perfection of Allah swt the conditions that have been placed upon such a seed and the seed actually reacted perfectly to the surrounding conditions the system of cause and effect so long as the seed or the creation is subject to this system of cause and effect this system of cause and effect which is designed by the almighty Lord then it is perfection in its core see a human being cannot logically state that because I hit my head on the wall and I bleed I am imperfect the perfection of your bodily creation the perfection of the biology that functions within you dictates that if you hit yourself or hit your head against a sharp object naturally you will bleed that fragility is an expression of your perfection and therefore everything has to be understood within its scales in a much more precise manner than that which is but the point that I want to discuss over here the third point that Allah says that the strange and the beautiful perfect creation perfection within creation is an elaboration or an illustration of the power of Allah and you find that Imam Sadiq Imam Ja'far ibn Muhammad Sadiq has numerous hadith in this regards and there is an entire compilation in regards to understanding Tawheed from the perfection within creation from a scientific perspective that Imam Sadiq alaihi salam dictated to one of his companions by the name of Mufadda ibn Omar and this writing is very famously known as Tawheed al Mufadda which is available also in English which is available in English Ahsanthum is available online and I believe that this is one of the greatest scientific approaches that have been used to establish the not only to establish the existence of Allah as-Sawajal but in order to understand the Qudrah and the Hikmah of Allah as-Sawajal to the extent that is possible by the human mind so I was actually reading the book and I was reading a section on the tear and it was discussing how the tear allows fluid from the brain to escape and to be removed from the brain through the tears and we're talking about with infants and how it's very very important that this fluid is removed now you and I both know with babies they cry a lot newborn baby especially especially newborn baby cries a lot and you could see how scientifically Imam Al-Sadaq has he has shown that it is so important for this baby to cry for the chemicals and the fluids that are within the brain have to be released from the baby's brain in order for it to develop more Ahsanthum and this is you know this is it these are answers that are given to us by divine individuals selected and appointed by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala as the gateways of knowledge of Allah as-Sawajal you find that within this is the power the Qudra of Allah as-Sawajal how powerful is this Lord and together with this power is the Hikmah of Allah just previously shortly saying that you find that the Sifat come to overlap one over the other the power of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in that he is able to create this infant and then you find that for the well-being of this infant the manner in which these additional fluids that are in the brain or around the brain how they are then going to be released either through the nasal passage or through tears in the eyes but secretion of this fluid is absolutely necessary for the well-being of that newborn infant who put this system into place who has the power to even if I can use these words in human terms to conceive such a concept that this is the manner in which the fluid will be secreted and for this region the baby will cry this perfection not only does it show the perfection of the creator not only does it show the wisdom of the creator not only does it illustrate the knowledge of the creator it's the power of the creator and these are words that I'm using for us in human terms to humanly understand otherwise the concept is much grander than this and to speak of Allah in this manner brings chills to the spine because of the amount of caution that you have to use to not misrepresent Allah even through the words while we are discussing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and therefore it is so important to keep emphasizing on this sefatuhu aynu zaateh his attributes cannot be separated from his essence his essence are his attributes his attributes are his essence they are inseparable and when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wa la ayaadu billah does not go through a thinking process fa idha arada shay'an ayyakoola lahukund fa yakoon he wants something to happen it's this amr kun be and it is and this is the creation of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala it shows the power of Allah azza wa jaal for such a beautiful system tawheed al-mufadda it's filled with this when it comes to anatomy and biology and understanding the perfection within our own creation in order to deduce the conclusion of the existence and the power of Allah azza wa jaal recommend all the viewers tawheed al-mufadda needs to be a necessary part of our tarbiyah especially in this modern day and age where science is prevailing and a lot of people look for scientific evidence and scientific proof alhamdulillah we managed to pass on that knowledge you could say that you could foresee it in the future they will need such proofs and such evidences in order to bring people towards Islam and understand first of all a number of things number one like other religions that even claimed to be Abrahamic or claimed to be monothistic you find that for the longest time the religious establishments were always against science they felt that they were threatened by science whereas when you come to Islam you see that the amr that the affair is totally the opposite Islam encourages science and Islam encourages research and development in all fields of science stretching from physics to biology and for the one who studies these sciences and he sees the perfection within creation or the laws of creation he ultimately comes to the conclusion of the existence of this deity or this superpower creation, creator of the universe and everything within existence and non-existence Allah Azza wa Jalla so Islam encourages this number one, number two in particularly to Tauhid al-Mufaddal I personally believe that there are a number of concepts within this book scientific concepts within this book that have not even they have not yet been proven from a scientific perspective the west hasn't even discovered it the west hasn't even discovered it or the west is not yet able to establish or assert this the Imam was speaking way beyond his time and even a lot of the ilm that the Imam has then for this day and age the human mind is not able to accept this I'll give you something that is unrelated, fadail some of the people are of the opinion that the fadail of Amir al-Mu'minin is rejected because they are not able to fathom and these people are Shi'a so these people are actually Shi'a Shia Baba claim to be intellectuals under the name of intellectualism they discount these superhuman feats of Amir al-Mu'minin under the name of intellectualism whereas the reality is that because of the lack of intellectualism they are not able to fathom these fadail and only time will tell only time will tell but my point that I was going to say is that a lot of these concepts in regards to anatomy and biology that are found within the book Tauhid al-Mufadal a lot of them have not been asserted or established or verified by science and in my humble opinion one of the greatest services that could be done in this day and age Mu'minin Shia brothers sisters in universities who are within this field of biology within the field of physics have a read through Kitab Tauhid al-Mufadal and you pick one aspect of research which has not yet been established pick this one point of research by Imam al-Sadiq al-Islam and begin a thesis on this within the university conduct research on this let there be R&D the way they say research and development in regards to these claims that are made by Imam al-Sadiq al-Islam such that when they are established people are able to go back and say this is the deen of Ali Muhammad this is the deen of Allah Azza wa Jal the real deen with the real ilmen the ilmen itself is with Imam al-Sadiq al-Islam so for example the example that you just came forward with that the release of the tears is actually the release of certain fluids that is necessary for a newborn baby a newborn baby to secrete in order for normal brain development this should be a thesis for research conducted within the universities and journals to be written about this under the medicine of the contribution to edge anatomy or biology by Imam al-Sadiq al-Sadiq al-Islam al-Islam al-Islam so the perfection of the creation in one essence shows the power of Allah Azza wa Jal Sheikh Allah final point, final thoughts as we are coming towards the end of the show that you would want the viewers to take from this discussion that we have had today that we have been talking about the creation and the perfection of the creation showing the power and the power of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala what I would say as the author says over here number one look into the verses of the Quran that speak about the power of Allah and two important verses of the Quran that needs to be emphasized on Surah An-Nur verse number 45 and Surah Tulfathir verse number 44 look at the manner in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala speaks about Qudrah his power what is the context in which he is stating that he is the all powerful this will give us a good understanding of this aspect of Qudrah this aspect of Qudrah which is a fundamental part of the Sifath of Butiya number one and number two to read through the book Tawheed Mufaddal Tawheed Mufaddal will allow a person to understand the grandeur of their Lord by looking at their own creation the person who understands his own creation will definitely take a big leap towards understanding his Creator