Abdur Raheem Green – Allah the Creator

There are six articles of faith,

they are very essential things which every Muslim believes in.

And I'm going to be expounding those six articles of faith.

So the first of them is belief in Allah.

The second is belief in the angels. The third is belief in the messengers. And the fourth is believing in the books. The fifth is believing in the Day of Judgment, the final day, and all the events that take place afterwards paradise Hellfire, and so on and so forth the life after death. And the final one is the Divine Decree. So let's talk about the first one believing in a law.

The first thing

means the first thing, obviously, is that one has to believe that God the Creator, a lot exists. Now, Allah is just the Arabic word for the God.

Allah is not a different God is not a new god that was invented by the prophet Mohammed, the pagan Arabs, before the time of the Prophet Muhammad had a concept of the supreme divine being, as the Quran actually says called Morocco. sama waters Saba Ramallah shall have him say akula, which means that if you say Mohammed, if you ask them, who is the Lord of the seven heavens, who is the Lord of the glorious throne, they will surely say, Allah, they will surely say God, so they recognize that there was the Supreme Being, they never had an idol, they never had an image of Allah, they never had an image of God. So the concept was there, of this being who created the heavens on Earth, who

had power and control of all things, who sent down the rain, who caused the crops to grow, and who was not like anything in this creation. This is the universal belief we find amongst human beings. In fact, you find every culture in every age, and every time has within it, some concept of a supreme deity, who is distinct and separate from the rest of the creation. So historically, believing in the existence of God, is not something that human beings have really different about. The idea that there is no God or the actual belief that God does not exist, has been there in human history. But it's always been a small minority, very few people have been able to accept such a

rather absurd concept. Because human reason, common sense, our very nature, lenses almost inevitably, by looking and contemplating and observing the world around us, the universe around us, looking at ourselves, there are so many signs and indications that there is intelligence, wisdom, power, will, behind the creation of the universe. So these signs are a kind of evidence that the creator exists where we find organization where we find things working according to laws and patterns. It's rational for us to conclude that there is an organizer that there is one who has created these laws and created these patterns. But there is no need for us to ask the question as

some people do.

Well, who created the creator because as the Quran tells us, Kuru Allahu Ahad Allahu Samad lemmya lid or lamb EULA wollombi akula, who had this small chapter of the Quran very succinctly and powerfully

explains the key concept of the oneness and the uniqueness of God. The sutra is called sort of a class and it's translated says, it says, cool, cool. Voila, who

Say He is Allah say he is God. I had the one I had in Arabic means one and alone. So the the word I had negates any possibility of, for example, a trinity, or a try Yun God, or a pantheon of gods, God is one and alone. Allahu Samad means Allah is the one upon which upon whom everything depends, whereas God Himself is self sufficient and needs nothing. Let me lead, he is not born while I'm You, Lord, nor does he give birth, so, nor was he forgotten. So God does no one gave birth to God, nor does God take participate himself. In the process of the getting meaning God does not have children, God does not have sons, God does not have daughters. God is far removed from these things, while

lamea cola who California had and there is nothing that can be likened unto him. So in reality, whatever you can imagine, in your mind, God is not like that, because the only thing you can imagine, in your mind is something based upon your experience as a human being of the world, and the universe around you. Even fantastical and imaginary creatures that we can make up in our mind, still, ultimately, are a combination of real existing things that we just put together, perhaps in strange ways, but God is not like anything we can imagine. However, having said that, God, the Creator does possess certain names, and attributes and qualities. And these names and attributes and

qualities are unique to him. Although we may, for example, see some pale reflection of those names and attributes within the creation, I will give you an example. The Quran tells us that God the Creator is the seeing, and he is the hearing. Now, we also see, and we also hear, but the seeing and the hearing of God is complete and perfect. He sees everything in every place, and in every time. And seeing all of these things simultaneously, does not confuse God in any way, shape, or form. Similarly, hearing, we can only hear a few noises at a time, we can only certainly listen and concentrate to one person talking to us at a time. Whereas God can hear every if every single human

being and every creature called upon God supplicated to God and ask God for something, God could hear all of those applications. And all of those supplications would not confuse him in the least not only that, you could answer all of them, and that would be easy for God. So God is the possessor of unique special attributes. The greatest sin and the greatest crime that a human being can commit, as far as God is concerned, in the eyes of God in the sight of God

is that we should ascribe partners to him, that we should make something in this limited finite universe, equal

to God.

