Tom Facchine – Do We Know Who Allah Is

			Knowing who Allah subhanaw taala is, is absolutely essential to our ability to be a righteous person
and an obedient person of faith. So there are some characteristics that Allah has that affect
everything that he does that that influencer, we should say, you know, constitute every single thing
that he does. So Allah is merciful, okay, we know that. That means everything that he does, has
mercy in it even has punishment, yes, even his punishment has mercy in it.
		

			A lot is wise, the most wise of Hakeem. And so every single thing that Allah does, has the wisdom in
it. So by definition, the things that Allah is found to Allah tells us to do or tells us not to do,
he's not just making us jump through hoops, right? It's not just giving us random, arbitrary tasks,
and as wisdom behind it, every single thing, because Allah subhanaw taala is the the one who created
us. And so he knows best what's in our interest and what's against our interest, we have a very,
very narrow sense of what's in our best interest, we think we know. But our vision of that, or our
understanding of that is compromised, it's compromised, because we only really have experience in
		

			the dunya, we don't have experienced yet in the afterlife. And so we're prone to a bias about what's
going to bring us goodness in this dunya and not necessarily what's going to affect us in the
afterlife. Whereas Allah sees the whole thing, obviously, you know, Allah knows the whole picture.
And he knows that our lives are more about our afterlife, than they actually are about our dunya.
		

			But even beyond that, when it comes to the things within the dunya that might benefit us or not
benefit us, we have a very partial knowledge, we have a very flawed understanding. We might how many
times has it happened to you, you thought that you were going to get into something you thought it
was going to be good. And then you get into it? It's like, okay, well, this isn't what I expect
that, you know, we have a very, very short sighted vision. Whereas the law sees everything, he knows
everything. And he is truly wise. So don't think if there's a particular sort of injunction or
encouragement or a prohibition or a commandment in Islam, you know,
		

			a lot of times we can get an anthropomorphic idea of what's going on, we can imagine like, it's like
our boss at work, just telling us like jump through hoops. Did you file that report yet? Did you
make this meeting? Well, I need you to do it in you know, a green folder, this time or whatever. And
because we know we have experienced in the dunya. And people are ridiculous and make ridiculous
requests of us and it's not for our benefit or their benefit or anyone's benefit. So we make a
mistake. And we imagine that Allah is like that Allah is not like that. Allah is never going to ask
you to do something, or tell you to not do something, except that there is profound wisdom behind
		

			it. And that it is in your true long term best interest. Right? And Allah leaves it up to us to
educate ourselves about who he is. And also realize the difference between say him and our boss in
order so that we can trust him and get to the point where
		

			we're asking questions to understand and not asking questions to get out of duty, that we're going
to get to the point where we trust him enough where like, you know, okay, I don't necessarily see
the wisdom behind that at this point. But I also acknowledged that I might not be able to understand
the wisdom behind that until a later time. And so I'm going to do it anyway. And that's what I think
faith is about