Commentary On Kumayl Supplication

Commentary of:

O Light! O All-Holy! O First of the first and Last of the last!

O the Perfect One! You are the One whose friend and servant, Imam Hussain (as) called You in the desert of Arafah on ‘Arafat day:

Does anything have an existence which You don’t have, so that it would give You existence? You have never been hidden to need any reason to justify You, and You have never been far away to need the signs to direct us to You.

O Lord! When I leave my transient state and return to my own self, looking closely, I observe that the Light of Your Beauty is clearer than everything else. You are by no means hidden, thus I do not need any form of light to search Your Divine Position, because once I take a reality as the reason for my exploration, I come to understand that the reality and the light are both Your creations.

When and where were You absent that You need a rationale justifying, and when and where have You been away so that Your signs direct us to You?

You are free of all faults, and greater than anything to which You are described. You are the most Perfect, the Absolute Reality, the Light and the Holy. You are the First of the first, but there is no beginning for Your Holy Existence, and You are the Last of the last without having an end. You are Preexisting while You make all things begin, and You are Eternal after all beings will annihilate.

The first and the last are two attributes for all your creations. All of them have been given a beginning and an end. The entities have a beginning, for once upon a time they were nothing and You created them, and they have an end means that the creatures come to an end. You bring them to an end. So You have existed before “all things” and nothing had existed before You, and You will exist after “all things” and nothing would exist after You.

O First of the first and Last of the last!