The Sum of Knowledge And Its Principles

Part one of Al-Ghazali’s Forty Principles of the Religion (Al-Arba’in Fi Usul Ad-Din) covers ten principles, they are as follows:

1. The Divine Essence (Adh-Dhāt)
2. Transcendence (At-Taqdīs)
3. Life And Power (Al-Qudrah)
4. Knowledge (Al-ʿIlm)
5. Will (Al-Irādah)
6. Hearing And Seeing (As-Samʿ Wa’l-Baṣar)
7. Speech (Al-Kalām)
8. Divine Actions (Al-Afʿāl)
9. The Last Day (Al-Yawm Al-Ākhir)
10. Prophethood (An-Nubuwwah)

The remainder of the note summarizes the section into points for review.

1 - The Divine Essence (Adh-Dhāt)

1. About His Essence: He is Unique without a partner, Alone without a likeness, Absolute without an opponent and One without an equal.
2. Furthermore, He is Sempiternal without a cause, Eternal without a beginning, Perpetually Existent without an end, Everlasting without finality, Self-subsistent without fail, Ongoing without cessation.
3. He has always been and will never cease to be described with the Qualities of Majesty.
4. The passing of ages has no effect on Him; rather, He is the First and the Last, the External and the Internal, and Knowledgeable of everything.

2 - Transcendence (At-Taqdīs)

1. He is not a body possessing form, nor a substance with limits or measure. He does not resemble bodies, whether through quantification or being subject to division.
2. He is not a substance, nor does He inhabit substances.
3. He is not an accidental characteristic, nor does He inhabit them.
4. Rather, He does not resemble anything in existence; nor does anything in existence resemble Him.
5. Nothing is like Him, and He is like nothing.
6. He cannot be defined in terms of quantity; place does not encompass Him; directions do not surround Him; and the heavens do not enclose Him.

3 - Life And Power (Al-Qudrah)

1. He is Living, Omnipotent, Overpowering, and Overwhelming.
2. He is not afflicted with inability or incapacity, not beset with fatigue or sleep, and not affected by annihilation or death.
3. He possesses Dominion, Might and Omnipotence.
4. All power, all force, all creation, and all authority belong to Him.
5. The heavens are enfolded in His Right Hand, and all of creation is subjected to the force of His Grip.
6. He is the sole Creator and Inventor, the only One capable of bringing things into existence.
7. He created the creation and their actions, and determined their provision and their life spans.
8. Nothing imaginable is outside of His Grasp, and the realisation of any matter cannot escape His Power.

4 - Knowledge (Al-ʿIlm)

1. He is knowledgeable of all things, with knowledge encompassing everything that may happen.
2. His knowledge spans from the bowels of the earth to the highest heaven.
3. An atom’s weight in the heavens or the earth does not escape His knowledge.
4. He perceives even a black ant crawling on a jet-black boulder in the dark of the night.
5. He discerns the most miniscule creature as it is tossed about by the wind.
6. He knows every secret and what is hidden beyond.
7. He is aware of the misgivings of every conscience and the development of every conscious thought.
8. He knows every secret’s innermost details.
9. His knowledge is timeless and eternal, not newfound or conveyed through transmission.

5 - Will (Al-Irādah)

1. All things in existence are the objects of His Will.
2. He is the Planner of everything that occurs.
3. Nothing happens in His Realm and Dominion without His Decree, Determination, Judgment, and Will.
4. Events, whether large or small, good or bad, are under His control.
5. Whatever He wills comes to be, and what He does not will shall never happen.
6. Neither the glance of an onlooker nor any whimsical thought escapes His Will.
7. He is the Beginning and the End, the Doer of whatever He wills.
8. No one can reject His Judgment or nullify His Decree.
9. There is no refuge from disobedience except through His Providence and Mercy.
10. Obedience is only possible with His Support and Will.
11. Humanity, jinn, angels, and demons are powerless to influence the universe without His Will.
12. His Will is inherent in His Essence, alongside all His Attributes.
13. He has eternally willed the existence of all things at their determined times.
14. He brings things into existence as He willed from eternity, without earliness or lateness.
15. Events occur according to His Knowledge and Will, without substitution or change.
16. He plans every matter without sequenced thoughts or waiting for time.
17. Nothing distracts Him from one affair to another.

