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Tag: God

  • Knowing the Creation, Worshipping the Creator

    Knowing the Creation, Worshipping the Creator

    Humanity has been busy throughout its history, supplicating, bowing down, and engaging in diverse acts of worship. In the annals of religious observance, however, people have codified worship of many false gods. Worship of the sun was quite common. An Egyptian cult deified the sun as Ra, ruler of the heavens, and the sun figured centrally in Babylonian and some Asian religious cults. For the Aztecs, Tonatiuh was the sun god, and demanded human sacrifice as a demonstration of their esteem and gratitude or else the sun would refuse to provide its warmth and energy to earth. But the Aztecs, like many cultures, had a multitude of gods in their pantheon – gods of creation, nature gods, gods of fertility, gods of death, and many others. Many cultures deified their emperors, seeing them as living gods on earth. The cult of Devaraja, the God King, was an ancient state religion in Cambodia. The story of the Egyptian Pharaoh typifies the worship of human leaders. In telling the story of Moses going to Pharaoh, the Quran says, “When Moses came to them with Our clear signs, they said, ‘This is nothing but spellbinding eloquence devised: never did we hear this among our forefathers!’ And Moses replied,‘My Sustainer knows best as tow ho comes with guidance from Him, and to whom the future belongs!Verily, never will evildoers attain to a happy state!’ Whereupon Pharaoh said, ‘O Chiefs! No god do I know for you but myself…” (28:36-38).
    Weird objects of worship figure in history as well, some of which continue to this day. A small sect of Buddhists in the Himalayas engage in phallic worship, believing that displaying images of a phallus in their homes, cars, or on rooftops provides protection from evil and gossip, and aids in fertility. Then there is the veneration of rats. The Karni Mata Temple in India, built in the 15th century, is home to roughly 20,000 rats that are protected and worshipped. Huge bowls of milk, grains, coconut shells, and sweets are set out for the rats, and multitudes of people come to the temple, often from great distances, to pay homage to the rodents.
    The worship of created things ranges from adoration of little critters like rats to deifying the vastness of the entire physical universe. Pantheists, in fact, believe that the Creator and the creation are one and the same, that there is no distinction between them. Then there are those, deists, who believe in God but eradicate Him from the everyday world of humanity and creation.They believe in a Creator, known through reason and observable signs in the natural world, but regard God as never intervening in the created world. Polytheism can be “hard” with multiple gods which are distinct and separate from one another, or “soft” where a number of gods are subsumed into a greater whole. Prophet Jesus, peace be upon him, for example, is considered by Trinitarian Christians as one of a three-fold God, the son along with the father and the holy spirit.

    Shirk of Many Sorts

    True monotheism declares there is only one God, andIslam further proclaims “… He is God, the One; God, the Eternal, the Absolute. He begets not, nor was He begotten, and there is none like unto Him” (112:1-4). Blurring that clean line of in compatibleness is the Old Testament which exclaims in Genesis 1:27, “So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them;male and female, He created them.” And the New Testament avers in Colossians 1:15, “The Son (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, [he is] the firstborn over all creation.” According to the Quran, the previous scriptures were altered so that this idea (that man was created in God’s image), like many others, contradicts the pure tawheed of Islam.
    In line with tawheed (oneness), God is incomparably great, the One, The Self-Existing by Whom all else subsists. The Quran makes it clear that “Those whom they invoke besides God create nothing, and are themselves created” (Quran 16:20). Thus, believing that God has a son is shirk (associating others with Him): “They blaspheme who say ‘(God) is Christ the son of Mary.’ But Christ said,‘O Children of Israel! Worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord.’[…]Christ the son of Mary was no more than an apostle; many were the apostles that passed away before him. His mother was a woman of truth. They had both to eat their food [to survive]. See how Allah makes His signs clear to them; yet see in what ways they are deluded away from the truth! Say: ‘Will ye worship, besides Allah, something which has no power either to harm or benefit you? But Allah- He it is that hears and knows all things” (5:72-76).
    The Quraysh, the tribe that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was born into, believed in God as the creator of the universe, but they also venerated 360 idols, housed in the Kaaba, who they saw as patrons and protectors, and when they deemed necessary, they would appeal to this or that god to intercede with Allah, the “supreme deity,” on their behalf. The Quran addresses this with clarity: “The bestowal from on high of this divine writ issues from God, the Almighty, the Wise.For, behold, it is We who have bestowed this revelation upon you from on high, setting forth the truth; so worship Him, sincere in your faith in Him alone! Is it not to God alone that all sincere faith is due? And yet, they who take for their protectors others beside Him [are accustomed to saying], ‘We worship them for no other reason than that they bring us nearer to God’” (39:1-3).
    So many verses in the Quran stipulate the absolute space around the oneness of God, an amplitude of uniqueness and greatness that no reference or association can touch. Yet, human beings continue to muddy the crisp, clean lines of tawheed with partners, intermediaries, and/or representations that, they think, serve as god or conduit to god. Muhammad Assad comments on verses 39:1-3 above, “This relates not only to the worship of saints, angels and ‘deified’ persons as such, but also to that of their symbolic representations (statues, pictures, relics, etc.) and, in the case of defunct human personalities, of their real or reputed tombs. Since all such practices are based on the worshipper’s hope of ‘mediation’ between himself and God, they obviously conflict with the concept of His omniscience and justice, and are, therefore -notwithstanding their widespread occurrence -utterly rejected by the Qur’an.”Indicating the significance and emphasis of tawheed, Abu Said Al-Khudri narrated, “A man heard another man reciting ‘Say: He is Allah, the One.’ And he recited it repeatedly. When it was morning, he went to the Prophet and informed him about that as if he considered that the recitation of the surah by itself was not enough. Allah’s Messenger said, ‘By Him in Whose Hand is my life, it is equal to one-third of the Quran’” (Bukhari).
    Human beings, again and again, seek in vain to visually or existentially “represent” God. But the utter simplicity and elegance of tawheed is joined with belief in al-ghayb. This term is most often translated as “the unseen,” as in the following verses: “This is the Book about which there is no doubt, a guidance for those conscious of Allah – who believe in the unseen, establish prayer, and spend out of what We have provided for them” (Quran 2:2-3). The meaning of “al-ghayb” is comprehensive, including all those things which are beyond direct human observation or perception. This includes, writes Assad, “the existence of God and of a definite purpose underlying the universe, life after death, the real nature of time, the existence of spiritual forces and their interaction, and so forth.”Without belief in al-ghayb, one is left only with the observable, measurable world, a realm that is limited and narrow in the ultimate scheme of things.

