The Mirror of Knowledge

The Mirror of Knowledge

An Examination of the Development of the Concept of Divine Accompaniment from Imāmī Theology to Transcendent Theosophy, with a Focus on Verse 7 of Sūrat al-Mujādilah

Document Type : Scientific-research

Authors
Mansour Abdullahi
Abdullah HosseiniEskandian
ali Babaʾi
Department of Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Faculty of Islamic Theology and Sciences, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
10.48308/jipt.2026.242719.1719
Abstract
The majority of Imāmī theologians and Mullā Ṣadrā have offered different interpretations of the noble verse 7 of Sūrat al-Mujādilah in accordance with their respective foundational principles. The Islamic theological school, by accepting an absolute ontological separation and by maintaining a categorical and structural difference between the existence of things and the existence of God Almighty, has interpreted God’s “being with” things in terms of knowledge and power. That is to say, with respect to divine epistemic accompaniment, God Almighty encompasses all beings and has knowledge of them. From Ṣadrā’s perspective, however, and on the basis of principles such as the principiality of existence, the doctrine of the Simple Reality, and the denial of numerical unity with respect to God, this verse offers a deeper understanding of the relation between God and being, explaining the relationship between Creator and creature in existential terms. This study, using a descriptive-analytical method, seeks to explain and examine the notion of accompaniment as presented in the thought of Imāmī theologians and in Ṣadrian philosophy in relation to verse 7 of Sūrat al-Mujādilah. Although Mullā Ṣadrā agrees with the theologians in affirming divine epistemic accompaniment, he maintains that God Almighty, due to the existential permeation of being throughout all levels of reality, is existentially with every creature. At the same time, although God is with creatures, He is transcendent above their existential deficiencies. Mullā Ṣadrā’s notion of existential accompaniment establishes the utterly dependent identity of creatures in relation to God Almighty.
Keywords
God Almighty
epistemic accompaniment
numerical unity
Mullā Ṣadrā
creatures
Imāmī theologians
The Holy Qurʾān.
Nahj al-Balāghah
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