Introduction

After reason has drawn the framework of transcendence for the attributes of the Necessary Being, we now move into the space of revelation, to see how these rational truths appeared in the the Quran, and how they were elaborated by the noble Messenger (PBUH) and his the Prophet's household (AS). The transmitted knowledge that comes from them does not cancel reason; rather it takes reason by the hand to free it from the dryness of philosophical terminology, soaring with it into the horizons of true knowledge.

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1. How Did the Quran and the Ahl al-Bayt (AS) Approach Divine Unity?

The the Quran did not present the question of divine oneness as dry equations. It was distinguished by a unique, inimitable style that harmonizes with the “theory of knowledge” and its diverse tools within human beings. People are not on a single level of awareness and analysis, and so the Quranic discourse came gradually, addressing all levels of human perception through the three tools of knowledge:

1. The Rational and Demonstrative Address (For the People of Philosophy and Reflection)

The Quran addressed the class that relies on “abstract reason” as its primary epistemic tool, and offered it logical proofs that parallel the deepest philosophical theories:

The argument from mutual prevention and impossibility, in His saying, exalted is He:

“Had there been within them gods besides Allah, they would both have fallen into ruin.” (21:22)

This is a purely rational inference resting on logical entailment: the existence of two absolute, independent powers leads necessarily to collision, corruption, and the breakdown of order — which matches the philosophical argument from mutual prevention.

The argument from exhaustive division, in His saying, exalted is He:

“Or were they created out of nothing, or are they themselves the creators?” (52:35)

Here reason confines the possibilities and leads the reader, through the refutation of false hypotheses, to the inevitable conclusion: the existence of the Creator.

The noble Messenger (PBUH) firmly established this rational, transcendent reflection in the comprehensive sermons of his teaching on divine unity, and in his statement of the intellects’ inability to grasp the essence structurally, as al-Kulayni (c. 255–329 AH / c. 864–941 CE) reports in al-Kafi (the chapter on the comprehensive statements of divine unity) from one of his sermons (PBUH):

“Praise belongs to Allah, who was true in His firstness… He is not described by any state, not limited by any intellect, and not likened to any example — the One who did not create things from roots that existed before them, but rather created them by His power and His will.”

2. The Sensory and Empirical Address (For the People of Observation and Induction)

By contrast, the Quran turned to the fact that a broad class of human beings relies on “the senses and experience” as a first epistemic tool for moving from the sensible to the intelligible, and so it called them to the inductive process and to observing the witnessed cosmic order:

In arguing from the witnessed order, He says, exalted is He:

“Do they not then look at the camels, how they are created? And at the sky, how it is raised?” (88:17–18)

Here revelation addresses the tools of sensory knowledge (sight, direct observation) so that the human being may contemplate the wondrous engineering of creation and the physical and material connections that govern the world; and through the precision of the sensible making, the mind moves automatically to the greatness of the Maker.

In this context, the noble Messenger (PBUH) explains that the whole of external existence is subject to its Maker and is not contained by a material space as His creation is. When one of the rabbis came asking him, “O Messenger of Allah, where is Allah?”, he (PBUH) answered, in the report of al-Shaykh al-Saduq (306–381 AH / 918–991 CE) in al-Tawhid:

“He is in every place, but not in a place that is bounded or adjoining; He is empty of His creation, and His creation is empty of Him; sight does not perceive Him, while He perceives all sight.”

3. The Innate and Conscientious Address (The Tool of Inner Witnessing)

This epistemic tool is the deepest and most comprehensive, because it is inner and primary, needing neither the complexity of terminology and logic nor the tools of experiment and the laboratory. It springs from the very origin of human creation and consciousness when stripped of external and material influences.

Regarding general innate unity, He says, exalted is He:

“So set your face toward the religion, inclining to truth — the innate nature (fitrah) of Allah upon which He originated mankind.” (30:30)

The Quran alerts us that the knowledge of God and turning toward Him are ingrained in human nature as a self-programming prior to any indoctrinated thought.

The noble Messenger (PBUH) rooted this epistemic concept in a report of al-Kulayni’s al-Kafi (the chapter on the fitrah), when he was asked about this verse and its innate interpretation, and said:

“Every child is born upon the innate human disposition — that is, upon the knowledge that Allah, mighty and majestic, is his Creator.”

