God is beyond existence: Understanding Ismaili Apophatic Theology
To say God is beyond existence does not amount to atheism
Note: This is a small excerpt from a forthcoming book chapter about the Ismaili theology of Tawhid.
The most enigmatic element of Ismaili apophatic theology is the infamous claim that God is ‘beyond being’, that is God is not existent (ays, mawjūd, hast) and God is not non-existent (lays, maʿdūm, nīst). This distinctive Ismaili position appears to be the low-hanging fruit for Muslims of competing theological schools to attack and ridicule. Certain Muslim theologians (mutakallimūn) and traditionalists, both past and present, have accused this Ismaili teaching of violating the rules of logic or professing atheism.
For starters, in Aristotelian logic, it is perfectly sound to make statements in which two contrary opposites are negated from a subject; this does not result in logical contradiction. For example, the number 2 is neither heavy nor light; dogs are neither even nor odd; ideas are neither wet nor dry. Many such negations apply to God as understood by most theologians: God is neither dry nor wet; God is neither healthy nor sick; God is neither inside the Universe nor is He outside the Universe. The point of these “double negations” is to point out a category error: both of the negated attributes - such as healthy and sick - do not apply to God because they only apply to physical living things. There is no contradiction here because the two negated terms are contraries. In this very respect, the Ismaili semantic framework regards ‘existence’ (aysiyya, hastī, wujūd) and non-existence (laysiyya, nīstī, ʿadam) as contraries but not as contradictories.
A proper and good-faith assessment of the Ismaili claim that ‘God is beyond existence and non-existence’ must account for the semantics of the word ‘being/existence’ within Ismaili discourse, Neoplatonic thought, and Islamic thought more generally. In fact, the nature of ‘being’ and its relation to concrete ‘beings’ was a highly disputed and nuanced issue in Islamic intellectual history. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jāmī (d. 886/1492) in his Precious Pearl outlines several positions taken by Islamic theologians, philosophers, and mystics. One group, identified with some of the kalām theologians, said that every entity – including God and creatures – has its own specific existence unique unto itself and that the term ‘existence’ is only applied to various entities in name only (lafẓan). Another group of theologians, the majority, conceives existence as a single concept or idea (mafhūm wāḥid) in the mind, which is then mentally subdivided into similar concepts and attributed to various things. The view of the philosophers is that there is a single mental concept of existence but in external reality, each existing thing has its own specific existence (wujūd khāṣṣa) – entailing multiple existences of dissimilar realities (al-wujūdāt al-mukhtalifat al-ḥaqā’iq) in extra-mental reality – each of which is a ‘concomitant accident’ (ʿāriḍ lāzim lahā) attached to an essence/quiddity. The Sufis, however, affirm that there is One Absolutely Single Existent Reality (ḥaqīqa wāḥida muṭlaqa mawjūda), namely God Himself, who is without any multiplicity, division or entitative attributes; everything other than God, namely the creations, is the locus of a particularized manifestation (ẓuhūr) of God qua Absolute Existence.[1] What the Ismailis present concerning existence/being and its relationship to God should be situated within this broader intra-Muslim debate about ontology.