    Ego and Illusory Superiority

    Worshipping something corporeal, material and tangible, like a rat, seems reasonable to some. But to most people it is ridiculous. Also nonsensical is the worship or veneration of ancestors,quite common throughout history. Ancestor worship is a type of shirk in which people pray to their dead ancestors for protection, good fortune, or intercession with God or “the gods.” The Shinto religion of Japan combined ancestor worship with animism (the belief everything in the universe, every created being, object, and natural phenomena possess souls) and tribalism. Shinto has been described by some commentators as a tribal religion, “a religion of Japaneseness.” Humans are ever prone to elevating their own group, seeing it as special, exceptional, chosen, and so on.
    Illusory superiority is a cognitive bias, studied in social psychology, whereby individuals overestimate their own qualities and abilities, relative to others. Cultures and nations also are prone to over-valuing their own group based on a belief of inherent superiority and virtue. This correlates to perceiving other cultures with distrust and fear. George Murdock, in his 1949 book, Social structure, defined ethnocentrism as a “tendency to exalt the in-group and to depreciate other groups.”

    Prophetic Denunciation of Tribalism

    The Prophet (pbuh) denounced strong loyalty to one’s own group to the extent that it feeds ego-driven impulses, invigorates a sense of superiority, and compromises one’s commitment to fairness and justice. He said about the prejudicial zeal and partisanship of tribalism (asabiyyah), “Behold, God has removed from you the arrogance of pagan ignorance with its boast of ancestral glories. Man is but a God-conscious believer or an unfortunate sinner. All people are children of Adam, and Adam was created out of dust” (Tirmidhi and Abu Daud). By extension, asabiyyah includes racial, nationalistic, or any other biased, sectarian, small-minded allegiance to a group. The Prophet, on another occasion, reiterated this important point: “He is not of us who proclaims the cause of tribal chauvinism (asabiyyah); and he is not of us who fights in the cause of tribal chauvinism; and he is not of us who dies in the cause of chauvinism” (Abu Daud). When he was asked to explain the meaning of “tribal chauvinism,” the Prophet answered, “It means helping your own people in an unjust cause.”

    One God lays the foundation for an understanding of one human family whose demarcations into various tribes and nations are meant, not to divide and cause dissension, but to bring about greater understanding and cooperation among human beings. The Quran eloquently states, “O people! Behold, We have created you all out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another. Verily, the noblest of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you. Behold, God is all-knowing, all-aware” (49:13). Divisions among humankind because of race, nationality, color, gender, or class are among the illusions which are mistakenly experienced as reality by the lower self, the ego. Islam propounds the unity of the human family – all races, nations, colors, genders – beings created by God who can distinguish themselves by cultivating taqwa (love and fear of God, God-consciousness, virtue), and developing their personal endowments in harmony with their surrender to God.

    False God of Desire

    Any creature, object, or concept of the created world can serve as a false god. Even money or fame can function as false gods for an individual if he or she renders dominant attention, love, dedication, service, and/or deference to that object or objective. False gods of most sorts are exposed, easily, for being part of the creation, for being, therefore, subject to discontinuation, destruction, or death.Their deification, simply, is fictitious and foolish. Rats can be stepped on and squashed, fame or fortune can disappear in an instant, and carved idols, themselves worshipped (and also symbolic of all false gods), can be smashed. The Quran describes the scene when Prophet Ibrahim, peace be upon him, topples the foolish objects of veneration of his people: “…he approached their gods stealthily and said, ‘What! You do not eat [of the offerings placed before you]? What is amiss with you that you do not speak?’ And then he fell upon them, smiting them with his right hand.Then the others came towards him hurriedly. He said, “Do you worship something that you have carved, the while it is God who has created you and all your handiwork?” (37:92-97). Allah SWT says in another verse, “Unto every people Allah has sent a prophet who called them to worship Him alone, and to forbid them to serve false gods [al-taghut]” (16:36).

    What is harder to recognize and expunge from the soul is the strong pull of one’s own desires to such extent that they outrank the importance of following religious/spiritual guidelines and wisdom. Desires often lead individuals astray, as stated by Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali: “Our base desires are numerous and human beings are seldom free of them. They all share a common root, namely love of this world. That is the origin of every fault, the basis of every shortcoming, the source of all corruption. Filled with the love of this world, a person becomes so attached to it that he fails to make provision for the Hereafter.”

    Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim said, “It is an illness of hearts and minds that we choose the present experience of worldly time which is very brief in duration, over the unseen reality which is eternal. This eternity if known only by eman, and weak eman is a shallow insight. It is through eman that our inner sight gains clarity and the sharpness of focus necessary to penetrate the veils of material deception.” Material deception includes not just the allure of money and possessions. It includes giving undue importance to earthly, personal, egotistic matters – that is, unspiritual matters. That is not to say that the earth or a person’s self-interest stands in distinct and separate place to spiritual matters. But the Islamic challenge is to imbue life on earth and personal living with spiritual and ethical substantiality. Otherwise the ego, the lower self, constructs all sorts of stories and delusions to guard its ongoing dominance and its preoccupation with the ephemeral and false.

