Imitation of God Is Not Permitted Either

One of the curiosities of our time is that advocates of taqlid, before entering into discussion, quite readily accept any religious statement from anyone. When we tell them that a statement may lack authentication and be incompatible with reason, they merely rely on the speaker's credentials — that he is one of the righteous scholars, no ordinary person, surely knows what he is saying, and never speaks without study and research — and similar unjustified justifications. Even in everyday religious matters, they only claim to follow a particular marja', but most of the time they do not even know whether their marja' has issued such a fatwa, and if so, where and how! They have taken each part of their religion from someone, merely assuming and conjecturing that their marja' holds the same view. They assume their marja' is the most knowledgeable. They assume the most knowledgeable marja' does not err. They assume that if their marja' does err, it is his responsibility and his followers will not be questioned. Four layers of assumption and conjecture! "Darknesses, one above another" (Qur'an 24:40)!

But when we challenge the foundations of their taqlid with solid evidence and strong rational arguments — and they have no particular answer — they suddenly swing to the opposite extreme and say in astonishment and denial: "Well, if taqlid is not correct, then it's not correct even from the Imams (peace be upon them) and the Prophet (pbuh), and one cannot imitate even God either — one should say to every ruling, 'I won't accept until you bring evidence'." Their point is that we imitate God and the Infallibles, so there is nothing wrong with imitating scholars in their absence. Their famous example is the two-rak'ah morning prayer — God has not explained its rationale, yet we pray it, so essentially we are imitating God. And when we agree with them: "That is exactly right — one should not imitate even God, the Prophet (pbuh), or the Imams (peace be upon them)," they become completely bewildered and say, "Your opposition to scholars has gone so far that you no longer even worship God!"

In this section, we want to open up this very topic — that we have no opposition to scholars, nor can we do anything but worship God. Yet, by the command of God Himself and by reason, we have no choice but to abandon taqlid, even of God Himself and His messengers. Otherwise, we have deceived ourselves and wronged ourselves. We will try to explain this in the simplest language possible and in several different ways. But if the arguments still fall short, at the very least, the message is this: we should not swing to the opposite extreme. Even just making an effort to base our actions and rulings on the Qur'an and the words of the Infallibles (peace be upon them), taking responsibility for our actions ourselves rather than placing it on them, and using every opportunity to understand the evidence and wisdom behind their commands — this way of acting is no longer called taqlid.

But if someone still feels they are imitating the Qur'an and hadith, this is still far, far better than imitating a single person whom we assume to be the most knowledgeable, with responsibility transferred to him, and the four layers of baseless assumptions mentioned at the beginning of this section. This superiority is because direct connection with the Qur'an and the words of the Imams — accepting that no one's interpretation is definitive, engaging in constant search, accepting responsibility for our interpretations and actions, and correcting and repenting when we see erroneous results — causes our eyes to be opened to the realities behind the rulings and our beliefs and practices to be rooted in truth and reality. "And those who strive in Our [cause] — We will surely guide them to Our ways. And indeed, Allah is with the doers of good" (Qur'an 29:69). But in taqlid, none of these happen.

The Practical Result of Imitating God

Since no one has direct access to God, when we say "imitating God," we mean executing God's word — which reaches us through an intermediary — without thought or reflection, without pondering the reason for its issuance or how to implement it, exactly as it reaches us. And when we are told, "This action of yours is wrong; God did not say this, or He meant it in different circumstances," we say, "We are not experts, and we are not responsible for right or wrong. We do it because God is the All-Knowing and All-Wise, and when He gives a command, He surely knows more than we do and has accounted for everything." Needless to say, this approach is doomed to failure. Sooner or later, life circumstances change and new issues arise. Someone who does not consider their intellect and nature to have any function and believes that what has reached them from God determines their duty exactly as it is, will be forced to cling to the literal appearance. Since they do not see themselves as responsible for evaluation, no matter how harmful the results of their actions, they still consider themselves to be on the path of following God and may not even doubt that their action is wrong.

The fate of such an approach is very similar to the mindset of the Khawarij. They too, without reflection and reasoning about the content of the Book and without referring to experts, considered whatever they understood from the literal text of the Qur'an to be exactly God's command and their duty. Regardless of the contradictions of their actions with other commands of God, they acted according to what they imagined to be the command. Note that although it is commonly said that taqlid means referring to an expert, in reality it is not so — taqlid is blind following of an expert^[1]. In the opposite approach to taqlid — i.e., tafaqquh — referring to an expert is also necessary, but referral with the aim of learning and activating and employing thought and reflection, not suspending them before the expert's knowledge^[2]. Interestingly, Imam Ali (pbuh) never invited them to imitate him. Rather, he engaged with them through dialogue, debate, and resolving ambiguities and doubts — until they took up arms^[3].

