"Verily we have honoured the Children of Adam. We carry them on the land and the sea, and have made provision of good things for them, and have preferred them above many of those whom We created with a marked preferment." (Quran 17:70)
At karramna (honored), hamalnahum (carried), razaqnahum (provisioned), fadhalnahum (preferred), khalaqna (created) in this verse, God uses the pronoun ‘we’ for himself five times.
I am sitting on the pulpit, and we are sitting. The difference between ‘I’ and ‘we’ is known even to the child. I am speaking, we are all listening. So ‘I’ is for singular and ‘we’ for plural. The question is, how many are there? What does it mean for God to speak with ‘we?’
“Lo! We create man from a drop of thickened fluid to test him; so We make him hearing, knowing.” (76:2)
“Lo! We have shown him the way…” (76:3)
“...and We send down purifying water from the sky.” (25:48)
“And We send the winds fertilising…” (15:22)
The question remains.
“And We created not the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, in play.” (44:38)
“By the fig and the olive, By Mount Sinai, And by this land made safe; Surely We created man of the best stature.” (95:1-4)
“I created the jinn and humankind only that they might worship Me.” (51:56)
There, “we” and here “I.” so what is the difference? When he said “we” it is out of pride, and at “I” it is for worship. If he said “we” here, it could be asked how many are to be worshipped.
The exegetes had the question of why God says “we.” The world’s commentators came to respond. God proclaims his kibriyai (majesty/grandeur), naaz (elegance/grace), makes his ghamand (superiority) clear, and challenges the people, says “we” but when there is not a challenge, says “I.”
He says “Lo! We, even We, reveal the Reminder (the Quran), and lo! We verily are its Guardian.” (15:9)
He says this with ghamand (superiority), so even if all people wanted to do tahrif (distortion/falsification) of the Quran, they would not be able to.
“Lo! We have given thee Abundance (kawthar).” (108:1)
All are aware that kawthar means the multiplication of the Prophet ﷺ’s descendants. There were polytheists calling Prophet ﷺ as abtar meaning the one whose progeny stops, but the revelation came that your enemy is the one to be be nasl (without lineage).
This is why, until Qiyamah, in the Durud there is Ale Muhammad with Muhammad ﷺ.
This is one tawjih (explanation/clarification) of “we.”
“O Prophet! Lo! We have sent thee as a witness and a bringer of good tidings and a warner. And as a summoner unto Allah by His permission, and as a lamp that giveth light.” (33:45-46)
Can the distributor of light not be light himself? The world can come together and say that Muhammad ﷺ is not nur, and it will remain a lie. God made him light and the distributor of light.
We are parwane (moths), and he is the chiragh (lamp). What is the relation between them? Until it burns, they remain around it and when it extinguishes, the moths go away.
“It is not for the sun to overtake the moon” (36:40)
The sun will not be permitted to touch or surpass the moon. When there is mention of the sun, there is the moon. Discussion on the sun will not be complete without the moon as well.
“By the sun and his brightness, And the moon when she followeth him” (91:1-2)
The moon comes behind the sun bila fasl (without separation/gap) as the immediate successor.
The sun remains when light passes to the moon. The sun was setting before which light came into the moon. The sun is that which gives light to the moon before setting, which is why old Muhammad ﷺ raised the hand of young Ali and said:
من كنتُ مولاه فعليٌ مولاه
“Whoever’s maula I am, Ali is his maula.”
Allama Suyuti and Allama Tirmidhi both reported in their reliable books that the Prophet ﷺ said:
“I am the sun and Ali the moon.”
Yesterday you saw the sun or not? Yes, and the moon too. Do you recite dua ru’yat shams? No one does, but there is dua ru’yate hilal, a supplication found in every denomination at seeing the moon. This is why Muhammad ﷺ is the sun. What would you look at? Your eyes would burn up. So you cannot look at him directly.
This is why Muhammad ﷺ did not say to look at my face is worship, he said:
النظر إلى وجه علي عبادة
Looking at the face of Ali is worship.
The other report:
ذكر علي عبادة
Remembrance of Ali is worship.
The third report:
حب علي عبادة
Love of Ali is worship.
First is nadhar (looking), then dhikr (remembrance), then hubb (love) of Ali, in this order.
“Thy Lord hath decreed, that ye worship none save Him” (17:23)
Ibadah is for God alone. Muhammad ﷺ does not say that it is rewarded to look at Ali’s face, or or his remembrance or love, but that it is worship. It shows that there is such a person that you can look at him and recognize Him.
Look at the sequencing of Muhammad ﷺ’s knowledge of the unseen (ilm al ghayb), that for as long as he is in front of you, look for worship, when gone, do remembrance, and when the need comes to hide it, keep love in your heart and do not leave it.
When it comes from a reliable narration, they cannot reject it. Go to the book al Nihayah fi Gharib al Hadith wal Athar of Majduddin ibn Athir, a great Sunni scholar in linguistics and reports, the dictionary of obscure words in Hadith.
In the chapter of the letter nun for “al nadharu ila wajhi aliyyin ibadah” he says that yes, Muhammad ﷺ said so but in reality, it was not worship to look at Ali’s face, that because when Ali would leave his house and pass through Madinah, people would look at him and say “la ilaha illallah”, how noble is this young man, another would say how knowledgeable, how courageous, how generous.
Look at the kamal (greatness) of Ali. Ibn Athir went to hide one fadhilah (merit) and brought attention to four, that he was the greatest with these attributes. Looking at the face of Ali, what would come from the tongue would be the testimony of faith.
If the molvi with a big beard and miswak says so, you have to believe it. I ask you, swearing by God and the Rasul and the Quran, from Adam to Muhammad ﷺ, what was the gharaz (purpose/intention) behind prophets coming to us? It was for us to proclaim “la ilaha illallah.”
So when God says “we” it is to declare his greatness and a challenge to the listener. The second aspect is that when “we” is used, then that action is done by an intermediary, not directly.
“Lo! We it is Who bring the dead to life. We record that which they send before (them, and their footprints. And all things We have kept in a clear Register.” (36:12)
God brings the dead to life by the angels, writes their book of deeds by the angels that transcribe.
Abraham broke the idols and was caught at which it was determined to throw him into the fire. They had been searching asking who is named Ibrahim after they saw the broken stones around. An old man said that there is a young man who says bad things about idols. They came to his door and asked if they knew such a person named Abraham. He said, you are many men, and I have a custom that I will feed the one that comes to my door.
They ate after which they asked to tell them who Ibrahim is. He said, I am him. They said, you have done wrong. We came to punish you and you fed us. We don’t understand how we could give pain to the one that fed us.
Abdul Haqq Muhaddith Dehlawi was a great scholar, and his book on Shawahid al Nubuwwah on the Sirah has the statement that “There is the report that the aag (fire) that became a gulzar (garden) for Ibrahim, the reason for it was that in his sulb(loins/backbone) was the nur (light) of Muhammad and Ali.”
References
Insaniyat Par Ehsanaat - Allama Talib Johri
