Hamza Yusuf – Vision Of Islam CD6 #05

			And also that there is no mercy but God's mercy. There is none merciful, but the merciful. So God's
mercy overshadows all mercy in the universe. And the best way to understand any of these ideas that
when we said that there is no mercy, but God's mercy in in mathematics, if you have any number over
infinity, that number is zero. So the idea is that anything in the world that is resembles an
attribute of God in any way is in reality, null and void when it is compared to God. And so that is
the meaning of laser committee he shade. There's no thing like God. But then immediately after that,
well, who was cemetery Eileen, well, who was submitted Basia and he is the hearing and the seeing,
		

			so the verse gives you, there's no thing comparable to God. And then immediately after that, it
gives you two attributes that you can only know because you have them.
		

			But if you compare your hearing to God's hearing, it doesn't exist. If you compare your seeing to
God's seeing, it doesn't exist. And this is that whole section that they try to explain about to be
Henton Xia. If you read the reading, the idea of the transcendental nature of God, and also the
imminent nature of God, that God is utterly beyond the creation, and at the same time, God is
imminent in creation. In other words, we can see the works of God in the world. But we cannot
associate those works with God in reality, because the world does not have that type of substantial
existence in relation to God's existence. So the being of God and Sheikh Mohammed talked about this
		

			last night, the being of our being in relation to the being of Gods being is that we are non
existent in relation, we exist in relation to the world in relation to God, we do not have
substantial existence. And that, again, is a difficult thing for people to grasp, because we're not
like the Hindus who say this is illusion. This is my, it has no existence whatsoever. We don't
Muslim, don't say that. Muslims say that the world has existence, but the existence is contingent.
It's not absolute. In other words, it's contingent upon God's existence, had God not existed, the
world would not exist. And as long as God sustains the world, and this is the idea of God being
		

			the Sustainer, and how you will pay you as long as God sustains the world the world exists, and the
instant that God removes his glance of being on to the world, the world no longer exists. And then
they go into the mercy and the wrath. And this is actually very important, because the Quran and the
Hadith clearly state that God's mercy outstrips God's wrath. In other words, and the reason for that
is because Mercy is an essential attribute of God. Whereas wrath is something that occurs as a
result of the actions of God's creation. It's something that that is directly related to God's
creation, whereas Rama, is God's reality. Again, to use an analogy and the prophets of Allah is him
		

			use this analogy. He said, he once saw a woman who was suckling her child. And he said to his
companions, do you think this woman would throw her child into the fire? And they all said, No,
absolutely not. And he said, God is more compassionate and merciful with his creatures than this
woman with her child that's at the essence of God's nature is the Rama or the mercy, and what can
happen with people. And the reason that it's so important to keep mercy and wrath in a balance is
that if you remove wrath, which is what modern religion has done, particularly in the West, is it
has removed the idea of God's wrath. People don't even believe in the idea of punishment in the next
		

			life anymore. Priests won't talk about it in a lot of parishes, because they'll lose their
parishioners. And I've actually been told that by a Methodist priest, he was a bishop in the
Methodist Church, and he told me that they can't even talk about things or mentioned verses anymore,
because people won't come to church anymore. And so then God becomes how we like God as opposed to
us being as God would like us to be. We make God the way we want God. We don't reform ourselves, to
make ourselves like God would like us to be. We reformed God so that he conforms to our desires and
whims. It's an amazing what's happened to religion.
		

			And then you have another problem, which is you go to the other side of the wrath. And this is the
idea of people that want to eliminate everybody that doesn't agree with their religion, because it
becomes a hateful thing, the religion, you begin to see the wrath of God and you don't see anything
else. So that's another problem too. So if you're looking, both are one eyed, both are looking with
one eye, and you are given two eyes, you have to see the wrath and the mercy. If you don't, you're
in trouble. And that's one of the things about Iblees is that a blease could only see the material
nature of Adam, he couldn't see the spiritual nature. When in the Quran, it says that God said to
		

			him, why didn't you bow down? He said, caught up the name and pain, you created manana. You created
me from fire. Well, her abdomen pain, but you created him from clay. In other words, I'm a higher
element. Why should I bow down to him? what he believes was missing was the Spirit had been blown
into Adam. But the nature of clay is that it's opaque. You can't see the spirit in the clay. If you
have a clay container, you can't see what the what's in the container, you can't tell whether it's
full or empty. It's like you have a clay jar, you can't see it. Whereas if you had a glass jar, you
could see if there was something in it or not. So when he looked at the human being, he couldn't see
		

			the spirit.
		

