Journal of Razavi Culture

An Analysis of Qāḍī Saʿīd Qummī’s Reading of Imām al Riḍā’s Statement Concerning “the Knownness of Beings to Himself” and Other Non‑Negating Approaches to Self‑Awareness

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Mohammadhadi Tavakoli

Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic science, Faculty of Philosophy &Theology, Research Institute of Hawzah and University (RIHU), Qom, Iran: mhtavakoli@rihu.ac.ir

https://doi.org/10.22034/farzv.2024.473867.2032
Abstract
Divine knowledge and the issues related to it have received profound attention in the intellectual and spiritual heritage of the Pure Progeny (ʿItrat Ṭāhirah, peace be upon them). One of the questions concerning the attribute of divine knowledge is the self-awareness of the Almighty God. Among the narrations that discuss the self-awareness of God, the negative response of Imam Reza (peace be upon him) to ʿImrān al Ṣābī regarding the question of “whether God, the Exalted, is known in Himself and to Himself” is a striking statement, whose meaning commentators have explicitly found difficult to interpret. In their efforts to elucidate this hadith, three main interpretive approaches have emerged:
1. Some scholars have regarded ʿImrān’s question as referring to a kind of awareness whose affirmation for God would entail imperfection.
2. Others have understood it as referring to awareness in its absolute sense, and have interpreted the Imam’s denial as a negation of the limitation that would arise from affirming such an attribute for God, given His absolute nature.
3. A third group has held that ʿImrān’s question is not, in fact, related to divine self-awareness at all.
This article examines the existing interpretations of the narration primarily through the lens of the latter two approaches.

Keywords

Self-awareness
ʿImrān al Ṣābī
Hidden Identity (Huwiyyah Ghaybiyyah)
Absolute and Contingent
Presence
Level of Wāḥidiyyah (Unity)
Subjects
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