    The inner voice of the ego, a chatter that endlessly cycles through the mind, says things like “I have to get more money. I deserve the good things in life…security, pleasure, privilege…I’ll be happy when I can buy whatever I want.” The chattering ego also trumpets it’s the importance of self, but it is the little self that is talking – “They should recognize how much I’ve done…I’m really smarter and more dynamic than them. Can’t they see that?!” The lower self also doesn’t much care if it is happiness or misery that it spouts and reinforces – “Nobody has suffered the way I have. I never get a break. Things just don’t go my way…I might as well just give up.” The tyranny of the inner chatter is referred to in the following hadeeth: “Whoever prays two rakaah and does not talk to himself about this life’s affairs, his previous sins will be forgiven” (Bukhari).

    Signs in the Creation Point to God

    Rather than worshipping any being, creature, or object of the creation, Muslims look to the created world to find and reflect upon the Signs pointing to God. They are nearly limitless and a multitude are mentioned in the Quran. In fact, the Quran points out Signs of God in the natural world, in the everyday lives of human beings, and in history:

    Signs pointing to Allah SWT in the natural world: “It is Allah Who causes the seed-grain and the date-stone to split and sprout. He causes the living to issue from the dead, and He is the one to cause the dead to issue from the living. That is Allah. Then how are you deluded away from the truth? He it is that cleaves the day-break; He makes the night for rest and tranquility, and the sun and moon for the reckoning [of time]: Such is the judgment and ordering of the Exalted in Power, the Omniscient. It is He Who makes the stars for you, that you may guide yourselves, with their help, through the dark spaces of land and sea: We detail Our signs for people who know” (6:95-97).

    Signs pointing to Allah SWT in the existence and everyday life of human beings: “And among His Signs is this – that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that you may dwell in tranquility with them, and He has put love and mercy between you: verily in that are Signs for those who reflect. And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colors: verily in that are Signs for those who know. And among His Signs is the sleep that you take by night, and by day the quest for some of His Bounty: verily in that are signs for those who hearken” (30:21-23).

    Signs pointing to Allah SWT in history: “We took the Children of Israel across the sea: Pharaoh and his hosts followed them in insolence and spite. At length, when overwhelmed with the flood, he said, ‘I believe that there is no god except Him whom the Children of Israel believe in: I am of those who submit.’ Ah now! But a little while before, you were in rebellion and spread corruption! This day shall We save you in the body, that thou may be a sign to those who come after you! But verily, many among mankind are heedless of Our Signs!” (10:90-92).The Quran exhorts people to use all their faculties, the sense of seeing and hearing, the ability to reason and deduce, and the capacity to reflect on what they observe and analyze.

    A Vast, Transcendent Realm

    The believer has conviction that there is one God – unseen and beyond human perception – Who is unlike,distinct from, and all-surpassing of the created world.One transcendent being, a singularity of greatness and perfect awareness, has created this universe of duality.In this world of opposites – hot and cold, short and long, light and darkness – human beings, with some limitations of scope, can come to know the world and recognize the Signs of the Creator:“Consider the sun and its radiant brightness, and the moon as it reflects the sun! Consider the day as it reveals the world, and the night as it veils it darkly!” (91:1-4). We are, in fact, meant to encounter, contemplate, even study the world. Only in that way can we see the structure and design in all things created – “Consider the sky and that which built it, and the earth and that which has spread it out” (91:5-6) –a design ordering and proportioning all things so that life is imbued with orderliness, vitality, and sustainability. The intrinsic and profound order and proportion are also lodged in the self: “By the soul, and the proportion and order given to it; and its enlightenment as to its wrong and its right…” (91:7-8).
    This primal human nature with order, proportion, and a fundamental moral sense, once thrown out of kilter, still remains a potential waiting to re-manifest in the human disposition and behavior. Living out of balance results is a gluttonous body, a quick-to-anger parent, a profit-obsessed business predator, and the myriad other maladies that plague the human condition. The believer is challenged to bring all aspects of self into alignment with the One who brings order and proportion into existence. He is the One who has established a world of balance and harmony, manifested through cause and effect, homeostasis, positive and negative feedback mechanisms, energy flow, birth and death, decay and re-cycling, systems of communication and learning, dysfunction/disease and healing, and so forth. He, the Creator, originates and He also restores.
    Through surrender, the believer transmutes the contradictions in his/her own soul, quiets the battling forces of desire in the mind and emotions, and brings all thoughts, feelings, attitudes, words, and behaviors into a coalescing harmony.In this endeavor lies a deep dimension of consciousness, God-consciousness, which holds the essence of who we are. With this essential orientation(fitrah – primal, pristine human nature), a fidelity of intention, meaningfulness, and devotion permeates each moment. The awareness found in being thus true to self in all interactions in the world and with other people, is a space in which all the reactive patterns of conditioned temperament collapse from their own insubstantiality. Quickness to frustration or anger, bitterness, resentment, never-ending grievance, blaming, arrogance, manipulativeness, compulsiveness, self-sabotaging, self-centeredness, unforgivingness, and so on, have no meaning of their own as they are nothing more than reflections of the ego’s self-proclaimed paramountcy.
    The awareness yielded by personal integrity(an original or reinstated wholeness and soundness of being) pivots on giving one’s fullest attention to what is at hand.What sullies the mind and emotion has been cleared away -the egoic fears that demand control and constancy, and the egoic desires that clamor for non-stop embellishment of the small-minded me. Personal integrity is an amplifying discernment. It knows that thoughts and emotions are continually moving, changing, fluctuating with the always impermanent outer circumstances;and that no matter how much the lower self possesses, it wants more and more. With heightened discernment comes the thoroughly precious realization that beyond the ever-changing conditions of material life is a vast realm that transcends the personalized story of “poor me” or “great me.”In this domain, the individual lives to refine and elevate the soul: “He succeeds who causes this [self] to grow in purity, and he fails who corrupts it!” (91:9-10).The outer world of ego-driven pursuit of(illusory) superiority and dominance – the root causes of shallow happiness for some and incalculable misery for the many – no longer prevails. The inner life holds the promise and propagative seeds of enlightenment. Turning inward to find genuine awareness and devotion, while living pragmatically in the world – this is the effect of surrender. This is the wellspring of enduring peace and joy.
    “We will show them Our Signs in the universe, and in their own selves, until it becomes manifest to them that this is the truth. Is it not sufficient in regard to your Lord that He is a Witness over all things?” (Quran 41:53).

