Implications of Negating Cognation Between the Creator and the Creature in the Thought of Qāḍī Saʿīd Qumī

According to Qāḍī Saʿīd Qumī, monotheism means the negation of any cognation between God and the creatures. The purpose of this article is to present the most important implications of this negative interpretation of monotheism in his thought and to show how this interpretation can lead to such implications. According to the apophatic theology of Qāḍī Saʿīd, no positive concept applies to the First Principle and He is not described by any attribute; therefore: 1. The dispute over the primacy of existence or quiddity does not arise in the case of God, because God is neither of the existence realm nor of the quiddity, 2. There is no graded (tashkīkī) relationship between God and His creatures, 3. God even transcends beyond the necessity of existence, and the “Necessary Being” is His name and His creation, so all three modes of contingency, impossibility and necessity are excluded from Him, 4 & 5 & 6. The “argument of possibility and necessity”, the “argument of the Righteous” and other arguments for proving the Necessary Being and His oneness would be no more valid, 7. The criterion for dependence on a cause is neither temporal emergence nor contingency, but combination (though a mentally posited combination), 8. The Essence of God cannot be worshiped, rather, the very “greatest name” (Allah) is worshiped, 9. God’s power means doing an action without requiring the attribute of power and in a state free from the three modes of contingency, impossibility and necessity, 10. God’s knowledge is neither conceptual nor presential.