This stands out in the argument from crisis (the manifestation of the fitrah in hardship): the Quran focused on a precise sensory and psychological model that reveals how illusions dissolve and the fitrah stirs, in spite of a person, when material causes are entirely cut off — in the scene of the passengers of a ship at sea. He says, exalted is He:

“It is He who conveys you across land and sea, until, when you are in ships and they sail with them by a good wind and they rejoice therein, a violent wind comes upon them, and the waves come upon them from every side, and they think they are enclosed, they call upon Allah, sincere to Him in religion: ‘If You save us from this, we will surely be among the grateful.’ But when He saves them, at once they commit injustice in the earth without right.” (10:22–23)

Analyzing the scene philosophically and epistemically: in the framework of the theory of knowledge, this scene explains the depth of the fitrah. In conditions of ease and an ordinary environment, a person may turn to material causes (such as wealth, power, atheistic ideas, or idols and rivals) and believe that they possess benefit and harm, which covers over the authentic call of the fitrah.

But when the absolute crisis descends, and “the violent wind and the waves from every side” arrive, and all material causes are shattered so that no hope remains in a captain, a ship, or one’s own strength (“and they think they are enclosed”), the veil is suddenly lifted. In that critical moment, a person’s awareness and inner self turn automatically — with no need for a theological proof — to “the absolute unseen power that has no need of causes,” and so they call upon God in sincerity.

This is what Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq (AS) (83–148 AH / 702–765 CE) crystallized with utter clarity and detachment when a man asked him:

“O son of the Messenger of Allah, guide me to Allah — what is He? For the debaters have overwhelmed me and left me bewildered.”

The Imam said to him:

“O servant of Allah, have you ever ridden in a ship?”

He said: Yes. He said:

“And has the rope ever snapped for you, where no ship could save you and no swimming could avail you?”

He said: Yes. He said:

“And did your heart then cling to the hope that something among all things was able to deliver you from your plight?”

He said: Yes. Al-Sadiq (AS) said:

“That thing is Allah, the One able to deliver when there is no deliverer, and to rescue when there is no rescuer.”

As for their return to denial after deliverance (“but when He saves them, at once they commit injustice”), this is not proof that the fitrah is mistaken, but proof that “heedlessness, ignorance, and desires” returned to cover that pure inner spring as soon as material causes and ease returned — reflecting the perpetual epistemic struggle in the human soul between the clear call of the fitrah and the noise of the material world and its distractions.

Through this variety, the Quran classified its verses to suit the structure of the human mind in all its shades: the philosopher finds what he seeks in the arguments from exhaustive division and mutual prevention; the natural scientist finds his aim in the verses of the horizons and the souls; and the simple or desperate human being finds his goal in the call of the deep fitrah.

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2. The Classifications of Divine Unity in the Firm Verses and Reports

Building on these epistemic tools, the Quran and the Sunnah divided divine unity, in the verses and the transmitted texts, into three fundamental pillars:

1. Unity of the Essence (the Singularity of the Essence, Its Simplicity, and the Denial of Number)

The Quran addressed the oneness of the essence and the denial of composition from it in a comprehensive style in Surah al-Ikhlas:

“Say: He is Allah, One (Ahad).” (112:1)

The use of the word “Ahad” (Single) rather than “Wahid” (One) is a most precise Quranic subtlety. “Wahid” may mean the first part of a numerical series that admits division and increase, whereas “Ahad” is the absolute simple reality that has no part and no branching, and does not admit multiplicity in any respect whatsoever.

The noble Messenger (PBUH) unpacked this concept precisely and purified it of the numerical, material understanding, as al-Saduq reports in al-Amali and al-Tawhid in his address to the Bedouin who asked him about the meaning of “one,” when the Prophet (PBUH) said to him:

“As for your saying ‘one,’ its meaning is that He has no likeness among things — such is our Lord. And its meaning is that He is single in meaning; by that is meant that He is not divided in existence, in intellect, or in imagination — such is our Lord, mighty and majestic.”

On this, the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS) (23 BH–40 AH / 599–661 CE) (AS), elaborates in the first sermon of Nahj al-Balagha, expounding the transcendence of the singular essence above limitation and number:

“He whose attribute has no defined limit… The perfection of divine unity is sincerity toward Him; whoever assigns Him a mode has not affirmed His oneness, and whoever sets a boundary to Him has not grasped His reality; whoever points to Him has limited Him, and whoever limits Him has counted Him.”

