Al-Risāla al-Mawsūma bi-Sabab al-Asbāb wa-l-Kanz li-Man Ayqana wa-Istajāb
I put my trust in our Lord, the All-Knowing Creator, the Most High, the Judge of judges, who does not enter thoughts or imaginings, whose remembrance is exalted above the descriptions of those who describe and the comprehension of mankind. The ranks of His Call are the letters of “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.”
Praise belongs to our Lord, who has no equal in heaven, none on earth who fully knows Him, no counselor, none in the worlds who can overpower Him, and none whose greatness gives him power over Him.
From His complete radiant light He originated the Universal Intellect; from the Intellect's light He originated the true Soul; from the Soul's light He originated the Word; from the Word's light He originated the Preceder; from the Preceder's light He originated the Follower; and from the Follower's light He originated the earth and everything upon it, the revolving spheres, the twelve signs, the four natures, and the matter which is the fifth nature.
All the created things that the common people call heaven are the spheres. They serve the earth and its inhabitants through the light within them and the manifestation of the humanity of our Lord the Most High through them, and the miracles of His divinity upon them. He is exalted above attributes and languages, glorified far above their descriptions.
Now then, compassionate brother: your letter has reached us, asking for true knowledge and reporting the claims of the foolish transgressor. The knowledge of tawḥīd is not like the knowledge of philosophers and abstraction, nor is it arranged as the Callers and servants have arranged it. The peerless pearl is not like solid stone, nor is absolute Oneness like the one who bestows benefit. Nor can an imperceptible world be compared with a cause possessing knowledge.
Rather, true knowledge comes through support from the eternal Originator to His servant, the Cause of Causes. The Originator is the One; the Cause is the one who imparts knowledge to all the worlds: Callers, Authorized Instructors (maʾdhūnūn), Mukāsirs, and Responders, by the knowledge and the mercy and wisdom with which our Lord—glorified is He—has supported him. He is the one present in every age, the Cause, the teacher and instructor of the worlds.
All other people resemble children in a school. Every child owes greater obedience to his father than to his teacher, and the father has a greater claim over him; yet the child learns more from the teacher, because the father has entrusted his education to the teacher and has relieved himself of speaking to and disciplining him. The father possesses the ultimate authority, but the teacher strikes the child, teaches him good, and forbids him evil. The schoolteacher is the cause of the children's learning, their punishment, and their mercy: he disciplines whom he wishes and treats kindly whom he wishes.
Yet there are four blameworthy things the teacher may not do to a child: he may not abuse the child with obscene insults, strike him so as to break a limb, sexually violate him, or kill him. If he does any of these four, the father becomes his adversary. A teacher may apologize if an insult escaped him by mistake, provided he does not repeat it. He may also make amends if he errs in striking a child and breaks a limb: he must have the limb set and support the child from his own property until recovery. But he may not excuse sexual violation of the child; and if he kills the child, he has no defense, unless the father freely chooses to pardon him.
Likewise the Imam of the Age, servant of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—is the instructor of the world and its educator through true knowledge. Our Lord—glorified is He—has entrusted to him all the religious affairs of His servants and made him their Cause, through whom come their reward and punishment. Our Lord is the Existent Worshipped One, exalted above likeness, resemblance, direct discourse, education, and the imparting of knowledge.
All the affairs of the Callers, Authorized Instructors, Mukāsirs, and Responders return to the Imam in every age. He removes whom he wishes, appoints whom he wishes, and gives each his due portion of true knowledge according to what our Lord enables him to know.
He must not reveal religion to a Responder and then conceal its completion from him. If he must conceal it temporarily out of necessity, he must disclose it at another time and bring the Responder to the ultimate goal. Nor may he entrust a Responder's instruction and upbringing to an incompetent Caller who will break his limb, so to speak. If he does this without first discovering the Caller's deficiency and later recognizes it, he must remove the Caller and appoint another, so as to mend the Responder's injury.
The Imam may not invite a Responder to worship himself; that is comparable to sexual violation of the child, for which there is no repentance. Nor may he direct a Responder to worship any creature or affirm the unity of anyone in the worlds; that is the true equivalent of killing the child, for which there is no repentance unless our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—wills.
The Imam is like a prince, the other ranks like soldiers, and the Responders like subjects. Obedience to him is obligatory because our Lord—glorified is He—appointed him their leader and Imam so that through him they might reach knowledge of the Creator of all creatures, the Originator of all, exalted above their descriptions.