For Plotinus and his followers, the One transcends both being (enai) and substance (ousia); these notions do not apply to God. Does this mean that Plotinus denies the existence of the One? Recently scholars of Neoplatonic studies have attended to this issue and there is an emerging interpretation of Plotinus holding that he does not deny the ‘existence’ of the One according to our modern understandings of ‘exists’. Rather, in the Greek semantics assumed by Plotinus, the verb ‘to be’ has the primary function of predication, with the meaning of ‘to be something or another’; the same verb only takes on an existential value (with the meaning ‘to exist) in very specific secondary contexts.[2] Based on this finding of Khan, Wiitala and DiRado clarify that “in claiming the One is beyond being (to, enai), Plotinus does not mean that the One does not exist, since the existence of the One is the foundation for the existence of everything else. Instead, Kahn argues that Plotinus’ denial of being to the One only entails that the One cannot be a subject of true predication.’[3] Therefore, when Neoplatonists say that God is beyond existence, they only mean to say that God cannot be the subject of any real predications – since real predications denote some determinate finite feature and ontological plurality in the One. Wiitala and DiRadio further conclude that Plotinus does not subscribe to a univocal concept of existence/being – as modern analytics tend to; to speak of the One as ‘existing’ is to speak equivocally about ‘His existence’ which transcends the existences of everything else:
The One does not exist in the way a Form exists – as a subject of real predication – or that a sensible particular exists – as a subject of true but ambiguous predication. To infer from this that the existence of the One can be straightforwardly denied, however, is completely unwarranted, and would be the mistake engendered (sic) by the modern univocal understanding of existence. The One exists, has hypostasis, as the principle underlying the things that it causes (unity, goodness, being, etc.) while nevertheless remaining beyond all real predication.[4]
Given how closely the Ismailis follow Plotinus’ worldview, the above clarification suffices to rebut the charge that Ismaili philosophers, in exalting God beyond being and nonbeing, are agnostic or atheistic with respect to God. However, it is worth examining how the Ismailis understand the semantics of existence/being when they deny that God ‘exists’ or that He is ‘a being’.
The Ismaili thinkers al-Sijistānī and al-Kirmānī mostly use terms like ays (existent, being), aysiyya (existence), lays (non-existent, not-being), and laysiyya (non-existence), which come from the circle of al-Kindī. For al-Sijistānī, God is not an ays (existent, being), but rather, He is the mu’ayyis, meaning He is ‘the giver of existence’ (aysiyya) through His eternal creative act of command (amr) – which is the ‘existentiation (ta’yīs) of the existents (aysāt) from the non-existent (lays)’.[5] Al-Kirmānī writes that ‘the existent (al-ays) in its being an existent (fī kawnihi aysan) is in need of what it depends upon in existence.’[6] For Nāṣir-i Khuraw writing in Persian, the terms hast (existent) and hastī (existence) carry the meaning of contingent existent – that which considered in itself may exist or not exist: ‘Whatever has existence (harcha hastī dārad) may also be non-existent (nīst) as a contrary (ḍidd). That to which ‘existent’ (hast) does not apply, it is also not appropriate to call it non-existent. This is because both of them [existence and non-existence] are mutual contraries and whatever has a contrary cannot be God.’[7] For al-Sijistānī, al-Kirmānī, and Khusraw the term ‘existent’ (ays, hast) always has the meaning of contingent, dependent and originated beings. Thus, when they say that God is neither existent (ays, mawjūd, hast) nor non-existent (lays, maʿdūm, nīst), these Ismaili philosophers are only stating that God is not dependent on anything and not limited; whereas every ‘existent’ depends upon God.
Furthermore, many Ismailis conceive ‘existence’ (aysiyya, hastī) as a super-genus that subsumes the various types of things such as substances and accidents, bodies and spirits, form and matter, etc. Thus, whatever belongs to the category of existence must either be a substance or an accident. Since God transcends being a substance or an accident (both of which entail finitude), it is inappropriate to say God is an existent. Even if one wanted to say God is an existent in a unique manner other than substances and accidents, this would require that God is a species of existence comprised of the existence genus and a differentia; this entails ontological composition in God, violates divine simplicity, and renders God dependent upon the conjunction of the existence genus and a differentia.[8] On this reading of ‘existence’, the Ismailis are in complete agreement with Plotinus, for whom the term ‘exists’ entails the limits of form and substance: ‘Plotinus is denying that the One has the sort of metaphysical structure that all beings or substances (ousiai) have… This mutual entailment between being and being something is what leads Plotinus to say that the One is beyond being.’[9]
Al-Sijistānī and al-Kirmānī refuse to classify God as a mawjūd (a being) or what possesses wujūd (being) for similar reasons. Al-Sijistānī understands the terms wujūd / mawjūd in the literal sense of ‘finding’ / ‘what is found’. From this meaning, he argues that it is inappropriate for God to be a mawjūd (something found) because this requires that there be an eternal ‘finder’ (wājid) whose object of action is God; this is absurd because God cannot be the patient or direct objection of the act of any agent. If one maintains that the ‘finder’ is some temporal being who ‘finds’ God as its mawjūd, this entails that prior to this act of ‘finding’ (wujūd), God was a mawjūd and therefore, wujūd does not apply to God regardless.[10] For al-Kirmānī, wujūd is an attribute and the general argument for negating any entitative attribute from God applies to wujūd as well. It is either the case that the attribute of wujūd depends upon God, in which case God is self-subsistent and independent of the attribute of wujūd, which is a creation, has no need for it – which means God is not really a wujūd or mawjūd; or God Himself depends upon the attribute of wujūd for His subsistence, which makes God dependent like creatures and leads to an infinite regress of dependency which is impossible.