The position of Will is slippery and many have stumbled because this Attribute is direct from the Divine Oneness and many use research and debate to answer this. Yet the Prophet said, “No people have gone astray after being guided, except that they were given to argumentation.”

Here the Imam makes warning about the layman adducing (citing as evidence) the Quran and intepreting it. He warns about layman following those who adduce what is ambiguous from the Qur’ān, seeking tribulation and seeking its interpretation. He makes warning of seeking the realities of predetermination (qadar). Only those Allah has blessed among the awliya and realized can plumb its depths.

6 - Hearing And Seeing (As-Samʿ Wa’l-Baṣar)

1. Allāh is Hearing and Seeing; He hears and He sees.
2. No sound, no matter how low, escapes His Hearing.
3. Nothing seen is hidden from His Vision, no matter how minute.
4. Distance does not block His Hearing.
5. Darkness does not obscure His Vision.
6. He sees without an eyeball or eyelids.
7. He hears without an auditory canal or ears.
8. He knows without a heart.
9. He grasps without a limb.
10. He creates without a tool.
11. His Attributes do not resemble the attributes of the creation.
12. His Essence does not resemble the essence of the creation.

7 - Speech (Al-Kalām)

1. Allāh possesses Speech.
2. He commands, forbids, promises, and threatens with timeless, eternal speech that subsists in His Essence.
3. His speech does not resemble that of the creation.
4. It is not with a voice that occurs with the passage of air and the contact of organs.
5. It is not with letters that stop with the closing of the lips or movement of the tongue.
6. The Qur’ān, Torah, Gospel, and Psalms are His books revealed to His messengers.
7. The Qur’ān is recited with the tongue, written in volumes, and memorized by hearts.
8. The Qur’ān is eternal and subsists in the Essence of Allāh.
9. It is not subject to joining or separation by transmission to hearts or paper.
10. Moses heard Allāh’s speech without a voice or letters.
11. The virtuous will see the Essence of Allāh without substance, shape, color, or quality.
12. If Allāh possesses these Attributes, then He is Living, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Willful, Hearing, Seeing, and Speaking.
13. He possesses Life, Omniscience, Omnipotence, Will, Hearing, Sight, and Speech—not merely His Essence.

8 - Divine Actions (Al-Afʿāl)

1. There is nothing existent besides Him except that it occurred by His Action and emanated from His Justice.
2. Everything exists in the best, perfect, complete, and fairest way.
3. He is Wise with His actions and Just in His decisions.
4. His Justice cannot be compared to the justice of His creations.
5. Wrongdoing is conceivable for creations meddling with another’s property, but not for Allāh, as nothing belongs to anyone else.
6. Everything besides Him—jinn, human, demon, angel, heaven, earth, animal, plant, substance, thought, abstract, or concrete—is an occurrence invented by His Power.
7. He brought them into existence from nonexistence.
8. He has existed Alone throughout eternity, and nothing was with Him.
9. Creation is a manifestation of His Power and a realization of His Will.
10. Creation was not out of need but to actualize His eternal speech.
11. His actions, including creating and making us responsible, are out of Grace, not obligation.
12. He generously blessed us and made the world suitable for our existence.
13. He possesses Grace, Good Will, Blessings, and Gifts.
14. He can afflict His creations with torture and suffering, and if He did, it would be just.
15. He rewards His slaves for obedience out of Generosity and Promise, not entitlement or necessity.
16. Nothing is required of Him, and it is inconceivable that He would be unjust.
17. No one has any right over Him.
18. All creation is required to recognize His Right to obedience, as ordained by His messengers.
19. Messengers were sent to manifest their truthfulness through clear miracles.
20. Messengers conveyed His commands, prohibitions, promises, and threats.
21. It is required of the creation to affirm the truthfulness of His messengers in delivering their message.

