Suhaib Webb – The Masses Creed 12 God in Islam
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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.