Sadrian Metaphysics

God is a Necessary Being, and a Necessary Being [wajib bil zat] must be Necessary [wajib] from every aspect [jihat] including the aspect of Independence [ghina], which means that he must not be dependent upon another for anything, because that which is dependent is contingent in essence [zat/mahiyat] and that which is essentially-contingent [mumkin bil zat] cannot simultaneously be Necessary in Itself [wajib bil zat], it therefore follows that God does not need or desire us to praise Him for His Own benefit, because lacking nothing He desires nothing. Desire for something arises only due to a lacking or an imperfection hence that which is Absolute Perfection itself does not lack anything. Therefore the reason why God wants us to pray and praise Him is for our benefit not His, worshiping the divine in terms of seeking perfection and developing within ourselves divine attributes and thereby becoming existentially-perfect, therefore remembrance of an All-Perfect and an All-Good Div...

"GOD, THE ABSOLUTE OR PURE GOOD" God, the Necessary Existent, is either Absolute or Pure Good [ khayr e mehaz ], Absolute or Pure Evil [ sharr e mehaz ] or a composite [ murakkab ] of Good and Evil. Now evil [ sharr ] is described as a negation of good and as such has no independent and entified external reality, but can only exist accidentally as a negation or a privation of goodness [ khayr ] such as darkness [ zulmah ] which is the negation of light [ nur ] or death which is the negation of life [ hayat ], in other words evil is said to be a non-entity identified as non-being and is therefore synonymous with non-existence [ adum ]; therefore if the Necessary Existent is said to be Absolute or Pure Evil so such an assertion would be tantamount to equating the Divine Essence with Absolute-Non-existence [ adum e matlaq ] because evil as has been explained above is a negation of goodness and hence absolute-evil is the absolute or  complete negation of goodne...

The Divine Essence at the level or station of Essential Unity ( Maqam al Ahadiyat ) is absolutely transcendent, completely unknown, inaccessible to all and sundry, too distant to be approached by anyone. At this level the Essence ( Dhat ) and the Attributes ( Sifat ) are one, meaning that the Attributes are identical to the Essence ( Ain al Dhat ) without there being any distinction between the two, because therein is no duality but only unity. It is this Essential Unity at the station of “ Ahadiyat”  that is the subject of the Quranic Chapter of Al-Ikhlas in the verse “ قُل هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ ”. The Essence is absolutely concealed & hidden such that it cannot even be apprehended by the most perceptive intellects, as is explained by the Prince of the Monotheists Imam Ali (as)  “ يَا هُوَ يَا مَنْ لاَ يَعْلَمُ مَا هُوَ ”, translation: “  O He Whom none knows what He is ”( Dua-e-Mashlul ). This Essential Unity has no manifestation since nothing can manifest the Divine...

Just as every existent in the lower worlds has an intelligible reality subsisting in the higher realms namely the World of Intellects ( alam al aqal ) which happens to be absolutely perfect, sublime and actual, similarly Man also has an intelligible human reality (  Haqiqat al Insaniya ) which is absolutely perfect, sublime and actual without any blemish ( nuqs ) and potentiality subsisting in that higher world of Immaterial Intellects ( Al Uqul al Mujarred ); this intelligible human reality (  Haqiqat al Insaniya ) is none other than the sublime Muhammadan Reality ( Haqiqat al Muhammadiya ), which represents the reality of Man in all its perfection, nobility and sublimity. The Muhammadan Reality ( Haqiqat al Muhammadiya ) is the universal or the immutable source form ( al a’yan al thabit ) of The Perfect Man ( al insan al kamil ) and the Perfect Man is the earthly image, reflection or manifestation of the Muhammadan Reality. It has been mentioned in the first part of this di...

“The existence of an effect is among the necessary concomitants of the existence of its perfect and complete cause such that the twain are inseparable. The question is that is the agent-cause effective in the existence of its effect directly through it own ipseity [zat] or not; now if the agent-cause is not effective in the existence of its effect directly through it own ipseity, so it is obvious that an additional factor is required for the causal-agency to be effective for instance a condition [shart] or will [irada] would have to be increased over and above the ipseity of the agent-cause, and in that case the entity which had been presumed to be the agent-cause would no longer remain the agent-cause, and instead the ipseity of that agent together with that additional feature in combination will have to be regarded as the true agent-cause and the question which was asked concerning the existent which had initially been presumed to be the agent-cause will then revert to this combinati...