			Because the spirit was hidden in the material form. So this idea of Tenzin and tisby has the idea of
nearness and distance, that you have to have a transcendent understanding of God. But at the same
time, you have to have an imminent understanding because there's a personal relationship that you
have. But there's also an understanding that God is so beyond the human being. And you have to keep
that this is the most difficult balance in the Islamic understanding is to keep these two in a
balance, that on the one hand, you cannot in any way associate God with his creation. On the other
hand, God is known through his creation. So it's keeping those two in balance and it's called hope
		

			and the Raja or fear and hope, mercy and wrath, Jamal, Jalil, beauty and majesty, there are many
different ways that the scholars looked at it and that's why the attributes of God if you look at
the 99 names, you have what are called see Fatima Gemma Leah and see Fatima gel Alia little Jalali?
Well, Ekrem he's majestic. And he's also beneficence. He's also giving us and that's why we have our
little jewelry when it comes, he has those two attributes of majesty and beauty. And if you miss
one, because you've been blinded by the other, you're missing the whole picture. And it becomes
dangerous, theologically and spiritually and in a lot of other ways. On page 72,
		

			he gives a diagram of this idea of 10 z being these concentric circles, and then Tish, B being these
lines moving out from a center, and both of them are not enough, you need the two of them together,
you cannot have them separately. And that's why on that figure three, it's a figurative
representation to heed and then knowing who will bet you don't like him out, he said who obey don't
feel for be here or even fever and he he is near in his distance. And he is far in his nearness.
That's a difficult concept for people to hold, but you have to understand it in that way.
		

			And then another thing in the Quran in seven 156. The Quran says the woman has shot you know, I
punish whoever I please. But then it says what it was at Kula Shea. But my mercy has encompassed all
things. And the point that they make from that is that the Quran never suggests that God's wrath is
towards all things. It's only towards specific things, whereas that the universal is mercy that that
is permeating the universe is God's mercy. And so mercy pertains to the very nature of the real,
whereas wrath is a secondary attribute that rises up because of specific situations of certain
creatures. So it's it's
		

			so Islam begins with the perception of difference.
		

			We're different from God and far from him. God is utterly other and created things are totally
helpless because of their lack of any positive qualities. But the purpose of Islamic teaching is not
to leave people in wrath in distance from God, but rather to take them to mercy or nearness.
		

			So people are supposed to do something about their distance, and if they do, they will move towards
Nirvana. So this is drawing near lag is an
		

			area, my servant continues to draw near to me. And then what happens when he finally loves him, he
becomes the hand with which he grabs the eye with which he sees
		

			The tongue with which he speaks the ear with which he hears, in other words, its total its tissue
be. He is in a state where he's only seeing the actions of God, he is not God. But he is perceiving
the actions of God and creation in such a profound and deep way that the world becomes a theater
have to Juliet of just these divine manifestations. It's not God. But it's not other than God in
that if you want to use a an analogy, the sun radiates. Now the rays of the sun, we can see them
like if you're in a certain spot, like here, if you look with these things, you can see right over
there, you see that the sun is coming through that thing. No, I can't that is not the sun, but it
		

			radiates from the sun. And in the same way, this creation is not a law, but it is radiating. It's
emanating from Allah subhana wa Tada. It is not a law, but it is a creation of Allah and therefore
it's emanating from Allah subhana wa Adana. So it's the ability to see the source behind the light
of the world. And that's why Allah says Allah who noodles similar to what Allah is the light of the
heavens and the earth. In other words, when a widow similar to an earth, He is the illuminator of
the heavens either. So it is the light of Allah that is illuminating the world. And then you get
into this idea here, of light and darkness. And they talk about the angels, which are creatures of
		

			light. A human beings are creatures of mud, but have this light in them, which is the light of
intellect. It's the app and they're not strong, but there are traditions that talk about that God
created the intellect from light, the Apple was made from light. And so this is the light that the
human being has it despite this material nature, that there's a light that the human being has, if
you look on this section 87, which is that normally we think of light is visible, but in fact, it is
invisible, we can only see light when it is mixed with darkness, which is very important. And what
that means is the creation, in that it is other than God is darkness.
		

			But in that it is radiating attributes of God. It is light. And this is the admixture of light and
darkness in creation, which is one of the most extraordinary things about the creation is that it is
this admixture of light and darkness. At this point, I want to look at a verse. To me it's one of
the most extraordinary verses in the Quran. Because it deals with something that would never occur.
It's really hard to believe that this would just simply occur to somebody in this way. And it's a
verse from sorta for en which means the discrimination. It says Adam tourradar a bigger k for
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