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116.
" they said: ` allah has taken to himself a son '.
glory
be to him! nay, to him belongs all that is in the heavens
and
on the earth: all are obedient to him."
117.
" originator (is he) of the heavens and the earth;
and
when he decrees a matter to be, he only says to it ` be ' and it is."
commentary :
the jews, christians, and
pagans and their superstitions
the superstitious belief that
allah has got a child is accepted by
the christians, a group of the
jews, and some pagans. all of them
believe that he has chosen a
child for himself.
sura at-taubah, no. 9, verse
30 says: " the jews call `uzair
(ezra) a son of allah, and
the christians call christ the son of allah. that
is a saying from their mouth;
(in this) they but imitate what the
unbelievers of old used to
say. allah's curse be on them: how they are
deluded away from the truth!
"
also, about the pagans, sura
yunus, no. 10, verse 68 says:
"they say: ` allah has begotten
a son! ' glory be to him! he is
self-sufficient! ..."
there are many other verses
in the holy qur'an that refer to this
inappropriate idea of theirs.
to condemn this superstition,
the first verse of the verses under
discussion says: " they said: ` allah has
taken to himself a son '.
glory be to him! ..."
why would allah need to take
a son for himself? is he in need
of one? is he limited? does
he need to be helped? or, is it
necessary for him to have any
descendants? "...nay, to him belongs all
that is in the heavens
and on the earth; ..."
"... all are obedient to
him."
*
* * *
he is not only the possessor
of all things and creatures in the
world of existence, but also,
" originator (is he) of the heavens and the
earth; ..."
and he has created all of them
without any previous design,
preparation, or without being
in need of any pre-existing material.
what necessity is he forced
by to have a child while everything is
immediately ready for him?
"... and when he decrees
a matter to be, he only says to it ` be ' and it is."
explanation
besides the above verse, the
phrase / kun fayakun / ` be! and it is '
has occurred in several verses
of the qur'an, including the followings:
1. sura 'al-i-`imran, no. 3,
verse 47
2. sura 'al-i-`imran, no. 3,
verse 59
3. sura al-an`am, no. 6, verse
73
4. sura an-nahl, no. 16, verse
40
5. sura maryam, no. 19, verse
35
6. sura yasin, no. 36, verse
82
7. sura qafir, no. 40, verse
68
this phrase is about the will
of allah and his absolute
sovereignty on the subject of
creation.
to understand this well, we
should know the meaning of the
unity of acts and the creation
of all created beings by allah's will.
precisely, unity of acts, in
terms of his acts, does not need any help or
helper from outside himself.
should he use any means for that
purpose, the means itself is
created by him and used by him. it is not
that he needs some help from
outside himself which is not connected
to him, and to bebrought from
somewhere else, or if so allah would
not be able to do whateverhe
wants to. no, it is not like that at all.
allah, acts need none but himself
and his will alone.
the explanation is that the
objective meaning of the phrase / kun
fayakun /('be! ' and it is
) is ot that allah issues a verbal command with the word ' be ', but
the reality is that when he wills something to
exist it exists. there will
be no time between that will and its existence,
not even a moment.
in other words, the phrase /
kun fayakun /
(' be! ' and it is ) is only
to bring home to the human mind
the omnipotent will which, properly
speaking, can never be ruanlated
into any verbal expression.
amir-ul-mineen ali ibn-abitalib
(a.s) of whom the holy prophet
(p.b.u.h.) had declared:'i (i.e.
the holy prophet himself) am the city of
knowledge and ali is its
gate ', in referring to the phrase mentioned in
this verse; regarding the divine
omnipotence and the execution of
his will says:
" not by sound uttered, nor
by voice heard, his word, blessed be he,
is action proceeding from
him ". 1
there is a similar idea in a
tradition from hadrat musa-ibn-ja`far,
the seventh imam (a.s.), cited
in al-kafi as well as in touhid saduq. 2
this meaning, with a slightly
different explanation, is also
mentioned in tafsir-burhan,
vol. 1, p. 146.
-
1 nahjul-balaqah,
arabic version by subh-i-salih, p. 274
2 tafsir-us-safi,
vol. 1, p. 167
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