  • The Big Questions

    The Big Questions

    At some point in our lives, everybody asks the big questions: “Who made us,” and “Why are we here?” So who did make us? Most of us have been brought up more on science than religion, and to believe in the Big Bang and evolution more than God. But which makes more sense? And is there any reason why the theories of science and creationism cannot coexist?

    Should we not show good manners and thank our Creator for His gifts now, and subsequently for the rest of our lives? Don’t we owe Him that? You answered “Yes.” You must have.

    Important Questions

    The Big Bang may explain the origin of the universe, but it doesn’t explain the origin of the primordial dust cloud. This dust cloud (which, according to the theory, drew together, compacted and then exploded) had to come from somewhere. After all, it contained enough matter to form not just our galaxy, but the billion other galaxies in the known universe. So where did that come form? Who, or what, created the primordial dust cloud? Similarly, evolution may explain the fossil record, but it falls far short of explaining the quintessential essence of human life—the soul. We all have one. We feel its presence, we speak of its existence and at times pray for its salvation. But only the religious can explain where it came from. The theory of natural selection can explain many of the material aspects of living things, but it fails to explain the human soul.

    Furthermore, anyone who studies the complexities of life and the universe cannot help but witness the signature of the Creator. Whether or not people recognize these signs is another matter—as the old saying goes, denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. (Get it? Denial, spelled “de Nile” … the river Ni … oh, never mind.) The point is that if we see a painting, we know there is a painter. If we see a sculpture, we know there’s a sculptor; a pot, a potter. So when we view creation, shouldn’t we know there’s a Creator? The concept that the universe exploded and then developed in balanced perfection through random events and natural selection is little different from the proposal that, by dropping bombs into a junkyard, sooner or later one of them will blow everything together into a perfect Mercedes.

    Chaos or Controlled Events?

    If there is one thing we know for certain, it is that without a controlling influence, all systems degenerate into chaos. The theories of the Big Bang and evolution propose the exact opposite, however—that chaos fostered perfection. Would it not be more reasonable to conclude that the Big Bang and evolution were controlled events? Controlled, that is, by the Creator?

    The Bedouin of Arabia tell the tale of a nomad finding an exquisite palace at an oasis in the middle of an otherwise barren desert. When he asks how it was built, the owner tells him it was formed by the forces of nature. The wind shaped the rocks and blew them to the edge of this oasis, and then tumbled them together into the shape of the palace. Then it blew sand and rain into the cracks to cement them together. Next, it blew strands of sheep’s wool together into rugs and tapestries, stray wood together into furniture, doors, windowsills and trim, and positioned them in the palace at just the right locations. Lightning strikes melted sand into sheets of glass and blasted them into the window-frames, and smelted black sand into steel and shaped it into the fence and gate with perfect alignment and symmetry. The process took billions of years and only happened at this one place on earth—purely through coincidence. When we finish rolling our eyes, we get the point. Obviously, the palace was built by design, not by happenstance. To what (or more to the point, to Whom), then, should we attribute the origin of items of infinitely greater complexity, such as our universe and ourselves?

    Another argument to dismiss the concept of Creationism focuses upon what people perceive to be the imperfections of creation. These are the “How can there be a God if such-and-such happened?” arguments. The issue under discussion could be anything from a natural disaster to birth defects, from genocide to grandma’s cancer. That’s not the point. The point is that denying God based upon what we perceive to be injustices of life presumes that a divine being would not have designed our lives to be anything other than perfect, and would have established justice on Earth. Hmm … is there no other option?

    We can just as easily propose that God did not design life on Earth to be paradise, but rather a test, the punishment or rewards of which are to be had in the next life, which is where God establishes His ultimate justice. In support of this concept we can well ask who suffered more injustices in their worldly lives than God’s favorites, which is to say the prophets. And who do we expect to occupy the highest stations in paradise, if not those who maintain true faith in the face of worldly adversity? So suffering in this worldly life does not necessarily translate into God’s disfavor, and a blissful worldly life does not necessarily translate into beatitude in the hereafter. I would hope that, by this line of reasoning, we can agree upon the answer to the first “big question.” Who made us? Can we agree that if we are creation, God is the Creator?

    Why Are We Here?

    If we can’t agree on this point – that God is the Creator – there probably isn’t much point in continuing. However, for those who do agree, let’s move on to “big question” number two—why are we here? What, in other words, is the purpose of life? Well, why are we here? To amass fame and fortune? To make music and babies? To be the richest man or woman in the graveyard? – for, as we are jokingly told, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” No, there must be more to life than that, so let’s think about this. To begin with, look around you. Unless you live in a cave, you are surrounded by things we humans have made with our own hands. Now, why did we make those things? The answer, of course, is that we make things to perform some specific function for us. In short, we make things to serve us. So by extension, why did God make us, if not to serve Him?

    If we acknowledge our Creator, and that He created humankind to serve Him, the next question is, “How? How do we serve Him?” No doubt, this question is best answered by the One who made us. If He created us to serve Him, then He expects us to function in a particular manner, if we are to achieve our purpose. But how can we know what that manner is? How can we know what God expects from us. Well, consider this: God gave us light, by which we can find our way. Even at night, we have the moon for light and the stars for navigation. God gave other animals guidance systems best suited for their conditions and needs. Migrating birds can navigate, even on overcast days, by how light is polarized as it passes through the clouds. Whales migrate by “reading” the Earth’s magnetic fields. Salmon return from the open ocean to spawn at the exact spot of their birth by smell, if that can be imagined. Fish sense distant movements through pressure receptors that line their bodies. Bats and blind river dolphins “see” by sonar. Certain marine organisms (the electric eel being a high-voltage example) generate and “read” electric fields, allowing them to “see” in muddy waters, or in the blackness of ocean depths. Insects communicate by pheromones. Plants sense sunlight and grow towards it (phototropism); their roots sense gravity and grow into the earth (geotropism). In short, God has gifted every element of His creation with guidance. Can we seriously believe he would not give us guidance on the one most important aspect of our existence, namely our raison d’etre—our reason for being? That he would not give us the tools by which to achieve salvation?