I understand what you have said of yourself: that you desire to increase my honor, particularly the honor of service and to improve the manner of discourse in it. You say that I wrote at the head of my letters the expressions “station of the Cause of Causes” and “attributes of the Cause,” and you ask their meanings. You say that the Cause of Causes indicates the Preceder in every age, present in the world, and you bring to this the legends of earlier teachers. You say that this Cause, the Preceder, cannot be perceived through imagination, altered by time, or described by tongues, though he is originated from Intellect, sense, and imagination.
You further say that the combination of these things proves only the existence of a knowing Cause, not a being with speech and hearing as some have claimed, not a person visible to the eye, and not a being enclosed in a known place. You have attributed to me words I did not say; I ask our Lord not to hold you accountable.
You also say that I wrote at the head of my letters that there is the Cause of Causes, another cause above it, and our Lord al-Ḥākim—great is His power—alongside them as their Maker. You ask what I would say if a hostile, intrusive opponent or a bastard asked about the Cause of Causes, the cause above it, and its attributes. Your formulation is unsound.
Through the will of our Lord I shall explain an answer that makes the realities clear to you, according to what this age requires—not because you or anyone in the worlds deserves it, but through the generosity and compassion of our Lord.
You mention that your letter seeks two things: first, to overcome the Opponent; second, not to drive believers' hearts away. You say that the aim in every circumstance, for all the worlds, is to affirm the unity of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—alone.
You say you possess many clear rational and legal arguments with which to overcome anyone who speaks against you and establish that our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—is a mighty, powerful, overpowering God. You report an opponent's challenge: “If you affirm that the Cause cannot be perceived, described, or encompassed by sight or place, your claim that it is near, approachable, and able to address people collapses.”
“If, on the other hand, you admit limits, attributes, sight, and comprehension, your doctrine collapses and you make it resemble created beings, for these belong to creatures.”
You ask me to teach you the foundation upon which to build your doctrine. If the foundation is that a Cause exists in heaven and our Lord al-Ḥākim—great is His power—is the Maker of that Cause, you wish to hear and obey without exceeding the bounds. If there is a meaning hidden from you, you ask me to explain it. Yet you have gone so far as to compose letters and books and attribute them to me, seeking thereby the honor of service.
I shall explain what you have asked and answer it chapter by chapter through the will and support of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. The Holy Spirit reaches me in the blink of an eye, without spiritual or corporeal intermediary. Praise and thanks belong to Him alone.
Know—may our Lord help you obey Him, keep you from disobedience, and aid you in understanding His Call—that I had not wished to answer these questions or burden you with them. You did not ask as a Caller asks his Imam; rather, you displayed your own knowledge and excellence in the realities. That was a mistake. I returned to what our Lord, the All-Knowing Creator, the Most High and Compelling—exalted be His remembrance—has given me of knowledge and forbearance and entrusted to me of teaching and disciplining the world. I understood that yours was an unintentional mistake, a slip that escaped you.
I have therefore written this book through the support of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—the Creator of lords, explaining in it various sciences and proper conduct. I have made it a treasure for the people of tawḥīd and for those who respond, and named it The Cause of Causes. When you read it, distinguish its meanings with your intellect, ascend through the subtle stages and gates of wisdom, and declare our Lord al-Ḥākim, the One, the Unique, the Self-Sufficient, exalted above all names, attributes, kinds, and languages. Thank Him as fully as your capacity allows, and do not speak according to private opinion and analogy. Whoever speaks by opinion and measures knowledge by desire was cast out of the Call and removed from the number of the ranks. May our Lord protect you and all sincere believing Unitarians from that.
The first chapter concerns your statement that you seek my honor, particularly the honor of service. Know—may our Lord aid you in obedience—that neither you nor anyone in all the worlds has control over outward or inward affairs. The outward honor you wish for me consists of wealth, horses, camels, dignity, reputation, and authority over the rich and those in error. You have no power to bring any of this about, nor strength to accomplish it; you can only speak of it. The same is true of everyone else: they cannot secure honor even for themselves, much less for one above them in outward and inward station. Such an offer could properly be made only by a superior to one below him, never by an inferior to his superior.
As for inward honor, you wish to give me the manifestation of true sciences, the substance of higher wisdom, and victory over the adherents of literalist religious laws. But you have no power over this either, nor can anyone speak of it except through the support that our Lord—glorified is He—bestows upon me in every age without corporeal, spiritual, or psychic intermediary.
