ALLAH (GOD)
Allah is the
pivot of the Muslim faith. Islam holy
scripture, the Qur’an, constantly preaches Allah’s reality, his inaccessible
mystery, his various names, and his actions on behalf of his creature. Three themes preponderate:
(1) Allah is the
Creator, Judge and Rewarder;
(2) He is unique
(Wahid) and inherently One (Ahad);
(3) He is
Omnipotent and all Merciful.
Allah is the
“Lord of the worlds”, the most high, nothing is like unto him, and this in
itself is to the believer a request to adore Allah as the Protector and to
glorify his powers of compassion and forgiveness.
Allah is
often conceived as the Supreme and principal object of faith. Allah, says the
Qur’an, “loves those who do good, and
two passages in the Qur’an express a mutual love between him and humanity.
The Muslims
piety has collected, in the Qur’an and in the Hadith (the sayings of the
Prophet Muhammad SAW), the 99 “most beautiful names” (al-Asma, al-Husna) of
Allah. These names have become the
objects of devoted recitation and meditation.
Among the names of Allah are the One and Only, the Living One, the
Subsisting (al-Hayy- ul-Qayyum), the Real Truth (al-Haqq), the sublime
(al-Azim), the Wise (al-Hakim), the omnipotent (al-Aziz), the Hearer (al-Sami),
the Seer (al-Baseer), the omniscient (al-Aleem), the witness (al-Shahid), the Trustee (al-Wakil), the
Benefactor (al-Rehman), the merciful (al-Rahim), and the constant forgiver
(al-Ghafoor, al-Ghaffar).
The most fundamental
concept in Islam is Tauheed (meaning “oneness” or “uniqueness”). God is described in the Qur’an as: “say: He
is Allah, the one and only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor
is He begotton; and there is none like unto him. In Islam, God is beyond all comprehensions or
equal and does not resemble any of his creations in anyway. Thus Muslims are not iconodules, and are not
expected to visualize God.
At all times
there have been free thinkers in Islam, but rare has been the Muslim thinker
who has denied the very existence of Allah.
Indeed the profession of faith (Shahadah) by which a person is
introduced into the Muslim community consists of the affirmation that there is
no God but Allah and that Muhammad (SAW) is his Prophet. For pious Muslims, every action is opened by
an invocation of the divine name (Bismillah).
The formula Insha Allah, “if Allah wills”, appears frequently in daily
speech. This formula is the reminder of
an ever present divine intervention in the order of the world and the actions
of human beings. Muslims believe that
nothing happens and nothing is performed unless it is by the will or
commandment of Allah. The personal
attitude of a Muslim believer, therefore, is a complete submission to Allah,
“whom one does not question” but whom one knows according to the Qur’an to be a
fair judge, at once formidable, benevolent and the supreme help.
The Muslims
who have/had weak beliefs, some questions arise in their minds. The Holy Qur’an
answers us about these questions. For
example:
Q: If God created everything, then who
created God?
A: According
to Qur’an: Allah tell us that he is the
only Creator and sustainer of all that
exists and
that nothing and no one exists alongside Him, nor does He have any
partner. He tells us that he is not
created, nor is He like His creation in any way. He calls Himself by a number of names and
three of them are:
(a) The
First: (Al-Awal)
(b) The Last:
(Al-Akhir)
(c) The Eternal,
who is sought after by His creation, while He has no need from them at all.
(As-Samad)
He always has existed and He never was created, as He
is not like his creation, nor similar to it, in any way.
Q: How can
you believe in God, when you can’t see, hear, touch, smell, taste or even
imagine what He is?
A: We
know from the teachings of Muhammad (SAW) that no one has ever actually seen
God, at least not in this life time. Nor
are we able to use our senses to make some kind of contact with Him. However, we are encouraged in Islam to use
our senses and our common sense to recognize that all of this Universe could
not possibly come into existence on its own.
Something had to design it all and then put it into motions. That is
beyond our ability to do, yet it is something that we can understand. We don’t have to see an artist to recognize a
painting, correct. So, if we see
painting without seeing artist’s painting them, in the same way, we can believe
that Allah created everything without having to see Him or touch, or hear,
etc.,
Q: Where
is God?
A: Some
other religions teach that “God is everywhere”.
