Imam al-Rida (peace be upon him): Imran asked the Imam (peace be upon him): "O my master! Will you not inform me whether Allah is known by His reality or by His attributes?" Imam al-Rida (peace be upon him) said: Allah, who is the Originator of existence (the Bringer-into-being of creatures without any precedent) and the sole First Existent, was One without any peer — nothing was with Him; He was single, having no second with Him; neither known nor unknown, His knowledge neither firm (muhkam) nor ambiguous (mutashabih), neither mentioned nor forgotten. Allah the Glorified was not a thing upon which the name of any thing among things other than Himself could apply; His existence neither began from a time nor can be conceived as ending at a time. His being subsists neither by means of anything, nor did His existence continue until something came about; the existence of Allah the Exalted did not lean upon anything, nor did it rest within anything. All these characteristics were before creation. Nothing was with Him besides Himself, and everything you predicate of Him is an originated attribute expressing realities about Him, by means of which one who is able [to grasp the meaning of those attributes] can understand [the Bearer of those attributes]. Know that the meanings of ibda' (origination), mashiyya (will) and irada (intention) are one reality and only their names are three, and the first of His origination, intention and will were the letters (huruf), which He made the root of every thing, the indicator of every perceived matter, and the resolver of every difficulty. By these letters every thing is distinguished — the name of truth or falsehood, action or object, meaningful name or meaningless. All matters converge upon these letters. And in originating and producing these letters He did not bring into external existence anything besides making known the meaning of those very words and letters, to which the meaning of these letters would ultimately refer [rather, they intrinsically indicate their own meaning], for these letters are original [and are not taken from something else that they could point to]. And light, in this context — where what is meant is existence and bringing into being — is the first act of Allah, who is نُورُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَ الْأَرْضِ [the Light of the heavens and the earth], and the letters are what is made [and acted upon] by that act, and these letters are what speech turns upon, and all expressions are from Allah the Mighty and Majestic, who taught them to His creation; and they are thirty-three letters. Twenty-eight of them indicate the Arabic tongues, and of those twenty-eight, twenty-two letters indicate the Syriac and Hebrew tongues, and of these letters five are altered [and modified] in the remaining non-Arab tongues and in the other regions, which those peoples employ; and these five letters have [also] been used in other languages out of the twenty-eight letters. So the total of the letters is thirty-three. As for those five different letters, they are a proof (hujja) that arose through the occurrence of causes and factors such as the deviation of the accents of created beings and the differences of their speech; the mention of [the number of] them beyond what has already been mentioned is not fitting. Then, after the enumeration of the letters and firmly fixing their count, Allah the Exalted made them an act of His own, as in the saying of Allah the Mighty and Majestic كُنْ فَيَكُونُ [Be, so it is]. So the word كُنْ [Be] from the Truth the Exalted is a making and an act — meaning "be" — and whatever comes into being through this word is what is made and acted upon; that is, upon the issuance of this word (كُنْ فَيَكُونُ) — meaning "and it becomes and comes about" — beings come into the arena of existence. So the first creation from the Creator is the root of bringing into being, which had no weight, movement, thing that could be heard, colour, or [perceptible] sensation; the second creation is the letters, which have neither weight nor colour, but are heard and described, though not perceptible [to the senses]; the third creation is all the kinds of creation — that is, the heavens, the earth, food, drink and whatever else is perceptible and can be grasped by the sense of touch and sight. So the existence of Allah the Exalted precedes bringing into being, for nothing was before Him and nothing was with Him, and bringing into being precedes the letters, and the letters do not indicate anything other than themselves. At this point al-Ma'mun said: "How is it that the letters do not indicate anything other than themselves?" Imam al-Rida (peace be upon him) said: "Because Allah the Blessed and Exalted composed from these letters that which He composed for an everlasting composite meaning (that is, their individual units have no meaning, and when compounded they acquire meaning). So whenever He composed from these single letters four, five, six or more or fewer letters, He did not combine them for other than a [specific] meaning, and it was only for a meaning that came newly into being, before which nothing [originated] existed." Imran said: "How can we come to know this?" He (peace be upon him) said: "The cause of this recognition and its gateway is that whenever you, in mentioning these letters, do not intend other than the letters themselves, you mention them singly (one by one and separated from each other) and you say: alif, ba, ta, tha, jim, ha, kha... until you reach the end of them; and when you recall the singles, you find for them no meaning other than themselves. And when you compose and combine, you gather several of these letters [together] and make them a name and attribute for a desired meaning or an aspect that is your intent; these names and attributes then become indicators and guides to their own meanings and point to what they describe. Have you understood?" He said: Yes!