I may explain to people their doctrines and correct their statements, and no one in all the worlds may deny my authority, because our Lord—glorified is He—chose me and originated me from His radiant light before place or possibility, humans or jinn existed. This was seventy cycles before He created Adam of human manifestation; between each cycle and the next are seventy weeks, between each week and the next seventy years, and each year is a thousand years by your reckoning.
In every one of those ages I called the worlds to the tawḥīd and worship of our Lord the Most High—glorified is He—in different forms and languages. Some responded to His tawḥīd and worship; others recoiled from His signs, denied His favor, worshipped idols, and associated others with His lordship, thereby deserving painful punishment for their associationism.
At the end of this book I shall explain the names by which our Lord the Most High—glorified is He—appeared in each cycle to people according to their corporeal condition, while His divinity is exalted above names, attributes, kinds, and languages. I shall also explain my name in each cycle, the names by which the people of the cycles knew their leaders, and the name of the spiritual Opponent known as Iblīs in each cycle. You will then learn what no Muslim or adherent of the earlier religious laws has known, and gain knowledge that guides you to the realities and prevents you from following paths of destruction. You will know that I have power to grant honor to you and others in outward worldly life and inward religion, while you cannot grant honor to me except by your tongue or the intention of your heart.
Here is a second chapter—may our Lord protect you from its danger. It concerns those among the common people who say that I invented this affair from myself, composed its knowledge through my own essence and strength, and that our Lord al-Ḥākim—great is His power—does not know of it or approve it. A person encounters words his intellect cannot comprehend, says, “I have an opinion, and mine is better than his; I could compose words better arranged than his,” and thinks he should teach me something I do not know so that I might thank him. This is associationism in the Imamate itself.
I warn you and all sincere Unitarians against this. When you or anyone else reads my book or hears words of mine which the intellect cannot accept, ask about them as an incapable person seeking benefit and eager to learn. Acknowledge that you do not understand. Such a question is praiseworthy and its speaker deserves thanks. You will benefit from me in every circumstance, and I shall answer you through the will of our Lord—glorified is He.
As for your statement that I wrote at the heads of my letters “station of the Cause of Causes” and “attributes of the Cause”: you remembered part of the written heading without understanding it, forgot another part, and failed to examine the arrangement of the writing and what I placed on its lines. Those lines signify known ranks; the writer may neither remove a line nor add one. If I had wished their meanings to be obvious to everyone, I would have written them on one line from the beginning to the end of the letter. Instead I placed them in the middle, for they belong neither to the outward nor to the inward. Right and left are opposed to one another; the middle is the road to salvation and the attainment of the ultimate goal: the tawḥīd and worship of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance.
The four lines of the heading are as follows:
First: “I put my trust in our Lord—exalted be His remembrance.”
Second: “Through Him I seek help in all affairs.”
Third: “The station [or position] of the Cause of Causes.”
Fourth: “The attributes of the Cause: In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.”
By the first line, “I put my trust in our Lord—exalted be His remembrance,” I intend His divinity, which cannot be perceived by imagination or entered by thought or understanding. There is no one in all the worlds except that He is with them while they do not perceive Him. “He knows the treachery of eyes and what breasts conceal.” His remembrance is too exalted to be described or comprehended. Whoever relies upon Him finds Him sufficient for all his needs. No one in all the worlds can truthfully say that he relied upon Him and that He failed to provide what he needed—glorified and exalted above the claims of polytheists and falsehoods of unbelievers. If one relied upon Him according to the measure of true trust, He would suffice for every need and compel the worlds toward His pleasure. But people trust Him with their tongues while their hearts fear the polytheists. They regard the world as an object of worship and worship a cursed idol. By such deeds they deserve punishment without understanding.
In the second line, “Through Him I seek help in all affairs,” I intend the human manifestation of the veil within which He is concealed, the station from which He speaks, the human form we see. If someone asks, “How can the Creator—glorified is He—be veiled within a human being and speak from him when you say that He cannot be perceived?” we answer that the adherents of every religious community, including the protected communities, agree that the Creator cannot be perceived. Yet they say He dwells in heaven, is established upon the Throne, and was veiled within an unreasoning tree from which He spoke to Moses son of ʿImrān. Moses heard the voice from the tree: “O Moses, I am God.” When Moses heard speech from the tree or mountain, he said, “God said such and such to me,” and no one rejected his claim.
