Suhaib Webb – The Masses Creed 12 God in Islam

So last time we were talking about conclusions,

right? And we said that the conclusions whether

right? The obligation for that thing to exist

or the inconceivable inconceivable

that the thing could exist or

maybe, maybe not. Both all three of those

fall under 2 types. Right? Which

means

that means that it's self evident or

that it needs evidence, it needs.

Now what do you think the majority of

the scholars of said

God falls under, right? Is it? Is it,

you know,

an obligation intellectually to affirm that?

Is it

a inconceivable

reality

or is it possible? So the majority of

our scholars said that Allah's

existence is

But what kind of do you think it

is Self evident

or needing?

If you say that it's self evident, then

I would respond and say, then why did

Allah send books and prophets?

Why would he call them proofs? What are

they proving?

They're proving his existence.

So for that reason,

the majority of our scholars

were brave enough to admit that God's existence

is not

self evident. And again, this runs counter to

the idea

of

Islamophobes,

secularists,

people who have serious issues with God. Right?

And the idea that Islam is anti intellectual

because our scholars believe that God's

the obligation

to affirm God intellectually

rests on proofs and responses,

what are called barahin and hujj.

So that right there goes back to the

notion of why the aqal,

why the intellect,

the use of the intellect

is the first obligation.

But just look how amazing our scholars were,

man, that they would take people from.

Right? From Wajib Akli, we're gonna talk about

how,

those who needed it,

They would take them from that first

and then they would arrive here

at wajib,

and this is how they married

respect for the intellect

with respect for the sacred.

So what did I just say one more

time is by by starting out with the

idea that belief in God

is an intellectual obligation that is based on

acquiring knowledge and affirming that knowledge and ultimately

digesting that knowledge.

That leads to then accepting the fact that

it's an obligation religiously.

So that's how they responded

to the

Neo Pagan, that's

how they responded to the Hellenistic and Pagan

incursions into the Muslim world

and kept it balanced. And you just really

have to be blown away by what they

did. So in order to do that, instead

of teaching theology, how many of you have

studied it where you learn all the differences

of the * and then you learn about

was this position correct or wrong, or was

this imam right or wrong?

The majority of

for over a 1000 years simply taught people

qualities.

They did not go into the specific details

of theology.

And there were reasons for doing that. Number

1 is they wanted to help people avoid

differences over theology.

You know, if we look at the Western

Muslim community

and how theology has been taught, we have

to ask ourselves, the were

divided, they learned belief, and they became brothers

and sisters.

We were brothers and sisters. We took a

course here and there, and we left enemies.

What's the outcome of them learning when

its job is to unite us with God,

right, in the sense of affirming his and

uniting us with one another as a community

and then using that to calibrate us to

be in the service

of humanity. Right? So the first was to

help people avoid the theological differences that scholars

were busy with because they knew that people

may turn these differences into means of harming

each other and fighting the ummah. Imam

said that all of my students succeeded

except those who started their studies by learning

the differences of the early scholars.

One time imam ibn Taymiyyah received a letter

from some people,

who said to him, you know,

we are actually physically fighting over what is

the meaning of God rising on his throne.

And he wrote back and didn't say anything

about the rising of the throne thing. He

said, why are you guys fighting each other?

Right? So to protect the ummah

from

differences that would lead to them fighting each

other. So now we have to ask ourselves,

people who are teaching theology

in a way that causes us to turn

against each other as a religious community.

We have to be suspect of that methodology

because the outcome of theology

should be that we love each other more,

we have more mercy towards each other, and

then we are more committed to healing our

fractured world and a a world which is

broken.

The second thing is the reason they taught

qualities about God is to create a relationship

with God that preserved 2 things. And I

want you to remember these words.

You need to remember them transcendence,

which in Arabic would be right?

That Allah is not like anything and there's

nothing like Allah.

And the trick of that is preserving that

while also preserving

his nearness,

his Korba.

So, you know, that's a daunting task, right,

to to affirm something being

unique,

being omnipotent,

you

know but at the same time having a

clear close

meaningful

relationship with that object

so scholars set out to do that Allah

says.

That's

right there's nothing like Allah but then Allah

says

I'm close to you,

right? So affirming transcendence

with closeness without sacrificing either or is a

challenge, right? Some religions give god so much

transcendence

that there's no personal relationship with him.

Others in order to make him so personal

have turned him into like a statue or

an idol, right, without affirming his transcendence.

And that's where we see the beauty of

Islamic theology.

And the third and final thing is to

teach a theology

that prepares people for public

life.

Right? The goal of theology

is to pair it, prepare us to have

a

very powerful personal relationship with Allah Subhanahu Wa

Ta'ala as the prophet

said,

should I not be thankful to Allah praying

in the night?

But at the same time it prepares us

for public life. Allah says

right?

Right sit to the people.

Right so the idea of

Right

You're sent for the benefit of the people

and that is

called

so you're sent for the benefit of people

that's the outcome of

So again, our scholars recognize that Allah Subhanahu

Wa Ta'ala is known,

right? It's an obligation to affirm it intellectually,

but based on what

proofs and responses,

Quran, sunnah, the world around us, and so

on and so forth. That's logic as well

as the sacred. So they married them both

in an age where both of those are

so divided.

What an incredible opportunity to learn this theology

and heal a fractured world. And then we

talked about why they taught these qualities that

we're gonna talk about instead of beginning into

the finite,

excuse me, the the the, you know, the

subtle,

issues of theology

for those three reasons. We'll talk more about

this inshallah in the future

Muhammad and perhaps some of our brothers and

sisters that are out there teaching will understand

the responsibility

of keeping the community together,

right, not dividing the community.