If in the beginning there was only god and god is boundless and without end, then this means "nothing" didn't exist. Only finite things have boundaries outside of which that thing ceases to be. Even if we assume that God is separate from his being somehow it would be more like panentheism like god is a pregnant mother. And remember that god can't do logically contradictory things. This problem is talked about in sufism and I think tzimzum of isaac of luria. What is the orthodox Islamic perspective on this, how do the theologians handle this one ?
1 Answer
According to Shia Islam, the world was created not from a thing (لا من شیء), not from nothing (من لا شیء), as nothing is nothing and creation is not based on nothing. In Shia point of view there are Ahadeeth saying there was a time that there was Allah and nothing else, and it is still the same, or that Allah first created Will, then alphabets, and the book of creation is writing by those alphabets. So there is هـ, or هو which is the third-person unknown proverb, pointing to what Allah really is and never understandable to any of His creations. Then there is the world of His names and attributes, which is called Lahut (لاهوت) and itself is graded. Then there comes نفس رحمانی, which is what Allah calls it "Be", and a name in Lahut is substantiated in another world called Jabarut, then Malakut, and at last in Mulk, which we call Dunya, or perhaps the universe, or nature. It is somewhat a cascade. But all the creation is a reflection of Allah, not Him and not tied to Him and not in His inside. So assume a creature as a mirror for Allah, non-existing by itself, existing reflectively in the existence of Allah. If you see at the God's scale, there is Allah and nothing more, so there is only one existence, only one power, only one presence, only one Will; and if you see in the creatures' scale, there you see no place for God, all be His creatures.
