There are many meanings of the word “Tafweez” and some people have enumerated seven. There great debates about each one of them; but here the word Tafweez refers to the stand that a group of Muslims took about it; they believed that God created the holy Messenger and the Imams and then delegated the work of creation, sustenance and life and death to them.
Allama Majlisi has given the best des c r i p tion about them in his book “Mer’aatol oqul”. He says, “this statement of those believers can be construed in two ways: That the infallible ones handle the work of creation, sustenance and reward and punishment on their own merit and they are the originators of this work. This is absolute disbelief and the intelligent and discerned proofs refute it. No intelligent person has any doubt about of the disbelief of those who adhere to this ideology.
The second des c r i p tion is that God does these work as per the desires of the infallible ones, like the splitting of the moon and raising the dead, this has been seen in the miracles shown by the divine apostles. If it is this then it is not against any religious doctrine as well intelligence but I have mentioned many such traditions in Behar0l Anwar that refute such powers to be invested in the infallible ones excepting the miracles they have shown.
The second interpretation is not beyond human intelligence but the traditions do not support it. There are many such deeds that are not beyond human comprehension but are religious banned. The number of the apostles could have been more but it has been restricted to a certain figure that we are aware of.
A third interpretation also exists and that is God bestows the powers to His chosen infallible one so that he may raise the dead or cure some one from an incurable disease and this is what the verses mean about Jesus in the Qura’n and this is possible for the other infallible ones too. But as we have said above this issue is limited to miracles and supernatural deeds only not the creation of the heavens or the management of affairs of the universe because Qura’n explicitly declares that creativity, the management of the affairs and the lordship is for God only. (The verses cited for Oneness of Lordship are ample evidence.)
The objective of creation is the perfect mankind and the infallible ones are superior to this perfect mankind so we can say that this universe has been created for them only or in other words they are the cause of the creation of this universe.
1. Maratol oqul vol.3 page 143