    And would this guidance not be . . . revelation?

    Think of it this way: Every product has specifications and rules. For more complex products, whose specifications and rules are not intuitive, we rely upon owner’s manuals. These manuals are written by the one who knows the product best, which is to say the manufacturer. A typical owner’s manual begins with warnings about improper use and the hazardous consequences thereof, moves on to a description of how to use the product properly and the benefits to be gained thereby, and provides product specifications and a troubleshooting guide whereby we can correct product malfunctions. Now, how is that different from revelation? Revelation tells us what to do, what not to do and why, tells us what God expects of us, and shows us how to correct our deficiencies. Revelation is the ultimate user’s manual, provided as guidance to the one who will use us—ourselves. In the world we know, products that meet or exceed specifications are considered successes whereas those that don’t are … hmm … let’s think about this. Any product that fails to meet factory specifications is either repaired or, if hopeless, recycled. In other words, destroyed. Ouch. Suddenly this discussion turns scary-serious. Because in this discussion, we are the product—the product of creation.

    But let’s pause for a moment and consider how we interact with the various items that fill our lives. As long as they do what we want, we’re happy with them. But when they fail us, we get rid of them. Some are returned to the store, some donated to charity, but eventually they all end up in the garbage, which gets … buried or burned. Similarly, an under-performing employee gets … fired. Now, stop for a minute and think about that word. Where did that euphemism for the punishment due to an under-performer come from? Hmm … the person who believes the lessons of this life translate into lessons about religion could have a field day with this. We should remember that both Old and New Testaments are filled with analogies, and Jesus Christ taught using parables. So perhaps we had better take this seriously. No, I stand corrected. Most definitely we should take this seriously. Nobody ever considered the difference between heavenly delights and the tortures of hellfire a laughing matter.

    The Need for Revelation

    But many people would question my assertion: Why does mankind need revelation? Isn’t it enough just to be good? Isn’t it enough for each of us to worship God in our own way? Regarding the need for revelation, I would make the following points: Life is full of injustices, but our Creator is fair and just and He establishes justice not in this life, but in the afterlife. However, justice cannot be established without four things—a court (i.e., the Day of Judgment); a judge (i.e., the Creator); witnesses (i.e., men and women, angels, elements of creation); and a book of laws upon which to judge (i.e., revelation). Now, how can our Creator establish justice if He did not hold humankind to certain laws during their lifetimes? It’s not possible. In that scenario, instead of justice, God would be dealing out injustice, for He would be punishing people for transgressions they had no way of knowing were crimes.

    Why else do we need revelation? To begin with, without guidance mankind cannot even agree on social and economic issues, politics, laws, etc. So how can we ever agree on God? Secondly, nobody writes the user manual better than the one who made the product. God is the Creator, we are creation, and nobody knows the overall scheme of creation better than the Creator. Are employees allowed to design their own job descriptions, duties and compensation packages as they see fit? Are we citizens allowed to write our own laws? No? Well then, why should we be allowed to write our own religions? If history has taught us anything, it is the tragedies that result when mankind follows its caprice. How many who have claimed the banner of free thought have designed religions that committed themselves and their followers to nightmares on Earth and damnation in the hereafter?

    So why isn’t it enough just to be good? And why isn’t it enough for each of us to worship God in our own way? To begin with, peoples’ definitions of “good” differ. For some it is high morals and clean living, for others it is madness and mayhem. Similarly, concepts of how to serve and worship our Creator differ as well. More importantly and to the point, nobody can walk into a store or a restaurant and pay with a different currency than the merchant accepts. So it is with religion. If people want God to accept their servitude and worship, they have to pay in the currency God demands. And that currency is obedience to His revelation. Imagine raising children in a home in which you have established “house rules.” Then, one day, one of your children tells you he or she has changed the rules, and is going to do things differently. How would you respond? More than likely, with the words, “You can take your new rules and go to Hell!” Well, think about it. We are God’s creation, living in His universe under His rules, and “go to Hell” is very likely what God will say to any who presume to override His laws with their own.

    Sincerity becomes an issue at this point. We should recognize that all pleasure is a gift from our Creator, and deserving of thanks. If given a gift, who uses the gift before giving thanks? And yet, many of us enjoy God’s gifts for a lifetime and never give thanks. Or give it late. The English poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, spoke of the irony of the distressed human appeal in “The Cry of the Human”:

    And lips say “God be pitiful,”
    Who ne’er said, “God be praised.”

    Should we not show good manners and thank our Creator for His gifts now, and subsequently for the rest of our lives? Don’t we owe Him that? You answered “Yes.” You must have. Nobody will have read this far without being in agreement, but here’s the problem: Many of you answered “Yes,” knowing full well that your heart and mind do not wholly agree with the religions of your exposure. You agree we were created by a Creator. You struggle to understand Him. And you yearn to serve and worship Him in the manner He prescribes. But you don’t know how, and you don’t know where to look for the answers. And that, unfortunately, is not a subject that can be answered in an article. Unfortunately, that has to be addressed in a book, or maybe even in a series of books. The good news is that I have written these books. I invite you to start with “The Eighth Scroll.” If you’ve liked what I’ve written here, you’ll love what I’ve written there.

  • Denying God, Denying Reality

    Denying God, Denying Reality

    Does God Exist?

