Belief in Allah
Keeping
aside philosophical controversies and theological intricacies, the
quintessential claim of belief in Allah is as follows. The entire realm of
being and the whole cosmic complex is neither eternal nor ever-lasting; rather,
it is both contingent and perishable. In itself, it has no warrant for its own
existence and it cannot explain itself.
However, there is one such Being as has neither beginning in time nor an end — Allah, the proper name for God. It makes no difference whether one calls Him Allah or Al-Rahman (The Most Beneficent). He is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe and of man, and, particularly, the giver of guidance for man and the Supreme Judge of his conduct. God’s existence can be brought home to those who care to reflect, so that it not only ceases to be an ‘irrational’ or ‘unreasonable’ belief but also becomes for them the Master-Truth. He is all-enveloping, literally boundless, and He alone is absolute, eternal, and infinite. Everything else carries in the very texture of its being the hallmark of its finitude and creatureliness. He is the personification of all good attributes, like Power, Majesty, Mercy, Munificence, Knowledge, etc., in the utmost degree. In the very nature of the case, there can be only one God, for whenever one tries to conceive of more than one, only one will be found to emerge as the First. The Holy Qur’an declares:
However, there is one such Being as has neither beginning in time nor an end — Allah, the proper name for God. It makes no difference whether one calls Him Allah or Al-Rahman (The Most Beneficent). He is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe and of man, and, particularly, the giver of guidance for man and the Supreme Judge of his conduct. God’s existence can be brought home to those who care to reflect, so that it not only ceases to be an ‘irrational’ or ‘unreasonable’ belief but also becomes for them the Master-Truth. He is all-enveloping, literally boundless, and He alone is absolute, eternal, and infinite. Everything else carries in the very texture of its being the hallmark of its finitude and creatureliness. He is the personification of all good attributes, like Power, Majesty, Mercy, Munificence, Knowledge, etc., in the utmost degree. In the very nature of the case, there can be only one God, for whenever one tries to conceive of more than one, only one will be found to emerge as the First. The Holy Qur’an declares:
Do not
take two gods (for) He is only One.
(Al-Nahl
16:51)
God bears
witness that there is no god but He.
(Aal-i-Imran
3:18)
Say (O
Muhammad) if there were other gods beside Him, as these people assert, they
would all (necessarily) seek their way to the (one) Lord of the Throne.
(Al-Isra
17:42)
Nobody
from amongst the creatures shares His substantial essence, attributes, rights,
authority and privileges. God cannot be regarded as an existent among other
existents. In the metaphysical realm, there can be no democratic and equal
sharing of being between the Original, the Creator, the Self-Necessary on the
one hand and the borrowed, the created, the contingent on the other. The
Qur’anic condemnation of Shirk (assigning partners to God) has its roots firmly
in the metaphysical realm and then issues forth its corollaries in the
political and moral fields.
The whole
Surah al-Ikhlas, like many other verses of the Holy Qur’an, most categorically
emphasizes the oneness and absoluteness of God Almighty:
Say: He
is one God: God the eternal, the Uncaused (Absolute) Cause of all being. He
begets not, and neither is He begotten; and there is nothing that could be
compared with Him.
(Al-Ikhlas
112:1-4)
And say:
All praise is to God, who begets no offspring, and has no partner in his
dominion, and has no weakness, and therefore no need of any aid, and (thus)
extol His limitless greatness.
(Al-Isra
17:111)
He allots
to no one a share in His dominion and rule.
(Al-Kahf
18:26)
Almighty
Allah (SWT) has created the universe with a purpose and for a definite period
of time. The creation of the universe is a serious affair, not a sport or
triviality:
And We
have not created the heavens and the earth and what is therein purposelessly —
that is the opinion of those who reject (God) or are ungrateful.
(Al-Saad
38:27)
The
non-ultimacy of nature itself proves its destructibility and the Qur’an tells
us that God in His wisdom has created the myriad forms of existence for a
finite duration of time, known only to Him. At the pinnacle of God’s
multi-layered creations appears man whom He endowed with a dual nature: Allah
(SWT) created his animal form and then breathed into him out of His own Spirit,
and made him His vicegerent on earth. In other words, the Holy Qur’an presents
a theomorphic conception of man: he is homo cum Deo. The creation of man
represents the acme of Divine creative process, as, according to an authentic
tradition of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), God has created man in His own image. The
following verses of the Holy Qur’an refers to both aspects of the creation of
man:
We have
indeed created man in the finest of moulds, then We reversed him to the lowest
of the low.
(Al-Teen
95: 4, 5)
To Be Continued ....
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