Likewise his answer (AS) at the Battle of the Camel:

“The statement that Allah is one has four aspects: two of them are not permissible for Allah, and two of them are established for Him… As for the two that are not permissible for Him: the statement of ‘one’ in the sense of number, for this is not permissible, because that which has no second does not enter into the category of number — do you not see that whoever said ‘He is the third of three’ has disbelieved?“

2. Unity of the Attributes (Absolute Self-Sufficiency, the Denial of Deficiency, and the Identity of the Attributes with the Essence)

The Quran addressed the attributes of the Creator by affirming two matters:

As for absolute transcendence, in His saying, exalted is He:

“There is nothing like unto Him.” (42:11)

This is a Quranic principle that demolishes any attempt to liken the attributes of the Creator to the attributes of creatures.

As for the affirmation of perfection, it comes through the system of the Most Beautiful Names in His saying:

“And to Allah belong the Most Beautiful Names, so call upon Him by them.” (7:180)

Names such as the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful, and the Living are not attributes added to the essence and inhering in it; rather they express the perfection of the essence and its identity with it — the divine essence is the very same as knowledge and the very same as power.

The strongest transmitted proof of the identity of the attributes with the essence, and the denial of any addition or conceptual otherness, is the statement of Imam Ali (AS) (AS):

“The perfection of sincerity toward Him is the denial of attributes of Him, because of the testimony of every attribute that it is other than the one described, and the testimony of every described thing that it is other than the attribute. Whoever describes Allah, glorified is He, has paired Him; whoever pairs Him has made Him two; whoever makes Him two has divided Him; and whoever divides Him is ignorant of Him.”

3. Unity of Acts (the Denial of Any Independent Agent in Existence)

The Quran made clear that the motions and rests of the cosmos come about only by His determination and His will:

“Allah is the Creator of all things, and He is Guardian over all things.” (39:62)

There is no repeller of His decree and no agent in existence besides Him, and all the material causes in the cosmos are derived from His primary causality.

In al-Shaykh al-Saduq’s al-Tawhid, the noble Messenger (PBUH) traces this unity of acts and existential support back to the divine will and self-subsisting sustaining that governs the servant, in his sacred narration:

“Allah, blessed and exalted, said: O son of Adam, by My will you are the one who wills for yourself what you will; by My power you have discharged My obligations to Me; by My safeguarding and My power you gained strength to disobey Me. I made you hearing, seeing, and strong. Whatever good reaches you is from Allah, and whatever evil reaches you is from yourself.”

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3. The Method of the Ahl al-Bayt (AS) in Protecting the Creed of Divine Unity

The exposition of the the Prophet's household (AS) came to represent the rigorous rational line of defense that protects the Islamic creed from deviation, and their presentation was distinguished by two essential features:

1. Standing in the “Middle Zone” (Between Likening and Emptying)

The theological schools split, in understanding the attributes of God, into two extremes that produced an epistemic disorder:

An extreme that fell into “likening”: it understood the texts of the attributes in a material way and gave the Creator a form and a direction (a disorder that violates the denial of corporeality). And an extreme that fell into “emptying”: it held that transcendence requires draining the attributes of their meaning, so that God became for them a mere absent mental idea whose attributes have no real existence (a disorder that violates the unity of the attributes).

As for the position of the school of the Ahl al-Bayt, the Imams (AS) framed a method that affirms the attributes truly while denying of them any likeness to matter. Imam Ja’far al-Sadiq (AS) says, defining this epistemic station:

“An essence with the reality of thingness, going out from the two limits: the limit of nullification and emptying, and the limit of likening.”

So the attributes are established, yet they are identical with the essence, without any material modality.

This is reinforced by what is reported from Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (AS) (57–114 AH / 676–733 CE) in his firm statement to shatter the illusions of materialist philosophy and anthropomorphism:

“Everything you distinguish by your imaginations, in its most precise meanings, is a created thing, made like yourselves, returned back to you.”

And the statement of Imam Ali ibn Musa al-Rida (AS) (148–203 AH / 765–818 CE) in the decisive joining of transcendence with the affirmation of the attribute:

“Allah is empty of His creation, and His creation is empty of Him… whoever likens Allah to His creation is an idolater, and whoever denies of Him what He has described Himself with is one who empties Him of meaning.”

2. Solving the Problem of Acts (The Matter Between Two Matters)

When the matter became confused for some between “compulsion” (that the servant is compelled in his act and has no will, like the motion of a feather in the air) and “delegation” (that the servant is entirely independent in his act, apart from God, and that God delegated creation and governance to him and withdrew), the Ahl al-Bayt offered the decisive rational solution:

“Neither compulsion nor delegation, but a matter between two matters.”

