Another remark

Do know that “praising”‌ is for a “favor”‌. From the noble verse, it is deduced that praising and extolment are confirmed for the state of the Greatest Name as the all-embracing Name, which has the state of being the Lord of the worlds, “the Beneficent,”‌ “the Merciful”‌ and “the Master of the Day of Judgment.”‌ So, these noble Names, i.e. “Rabb,”‌ “Rahman”‌ and “Malik”‌ should have an effective role in the praising. Later on, we shall explain in details Allah’s saying: The Master of the Day of Judgment. Now, we shall talk about the proportionality of the state of Divinity to “praising”‌. It is so from two aspects:

The first is that as the very praiser is a part of the “worlds”‌, or he may even be “a world”‌ by himself, and from the point of view of the people of knowledge, each one of the beings is a world by itself, he praises Allah, for He, with the hand of divine education, has taken him out of weakness, deficiency, fear and the darkness of the mass of non-existence to strength, perfection, security and the luminous world of humanity. He has also taken him past the corporeal, elemental, mineral, vegetable, and animal stations,  under  a  system  arranged  according  to  self-and-substantial  movements,  and  the  dispositional  and  natural inclinations, to the station of humanity, which is the honorable station of beings. Furthermore, He continues to educate him until be becomes what you can never imagine in your fancy.

“Then I become non-existent such non-existence that the organ says to me: “Our return is to Him.”‌

The second is that educating [rearing] the system of the kingdom of the world, such as the celestial spheres, elements, substances and accidentals, is preliminary to the existence of the perfect man, who is, in fact, the product of the juice of the world of realization and the ultimate end of the beings of the world, and he is, as such, the last product. And, since the visible world moves according to the substantial self-movement, and this is a self-completing, wherever it ends, it would be the objective of creation and the end of the journey. If we look in a universal way at the universal body, universal nature, universal vegetable, universal animal and universal man, we notice that man is the last product who has been created after the substantial self-movements of the world and they have ended in him. So, the educating (rearing)  hand  of  Allah,  the  Exalted,  has  been educating (rearing) man in all the world of realization and man is the first and the last. That which has been said was about the minor Acts and according to the stages of existence, as otherwise, if taken according to the absolute Act, the Act of Allah, the Exalted, can have no objective except His own Sacred Essence, as is proved in its relevant instances. Should we look at the minor Acts, we would realize that the objective of creating Man is the absolute invisible world, as is stated in the Divine Sayings: “O son of Adam! I created all things for you, and I created you for Myself.”‌1 Allah in the Glorious Qur’an, addressing Moses, son of ‘Imran (peace be upon him and upon our Prophet and his progeny), says: “I have made you for Myself.”‌ He also says: “And I chose you.”‌ So, man is created for Allah and made for His Sacred Essence. From among all the beings man is the chosen and the elect. The destination of his journey is attaining the door of Allah, annihilation in the Essence of Allah, and sticking to the Court of Allah. His return is to Allah, from Allah, in Allah and by Allah. In the Qur’an, He says: “Surely to Us is their return.”‌4 Other creatures to Allah through Man, or rather their return is to Man, as it stated in the Jami‘ah invocation, in which some aspects of the states of guardianship are explained. It says: “The return of the creatures is to you and their reckoning is upon you.”‌ It also says: “With you Allah opened and with you He closes,”‌5 and also in the noble verse: “Surely to Us is their return, and surely upon Us is their reckoning.”‌6  In the said invocation: “The return of the creatures is to you and their reckoning is upon you,”‌ is one of tawhid’s secrets, referring to the fact that to return to the Perfect Man is to return to Allah, as the Perfect Man is absolutely annihilated and lasts by Allah’s everlasting, having no individuality, and selfishness of his of the Beautiful Names and the Greatest Name, to which the Qur’an and the hadiths frequently refer.

 It can even be said that the Glorious Qur’an’s being distinguished for its eloquence as one of its inimitabilities well-know all over the world was because the weary Arabs were famous for their eloquence, and, thus, they could understand only that aspect of the Qur’an’s inimitability. The Arabs of that time could not comprehend its other more important dimensions, which needed a higher degree of understanding. Nowadays, too, those who have a similar level of thinking can comprehend nothing of this divine grace, except its literal elegance, beautiful rhetoric and eloquent expressions. As regards those who are well versed in the secrets of knowledge and the graces of tawhid and abstraction, know that what attracts them, and what is the goal of their hopes, in this divine Book and heavenly revelation is only its knowledge and theu are not so much interested in its other aspects. Whoever casts a glance at the Qur’an’s Gnosticism, and at the Gnostics of Islam who acquired their knowledge from it, and then makes a comparison between them and the scholars of other religions, concerning their works and knowledge, will very well recognize the higher standard of the knowledge of Islam and the Qur’an, which is the base of the foundation of religion and faith, and the final objective of sending the Messengers and revealing the Books. To believe that this Book is a divine revelation and that its knowledge is divine does not cost him any difficulty.

Source:

A Commentary on the Chapter of ‘Praise’ 

Witten by: Imam Khomeini(R.A)

Translator: Bahram Afrasiabi

Other Links:

A Commentary on the Hamd Surah: part 3

A Commentary on the Hamd Surah: part 4