    This is the question I’ve constantly discussed with Atheist academics. The discussion is often put forward in different guises but the premise is always the same; does God exist and what evidence is there to support this belief?
    In fact, I would argue that we don’t need any evidence for God’s existence. So the question itself needs debating. It shouldn’t actually be “does God exist?”, but rather “what reasons do we have to reject His existence?”
    Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe we have many good arguments which support a belief in God. The point I am raising here, however, is that we don’t require any evidence for His existence: God is an axiomatic belief. In other words, God’s existence is self-evidently true. Also known as a ‘basic belief’ in the language of philosophy.
    The idea of self-evident truths are accepted by all. Take science for example: science takes the world’s reality as a self-evident truth; it believes that the world is real. In other words, the physical world is separate and external from our minds and our thoughts.
    So you may be thinking, ‘I believe that the real world is real, as I can touch and feel it. I believe the world is real because other people also say that the world is as tangible to them as it is to me.’
    However, this doesn’t prove anything. Touching and feeling something doesn’t prove that what you touch and feel is external to your mind. The thinking and feeling could simply be happening by the workings of your brain. Consider this; maybe your brain is in a jar on the Moon. There is an alien who has placed probes in it, who is making you think and feel what you’re feeling right now.
    You don’t actually have substantial evidence for the reality of the world you experience. Evidence based on experience is unreliable as the experience could simply be produced in the brain. Evidence based on philosophy or complex logic is also a product of the mind. The external world may have no real existence apart from what is going on in your skull.
    On reading this you may demand proof, proof that the real world is external to the brain… but we don’t have any proof. Actually, we don’t need it. That’s why we call the belief in the real world an axiom, a self-evident truth or a basic belief. Therefore, I would argue, that rejecting God’s existence is equivalent to rejecting that the world is real because they are both self-evident truths.
    This is not a type of special pleading for God because there are a myriad of other self-evident truths and axioms that we believe in. These include:
    The existence of other minds
    The existence of objective moral values
    The existence of logical truths
    The validity of our reasoning
    The law of causality

    Self-evident truths, axioms and basic beliefs are cross cultural in that they are not culturally bound. They are also innate in that they are not acquired via any form of information transfer, and they are also foundational. What is meant by foundational is that they provide the basis for a coherent worldview. These aspects of self-evident truths will be explained further while addressing the key objections to this argument.

    Objection #1: What about the great pumpkin, or the spaghetti monster?

    There are some objections to this argument. Some atheists and sceptics will say: ‘What about the great pumpkin, or the spaghetti monster?’ They highlight that if God is a self-evident truth, if God is axiomatic, then why can’t the spaghetti monster, or the great pumpkin be self-evident truths as well?

    There are three ways of dealing with this false contention:

    A Cross Cultural Belief: The ‘spaghetti monster’ and the ‘great pumpkin’ are not natural tendencies. There is not a broad natural tendency to believe in a ‘spaghetti monster’ or ‘great pumpkin’. These are not natural tendencies, they are culturally bound. For example, if I believe in a spaghetti monster, I would have to have been brought up in a culture in which you are taught about spaghetti and monsters. However, the idea of God, the basic underlying idea of a creator, of a supernatural cause for the universe, is cross-cultural. It is not contingent on culture but transcends it, just like the belief in causality and the existence of other minds.

    An Innate Belief: Properly basic beliefs, axiomatic beliefs, and self-evident truths, do not require information transfer. For me to understand what a spaghetti monster is, I require information to be transferred to me. For example, I require knowledge of western cuisine and Italian culture. But when it comes to the idea of God’s existence as the creator of the universe, you do not require any information transfer, whether from culture, or education. This is why sociologists and anthropologists argue that even if atheist children were stranded on a desert island, they would come to believe that something created the desert island.[1]
    This is very critical to understand because we frequently hear ‘God is no different than believing in the spaghetti monster’. This is not true. If you understand self-evident truths, axiomatic and basic beliefs then you would see that they do not require information transfer. The basic concept of God does not require information transfer. The idea that monsters exist, or even that spaghetti exists, requires information transfer. Therefore the spaghetti monster is not a self-evident truth.

    A Foundational Belief: The third point is that basic and axiomatic beliefs are foundational: they provide a basis for a coherent world view. They answer questions and facilitate knowledge. For example, God’s existence, explains conscious emergence, the fact that we have consciousness within a material world.[2] It answers the questions for which we have no answer, like the question of language. Currently, evolutionary paradigms can’t explain the development of language.[3] It also explains the existence of objective moral truths and offers a foundation for explaining why things happen.
    Let’s apply this to another self-evident truth: the validity of our reasoning. Trusting our minds and the very fact that we can reason to the truth is a basic belief. If we did not hold such a belief then how could we trust our minds? How could we reason to the truth? How could we understand the universe and ourselves? These questions are indicative of the foundational nature of the validity of our reasoning.

    God’s existence provides a foundation for a coherent world view, facilitates knowledge and answers key fundamental questions. A belief in the spaghetti monster or the belief in the great pumpkin, only provides the foundation for a few laughs.

    Objection #2: Wasn’t the belief in a flat earth once self evidently true?

    Another objection is the belief that the earth was flat. This was once a self-evident truth, it was a basic belief. As science has progressed we have found that this is not the case. We now know that the world is round. I don’t want to get into a big philosophical discussion about basic beliefs or self-evident truths and if they can be changed by future scientific evidence but what I will say is this problem is not applicable to God’s existence. God, by definition, is a non-observed being and is outside of His universe. For example, if I made a chair, I obviously remain distinct and disjoined from the chair. I am outside of the chair. Likewise, the creator is distinct and external to the universe.[4] Therefore, the creator cannot be observed. We can’t observe what’s outside of our universe. So, from this perspective, the objection doesn’t apply: it is only applicable to things which can be observed.
    Science is based on a theory of knowledge called Empiricism. Empiricism stems from the idea that you can only have knowledge of something from experience based on direct or indirect observation.[5] An empirical rejection of God is impossible as it requires evidence from observation to form conclusions. To deny something that cannot be observed, by using the theory of knowledge that can only form conclusions based on observations, is absurd. The scientific world can never deny God’s existence because science can only deal with things that you can observe. This is why the philosopher of science Elliot Sober, in his essay Empiricism asserts that science is limited to questions which observation can explain,
    “At any moment scientists are limited by the observations they have at hand…the limitation is that science is forced to restrict its attention to problems that observations can solve.”[6]
    God is not observed. How can you use the observed world to deny that which cannot be observed? It’s impossible. This is why science can never directly reject God’s existence. It can only do one of two things:
    Stay silent on the matter
    Suggest some evidence that can be used to infer His existence

