Shaykh Abu Ja’far said that the Jews were of the opinion that God is now dormant after completing so many tasks, but our view about this issue is that God had always been engaged in one or other tasks, which do not interfere with His performance.

كُلَّ يَوْمٍ هُوَ فِي شَأْنٍ

“Every day He exerciseth (universal) power” (55:29).

God gave life and He took life. He created and provided sustenance. He did whatever he liked. He granted existence to some, and made others to vanish (from the scene), depending upon His approval or disapproval, as He had the Umm al-Kitab (absolute knowledge).

يَمْحُو اللَّهُ مَا يَشَاءُ وَيُثْبِتُ وَعِنْدَهُ أُمُّ الْكِتَابِ

“Allah effaceth what He will, and establisheth (what He will), and with Him is the Mother of the Book (ummul-kitab)” (13:39).

He made those things - which had existed before - to become extinct, and brought those - which were not present earlier - into existence.

This was not the type of Bida (amending), which Jews and their followers had advocated. They proposed their own version as being our view. Following their footsteps, people of other outlook - including our opponents - also started to make untrue allegations against us.

Imam Ja’far As-Sadiq (‘a) said that God had not sent any Prophet unless He had their approval for three things – that they accepted God as their Master, they detested those who proposed partners for Him, and believed that God could swap anything i.e. He could bring forward one thing and delay the other. This was why the Shariah of our Prophet (S) made all the previous constitutions redundant, and the Qur’an overruled all previous revealed books.

Imam Ja’far As-Sadiq (‘a) said that he was perturbed with a person who had the belief that God, after amending a thing today or prior to it, was unaware of it. He further said that if someone had the belief that God felt guilty after creating an object, then such a person was an atheist. He said that God never had the same Bida, which He had about my son Isma’il. This meant that no one had observed the same expediency of God, as was observed regarding Isma’il. He made him die during the Imam’s lifetime to show the Ummah that he was not His deputy (Imam) after Imam Ja’far As-Sadiq’s (‘a) death