Means of God’s Help

Argument 3:

God, Who is free from and above everything else, by His infinite mercy has created means and resources for all the works of religion and the world and in order to accomplish each and every work, has provided not only one but numerous means. When He grants something to His servants, He Himself does not come forward, nor does He give to someone by inviting him to Himself, but grants this gift through a means or an intermediary. Similarly, when He accepts something from His servants, He does so through an intermediary. And this is known only by the people of intellect. We will now discuss this matter further, keeping an important question in mind from a Qur’anic teaching: “(O God!) You alone we worship and from You alone we seek help.” The question relating to this holy prayer is: Is such a pure help, which is sought from God, possible without any means or is it possible through the general principle of the religion of Islam? If the answer is that this seeking of help is the same as that in Islam, then the practical form of it is mentioned in the Qur’an, in that the mu’min should seek help from God through the prayer of the Prophet (9:99) and through patience and prayers (2:153), so that He according to His law (sunnat) may help him through an angel (41:30-31), or Spirit (58:22), or Prophet (9:103) and Waliyy (=Imam, 5:55). This form of help has always been the custom of God, the Exalted.

It should be known that to worship God and seek help from Him through the means ordained by Him is pure tawhid (Oneness of God) and is not shirk at all. For these means or signs (sha’ir) belong only to God and not to anybody else, whilst shirk really means to make someone else a means without His pleasure. One of the teachings of the Qur’an is:

“Seek help through patience and prayer (salat)” (2:45).

Now if a wise person reflects on this for a while, he will soon realise that the patience which is mentioned here is a human attribute, and means to bear hardship with determination and courage in a difficult task or in affliction and calamity. The importance of patience (together with prayer) is such that it is ordained as a means of seeking help from God. Therefore, is it shirk that Divine help is sought through patience and prayer? In addition to the exoteric meaning of patience and prayer, they also have ta’wils. According to ta’wil, patience is the Holy Prophet and prayer or salat is his successor, namely Mawlana Ali. It is through them that Divine help should be sought and it has been commanded for us to do so. And this is the best way to seek Divine help.