The Ismailis’ outright refusal to speak of God as an existent within the category of existence or a being among other beings is to drive home the ontological incommensurability between God and created beings: ‘He, the Exalted, is beyond being an existent (aysan) due to the need of the existent, in being existent, of that which precedes it who makes it exist; thus, it is absurd that He, the Exalted, should be an existent (aysan) when He has no need of another to be Himself and does not depend upon another.’[11] This surely cannot be interpreted as a profession of agnosticism or atheism, except by an intentional misreading of their words. In fact, given the difficulty of dispensing with ‘existence’ language to talk about God, Ismailis employed alternative terminologies to speak of God’s reality or actuality. Al-Sijistānī, Nāṣir-i Khusraw, and al-Shahrastānī, after denying the applicability of ‘existence’ (aysiyya, hastī, wujūd) and non-existence (laysiyya, nīstī, ʿadam) to God, refer to God as the ‘existentiator of existence’ (mu’ayyis, hast-kunanda, hast-karda, hast-āwaranda, mūjid al-wujūd) using active agentive participles.[12] As for ‘absolute existence/being’ (wujūd muṭlaq, hast-i muṭlaq), this is still inapplicable to God because every existent gradationally participates in ‘absolute existence’. Therefore, absolute existence is God’s eternal creative act, His Command or Word, which is both the source of all originated existents and reflected within them in various degrees: ‘Every particle of the Creation has a share of the Command of God because every creature shares a part of the Command of God through which it has come to be there and by virtue of which it remains in being (pāyanda buwad), and the light of the Command of God shines in it.’[13] Absolute existence, which is God’s creative act of Command, is not God Himself; rather, it is only the trace or effect (athar) of God and it is ontologically united with the Universal Intellect; nevertheless, God’s Command qua absolute existence subsumes and encompasses all existents in a state of oneness (waḥda).[14]
Al-Sijistānī and al-Kirmānī prefer to speak of God in terms of His ‘subsistence’ (thubūt, thabāt, thābit, ithbāt) instead of His ‘existence’. Al-Sijistānī argues that God is the ‘more subsistent’ (athbat) than everything that subsists. He speaks of God’s ‘subsistence’ (thubūt, ithbāt) as the ‘real-true subsistence’ (al-ithbāt al-ḥaqīqī) and created beings as having only ‘virtual subsistence’ (al-ithbāt al-majāzī). Likewise, al-Kirmānī speaks of God as ‘subsistent’ (thubūt) and a ‘self-subsistent ipseity’ (huwiyya thābita).[15] Thus, the Ismailis seem to use thubūt for God and creatures in an equivocal manner. It is worth noting that the Ismaili preference to speak of ‘subsistence’ (thubūt, thabāt, ithbāt; meaning ‘standing’, ‘stability’) for God’s reality and creaturely subsistence parallels Plotinus’ use of the word ‘hypostasis’ (meaning: ‘standing under’) in an equivocal manner to refer to the One, the Intellect, and other levels of being.[16] Medieval and modern scholarship on Ismaili theology has thus far failed to register the fact that Ismaili thinkers regularly affirm God’s subsistence (thubūt, thabāt, thābit, ithbāt) – a finding that also rebuts the polemical charge that Ismailis professed agnostic or atheist views.