And it doesn't mean that we need to say that this creature is actually God, no, it is sufficient for us to ascribe to a created being any single quality that is unique to God. So for example, if we were to say, and we were to imagine that some human being could respond to our supplications, and our prayers, then

we would be ascribing to that human being a type of power and ability that only belongs to God. I mentioned already, for example, you see some people, they call upon saints, they call upon prophets, they supplicate to them, they call them, they make prayers to them. But if you think about it, if we have 1000, human beings, all praying to Jesus, or Mohammed, or saint Antony, or any other human being or creature, or Buddha, or whoever it may be, if we had 1000 of them calling to this person all at the same time, how would this human being be able to hear all of these discordant voices all at the same time and be able to make sense of them?

That is not a capability that a human being has. And if you start saying that, no, the human being has this person, whether it's Jesus or a prophet, or a saint or a holy pet, whoever it may be, if you're saying that they have

disability, and what are you doing, you are now beginning to claim that they have the powers, and they have the knowledge, and they have the ability that only belongs to God. And this is the greatest lie, the greatest lie against God, and the greatest distortion in respect to the reality of the limitations of his creation. So, knowing and understanding what and who is the creator? What are the qualities and the attributes of God? And what are the limitations of the creation, and being able to understand how you must separate God from the creation. This is in reality, the very purpose of our existence. And this is the most important thing that God will judge us by before anything

else on the Day of Judgment. There is a saying that the Prophet Mohammed mentioned that on the Day of Judgment, a man will stand in front of God, He will stand in front of Allah, and Allah will say to him, if you have the world and everything in it, would you rent submit now to save yourself from the Hellfire? And this man will say, Yes, my lord, Yes, my lord. And Allah will say to him, I asked of you less than that, I only asked to you that you should worship Me, and not associate anything as an equal with me. So this is what Allah is asking us for, that we should understand and comprehend, and establish in our actions and our lives, the reality of his oneness, and that we should eliminate

the worship of everyone and everything other than him. Now, part of the consequence of knowing that God is the possessor of these unique names, unique attributes, unique qualities, is that we worship Him, that we praise Him, that we direct certain acts of worship that are exclusive to God, they should only be done for the sake of God, and only be done to God acts of worship, they must only be done for the sake of God. And this is where most human beings have gone wrong. Not that people believe or don't believe in the existence of a creator, provide a load sustainer most people have accepted that where they have gone wrong, is that they have either attributed to some created thing,

the powers and the knowledge of God, or they have given acts of worship that should only be for God, to some creative thing along with God. One of these very important things, for example, that Islam teaches us is that God is the one who defines for us what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is evil, what we should do what we shouldn't do in terms of our life, the laws that we should live by personally and collectively. So the case is, obviously in many situations that human beings have legislated in opposition to God's legislation. They have made rules through which and by which they run their own personal lives and their collective lives. But these rules are not in accordance

with what God has revealed. Many times they may even contradict it. So if a person thinks that they have the ability or the right, to make this legislation in opposition to God's legislation, then this is also a form of polytheism. This is a form of making something and equal with God. And finally, very importantly, there is another aspect of singling out Allah for worship that is not as serious as the ones we have previously mentioned. In that the ones we have previously mentioned, if a person does them, Allah has threatened them with eternal hellfire. In fact, he has said in the Quran that he will forgive any sin, but he will not forgive. If a person dies, not repenting, from

making partners with him, he will not forgive that person. And they will dwell in the Hellfire forever. So it's very serious. But there is another type of association realism or making something apart with God, which is in your intentions. Now, we believe that when we do any action, we should try to do it sincerely to please God, not for some worldly benefit, not for some limited gain, but naturally human beings. This is something that we struggle with. And having a pure intention is actually very, very difficult. And a Muslim is always striving to make to try to make their intention, the reason that they do things purely and completely and sincerely for God. However, if a

person falls short in that

Then the person is not threatened with eternal Hellfire it is considered to be a serious transgression in respect to the rights that God with the rights that we should give to God. But it is not on the same level as the other the things we have mentioned previously. So this is what is called minor Shotokan, Major sherco, but minor Association lism and the major Association ism. So, to summarize our belief in God, it is very simply to single out God alone for our worship, and to attribute to him only his perfect names and attributes and not to associate anything as a partner with him.