A Commentary on the Hamd Surah
part ١٣
A literary notice
In the current exegeses that we have seen, or which are quoted from, the word “din” is said to mean judgment and reckoning. The lexicons give these meanings, too. The Arab poets have also used it so, such as the poet who says: “Beware that you will be judged as you judge,” and there is a saying ascribed to Sahl ibn Rabi‘ah stating:
“There remained but hostility. We so judged them as they did.” It is said that “dayyan,” which is one of the Divine Names, denotes this very meaning. Perhaps by “din” the true religion is intended. And as on the Day of Resurrection the results of the religion appear and the religious facts come out from behind the curtain, for this reason it is called yawm ad-din (the Day of Judgment), the same as “today” is called yawm ad-dunya (the day of this world or the mundane day) on which appear the results of this world, while the true image of the religion is not apparent. This bears a similar concept of Allah’s saying: “… and remind them of the days of Allah,” which are the days in which Allah treats a nation with force and sovereignty. The Day of Resurrection is a “day of Allah” as well as the “day of religion,” since it is the day of the appearance of the Divine Sovereignty and the day of the emergence of the truth of Allah’s religion. Iyyaka na‘budu wa iyyaka nasta‘in (You do we worship and You do we seek help from): Do know, dear, that when the servant, the salik on the road of knowledge, understood that all thanks and praises exclusively belong to Allah’s Sacred Essence, and attributed to Him contraction and expansion of the existence, and regarded the reigns of the affairs, at first and at last, the beginning and the end, to be in the grasp of His Ownership, and the Unity of Essence and of Acts manifested in his heart, he would exclusively confine worship and seeking help to Allah, regard the entire world of realization submitting, willingly or unwillingly, to the Sacred Essence, and recognize no able one, in the world of realization, so as to ascribe to him any help, What is claimed by some of the people of formalism that to confine worship is real, but to confine seeking help only to Him is not real””by arguing that the help of other than Allah can also be sought, and it is in the Glorious Qur’an: “and help one another in goodness and piety,”1 and also: “and seek help through patience and salat,” and it known that the conduct of the noble Prophet, the Imams of guidance (A.S), their companions and the Muslims was based on seeking help from other Allah in lawful matters, such as getting the help of the beast of mount, the servant, the wife, the friend, the messenger, the worker and the like””but a talk suitable to the formalists. But the one who has knowledge about the Unity of Acts of Allah, the Exalted, and regards the system of the existence to be a form of the activity of Allah, the Exalted, seeing, either plainly or by rational proof, that there is no effecter in the [world of] existence save Allah, regards, with the eye of insight and luminous heart, confining “seeking help” to be a real confinement, and takes the help of the other beings to be a form of Allah’s help. According to what these people say, there is no reason for confining the praises to Allah, the Exalted, since according to this opinion, other beings also have their behaviors, options, beauty and perfection which deserve praising and thanking. They even say that giving life and death, and providing and creating are some other affairs which are common between Allah and the creatures. The people of Allah regard such matters to be polytheism, and in the narratives they are regarded as a hidden polytheism, as it is said that [resorting to] turning the ring in the finger to remember something is regarded as a hidden polytheism.
In short, “You do we worship and You do we seek help from” is a part of praising Allah, and it is a reference to real monotheism. The one in whose heart the truth of monotheism has not yet appeared, and he has not purged it from polytheism absolutely, his saying “You do we worship” would not be real, and he can not confine his worship and seeking help to Allah, and he would not be a godly man and a theist.
When monotheism manifests in his heart, he will, in proportion to the degree of this manifestation, give up all beings that “You do we worship and You do we seek help from” takes place by the name of Allah; and some facts of “You are as You praised Yourself” manifest in his heart.
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 9
A Commentary on the Hamd Surah: part 10