Al-Kirmānī and al-Shahrastānī do permit one to use terms like wujūd (existence) to speak of God out of verbal necessity to express oneself. But they warned that ‘existence’ may only be used equivocally such that one is not making a real predication concerning God – that He has existence, belongs to the genus of existence, or (as modern analytics love to say) He instantiates the divine nature.[17] Therefore, Ismailis can say ‘God exists’ or speak of God as the ‘Necessary Existence through Himself’ (wājib al-wujūd bi-dhātihi) in colloquial or even specialized contexts but this proposition is not a univocal predication about God; rather, it is the affirmation that God is the existentiator (mūjid) of existents as explained by al-Shahrastānī: ‘He is “existent” (mawjūd) in the sense that He existentialises every existence (mūjid kulli wujūd), is “Necessary of Existence” in the sense that He necessitates every existent (mūjib kulli mawjūd); ‘there is no existentialiser (mūjid) for beings other than God (Exalted is He!), the Necessary of Existence in Himself.’[18] Technically speaking, the Ismailis use ‘existence’ (wujūd) for God as an equivocal term (ism mushtarak). But ‘existence’ is not a ‘pure equivocal’ term – where one word has two wholly unrelated meanings (like ‘bark’ of a tree and ‘bark’ of a dog). Rather, ‘existence’ as used by Ismailis for God is a special kind of equivocal term known to others as an ‘impure equivocal’, ‘paradigmatic equivocal’ or ‘relative analogical term’.[19] Accordingly, the statements ‘God exists’ and ‘trees exist’ have different meanings but the meanings are related in some way. In this case, as used by Ismailis, ‘trees exist’ means ‘trees subsist dependently upon another’ while ‘God exists’ means ‘God subsists independently and in reality (ḥaqīqī) and He makes everything else subsist dependently and virtually (majāzī)’.
The Ismailis are not the only Muslim philosophical school to deny or at least heavily qualify the applicability of the concept of ‘existence’ to God. Ibn Sīnā is famous for teaching that God is the Necessary Existence in Himself (wājib al-wujūd bi-dhātihi) whereas all created beings are contingent existence (mumkin al-wujūd bi-dhātihi) in itself or necessary existence due to another (wājib al-wujūd li-ghayrihi) because they depend upon God. For Ibn Sīnā, existence (wujūd) is not a univocal term, but rather, it is a modulated term (ism mushakkak). This means that existence refers to a single core concept/meaning but the extra-mental realities that the one concept refers to are differing in many ways such that the single concept does not apply to them equally. For Ibn Sīnā, the term existence applies both to God and created things, but the reality of existence differs among these referents according to ontological worthiness. God, who is existent by virtue of Himself is ‘more deserving’ of existence while created beings, who exist by virtue of another, are less worthy of existence. One interpretation of Ibn Sīnā’s view of ‘existence’ is that it is a ‘modulated’ or ‘analogical’ term, whose meaning is closer to the univocal predication.[20] This reading of Ibn Sīnā’s ontology would put him at odds with the Ismaili tradition, which holds that existence is an equivocal term. However, upon close examination of his corpus, Ibn Sīnā is not always consistent about which terms in philosophy are equivocal (mushtarak) and which ones are modulated (mushakkak). Thus, Janos argues that Ibn Sīnā regards ‘existence’ (wujūd) as a type of ‘weak equivocal term’ based on a careful examination of his writings. Ibn Sīnā’s predecessors, al-Farābī and Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, also held that existent/existence is an equivocal term (ism mushtarak).[21] In a passage found in one manuscript of Ibn Sīnā’s work, one of Ibn Sīnā’s students who edited his Mubāḥathāt, says that the term wujūd – when used both for God (the First) and for contingent beings – is equivocal: ‘[When one refers to] the First Necessary Existent, one does not intend by this existence the [kind of contingent] existence [characteristic of other beings]. Rather, these usages [of the term existence] belong to equivocal terms (al-asmā’ al-mushtaraka).’[22]
One major feature of Ibn Sīnā’s ontology is that he considers existence to have a different ontological status with respect to God and with respect to contingent beings. God’s existence is identical to His essence since God is absolutely simple; God’s existence is Himself. But for contingent existents, which are created, their existences are each distinct from their essences; contingent existence is a non-constituent concomitant (lāzim ghayr muqawwam) of the essence or quiddity.[23] In other words, the word existence refers to two wholly different ontological states with respect to God and creatures. Thus, Janos concludes that Ibn Sīnā takes existence to be an equivocal term:
If we take seriously Avicenna’s claim that God has essential existence, or that God’s existence is identical with His essence, then it will become clear that wujūd cannot be univocal, for it will be treated sometimes as an external lāzim of the essence (in the case of contingent beings), other times as essential existence (in the case of God). At the very least, then, existence will have to be a mildly equivocal notion.[24]
The importance of this finding is that Ibn Sīnā’s view of God as the Necessary Existence in Himself and the Ismaili view that God is beyond existence/non-existence do not necessarily conflict substantially and may only differ due to employing different semantic frameworks. The following quote from al-Taʿlīqāt of Ibn Sīnā (which was later reproduced by Saḍr al-Dīn al-Qunawī in his corresponds with Nāṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī), where he admits that God in His reality (ḥaqīqa) is not the same as ‘existence’ (wujūd) in general and that the formal definition (ḥadd) of God as the Necessary Existence in Himself does not strictly correspond to God’s Reality (ḥaqīqa):
Likewise, we do not know the reality of the First (ḥaqīqat al-awwal). We know of Him that existence is necessary for Him or it is not. This, [however], is His concomitant not His reality. We know by means of this concomitant the other concomitants like oneness and the rest of the attributes. It is [only] possible to grasp His reality [in that] He is existent by His Essence (al-mawjūd bi-dhātihi) meaning He has existence through His Essence. The meaning of our saying that ‘He has existence’ points to something whose reality we do not know. His reality is not the same as existence (laysa ḥaqīqatuhu nafs al-wujūd), nor is it a quiddity since the existence with the quiddities is external to their realities while He in His Essence is the cause of existence (ʿillat al-wujūd). It is therefore the case that existence enters into defining Him (taḥdīdihi) as the genus and differentia enter into the definition of simple substances because of what the intellect requires for them; [in this case], existence is a part of His definition (ḥadd) but not His reality, just as genus and differentia are parts of the definitions of simple substances but not their essences. Truly for Him, His reality (ḥaqīqa) is beyond existence (fawq al-wujūd) and existence is among its concomitants; [likewise], the parts of the definition (ḥadd) of the simple substance are parts of its definition, not its reality as it is something the intellect requires. As for Him in His Essence, He has no parts.[25]
In the above quotation, Ibn Sīnā offers several important concessions with respect to his use of the term wujūd for God – concessions that bring Ibn Sīnā’s views in closer alignment with the Ismaili position that God transcends existence. First, Ibn Sīnā admits that the characterization of God as wājib al-wujūd (Necessary Existence in Himself) does not truly describe God in Himself or God’s Reality (ḥaqīqa): ‘The meaning of our saying that that “He has existence” points to something whose reality we do not know.’ In other words, although Islamic philosophers may formally designate God using the word ‘existence’ – which is a part (juz’) of the formal definition (ḥadd) of God – in reality, God does not really possess existence in any way; rather, He is the cause of the existence of all contingent essences: ‘His reality is not the same as existence (laysa ḥaqīqatuhu nafs al-wujūd), nor is it a quiddity since the existence with the quiddities is external to their realities while He in His Essence is the cause of existence (ʿillat al-wujūd).’ This leads to the inescapable conclusion that God in His Reality is ‘beyond existence’: ‘Truly for Him, His reality (ḥaqīqa) is beyond existence (fawq al-wujūd).’ These remarks suggest that Ibn Sīnā only uses the term ‘existence’ for God as in ‘Necessary Existence’ in an equivocal manner: God in His ḥaqīqa is not an existent, does not possess existence, and actually transcends existence (fawq al-wujūd) since He is the source or cause of existence (ʿillat al-wujūd). This appears to vindicate al-Shahrastānī’s claims that existence can only be used equivocally for God and that God is truly the source of existence (mūjid) rather than its possessor.[26]
[1] ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jāmī, tr. Nicholas Heer, The Precious Pearl (New York: State University of New York Press, 1979), 34-35.