    A common reply to this answer includes ‘if it cannot be observed, you cannot believe it’. This is a misplaced assertion because observations do not encompass all phenomena. There are many things we believe in that we cannot observe. The Philosopher John Cottingham exposes this problem in his book Rationalism:
    “But what about ‘all water at a given atmospheric pressure boils at 100 degrees Celsius’? Since this statement has the form of an unrestricted universal generalization, it follows that no finite number of observations can conclusively establish its truth. An additional and perhaps even more worrying problem is that when we reach the higher levels of science…we tend to encounter structures and entities that are not observable in any straightforward sense. Atoms, molecules, electrons, photons and the like are highly complex theoretical constructs…here we seem to be very far removed from the world of direct ‘empirical observation’…”[7]

    Objection #3: The belief in God is not universal

    A final key objection is that since self-evident truths must be universal, the existence of millions of atheists worldwide suggests that the God’s existence is not self-evident.

    There are two reason why this objection is false:

    Self-evident truths do not have to be universal: Self-evident truths, basic beliefs or axioms can be individualized and do not have to have universal appeal. Take for example your mother; you have a basic belief that the lady that you call your mother is the one that gave birth to you. You do not have a home DNA test kit and accept the fact that she is your mother because for you it is self-evidently true. However, to someone else, the lady that you call your mother could be your aunty, step-mother or adopted guardian. Basic beliefs and self-evident truths do not have to be universal. They can be individualized.
    The belief in God is universal: In spite of the number of atheists in the world, the belief in God is universal. A universal belief does not mean every single person on the planet must believe in it. A cross cultural consensus is enough evidence to substantiate the claim that God’s existence is a universal claim. Evidently there are more theists than atheists in the world, and this has always been the case from the beginning of recorded history.

    In order for atheists and sceptics to effectively challenge this thesis, they will have to explain that God is not a self-evident truth. They will have to explain that God is not a foundational belief, is culturally bound and is only acquired via information transfer.

    Our Innate Nature (fitrah)

    This whole idea of basic beliefs, of self-evident truths concerning God’s existence, is in line with the Islamic theological tradition concerning the fitrah. The fitrah is an Arabic word that essentially means the natural state, the innate nature, or the innate disposition of the human being. This innate nature acknowledges God and wants to worship Him.[8] As the Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be peace) said in an authentic prophetic tradition, “that every child is born in a state of fitrah. Then his parents make him a Jew, a Christian or a Magian…”.[9]
    The concept of the fitrah has been a topic of scholarly discussion in the Islamic intellectual tradition. The 14th century theologian and polymath Ibn Taymiyyah explained that “affirmation of a Maker is firmly-rooted in the hearts of all men…it is from the binding necessities of their creation…”[10] The 12th century scholar Al-Raghib al-Asfahani similarly asserts that knowledge of God “is firmly-rooted in the soul”.[11]
    In spite of this, the fitrah can be ‘veiled’ or ‘spoiled’ by external influences. These influences, as indicated by the above Prophetic tradition, can include parenting, society and peer pressure. These influences can cloud the fitrah and prevent it from acknowledging the truth. In this light Ibn Taymiyyah argues that when the natural state of someone is “altered” that person may need “other evidences” for God’s existence:
    “Affirmation of a Creator and His perfection is innate and necessary with respect to one whose innate disposition remains intact, even though alongside such an affirmation it has many other evidences for it as well, and often when the innate disposition is altered…many people may be in need of such other evidences.”[12]
    These other evidences can include rational arguments. Ibn Taymiyyah asserts that the originated being “itself knows through clear reason that it has an originator”.[13] However these rational arguments must conform to Islamic theology and not adopt premises that contradict it. From this perspective, it is important to know that belief in God is not inferred from some type of inductive, deductive, philosophical or scientific evidence. Instead, this type of evidence acts as a trigger to wake up the fitrah, the innate natural disposition to believe in God. In addition to this, a key principle is that the Qur’anic arguments ‘unveil’ or ‘uncloud’ the fitrah. These Quranic arguments include encouraging reflection, pondering, and introspection:
    “Thus do We explain in detail the signs for a people who give thought.” The Qur’an 10:24
    “Indeed in that is a sign for a people who give thought.”
    The Qur’an 16:69
    “Or were they created by nothing? Or were they the creators (of themselves)? Or did they create heavens and earth? Rather, they are not certain.”
    The Qur’an 52:35-36

    Evidence Supporting the Fitrah

    Interestingly, the Islamic concept of the fitrah is supported by psychological, sociological and anthropological evidence. Below are some brief examples:

    Psychological evidence: the academic Olivera Petrovich conducted some studies concerning the psychology of the human being and God’s existence. She concludes that the belief in a non-anthropomorphic God is the natural state of a human being. Atheism is a learned psychology.[14] Theism is our natural state.
    “The possibility that some religious beliefs are universal (e.g., basic belief in a non-anthropomorphic God as creator of the natural world) seems to have a stronger empirical foundation than could be inferred from religious texts. Some of the initial findings of research into early religious understanding are consistent with other areas of developmental research which suggest that there are cognitive universals in a number of domains of human knowledge…”[15]

    Sociological evidence: Take for instance, Prof Justin Barrett. Professor Barrett’s research in his book Born believers: the science of children’s religious belief looked at the behaviour and claims of children. He concluded that the children believed in what he calls “natural religion”. This is the idea that there is a personal being that created the entire universe. That ‘being’ cannot be human – it must be divine, supernatural.
    “Scientific research on children’s developing minds and supernatural beliefs suggests that children normally and rapidly acquire minds that facilitate belief in supernatural agents. Particularly in the first year after birth, children distinguish between agents and non-agents, understanding agents as able to move themselves in purposeful ways to pursue goals. They are keen to find agency around them, even given scant evidence. Not long after their first birthday, babies appear to understand that agents, but not natural forces or ordinary objects, can create order out of disorder…This tendency to see function and purpose, plus an understanding that purpose and order come from minded beings, makes children likely to see natural phenomena as intentionally created. Who is the Creator? Children know people are not good candidates. It must have been a god…children are born believers of what I call natural religion…”[16]

    Anthropological evidence: Consider the atheism of communist Russia and communist China. They still had signs of what you would call a worship instinct, a sanctification instinct, awe of a greater being, which relates to the fitrah. For example their big statues of Stalin and Lenin were almost revered. When you look at different cultures you can see this worship instinct coming through. This instinct even manifests itself in Atheist cultures.

