Allah's Rububiyyah

By: Ayatullah Muhammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi
Another part of lordship concerns men’s freedom of will and choice. Among the creatures, Allah (s.w.t) has created in this natural world, there are a group of which the movements, effects and evolutions are subject to the actions which they fulfill out of their own freewill and they are human beings. To reach his true perfection, man must move with his own freewill and choice, for, if a movement emerges in man out of compulsion, it will not be a human movement.
For instance, if a man is lifted with a crane from one place and taken to another place, it would be a mechanical movement, not a human movement. Also the growth of the body which is common to the plants, animals and men is a vegetal movement and the movement will in reality be human which stems from the origin of man’s freewill and choice, even though the will-power is bestowed upon man by Allah and It is Allah Who provides the conditions for work, It is also Allah Who creates the matter and It is also Allah Who gives man the ability to act and the fact is that in each and every moment man needs Allah’s creation and bestowal, but in spite of all this, the action which emerges from man is from the origin of his own freewill and choice and such an act is human. Now let us see how is Allah’s management regarding these acts which man fulfils out of his own freewill.
Allah’s Rububiyyah demands that besides putting the origins of willpower, choice, the means and the tools of work at men’s disposal, He also introduces to him the proper knowledge of the true and straight way, lets him know the good and the bad and issues and stipulates commands and laws for his individual and social life and this is the meaning of Lordship in divine legislation. So, At-Tawhid in lordship in creation demands that man believes that the management of the affairs of the world and of men in creational matters which are beyond his own willpower are attributed to the Almighty Allah, just as At-Tawhid in regard to Rububiyyah pertaining to divine laws demands that man gets the direction for life only from Allah, regards the right of law-giving to be only Allah’s and considers no other being to have any independent right in giving laws.
That is to say, to him the law should be valid which has been legislated by Allah's permission and which is based on the legislative permission of the Almighty Allah, the very permission which Allah has given to the Holy Prophet (s.a.w) and the Infallible Imams (a.s) and this permission has been communicated through the nass (divine decree, explicit stipulation) of the Infallible Imam (a.s), in a general way, to the qualified Fuqaha' (Islamic jurisprudents), the very thing which in our society today is recognized as one of the pivots of ideology, namely, Wilayat ul-Faqih (the guardianship of the Islamic jurisprudents). So, the laws are valid to the monotheists (believers in At-Tawhid because they are eventually supported by and based upon the divine legislative permission given by Allah and if such base and support do not exist, no law will be valid to the monotheists and rather it will be considered a kind of shirk (polytheism).