The Druze concept of God

The doctrine of tawhid maintains that God is not an entity in Himself (dhatiyya); nor is He merely above this existence. For the Druze, God is absolute existence. Consequently, He is not a creator in that He created the universe ex nihilo. Rather, physical existence is God’s expression, His manifestation (badw). Since God is absolute, He has not created the world outside of Him for, as absolute, He has no limit: similarly, the world did not emanate from Him in time. He is the One: there is none other than God; He is the only Existent. The world is a constant projection from Him, by Him, within Him and to Him. This is what the Druze doctrine means by ibda‘, not an act that occurred outside of God.
The world is, therefore, in existence due to God’s divine nature (amr). The Qur’anic verse, “His amr, when he wills a shay’, is to say to it, ‘Be,’ and it is,” 4 lies at the basis of the Druze doctrine of existence according to Hamza ibn ‘Ali. The word amr in this verse means sha’n (affair, activity) and is equivalent to the Latin word res. 5 According to the Druze interpretation of this Qur’anic verse, the amr of God, that is, His will, activity, is transformed into the divine imperative: “Be!” For the Druze, God is to His amr as a word’s meaning is to the word. As meaning both transcends the word that it expresses and is immanent in it, the absolute Existent transcends the world while being immanent in it. Hence, God is referred to by the Druze as both transcendent (munazzah) and immanent (mawjud). Tawhid is defined as tanzih wa wajud, that is, transcendence and immanence.
Hamza ibn ‘Ali refers to God’s amr as ‘aql, an Arabic verbal noun that originally meant ‘to bind’: equivalent to the Greek nous, it should not be misunderstood as ‘mind’ or ‘reason’. As an intelligent and purposive principle, however, the ‘aql is inclusive of all existing beings. The ‘aql or amr of God binds and encompasses (‘aqala) the whole world. It is the finite projection, so to speak, of the absolute One (al-mubda‘ al-mahdud min al-mubdi‘ al-ahad).
Just as a word is in constant union with the meaning which it expresses, so God’s amr or ‘aql is, by its very nature, in constant union with God. However, as a finite projection of the absolute, the ‘aql is also, by its very nature, aware of being projected (mubda‘) by the One. This awareness made it feel that it was an entity in its own right, although one within the absolute oneness of God: the ‘aql had become aware of its self.
By being aware of its self, the ‘aql was deflected, so to speak, from its original course, for self-awareness impeded it from full awareness of the One. This deflection from feeling in union with God to ‘focusing upon’ and ‘enjoying’ its self made the aql feel that it was separate from God. This deflection, however, was nothing more than relative absence from the One, the absolute Existent, an absence of light (nur mahd) that is the same as utter darkness (zulma mahd). This is a delusion (‘adam). The absence of divine light is what the Druze call adversity (didd). It is a selfish attitude, the origin of discord, contrariety and division.
However, the ‘aql realized that it had been deflected from the One and developed an imploring passion to return to Him. I say ‘imploring’ because the ‘aql realized that it is, by its very nature, completely dependent upon the One. It has no power of its own. Hamza called this passion nafs (‘wish’, ‘desire’, ‘endeavour’, ‘eagerness’ or himma). 6 and it is the shay’ mentioned in the Qu’ranic verse quoted above. Here, shay’ is the verbal noun of the Arabic verb sha’a (‘to desire’). For the Druze, it is the second cosmic principle. The first is the ‘aql; the third, according to the Druze interpretation of the verse, is the ‘saying’ (al-qawl, al-kalima) implied in the phrase, an yaqula; the fourth is the imperative “Be!” (“Kun!”). This imperative precedes its implementation, yakun, which is the fifth cosmic principle. Hence, the amr or irada corresponds to the ‘aql; the shay’ corresponds to the nafs; the qawl (in the phrase an yaqula) corresponds to the kalima; the imperative kun to the sabiq; and the implementation of kun, namely, yakun, corresponds to the tali, in other words, that which follows. These are the five cosmic principles (al-hudud al-khamsa) that are always associated with the Druze. They are derived from the Druze’s esoteric interpretation of the Qur’anic verse (36:82) “Innama amruhu idha arada shay’an an yaqula lahu kun fayakun.” (His amr (nature, activity), when he wills a shay’ (desired thing), is to say to it, ‘Be’, and it is.)