    In summary, to deny God is like denying the real world is actually real. We previously discussed self-evident truths and that the reality of our world is one of them, although we have no evidence for it. This is why if you deny God, Who is also a self-evident truth, you are denying reality itself. And this was confirmed via the teachings of our beloved Prophet (upon whom be peace) over 1400 years ago.

    “Can there be doubt about Allah, Creator of the heavens and earth?”
    The Qur’an 14:10

    Footnotes
    [1] BBC Radio 4 Today, 24 November 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7745000/7745514.stm. Accessed 17 December 2014.
    [2] For more on this please read “Consciousness and the New Scientist Magazine”, Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, 2014. http://www.iera.org/research/essays-articles/consciousness-and-the-new-scientist-magazine-reflections-on-false-materialist-assumptions-hamza-tzortzis. Accessed 17 December 2014.
    [3] “This highlights an important and difficult challenge facing the study of language evolution: the need for cooperation between different disciplines and between researchers working on different aspects of the problem. Without this cooperation a satisfactory account of the evolution of human language, and therefore of human language itself, is likely to be elusive.” ([Prefinal Draft] Kirby, S. (2007). The evolution of language. In Dunbar, R. and Barrett, L., editors, Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, pp. 669–681. Oxford University Press.)
    [4] “To Ibn Taymiyya, the term ‘created’ implies something distinct and disjoined from God…” (Perpetual Creativity in the Perfection of God: Ibn Taymiyya’s Hadith Commentary on God’s Creation of this World. Jon Hoover. Journal of Islamic Studies 15:3 (2004) pp. 296.)
    [5] Elliot Sober “Empiricism” in The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science. Edited by Stathis Psillos and Martin Curd. 2010, p. 129.
    [6] Ibid, pp. 137-138.
    [7] John Cottingham. Rationalism. Paladin. 1984, pp. 109 -110.
    [8] Ibn Qayyim argued that the fitrah is truly an inborn predisposition to acknowledge Allah, the Oneness of Allah and the religion of Islam (al-Asqalani, Fathul Bari, p. 198).
    [9] Sahih Muslim
    [10] Dar’ al-Ta’arud 8/482
    [11] al-Dharee’ah p. 199
    [12] Majmu’ al-Fatawa 6/73
    [13] Nubuwwat, 266
    [14] Infants ‘have natural belief in God’. The Age National (Australia) http://www.theage.com.au/national/infants-have-natural-belief-in-god-20080725-3l3b.html. Accessed 17 December 2014.
    [15] Key Psychological Issues in the Study of Religion. Olivera Petrovich. psihologija, 2007, Vol. 40 (3), str. 351-363
    [16] Justin L. Barrett. Born Believers: The Science of Children’s Religious Belief. Free Press. 2012, pp. 35 – 36.

  • Seeking God

    Seeking God

    Common sense informs us that there are inner aspects and outer aspects of created beings. And hardly do the exterior aspects of a created being display the inner charms.  Then the inner realities call out to him or her, we are only a trial so believe not. Subhan’Allah. We seek Allah SWT as al-salik – that is the person who has undertaken a way, a path, to a certain destination. And here it means a person who takes the path — I hope that is all of us — to his or her spiritual destination, with the most resolute of hearts. And to whom?  To Allah SWT. This resoluteness is“hima” which is not just the intention, it is the drive with resolve. Intention is a state previous to hima. Hima is an internal resoluteness and drive toward that which was intended. So this person, imagine, this salik, has a hima and this hima is to arrive at a spiritual destination with his or her qalb (heart) fully surrendered and devoted to Allah SWT. And on the way certain things happen—an unraveling, an unveiling, a displaying. It could be an unraveling of confusions in my thinking or a freeing from complications and difficulties that have afflicted me. It could be unveiling of deeper meanings so that my understanding of things becomes more firm and stable. It could be a displaying in my everyday life of greater devotion to Allah SWT. Indeed, there are many types of unraveling, displaying, unveiling.

    First of all as we alhamdulillah begin to walk the path to Allah SWT and we feel our taubah growing stronger, then we start to perform salat on time and establish zakat and perform some dhikr of Allah SWT. And so in performing the obligatory and also extra dedication in voluntary worship, and doing some good works insha’Allah of learning and sharing and teaching and helping others, then we begin to feel and experience certain beneficial effects and  we begin to like the effort and striving to please Allah SWT;  we begin to feel more peaceful and balanced. Then my hima, as it is aware of that new state that I am in, it wants to stay in a sense and stop and enjoy it. Maybe that’s it. When that happens, you could be hearing with physical ears or spiritual ears the hatif of the haqqiqah which is the voice of truth. It could be a call inside of your qalb. While what I observe or hear is part of my own mental and emotional being, it is nonetheless the haqqiqah, the underlying truth that speaks to me. The underlying truth is the essence, not the outward, superficial meaning of something. For example, the haqqiqah of the human being is not the way we look physically, the external look.

    The haqqiqah of the human being is not physical. It is deep within the inner recesses of the heart. The prophet of Allah said that everything has a haqqiqah and the haqqiqah speaks to the heart. And sometimes the heart wants to stop because the heart of the journeyer, the traveler on the path to Allah SWT, finds delight in reflecting on the inner realities or might find a need for a deserved pause. Then a call from within that speaks to him or her about the realities of things and its vastness, brings reminder that there is more to seek and to be careful not to stop striving. That call from within reminds us, “Don’t think you got itall.  Don’t think there is nothing beyond that. What you seek is still beyond.”