We therefore have a stronger right to say that the Creator—glorified is He—is veiled within a speaking, knowing, chosen person, and that His deputy and chosen one is a more fitting vehicle for divine speech than a dry tree, stone, or idol. This is a clear rational proof that the Opponent cannot refute.
In the third line, “The station of the Cause of Causes,” I am elaborating the statement “I put my trust in our Lord—exalted be His remembrance.” I explain the station so that no one misunderstands it as you have. For example, when you say, “I put my trust in the prince concerning my need,” the word “prince” is indefinite. You then clarify, “the commander of the army,” and everyone knows whom you mean.
Likewise the Cause of Causes is the servant of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—who governs the affairs of the ranks. The ranks are the causes of the world's religious maladies, because people become confused about them, elevate them beyond their stations, or diminish them. They become sick at heart.
The ranks are also afflicted concerning the Imam of the Age: some doubt him and diminish his station, while others exaggerate his status and make him the Universal Worshipped One. Thus he is a cause of illness to those bewildered about him, whose religions have become sick through him. Whoever grants him his rightful station, acknowledges his Imamate, and recognizes that he is a servant of our Lord—exalted be His remembrance—with no power or strength except through Him, is freed from the true religious illnesses that lead to eternal death. Our Lord—glorified is He—is with this Cause, meaning that He governs and originates it and has power over it and all the ranks.
In the fourth line, “The attributes of the Cause: In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,” the words designate the attributes of the Cause just mentioned, namely the Imam. The line comes last in the heading because the expression bism Allāh has seven letters, indicating seven Callers appointed over the seven regions. The words al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm have letters, indicating the spreading Callers appointed over the islands. They also indicate the seven celestial spheres and twelve zodiacal signs, all of which exist in our Lord's age and serve under the Imam's command. They are called his attributes because people say, “This is so-and-so's Caller,” or “He is one of so-and-so's companions.” Thus the ranks are his attributes, represented by the letters of “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.”
This is why I wrote “attributes of the Cause” in the fourth line: the Imam's ranks are indicated by that formula. These Callers invite people to the tawḥīd of our Lord—great is His power—while He is the Originator of them all, without likeness, form, or counterpart. He does what He wills, as He wills, when He wills, and none may object to Him. He is the Most High without beginning or end, glorified above their descriptions.
The third chapter concerns your statement in your letter that the Cause signifies the Preceder in every age, present in the world, yet imperceptible to thought, unaltered by time, indescribable by tongues, and originated from intellect, sense, and imagination. You say that these things together prove only a knowing Cause, without speech, hearing, visible person, or known location.
Know—may our Lord aid you—that all this consists of the fables of earlier teachers, the deception they practiced upon Responders, and the truths they concealed from Unitarians. You have built your statement upon the books of unbelieving philosophers and associationist logicians. They did not know the Cause and its relations, so they pointed to the celestial spheres and the natures, making the fifth nature the cause and originator of things. It exists within the four natures and outside them, because the natures were formed through its power. It is the matter of the whole, outside their non-being yet present in all their actions, and is not characterized by heat, coldness, dryness, or moisture.
For this reason they ascribed power and creation to it and called it the limitless Cause, capable of everything. This is faith mixed with unbelief, tawḥīd adorned with associationism, and wisdom overlaid by ignorance. Whatever is called a cause must have something above it that originates it. If they were right to call the fifth nature a cause, they were wrong to call it the Cause of Causes, thereby associating it with our Lord—exalted be His remembrance. For the fifth nature is the matter of the four natures from which the seven spheres were constituted.
The elements, the terrestrial sources, and the things arising from the earth are formed from them. Earth therefore becomes a cause of the cause to which they all pointed. Earth is the great foundation and mine of every glory, yet earth is the foam of water, and water is its life and the life of its inhabitants. Water springs from the mountain of Volition, Volition gushes forth from Will. As He said, “When He wills a thing, His command is only to say to it, ‘Be,’ and it is. Glorified is He in whose hand is the dominion of everything—”
“—and to Him you return.” Will is the Cause of Causes: the Universal Intellect, the Pen, the letter qāf, Decree, the alif at the beginning and the alif at the end. Thus the philosophers' doctrine concerning these inanimate things, which possess neither intellect nor discernment, is invalid.
