Suhaib Webb – Quran For All – Part Five- Finding God In Confusing Times
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The importance of affirming one's faith in God and knowing who God is is crucial in Islam. The complex process of duality and affirming duality is used to expand the definition of al alimeen, and the use of " assurance" in religion is a distraction. The speaker discusses the use of " al al alime" across the Arabic language, which is a translation of al alimeen, and the distraction of affirming one's faith in God and learning from it.
AI: Summary ©
How do we know God?
Like, that's a very important question people ask.
I remember even at the age of 14,
15, after smoking like copious amounts of marijuana,
you know, going out in the Oklahoma fields,
looking at the sky, looking at the stars,
and asking myself like, who made this?
Who created this?
Then I had a friend who was Muslim,
who unfortunately did the same thing with me
together, and it was there around 15, 16
years old that I began to ask him
questions.
You know, what do you guys believe about
this?
What do you understand about this?
And what I was trying to do is
put together a logic that would lead me
to understand how do I know God and
then how do I affirm what God is
and what God isn't.
And that's a complex process if we really
think about it.
But Islam, and specifically Surah Fatiha, teaches us
the two ways that we learn about the
Creator.
Number one is obvious, revelation.
We will talk about what revelation is in
our class on theology, theology, Islamic theology, Islamic
faith for non-Muslims, but the role of
revelation as being the sole sort of reservoir
for understanding and knowing who God is.
Doctrinally, the Quran takes on that role.
Doctrinally, the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace
be upon him, take on that role.
What are the rules of belief are coming
from Quran, are coming from the teachings of
the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and
then articulated in normative authoritative books of Islamic
theology.
That's number one.
So for example, when I defined who is
Allah, immediately the understanding of who Allah is
allows us to infer who he isn't.
He's not a race, not a shape, not
a color, not anything physical.
He's beyond that, so there's duality to that.
The other way that we learn about who
God is, is found in the second verse
of this chapter, and it's fascinating, and it's
probably why you love to watch nature videos.
I know if I start binge watching planet
earth, I'm stuck, like I can't stop because
it's so mesmerizing.
Allah says in the Quran, all praise is
due to Allah, and very similar to what
happened in the Basmara, with the names of
God, the most gracious, the most merciful, that
colon, should happen here also, should happen here
also.
All praise is due to God, colon, cherisher,
sustainer of all creation.
So just as he reminds us of his
infinite mercy and blessings, he also reminds us
in a very clear authoritative way, that he
is the sole creator, who is Allah, the
creator of all things, the sustainer of all
things, the caretaker of all things.
So if you pay attention to what I'm
saying, and you appreciate the colons, with the
names of God, colon, all praise be to
God, colon, why to emphatically remind us of
mercy, and to emphatically remind us that he's
the sole creator, now we're learning doctrine, right?
Now we're learning theology.
But the second component is that you and
I have to appreciate the world around us,
and that we can infer signs of God's
existence through the world.
And here again you see the theme, using
your agency, using your independence, thinking, examining, being
engaged, again sort of pushing back against the
idea that religion is meant to make you
dumb, shut down your mind.
Here we see Islam constantly challenging you and
I to wrestle into this relationship by thinking.
And that's through one word, and the word
is al-alameen.
I know it's hard to say ah, I
know for years, or at least for months
after I became Muslim, I was like al
-alameen, al-alameen, you know, alhamdulillah rabbil alameen.
It's down here, it's tough, it's a tough
one to get to, but it's ah, I
like to tell people, imagine like you're terrified,
you say ah, that's probably the best way
to say it.
But the word al-alameen is translated as
the worlds.
But it's much deeper, and when we explore
the contours of the Arabic language, we find
certain mental edges that allow us to hold
on to the cliff of life, and push
beyond and achieve the summit of faith.
It's what really the Quran is doing here,
it's expanding the contours of language to allow
you and I to animate things in a
beautiful way.
Al-alameen is from the word alam.
Alam is a flag.
We say alam al-jish, the flag of
an army, the flag of a country, alam
palestine, the flag of the country, the independent
free country, Palestine.
So what, why is that word used?
And then why is it translated as creation?
Because the word alam means alama, a sign.
It's also used for anything, we say dukhan
alamatun nar, right, the smoke is a sign
of fire.
And there's a very important rule about the
word alameen and is that it directs you
to something other than itself, and that thing
that it directs you is not in or
part of it.
This is crucial.
So the flag of the army is not
the army.
It directs you to an essence which is
not its essence.
It directs you to a being which is
not inside its being.
They're separate, they're different.
So al-alameen is everything in the world
that is a sign or an indicator of
who?
Of something which is not part of it,
which is beyond it, and that's God.
So we say alhamdulillah rabbil alameen, praise be
to Allah.
I like to say the Lord of signs,
the Lord of indicators, and everything in creation
is an indication of God.
Although it is not God, Islamically, and God
is not it.
So therefore we see the idea of what's
called tawhid, Allah's transcendence, an idea about God,
that everything around us directs us to God,
but it is not part of God, nor
is God part of it.
It's separate.
We said earlier this idea of transcendence.
More importantly what that means for us now
is that existence is a canvas to be
pondered.
That everything from our kids to our parents
to our school to our successes to our
failures, everything that happens in our life is
an opportunity to discover and uncover the mystery
of God and the power of God.
In line with the doctrinal ideas for us
that we find with God being separate from
creation, creation not being God, God being transcendent,
not being a color, not being a race,
not being an ethnicity, all that's found in
that one verse.
Alhamdulillah, praise be to God, colon, creator of
the signs.
What are the signs for?
The indicators.
What are the indicators for?
For me to think and learn and see
and understand, and that's why over and over
and over in the Qur'an, the intellect
is challenged to see beyond the shallowness of
life today and think deeper into the creation
around us.
We'll continue to talk about other aspects of
Surah Al-Fatiha in the future.
As-salamu alaykum.