The Concept of Submission

Perhaps the greatest and most important motive that has misled Muslims and driven them toward taqlid is the concept of submission and servitude. From childhood, we have been taught that Islam means submission to God and worship means servitude to Him — and both mean accepting and acting upon whatever God says. This is a correct meaning, but there is a subtlety in it that, if overlooked, yields precisely the opposite result. That is, a person imagines they are submissive to God and worshiping Him, claiming humility and expecting paradise, while in reality they are submissive to Satan and rebellious — they have gained nothing but misery in this world and punishment in the hereafter, "losing this world and the next."

So what is that subtlety in "submission to the truth" that is so decisive? It is that the truth must be clarified, understood, comprehended, and realized — and only after this stage does submission to it have value^[4]. If we accept a statement as truth without clarification, understanding, and comprehension — for any other reason — we have essentially submitted to that other thing, not to the truth itself. We have sought the pleasure of that other thing, not the truth. Even if that thing is the intermediary and messenger of the truth itself. For example, if it is not at all clear to us what benefit and truthfulness prayer has, and we accept it only because the Messenger of God said so, then we have not accepted prayer and God — we have accepted the Messenger. It is because of submitting to the truthfulness of the Messenger's mission that we have accepted prayer, not because of the truthfulness of prayer and God.

The Questioning on Judgment Day

Consider the following two statements:

1. God is just.
2. God has decreed that inheritance be divided according to method X.

If we claim to believe in both statements and are asked "Why?", we cannot answer either with "Because God has decreed it and I imitate God" — because this would create a circular argument and we would be deceiving ourselves. Neither of the following statements makes sense: "God is just because God has said so," or "God has decreed inheritance to be divided by method X because God has said so."

The first statement is known as one of the faith fundamentals, and the second as one of the rulings and faith derivations. But you can see that beliefs and rulings are no different from each other. In a way, reasoned belief in the rulings is more important and decisive than belief in God's attributes such as justice and oneness. Because justice is an abstract concept, but with descriptions such as "God has decreed inheritance to be divided by method X," "God has decreed the execution of the apostate," and all other rulings, we are describing the God we have actually accepted and come to know.

Note that in the above argument, for brevity, we have not considered many intermediate stages that occur in practice, as they do not affect the final judgment. For example, one might say: "I saw a miracle from a prophet and believed that there is a God and that He sent that prophet, and then I listened to his book, which ruled that people should divide inheritance according to method X." We pass the correctness of this ruling through a chain of validity (validity of the miracle, validity of the prophet, validity of the book). Ultimately, the sum of all these intermediate stages is that we consider a ruling to be attributed to God, and essentially we are saying that God has conveyed the ruling through a valid intermediary. So in summary, we believe "God has commanded that action." And if God asks us why, we cannot say, "Because You Yourself said so."

The Futility of Creating the Intellect

Another way to explain the invalidity of imitating God is that it makes the creation of the intellect futile and pointless — whereas we know that God never does anything futile or in vain. If a human were in direct and constant contact with God, asking God about every issue, and it were established that whatever God said must be done — such that no learning occurs, the person does not even feel the need to learn, and is confident that whenever faced with any question, they would immediately receive the answer from God and act upon it, and the responsibility for actions performed according to command would lie with God, and the person would have no need for reflection, research, evaluation, or thought about their actions — then what need would there be to create the intellect and the power of thought? Let us call this state "pure taqlid" temporarily. It seems that in such a state, the creation of the intellect is futile.

Someone might respond to the above question by saying that God gave the intellect so that we could choose whom to imitate. That is, God gave humans intellect so they could choose between God and Satan. After selecting the source of truth, there is no further need for the intellect — in God's religion, imitating God is sufficient. In this case, we all agree that the intellect may err. Now, if a person errs in their initial choice but thereafter sincerely and faithfully practices taqlid according to God's religion — whatever command Satan gives them, their intellect warns them that this might be wrong, but God's religion tells them that the intellect is only useful at the time of choice — now the correct action is to imitate the expert. Such a person acts according to God's religion their entire life, but due to one initial error, they have performed satanic acts their whole life. Yet we expect from true religion that if someone makes one mistake but acts according to religion for the rest of their life, they should gradually be corrected and attain goodness, blessing, and long life in this world and salvation in the hereafter^[5]. Such a scenario is incompatible with God's wisdom and justice.