The human act has two relations: a relation to the servant, because he undertook the act by his free will and choice; and a relation to God, because God is the One who pours upon the servant the power, the life, the tools, and the will at every moment and in every process. Were the divine support and existential outpouring cut off for a single instant, the servant’s act would be nullified and its effect would vanish.

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4. An Illumination on the Unity of Acts and the Doubt About Seeking Nearness Through a Means

In the context of speaking about the unity of acts (and that God is the sole agent), a passing question is sometimes raised about the matter of “seeking nearness to God through an honored means” through the Prophet (PBUH) or his household (AS), and some imagine that there is in this a blemish upon divine unity or a resemblance to the worship of idols. To simplify this point and remove the illusion, reason and the Quran place a decisive distinction between two structures of influence:

1. Horizontal Causation (False Polytheism)

This is the belief that there is another party influencing the cosmos alongside God and as a rival to Him, independently of His will and His essential intention. This is the polytheism that Islam fought — the pattern into which the disbelievers of Mecca fell when they believed that the idols possessed an independent authority of their own, benefit and harm, bringing them near to God without His permission or His legislated appointment, glorified is He.

2. Vertical Causation (Pure Divine Unity)

This is the belief that the sole independent cause and agent by essence is God, and that any influence of another being occurs only along the length of the divine will — that is, by support from Him, by His permission, and under His authority and appointment.

This precise epistemic foundation of vertical causation and of the influence of causes bound by the divine will came explicitly in the counsel of the noble Messenger (PBUH) to Ibn Abbas (3 BH–68 AH / 619–687 CE):

“Know that if the nation were to gather to benefit you with something, they would not benefit you except with something Allah had already written for you; and if they were to gather to harm you with something, they would not harm you except with something Allah had already written against you. The pens have been lifted and the pages have dried.”

The being and the effect here do not crowd the great Creator; rather it is merely a “means” appointed by divine legislation, through which God commanded the servants to turn and which He commanded them to obey, as in the firm verse:

“O you who have believed, be mindful of Allah and seek the means to Him.” (5:35)

Quranic Examples of the Vertical View That Removes Contradiction:

• Regarding the taking of souls: the Quran says at one place:

“Allah takes the souls at the time of their death.” (39:42)

And at another place, in a different verse:

“Say: The Angel of Death, who has been entrusted with you, will take you.” (32:11)

So the Angel of Death acts by the permission of God and along the length of His command and power — there is no contradiction and no polytheism.

• Regarding the act and the throwing: He says, exalted is He, to His Prophet:

“And you did not throw when you threw, but it was Allah who threw.” (8:17)

The one who directly threw, and who undertook the motion, is the Messenger with his noble hand, but the Quran denies his horizontal independence; the throwing and its effect took place along the length of God’s power, His granting of success, and His existential support.

This vertical view becomes clear in the sequence of influence:

Allah, glorified is He — the first cause and the independent bestower by essence ↓ (by permission, support, and existential appointment) the Messenger / the authorized means and causes ↓ (the direct undertaking of the act and the vertical effect) the realized result and effect in the cosmos

Based on this rational and transmitted observation, it becomes clear that whoever seeks nearness through the Messenger and the saints (AS) does not set them up as rivals to God (horizontally), but comes to them as causes and means that God honored and authorized for intercession and existential mediation (vertically). Turning to the means by the permission and command of God is the essence of compliance, servanthood, and obedience — not polytheism, as is imagined by one who is ignorant of the logical and transmitted distinction between complete independence and bounded existential dependence.

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Conclusion

Here the researcher stands contemplating this wondrous harmony, where the abstract proofs of reason meet the texts of divine revelation, the comprehensive sermons of the prophetic Sunnah of the Messenger of God, and the clear exposition of the Ahl al-Bayt, so that the sensory, rational, and innate tools of knowledge blend into a single niche. God, glorified is He, is one in His essence, His attributes, and His acts, and everything besides Him moves by His outpouring, His permission, and His absolute self-subsisting sustaining.

And now that we have been able to plumb the depths of the Creator’s attributes from both the rational and the transmitted-revelatory perspectives… a new horizon of complementary inquiry and reflection comes to the fore: how did this great God define Himself to humanity through the details of the other Quranic texts? And how did this knowledge appear in the supplications and sermons issued by the school of the the Prophet's household (AS), so as to draw for the human being a complete epistemic and practical path?