Appearance
Seeing God
وَلَمَّا جَآءَ مُوسَىٰ لِمِيقَـٰتِنَا وَكَلَّمَهُۥ رَبُّهُۥ قَالَ رَبِّ أَرِنِىٓ أَنظُرْ إِلَيْكَ ۚ قَالَ لَن تَرَىٰنِى وَلَـٰكِنِ ٱنظُرْ إِلَى ٱلْجَبَلِ فَإِنِ ٱسْتَقَرَّ مَكَانَهُۥ فَسَوْفَ تَرَىٰنِى ۚ فَلَمَّا تَجَلَّىٰ رَبُّهُۥ لِلْجَبَلِ جَعَلَهُۥ دَكًّا وَخَرَّ مُوسَىٰ صَعِقًا ۚ فَلَمَّآ أَفَاقَ قَالَ سُبْحَـٰنَكَ تُبْتُ إِلَيْكَ وَأَنَا۠ أَوَّلُ ٱلْمُؤْمِنِينَ
(7:143) When Moses arrived at Our tryst and his Lord spoke to him, he said, ‘My Lord, show [Yourself] to me, that I may look at You!’ He said, ‘You shall not see Me. But look at the mountain: if it abides in its place, then you will see Me.’ So when his Lord disclosed Himself to the mountain, He levelled it, and Moses fell down swooning. When he recovered, he said, ‘Immaculate are You! I turn to You in penitence, and I am the first of the faithful.’
The question
When Moses asked “My Lord, show Yourself to me, that I may look at You”, what kind of seeing did he ask for — and can God be seen, in this world or the next?
Views answered: the Muʿtazilites, who denied that God can be seen with the eyes at all, the Ashʿarites, who affirm that God can be seen with the eyes in the hereafter
Al-Mizan's argument
Al-Mizan first gives the apparent meaning of the verse, then asks what “seeing” means. God has no likeness and is not physical, so He cannot be the object of physical sight or of any mental image, in this world or the next — and Moses, a great prophet, could not have asked for that. Yet the Qur'an does speak of seeing God and meeting Him. Al-Mizan argues that this is neither physical sight nor mere inferred knowledge, but a direct, inner witnessing, like one's awareness of oneself, which the Qur'an calls seeing with the heart; it is what Moses asked for, what was denied to him in this world, and what becomes complete for the righteous on the Day of Resurrection. In the narrations he sets out the early debate in which the Muʿtazilites denied that God can be seen with the eyes at all and the Ashʿarites affirmed it in the hereafter, both citing this verse, and finds both positions untenable: the vision the verses and the Imams speak of is the vision of the heart. A discussion of narrations on the vision of the heart then explains how God is always known to everyone.
Reading guide
Each part opens the commentary at that point.
- Moses' request, in its apparent meaning
- “There is room for further contemplation”
- God cannot be seen with the eyes
- The verses that affirm seeing God
- Seeing as direct, inner knowledge
- Five Qur'anic indications
- Two kinds of vision in the Qur'an
- Back to the verse: what Moses asked for
- “You shall never see Me”
- The mountain, the swoon and the repentance
- Narrations: “a Lord I do not see”
- The Muʿtazilites and the Ashʿarites
- Imam al-Riḍā before al-Maʾmūn
- The vision of the heart, in the narrations of the Imams
- Has the Prophet seen his Lord?
- God is always known to everyone