You cannot understand tawḥīd, the principle, governing the cosmos, without understanding its negations: tughyān (lit. transgression). If tawḥīd is a form of critical consciousness then awareness of who or what is the tāghūt is pivotal to that awareness. Sherman A. Jackson captures the meaning of the term tāghūt brilliantly as “second-creators.” The second creators do not create man ex nihilo (that can only be done by the First-Creator) but create new political, economic and social [ersatz, lower-order] realities. But beneath those forged realities is a forged metaphysical order, or image because every political order and image is a reflection of a more fundamental metaphysical order and image. The second-creators become God-like because these forged realities appear to be natural, eternal, and insurmountable. To live in a world defined by the second-creators is to live in existential absurdity because the world becomes governed by an abyss, or baṭil. How to rebel against these reified “realities?” Metaphysical disobedience.
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