The celestial spheres resemble mills and waterwheels, which possess neither understanding nor discernment. You pour grain into the mill, and it does not know; flour and dust pass through its parts, and it does not know. A waterwheel irrigates one place without knowing and leaves another dry without knowing. The machine has no intellect.
The ox-driver is like the fifth nature: he is neither the animal nor the machine, yet his craft and management are within them and distinct from them. Still, the ox-driver is close to the beasts in his limited knowledge, or like a craftsman who understands only his particular work. His intellect extends only to what his aspiration and upbringing have taught him. He is the cause of that waterwheel, but he is not the Cause of Causes. If he were removed from the craft he knows and placed in another, he would be bewildered.
Likewise the spheres that are disposed toward auspicious influences cannot produce inauspicious influences at their auspicious times, nor can the inauspicious produce the auspicious in their times. The fifth nature itself cannot act independently of the spheres. A wheel that turns a mill cannot perform the work of a different wheel; what rises by day cannot necessarily rise by night, nor what rises in summer in winter. Their incapacity is evident: all have a stronger cause above them. They serve human beings and are used by them in higher and lower affairs.
We thus know that Adam of Universal Purity is the Cause of Causes. He passes from one form to another as his Master, our Lord al-Ḥākim, the One, the Unique, the Self-Sufficient, exalted above consort and child, wills. The Cause of Causes is present in every age and exists at every time, but he is a servant under command. How then could you, or anyone in the worlds, say that he cannot be perceived—
“—through thought, is not altered by times, and cannot be described by tongues”? You have acknowledged that he is created, yet these are attributes of the Creator. Every created thing can be perceived; whatever can be perceived may be seen and witnessed. Indeed, by saying that he was formed from intellect, sense, and imagination, you have shown that he can be perceived by intellect. All these are created and perceptible.
You also called this Cause the Preceder in every age. Yet nothing may properly be called the Preceder of all things if there is another created being above it. You yourself placed the Intellect above it, so the Intellect has a better claim to priority than the being it precedes; then come sense and imagination in the order you proposed.
How can you believe that the Preceder has no speaking or hearing essence and no visible person, while still testifying to his precedence? If you testify without seeing, you testify to what you do not know. If you testify without encompassing it, that is impossible, for one cannot testify to what one has not comprehended.
If you testify through your intellect, then you have perceived it and encompassed it in your heart: it is created and perceptible. If you say that you testified to it only through signs seen in the world, as a necessary inference and not direct knowledge of reality, then you have associated another with the Intellect and its Creator. Moreover, you cannot say this after placing intellect, sense, and imagination above the Cause. All are creations of our Lord the Most High, al-Ḥākim over the people of earth and heaven, exalted above adversary, equal, and likeness.
Know—may our Lord aid you in obedience—that the seven celestial spheres, signified by the seven letters of bism Allāh, indicate the seven Callers appointed over the seven regions. The twelve zodiacal signs, indicated by al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm, signify the Callers of the twelve islands. They correspond to the four natures because their hands hold the four religious natures: the knowledge of the Speaker, Foundation, Imam, and Proof.
The fifth nature, matter, indicates the Follower. All derive from earth, which signifies the Preceder. Earth is the foam of water, and water signifies the higher Word. Water arises from Volition, which signifies the Universal Soul. Volition was created by the Intellect, which is Will and the Cause of Causes. Each rank is a cause for the next. Some people diminish the ranks and others exaggerate their excellence, so they corrupt their religion through these ranks. Shaṭnīl the Sage is the greatest Imam, appearing in every age, guiding people in every form.
He is a cause for them because if they doubt him they fall into unbelief and their religion becomes sick forever, unless he accepts their repentance; he is forgiving and merciful.
All these ranks we have mentioned are gathered in our present age at the Presence of our Lord al-Ḥākim—glorified is He—the One above them all, their Originator and Fashioner. He is exalted above them all.
Everything in the Qurʾān and other scriptures, everything of explanation revealed to my heart, and all exalted names apply to His servant, the Imam, according to the world's capacities, what their minds can contain, and what their tongues can express. We call Him our Lord the Most High because people know nothing higher, though we cannot perceive even a portion of His human manifestation. His divinity does not enter thoughts or imaginings and cannot be known through outward or inward categories. He is al-Ḥākim, the One, the Unique, the Self-Sufficient, exalted above consort and child, far above what the unbelievers believe and the polytheists say.
The first part is complete; the second follows, if our Lord wills. Through Him comes success in all affairs. Our Lord suffices us and is the best Helper and Supporter.