I’TIBÂRÎ - اعتباري

 

The quality of being known through being connected, related with or attributed to others. Being accepted as possessing a value, existence and reality while not possessing a true value, existence and reality.

 

If you were to ask: What are the nature, laws and forces that they mumble about and console themselves with?

You would be told: Nature is a misdâr1, not a source. It is where the nature of everything is shaped, formed and printed, not the one that shapes, forms and prints. It is laws, not a power. Rather, it is the takwînî Sharî'ah of Allah that establishes an order on the acts of the limbs of the body of al-‘âlam ash-shahâdah. Just as Sharî'ah is the sum and summary of the laws concerning actions taken by choice and will, along with the whole of the political principles of the system of government. So too the order and Sharî'ah are two theoretical (i’tibârî) matters that exist only within the mind. Similarly, nature is a theoretical (i’tibârî) matter that is the summary of ‘Âdâtullah, which prevails and works in creation.

Imagining the external existence of nature resembles a savage man; when he sees a military division moving regularly, he imagines that the soldiers are tied together with something that has an external existence. So only those with a savage conscience (vijdân) can imagine that nature has an effective external existence because of its continuance.

In Short: Nature is the art of Allah Ta‘âlâ and His Sharî'ah of fitrah. Its laws and forces are the matters of it, and its powers are the rules of those matters.

Signs of Miraculousness-302