Besides the state of "pure taqlid," another state might be imagined — not for all matters, but for some — where God gives a command and asks for taqlid, i.e., He does not explain His reason and asks us to act without asking for evidence^[6]. We must consider why God might do such a thing. If the servants are incapable of understanding the reason but by performing the action they may come to understand its wisdom — yes, this is possible, but it is not called taqlid. We know that God has given a command, that there is wisdom in it, and that we must come to understand it. Since understanding through verbal explanation is not possible, we act so that we may discover that wisdom. This is a kind of practical research, not taqlid. We must only be careful that during such research, we observe and maintain the other principles we have come to know. That is, while performing this investigative action, we should not violate any other commands of God, and we should keep our eyes and ears open to find that wisdom. This is not a license for taqlid in all matters and the suspension of intellect, eyes, and ears in everything.

Apart from this state, if we say that God has given a command but we are never meant to understand its wisdom and must only perform it imitatively to unconsciously receive its benefit — this leads to a circular problem. Because receiving that unconscious benefit becomes the wisdom of the command, yet we assumed we are never to understand its wisdom, and we fall into an infinite loop. It seems impossible for God to give a command without us having any understanding of its wisdom and goodness. For any command we can imagine, we immediately perceive its goodness and benefit (at least probabilistically — i.e., we consider the possibility that it may have such-and-such benefit, and our duty is to reflect and think about that probability instead of imitating). Unless we say that God has commanded something that from our perspective is futile (we see no good in it and will never be able to see any), but in God's own knowledge it has wisdom and goodness. Surely, regardless of what is in God's knowledge, it is not befitting for a servant of God to hold such a belief about Him. As long as we have no understanding of something, we are not permitted to attribute it to God without knowledge and say that God has commanded us to attain it.

Confirmation of This in the Qur'an and Hadith

Although in the previous sections we tried to keep the discussion entirely rational and not rely on transmitted sources, in this section we review a number of verses and narrations that in various ways negate and prohibit imitating God.

The most important evidence is the following verse:

"And those who, when reminded of the verses of their Lord, do not fall upon them deaf and blind." (Qur'an 25:73)

This verse describes the companions of Paradise. It says they are those who, when God's verses are presented to them, do not fall upon them with closed eyes and ears. It should be noted that these verses are not qualified in any way — they include all verses, both existential (takwini) and Qur'anic, including the verses of rulings. If we look carefully, ten verses earlier, when the description of the servants of the Most Merciful begins, it is entirely about the rulings and actions expected of them — from walking without pride, how to deal with ignorant people, worship, supplication, spending and moderation in it, to not taking others as gods (of which taqlid is one manifestation), avoiding murder and adultery, repentance, righteous action, not bearing false witness, and how to deal with anything vain and indecent. Immediately after all these, the above verse appears, in a way concluding the set.

Apart from the direct relevance of this verse to the prohibition of imitating God, the preceding verse — which says that God's servants pass by vanity and indecency with dignity — relates in a way to the discussion above: we are not permitted to take a futile and vain command for which no benefit, even in summary, can be conceived as a command of God and act upon it — let alone use it as evidence and justification for permitting taqlid of God and then of others.

Another Qur'anic evidence is that the prophets followed God based on knowledge, not taqlid. We previously explained the example of Moses, who asked God questions and even offered solutions — it was not the case that whatever God said, he did not think and reflect within himself and merely said "yes sir"^[7]. Another example is Prophet Abraham, who said to his father: "I follow God based on knowledge, and my guidance is based on knowledge." He did not say, "I imitate God, so you imitate me"^[8]. In other words, besides specific rulings and beliefs, the general mode of religiosity itself is something we should take as a model from the prophets. When the prophets followed based on knowledge, we too should strive in the same direction, even if we do not attain the same degrees of knowledge as they had. Whose religiosity is closer to that of the prophets — the one who imitates or the one who follows with knowledge?!

Verses 35-43 of Surah Yunus, as explained in the section "The Verse: God Guides to the Truth," provide another evidence that guidance and following of God and the Prophet (pbuh) are only possible with open eyes and ears and reasoning — without which it is impossible.

Overall, if we accept that resembling the attributes of God is a virtue and avoiding attributes unlike God is necessary, the Qur'an repeatedly states that He is All-Knowing and All-Wise. So we too must strive, to the extent of our ability, to possess knowledge and wisdom, and avoid anything that distances or makes us independent of knowledge and wisdom. Blind following of God is one of those things that distances us from knowledge and wisdom, so we must avoid it.

Parent page: Other Discussions

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