Tom Facchine – Who Is Allah – Understanding Allah’s Names and Attributes #10
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The importance of faith and acceptance of one's own is discussed in Islam, where personal and operational limits are emphasized. The law is a consequence of one's identity and ability to achieve goals, and individuals are encouraged to set boundaries and limit their behavior. The law is a consequence of one's unique nature and the potential for mistakes, as it can lead to mocked or negative consequences. The need for validation from others is also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim and Hungary lightyear Abdulla Alameen
wa salatu salam, Ashraf and Ambia elopement. Celine
nabina. Muhammad was in a Muhammad Ali he offered a Salah Huska Tasneem.
All of my alumni away and found our fountain that'd be a Londoner, was it an arraignment? Yeah, that I mean.
Moving right along in our book understanding a laws names and attributes.
Last class we talked about a result, Razzak, the provider.
We talked about the different types of provision of a law
the ones that are general to the entire creation,
which Allah does not discriminate. He doesn't withhold from anybody, categorically.
Both sinner and Saint he gives two children wealth, livelihood, sustenance
and then the specific type of provision
that Allah
withholds or keeps separate for the believers. This is the provision of guidance and faith. And the tranquillity which
proceeds from faith which is what we call Salam. When we say Sudan, Polycom to each other. It's true that in a bare bones linguistic translation, it means peace, but it's not just any type of peace. Like the one of the first things we say after we finish the salah after us stuff our stuff. Allahumma enter Sudan, while main cast Allah,
Oh, Allah, you are the peace. You are a Salah warming consider, and all peace As Salam is from you.
So when we say Salam Alikum to other people, we're not just wishing them
a type of peace that is commonplace.
Such as free from harm.
Security, that's there too.
But more significantly, what we're asking a lot to grant people because it is a prayer
is the type of tranquillity
and inner peace that precedes from faith in Allah and harmony
with your purpose that Allah created you for.
And that is something that is only attainable by the believer. And it's not something that's attainable just through sort of exterior means, right?
It's like, taking you out of a dangerous neighborhood and putting you into a safe one. That's an easy fix. Installing a security system on the door, that's an easy fix.
Both, you know, bolting the doors and the windows, buying locks.
These sorts of things are very easy to do. That's the worldly security. That's the worldly safety.
However, the tranquility of Saddam, and it's not even our name tonight, but we'll get into it again. Once it's once we get to that name of Allah.
The tranquility of the salon that we're asking for is something that can't be bought something that can't just be so easily
obtained through applying or purchasing or installing the right technology.
I do X and I will get why doesn't work so easily.
To have faith and to struggle with faith
and to walk the journey of faith.
Trusting that one day, hopefully in this life, if not in the next Allah is going to give us the tranquility which proceeds from that faith. Some of us taste it in this life.
And those who have tasted it generally reflect that they taste it in relationship to the amount that they sacrifice for their faith.
Right because it's easy to kind of
wear our faith proudly, when it is smiled upon. But it's difficult
to wear our faith proudly when it's going to be frowned upon
when it might limit our prospects for our success, or what other people think of us.
That's not to say that we're going around picking fights, right? We're not trying to be contrarians.
But
That's
our sense of validation of indication is not external to us in the sense that it's not in other people around us. We're not looking for their approval. If they give us their approval, hamdulillah great. We're not out to we're not out to stick it to them.
To scorn them. We don't take their sign of approval of us as a
as an insult. No, but we also don't obsess or grasp their approval to the point where we're going to change what it is we believe in and what it is we do
in order to get it
that wouldn't be in harmony with the tranquility that Allah is talking about. The type of person who's dependent on other people for validation has no tranquillity.
They're always concerned about what other people think of them.
Oh, I wish I had said it this way. Oh, I hope I didn't offend them. Oh, man, I really put my foot in my mouth or I really did the wrong thing here. That's not tranquillity, let's not set up.
The salon that we hope to get
as the salon from the proceeds from faith, and faith often takes sacrifice, Allah says a couple of different times in the Quran, the beginning of sorts of anchor goods, the 29th chapter of the Quran, do the people of faith think that they will be left alone to say I believe and not be tried or tested?
Every single one of us has tests we know it. But those tests once we get through them, that's how we get in sha Allah. The tranquility of faith a set up and that's what we hope for other people when we say sit on my
butt that was the complete unrelated aside.
First thing for the night is and I had actually as a group of names. I had a lower head.
Does anybody know? Okay, I'm assuming you've heard of these names before last night? I had. What's the difference between the two?
I'll give you a hint. They both have to do with the number one.
But what's the difference between a wide and an ahead?
Think
Hola Hola. Hola who I had?
It's probably one of the most used sorters that you recite.
