The Mahdi Times The Mahdi Times, Issue #22, September 2014 | Page 25

that if someone were to come to a King and say ‘Present yourself to me
so that I can know you fully; otherwise, I will not follow your orders’, he
would expose himself to punishment? In the same way, he who refuses
to believe in the Creator until he knows His essence will receive His
wrath. And if they say, ‘Do we not describe Him when we say that He is
the Mighty, the Wise, and the Generous?’ It is said to them, ‘these are
attributes of acknowledgment and not of description. We know that He
is wise but we do not know the essence of His wisdom, and the same can
be said about His other attributes. We see the heaven but we do not
know its essence, and we look at the sea but we do not know where it
ends. The examples of this cannot be counted, though they fail in
comparison, but they lead the reason to know the Creator. If they ask:
then why do people disagree over Him? It is said: because minds fail to
recognize the extent of His greatness and exceed their capacities in
searching to know Him, and they want to know everything about Him
while they are unable to do that or even the least of it.
One of these examples is the sun that shines all over the world and yet
no one knows its reality. There are too many sayings about it, and
philosophers have disagreed over how to describe it. Some of them say
that it is a hollow star full of fire with a mouth agitating with flames.
Some others say it is a cloud. Some say it is a glass mass that
concentrates heat and then sends rays. Some say it is a fine, clear mass
of congealed seawater. Others say it is many parts of fires gathered
together. Some others say it is a fifth element separate from the four
elements. Then they have disagreed over its shape. Some of them say it
is like a flat page. Others say it is like a ball. They have also disagreed
on its size. Some say it is as big as the earth. Some others say it is less,
and some say it is much greater than a great island. People of geometry
say it is one hundred and seventy times bigger than the earth.
The disagreement in the sayings about the sun shows that people
cannot realize its reality. Minds are unable to realize the reality of the
sun, which eyes clearly see and senses easily feel, then how about what
is beyond the senses and hidden from the minds? If they say: why is He
hidden? It is said to them: He is not hidden with a means, as one who
hides from people behind doors and walls. The meaning of our saying
“He is hidden” is that He is invisible to the eyes and minds because He is