From Imam Khomeini's perspective, the mystical approach is preferable to the philosophical approach.

According to Ashura News, quoted by Mehr News Agency, Hojjatoleslam Hossein Ashagi, a former member of the Philosophy Department of the Islamic Culture and Thought Research Institute, wrote in a note on the occasion of the anniversary of the passing of Imam Khomeini (RA):

After mentioning the name of Allah and the hadith of Thaqalain, Imam Khomeini begins the contents of this meaningful and precious letter as follows at the beginning of his divine political will:

"Praise be to Allah and glory be to You; O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and his family, the manifestations of Your beauty and majesty, and the treasures of the secrets of Your Book, in which the Oneness manifests itself with all Your names, even the one who is affected by it, the one who does not know it except You; and curse be upon their oppressors, the root of the malicious tree."

In these sentences full of mystical and spiritual points, he first praises God with the phrase “Al-hamdu Lillahi” but immediately with the phrase “Subhanaka” he considers God to be free from any kind of praise; and introduces the Supreme Being as superior and higher than any description; Here the question arises as to why the late Imam behaved in such a contradictory manner? And on what basis is the praise and adoration of God, along with considering Him free from any kind of praise and adoration? And what is the philosophy behind the use of such expressions containing affirmation and negation?

The answer must be sought in the preference of the mystical approach over the philosophical approach in the view of Imam Khomeini.

The explanation for this is that one of the fundamental differences in theology, between the mystical and philosophical approaches, is regarding the attributes of God; and that is, does the Supreme Being have any attributes at the level of His essence or not? Most philosophers believe that God possesses perfect attributes such as life, power, and knowledge in His essence; but great mystics such as Ibn Arabi and Qunavi and their followers believe that the scope of any description is not as great as the absolute essence of the Almighty God, so that a description can cover the absolute essence of the Almighty God and be truly true to Him; this is like applying a limited meaning to an absolute meaning; and for example, let us say, "A star is Mars," or "Iran is Khorasan." It is clear that applying a limited meaning to an unlimited absolute that is limited to its limits is invalid and unacceptable; therefore, every description must be denied from the level of the Absolute God; and it must be accepted that no truth under any title can be a praise for the absolute essence of the Almighty God; and this is why every description of the Absolute God has been rejected in the sayings of the Imams. Like the words of Amir al-Mu'minin who said: "And the perfection of sincerity for Him is the negation of His attributes, for the testimony of all attributes that He is indescribable and the testimony of all attributes." "That which is not the attribute of the word of God, praise be to Him, has lost a corner, and who has a corner has lost grace," according to this saying, God's perfection of purification from other things means that the attributes of God are negated; Because proving the attribute for the true essence leads to the conjunction of the description with the described, and the composition of His essence from the two parts of the described and the description; and also like the words of Imam Reza (AS) who said, “The origin of the knowledge of Allah is His unification, and the system of the unification of Allah is the negation of the attributes from Him, so that the intellects testify that every attribute and described thing is a created thing.” Based on this statement, the system of unification is the negation of the attributes from Allah; because both the attribute and the described thing are limited to the extent that they are separated from the other, and in this case, both will be created due to the limitation and not the Creator; And like the words of Imam Sadiq (AS) when he heard someone say “Allah is the Greatest” he said: What is God greater than? And the man replied that He is greater than anything; he said: In that case you have limited Him” So Abu Abd Allah said: You have limited Him; because every greatness is composed of the principle of greatness and the quantity that causes Him to be greater; and the compound of both parts is a potential and created reality; and therefore limited; then he said: “Say: Allah is greater than being praised and described.” Therefore, both according to rational reasoning and according to the hadiths of the great religious figures, any description that is placed at the level of the essence of God and applies to it is invalid; And such a description is not only not a praise of God, but on the contrary, it causes a defect in an essence that has no defects.

This is on the one hand; But on the other hand, we see abundantly in the Qur'an and the hadiths of the infallibles that God is introduced by names and attributes, such as what is mentioned at the end of Surah Hashr, when he said: Al-Jabbaru Al-Mutakkabir Subhan-Allah-Amma-Yushrik-He is Allah, the Creator, the Creator, the Imager, the Names of the Good, Praise be to Him, we are in Al-Sammawat and The earth, and He is the Mighty, the Wise.”

The question is, if God has no true description, then how should these Quranic and narrational expressions be interpreted?

The answer is that these expressions, each of which indicates a specific meaning and a limited description, are all manifestations of the Almighty; that is, God appears in the form of a limited meaning and in the face of a certain reality and establishes the true relationships between the manifolds, without Himself being truly characterized by a description and limited to a certain extent in this appearance and manifestation.

We will explain this section by giving an example, namely that the moon appears in the sky at night with various appearances, for example, in the middle of the lunar months and when it has just risen above the horizon, it appears in the face and appearance of a circle with a diameter of, for example, 40 centimeters; and sometimes on the same night, but after rising in the middle of the sky, it appears in the face and appearance of a circle with a diameter of, for example, 20 centimeters; and on nights close to the middle of the lunar months, such as the twelfth or eighteenth night, the same moon appears in the face and appearance of an incomplete circle; and its lack of being circular is sometimes in the east, and sometimes in the west; but it is clear that these various appearances of the moon are not a real description of the moon; rather, these are visual appearances that do not occur in the real world; for example, the circular appearance on the fourteenth night is not really a description of the moon because the moon's surface has lows and highs, so it is really neither characterized by a round sphere nor by a circular shape. But to us it appears as a circle; so even though the moon is not really a circle, it appears as a circle to us; and also the moon that appears as a circle sometimes with a diameter of 40 cm and sometimes with a diameter of 20 cm does not really have a diameter of 40 cm or 20 cm, but the diameter of the moon is really thousands of kilometers; and also its other states such as being crescentic, being semicircular are all imaginary and unreal; however, each of these unreal states can have a real relationship with something else; for example, although the moon being circular is not a real description, as the moon rises to the middle of the sky, its diameter and surface area decrease; that is, there is a real relationship between two unreal entities (the large circle and the small circle), and the rise of the real moon (a real entity) has a real effect on the apparent shrinking of the moon's disk; so to prove a real relationship between two things, it is not necessary for them to have real states; rather, it is possible for one side to be real and one side to be imaginary, or for both sides to be imaginary.

With the above example, we can now answer the above question and say that God is a real being; but it is possible for Him to manifest and appear in the form of a limited meaning and in the form of a certain truth and to establish real relationships between multiples, without Himself being truly characterized by an attribute and limited to a certain extent in this manifestation; just as the moon, while appearing in the form of different states, is not truly characterized by those states, but has real relationships; so although the essence of God is not the true embodiment of these limited attributes for the reasons mentioned above, He manifests in the manifestation of all these attributes; and therefore, Imam Khomeini says at the beginning of this will and testament that all praise belongs to God: “Alhamdulillah” because He is the source of all perfection; but at the same time, it must be said: “Subhanaka”; because, O God, You are free from being the true embodiment of these limited attributes.