[2] This is argued at length in Charles H. Kahn, Essays on Being (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
[3] Michael Wiitala and Paul DiRado, “In What Sense Does the One Exist? Existence and Hypostasis in Plotinus,” in John F. Finamore and Danielle A. Layne (eds.), Platonic Pathways: Selected Papers from the Fourteenth Annual Conference of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies (Gloucester, UK: Prometheus Trust, 2018), 77-92: 81.
[4] Wiitala and DiRado, “In What Sense Does the One Exist,” 90.
[5] Walker, “Early Philosophical Shiʿism,” 53, 82,
[6] al-Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql,131.
[7] Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Shish faṣl or Six Chapters, 34 (English), 6 (Persian), translated modified.
[8] al-Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql,131-133; al-Shahrastānī, Struggling, 36-42; Nāṣir-i Khusraw, Knowledge and Liberation, ed. and tr. Faquir Muhammad Hunzai (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998), 42, for existence being a kind of genus, which Khusraw interprets as a causal rank of the ontological hierarchy in accordance with Proclus’ understanding of genus-species relations.
[9] Caleb M. Cohoe, “Why the One Cannot Have Parts: Plotinus on Divine Simplicity, Ontological Independence and Perfect Being Theology,” The Philosophical Quarterly 67/269 (2017): 751-771.
[10] al-Sijistānī, al-Maqālīd, 154.
[11] al-Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql,131.
[12] Al-Sijistānī, Kashf, tr. Landolt, 88-8; Khusraw, Shish faṣl, 6-7 (Persian text); al-Shahrastānī, Struggling, 10, 48, 49, 51, 76, 86, 87, 89, 90.
[13] al-Sijistānī, Kashf al-maḥjūb, ed. Henry Corbin (Paris-Tehran: Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1949), 19, tr. Herman Landolt in Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Mehdi Aminrazavi (eds.), Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, Vol. 2 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008), 93.
[14] Khusraw, Knowledge and Liberation, 27, 84-85.
[15] al-Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql,152.
[16] Wiitala and DiRado, “In What Sense Does the One Exist.”
[17] al-Kirmānī, Rāḥat al-ʿaql,153; al-Shahrastānī, Struggling, 43. 48. 55.
[18] al-Shahrastānī, Struggling, 48, 51.
[19] Alexander Treiger, “Modulation of Existence (taškīk al-wuǧūd, analogia entis) and its Greek and Arabic Sources,” in Felicitas Opwis and David Reisman (eds.), Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture, and Religion (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 327-363: 332-333.
[20] Daniel D. De Haan, ‘The Doctrine of the Analogy of Being in Avicenna’s ‘Metaphysics of the Healing’,” Review of Metaphysics 69/2 (2015): 261-286, 276.
[21] Damien Janos, “Avicenna on Equivocity and Modulation: A Reconsideration of the asmā’ mushakkika (and tashkīk al-wujūd),” Oriens 50 (2022): 1-62,
[22] Janos, “Avicenna on Equivocity and Modulation,” 49.
[23] Treiger, “Modulation of Existence,” 363.
[24] Janos, “Avicenna on Equivocity and Modulation,” 51.
[25] Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿlīqāt, ed. Abdurrahman Badawī (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-miṣriyya al-ʿĀmma, 1973; reprinted by Dār al-Islāmiyya, Beirut, no date), 35.
[26] al-Shahrastānī, Struggling, 45, 48, 55, 57, 64.
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