The Treasure of Treasures – The Manifest Imam
Tags:
1. O, spiritual brothers and sisters! All of you who are fortunate to live in the Ismaili world, listen to this great Qur'anic wisdom! It is my firm belief that this great wisdom is a unique and everlasting reward for all of us, and that it comes from God's treasure of treasures. This most comprehensive and all-encompassing treasure is the Manifest Imam (Imam-i mubin, 36:12). See in surah-yi Hijr (15:21) that God has great treasures. See also in the heart of the Qur'an [i.e., surah-yi Ya-Sin] that all treasures and all things are encompassed and counted in the manifest Imam (36:12). Thus, it is true to say that the manifest Imam is indeed God's treasure of treasures.
2. Where and in what does Allah, may His glory be glorified, embrace the universe in every resurrection? In the manifest Imam. In which place does the Almighty gather His separate treasures at that time? In the holy and pure Imam. Does God enfold the physical universe, or does He enfold its essence in the Imam of time? The essence. Could anything be excluded from this enfolding by Divine power, such as the Throne, the Dais, the Pen, the Tablet, the angels, etc.? Not at all, nothing is exempt. In such a case, where is the imagination [i.e., manifestation] of God's vision and of all His attributes? In the manifest Imam.
3. Along with the subtle universe, the Lord of the world has also encompassed all the miracles of resurrection in the manifest Imam (36:12), as the noble verse (17:71) implies that the renewal of resurrection takes place in the time of every Imam. The great secret is revealed here, that the mention of resurrection is not only in the future tense, but also in the past tense and the present tense. Reflect carefully in the mighty Qur'an. However, this is all in the language of ta'wil and wisdom, as surah-yi Ya-Sin (36:12) mentions the infinite resurrections of the past, that there was a resurrection with each Imam and it was in the personal world of that Imam that God used to enfold everything.
Zulfiqarabad, Gilgit 13 July 1998
| Chapter Index |