9 - The Last Day (Al-Yawm Al-Ākhir)

1. Allāh separates the soul from the body at death and returns the soul at the Resurrection and Gathering.
2. That which is in the graves will be brought out, and that which is in the breasts will come to fruition.
3. Every responsible person will see their deeds, good or bad, before them.
4. All deeds, small or great, will be recorded in a book that leaves nothing unaccounted for.
5. Everyone will know the measure of their deeds by the Scale (Al-Mīzān).
6. The Scale of Deeds is not the same as a scale for heavy objects.
7. Similar to how an astrolabe, ruler, and meter measure different things, the Scale of Deeds is unique.
8. Allāh will take individuals to account for actions, statements, secrets, consciences, intentions, and beliefs.
9. People will be of differing levels on that Day: some confronted about their account, some pardoned, some entering Paradise without accounting for deeds.
10. They will cross the Path over Hell, a bridge between the dwelling places of the miserable and joyful.
11. The Path is sharper than a sword and finer than a hair.
12. Crossing the Path is easy for those who kept to the Straight Path in life according to their uprightness.
13. Those who deviated from the Straight Path will fall, except those pardoned by Divine Generosity.
14. Individuals will be questioned about conveying the Message, denial of messengers, Sunnah, deeds, truthfulness, and hypocrisy.
15. The joyful will be herded to the Merciful, and the criminals driven into Hell (Jahannam).
16. Those who testified to Allāh’s Oneness will be brought out of Hell after retribution.
17. No one with an atom’s weight of faith in their heart will remain in Hell.
18. Some will leave Hell before their punishment is complete due to intercession by prophets, scholars, martyrs, or others with the rank of intercession.
19. The people of joy will abide in Paradise, blessed for eternity and delighting in beholding Allāh’s noble Face.
20. The people of misery will abide in Hell, experiencing various punishments and being barred from beholding the Face of Allāh, the Possessor of Majesty and Nobility.

10 - Prophethood (An-Nubuwwah)

1. Allāh created the angels, sent the prophets, and aided them with miracles.
2. All angels are slaves of Allāh.
3. Angels are not too proud to worship Him and do not grow weary of it.
4. They glorify Allāh night and day without tiring. (20:20–21)
5. Prophets are messengers sent to creation by Allāh.
6. Revelation is conveyed to prophets through the medium of angels.
7. Prophets speak according to what is revealed to them, not according to whimsical desire.
8. Allāh sent the Unlettered Prophet Muḥammad, from the tribe of Quraysh, with His message to all Arabs and non-Arabs, jinn, and humankind.
9. Through the Law given to Muḥammad, Allāh abrogated all other revealed laws.
10. Muḥammad is made the master of humanity.
11. Attaining complete faith requires declaring Divine Oneness and attesting to the Messenger.
12. It is obligatory for creation to affirm the truthfulness of the Messenger in all he communicated concerning this world and the afterlife.
13. People are required to follow Muḥammad and take him as an example.
14. The directive from the Messenger: “Whatever the Messenger gives you, take it. Whatever he forbids you from, desist.” (59:7)
15. The Prophet Muḥammad left nothing that would bring people closer to Allāh without commanding it and directing them to its path.
16. He also left nothing that would bring people closer to Hell and distance them from Allāh without forbidding it and teaching them what leads to it.
17. These matters cannot be comprehended by mere reason and intelligence.
18. They are divine secrets, unveiled to the hearts of the prophets from within Allāh’s sacred realm.

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Source

1. Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. Al-Ghazali’s Forty Principles of the Religion (Al- Arba’in Fi Usul Ad-Din). Translated by Nasir Abdussalam. London: Turath, 2016.