An Analysis of the Intersection of the Ideas of “Manifestation” and “Creation” among Muslim Scholars

There are two main views on the explanation of the creation of the world among theologians. The mystics and a group of philosophers present the theory of “manifestation” and, based on the personal unity of being, believe God has the real existence and the world of contingency is a manifestation of the attributes of perfection hidden in God’s essence. Yet most Islamic theologians believe God created the world from nothing and nonbeing and stress on the separation and heterogeneousness of the creator and the created. The mutual prevention of the bases of theologians on the one hand, and of the philosophers and mystics on the other hand, makes it impossible to believe in both theories for the real explanation of the world. However, the theory of “creation” is posed to deny the theory of “reduction of God’s creation to mere designer” and concerns that theory. Presenting an innovation in the analysis of the concept of “nothing”, this writing offers a new reading of the theologian’s views; on this base, the theories of “creation from nonbeing” and “manifestation” have an intersection in the point of “creation not from a thing”.