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Mashrabaمشربة

The commentators side by side

One passage at a time. Each column is a commentator; each row gathers the comments on the same words, so readings and emphases can be compared.

الحكم العطائية

←Read ¶169 in the text

169 · 15 words · shading: how many commentators stop on each word

كَيْفَ يَكُونُ طَلَبُكَ اللَّاحِقُ سَبَبًا فِى عَطَائِهِ السَّابِقِ جَلَّ حُكْمُ الْاَزَلِ أَنْ يَنْضَافَ اِلَى الْعِلَلِ

How could your request, which comes later, be a cause of His giving, which came before? Too exalted is the decree of pre-eternity to be attached to causes.

On the whole passage · 1 of 1

Ibn ʿAbbād

هذا دليل على نفى السببية المذكورة لان ماطلبه العبد أمر سابق فى الازل تقديره وطلبه أمر لاحق فيما لايزال وكيف يكون اللاحق سببا فى وجود السابق وهل السبب أبدا الا متقدم على المسبب … هذا دليل آخر على ماذكره وهو أن حصول ماطلبه الداعى حكم من الله تعالى فى الازل فلا يكون سببه الدعاء والسؤال لان أحكام الله تعالى تجل عن أن تنضاف الى علة أو سبب

This is a proof negating the causality (*sababiyya*) mentioned above. What the servant (*ʿabd*) seeks is something whose determination (*taqdīr*) came first, in pre-eternity, while his seeking is something that comes later, in what never ceases (*fīmā lā yazāl*). How then could what comes later be a cause of the existence of what came first? Is a cause ever anything but prior to what it causes (*musabbab*)? … This is a further proof of what he has stated: the attainment of what the supplicant (*dāʿī*) seeks is a decree from God Most High in pre-eternity, so its cause cannot be the supplication (*duʿāʾ*) and the asking (*suʾāl*). God Most High's decrees are far too majestic to be attached to any causal factor or cause.

The opening of his commentary only; the whole of it runs over pdf 134 (printed p. 130) of the print: follow the link to the page images.

Ibn ʿAbbād · pdf 134 (printed p. 130)

Ibn ʿAbbād's Arabic: the opening of his commentary on each passage, transcribed from the page images of the Cairo 1319/1901 print and read twice (each comment links to the page where his commentary on that passage begins; the rest of it is on the following pages, not transcribed). English translations of the commentaries and of the passage are AI (Claude) and marked. Differences are computed by comparing the words each commentator quotes with our working text; they may reflect a different manuscript reading, a paraphrase, or an alignment error. About this text.