This is actually called “Pantheism” and it is the opposite of our
believe system in Islam. Allah tells us clearly that there is nothing anywhere in the
Universe that resembles Him, nor is He ever in His creation. He tells us in the Qur’an that He created the
Universe in six “Yawm” (periods of time) and then He “Astawah, Ala Al-Arsh”
(rose up, above His throne). He is there
(above His throne) and will remain there until the end times.
Q: Why did
God create everything?
A: Allah
says in his Qur’an that He did not create all of this for any foolish purpose.
He tells us that He created us or the purpose of worshipping Him, alone and
without any partners.
Q: Is God
pure, good, loving and fair? If so, then
where does Evil, hatred and injustice come from?
A: Allah
tells us that He is pure, loving, and absolutely just in every respect. He says that He is the best of judges. He also tells us that the life that we are in
is a test. He has created all the things
that exist and He has created all that happens as well. There is nothing in this existence except
what He has created. He also says in the
Qur’an that He created Evil (although He is not evil). He is using this as one of the many tests for
us.
Q: Does God really have power of
things? If so, then why does He let
people become sick, oppressed and die?
A: Allah
has created all that we call the universe as a test for us. This is not our final destination. What we
might consider to be “bad” or “good” could actually be quite the opposite. As regards oppression, this is something that
Allah forbids for Himself to do to anyone and He hates it when any one
oppresses someone else. He does have
absolute power over everything. He
allows sickness, disease, death and even oppression so that we can all be
tested in what we do.
Q: Can you
prove there is a God?
A: Can
you prove that you exist? Yes, of course you can. You merely use your senses to determine that
you can see, here, feel, smell, taste and you have emotions as well. All of this is a part of your existence. But this is not how we perceive God in
Islam. We can look to the things that He
has created and the way that He cares for things and sustains us, to know that
there is no doubt of His existence.
Think
about this the next time that you are looking up at the moon or the stars on a
clear night, could you drop a drinking glass on the sidewalk and expect that it
would hit the ground and on impact it would not shatter, but it would divide up
into little small drinking glass, with iced tea in them? Of course, not.
Can a
fast food restaurant operate itself without any people there? That is crazy for anyone to even think about.
After
considering all of the above, how could we look to the universe above us
through a telescope or observe the molecules in a microscope and then think
that all of this came about as a result of a “big bang” or some “accident”.
Q: If
there is only one God, then why are there so many religions?
A: Allah
does not force anyone to submit to Him.
He has laid out a clear path and then made it known to them the two ways
(Heaven or Hell). The person is always
free to make his or her own choice.
There is no compulsion in the way of “Islam”. Whoever chooses to worship Allah without
partners and is devoted to Him and is obeying His commands as much as possible,
has grasped the firm hand hold that will never break. Whoever denies God and chooses some other way
to worship or not to believe at all, for them there is an eternal punishment
that is most horrible (Hell).
All
religions originated with Allah and then people began to add or take away from
the teachings so as to take control over
each other. Man made religions are an
abomination before the Lord and will never be accepted. He will only accept
true submission, obedience and in purity and peace to His commandments.
Q: How do
you know that the Qur’an is really from God?
A: Muslims
have something that offers the most clear proof of all – the Holy Qur’an. There is no other book like it anywhere on
earth. It is absolutely perfect in the
Arabic language. It has no mistakes in
grammar, meanings or contexts. The
scientific evidences are well known around the entire world, even amongst
non-Muslims scholars, predictions in the Qur’an have come true; and its teachings are clearly for all human
beings, all places and all times to come.
No one has been able to produce a book like it, nor 10 chapters like it,
nor even one chapter like it. It was
memorized by thousands of people during
the life time of Muhammad (SAW), and then this memorization was passed down
from teacher to student for generation after generation from mouth to ear and
from one nation to another. Today every
single Muslim has memorized some part of the Qur’an in the original Arabic
language that it was revealed in over 1400 years ago, even though most of them
are not Arabs. There are nine million
(9,000,000) Muslims living on the earth today who have totally memorized the
entire Qur’an, word for word, and can recite the entire Qur’an, in Arabic just
as Muhammad (SAW), did 14 centuries ago.
Q: Why
does Qur’an say “He” when referring to God (Allah) if God is not having Gender?
A: The
word “He” is used when referring to Allah out of respect dignity and high
status. It would be totally
inappropriate to use the word “it” and would not convey the proper
understanding of Allah being who Allah is; alive, compassionate, forgiving,
patient, loving, etc. It is not correct
to associate the word “He” with gender, as this would be comparing Allah to the
creation, something totally against the teaching of Quran.