[3:18] God bears witness that there is no god, except Him,
i.e., God knows, God informs, and God rules that there is no god, except Him. It is the bearing witness of the Real to the Real that He is the Real. The first one to bear witness that He is God is God and He bears witness in His eternity by His words (qawl), His speaking (kalām), and His primordial address (khi?āb). He has given information of His singular existence, His eternal being, His everlasting unseen, His continuous essence, His eternal majesty and His endless beauty. He said, 'God bears witness', then, throughout all time.
God bears witness, i.e., God makes things clear by what He demonstrates in proofs (barāhīn), establishes in indicators of certainty (dalāÌil al-yaqīn), makes manifest in signs (ayāt), and discloses in indisputable evidence (bayyināt). In all that He has created and brought forth, and made manifest from the concealment of non-existence, and produced according to what He wills, from independent things that are perceived (ʿayān) and the vanishing traces [left by things, actions or attributes] (āthār), from the essential qualities of things (dhawāt) in their potentiality and the attributes (ṣifāt) which come to be in specific places - each part [of this whole] is a clear expression of His existence and a plain elucidation of His Lordship, a witness (shāhid) to His Eternity, and a notifier to the intellects that He is One (wāḥid), Mighty, and Glorious (mājid). He (s) bore witness to the majesty (jalāl) of His Measure and the perfection (kamāl) of His Might at the time when there was no denial, no ignorance, no knowledge of any created thing, no intellect, no conformity, no disbelief, no events, no other, no deviation, no polytheism, no understanding, no falsehood, no heaven, no space, no darkness, no light, no principles of what was rejected (wa-lā uṣūl li'l-mardūdāt) and no deciding on differences in the affairs of time (wa-lā fuṣūl bi-ikhtilāfi'l-awqāt).
[3:18 cont'd] and the angels,
He did not add strength to His bearing witness to His oneness (waḥdāniyya) by the bearing witness of the angels. Rather, He gladdened and strengthened them when He directed them to the right course in bearing witness to Him, and when He guided them to knowledge of His oneness.
[3:18 cont'd] and those of knowledge;...
They are the friends (awliyāÌ) from among the Children of Adam since they know the majesty of His Power and they recognize the attribute of His Might. He honored them when He associated His bearing witness to their bearing witness. They bear witness from witnessing and discernment (shuhūd wa-taʿyīn), not from conjecture and quessing (ẓann wa-takhmīn). If they do not have knowledge of something at a given time by necessity or by sensory perception (?arūratan wa-ḥissan), they do not believe it by conjecture and surmise (ẓannan wa-ḥadsan). He makes Himself known to them so they come to know Him. He calls them to bear witness and because of that they bear witness. If He did not tell them who He is, they would not know. But the religious scholars (ʿulamāÌ) bear witness by the clarity of their intellects while those who have experienced God's unity (muwaḥḥidūn) bear witness after their extinction. They are as it is said:
Consumed by the force of the Real,
they have been extinguished.
After their being annihilated,
they are made to speak of God's unity.
The One Who brings about what appears from them is other than them. The One Who stands in for them in what they are up against and in - is other than them. They were but became separate (kānū lakinnahum bānū). The one who spoke for them said:
My book to you
was after my death by a night.
I didn't know
I would write after my death.
Those of knowledge are on different levels, such as the knower whose quality is conformity [to God's command and decree] and religious disciplines (rahbāniyya); the knower whose attribute is annihilation owing to His Lordship (rabbāniyya); the knower who recognizes the rulings of His permitted and prohibited things; the knower who knows His reports (akhbār), practices (sunan), and traditions (āthār); the knower who knows His book and is aware of its exegesis (tafsīr) and interpretation (taÌwīl), its clear verses and revelation; the knower who knows His attributes and His qualities, and studies His proofs and unity; and the knower whom He treats with kindness until He causes him arrive, then He unveils to him and overwhelms him so the name (ism) remains while the perceived entity (ʿayn) is effaced, and the decree (ḥukm) arrives while the servant fades away. The one who spoke for them said:
The sons of the Real
are nourished solely by the Real,
so the attribute of the Real
is adopted within them.
The allusion from this is only to their annihilation from their sensory perceptions (iḥṣāṣ) and from the different types of knowledge [acquired] through their lower selves. As for their entities (ʿayān), they are created and what will come to pass by their essential natures (dhawāt) in their states is predetermined. The Essence of the Real is not characterized by any possible contingency, and the attributes of His Essence do not permit a connection with anything other [than Him], nor any separation from the Essence. The Real is sanctified from every opposite and equal, union and division, gathering and separation, entity and creation, dominion and celestial body, mark and trace (athar), servant and human being (bashar), sun and moon (qamar), individual person and dust (ghabar).