I had means no one. Very good. That's true.
What does I had me.
The other one.
I have means that unique Allah. Yeah. So that. Very good. That's right. I know I had means the one.
It's possible. It's possible that there could be other ones. Right? Hello. Hola. Hola, the FAO, Canada is the one that did that. It's possible to say that just like earlier names that we talked about a conic. We could say Kalia, and massage. Oh, we could say the one who created this thing.
Or Razzak or rob of this thing? Or that other thing? And how if it's qualified it could it could be applied to other people.
Right? So that's kind of like the one.
However I had,
I had something that means more than just being one. It means being utterly unique.
I had
and so I had is only appropriate in this form I had
for Allah because he's the only one that's completely unique.
There's a degree to which people are all unique, right? Let's say you know, well, even on a DNA level, right? If somebody has twins, technically, they're not so unique. But everybody has a fingerprint and iris scan and these sorts of things.
But that's not the type of uniqueness that we're talking about the type of uniqueness
that we're talking about with a last name that I had
is both in details but also a categorical uniqueness.
It's a human
weakness that runs through everything
that has to do with who Allah is, and what Allah does.
We can start by saying that Allah is unique as an entity.
And he is one. There's not multiple, there is no Trinity. In Islam, we don't believe that
what is truly divine is divided over separate entities or entities that are somehow separate and somehow the same.
No, he has one.
And that one is unique.
He is both the Most Merciful and Shahidullah cop, he's also
strict in punishment, or severe and punishment.
We don't believe in a God of mercy and a God of punishment.
So he has a hat and white hat in his entity, it's all one entity, it's all one being.
That is Allah.
And Allah is unique in his characteristics,
both in
the fact that he is able to do
or able to have those characteristics in the first place.
Such as to forgive people.
We say I forgive you, right, somebody wrongs us. But what we what we really mean specifically is that I'm not going to like hold a grudge against you, I'm not going to consciously treat you any differently going forward, for what you did.
But we don't have the power to forgive people in a spiritual sense, right, I always come back to this conception of our spiritual world is part of the created world. And just like, you know, we have the law of gravity, in our physical world, we have spiritual laws as well, you do certain things,
and your soul actually becomes purified and becomes better, you do other things.
And the opposite happens,
it becomes
less clean, less pure, becomes covered over, these are just as equals MC square, these are givens of the created world.
So when it comes to forgiveness,
the ability to forgive in the ultimate sense like we're talking about, wipe that stain away from your heart and your soul.
And to ensure that it's not going to result in a consequence after you die. That type of forgiveness is something only a lot can do.
Nothing else can achieve that.
So this is where Allah's unique power, the ability to create, again, we talked about this under the names of Hadik and Haluk.
To create in the primary sense where he brings about something that didn't exist before. That's something no one can do except the luck.
So all these sorts of things are unique to Allah, his actions and his qualities, but also in the degree, right, we can talk about maybe there's some sorts of qualities that
seem to have a commonality
with qualities in our creations such as knowledge, we have knowledge.
other beings have knowledge, varying degrees of knowledge,
or laws, knowledge is unlike our knowledge
in that it is completely unique, unique and what unique in its perfection.
It has no holes, it has no deficiencies, it has no weakness. It has no conflict of interest.
It has no
fault.
Allah sees a law here's a law is informed.
All things that
have a commonality with activities that we do, but the way and the how and the how much of how Allah does these things is completely unique
because of this uniqueness
Allah is unique
In his right or his deservingness, to be worshipped.
This is the entire linchpin of Islam. This is the one thing we hang our hat on, different from every other faith tradition, religious community, whatever you want to call it in the world,
that Allah is uniquely divine, and so he has unique right to be worshipped,
that nothing else can claim the right to be worshipped.
Because it is not unique,
it does not have this unique divinity
or better yet it does not have this uniqueness of qualities and characteristics and activity. Therefore it is not it is not divine, therefore, it is not to be worshipped.
Because worship is reserved for that which is unique.
Another kind of implication
of this uniqueness
is that Allah is incomprehensible.
We can't truly understand all of the nitty gritty details about Allah's being
or Allah's activity.
Because he is singularly unique.
Now, this doesn't mean that Islam is kind of like an obscure us religion, like I would draw, I would put his thumb as the middle path between like,
a hyper rationalism, right, that could imagine that we can know everything about the divine. How does the law know how does the law see?
How does the law calculate? How is a law informed?
By what means if there are means and to what degree and how much all these sorts of things that would be kind of like an extreme on one side, imagining that we could know all of that.
And then the other extreme is kind of like the religion of mystery, which is what many Christian traditions boil down to.
Where you can't even necessarily hold them to a principle
of say, okay, Allah is everlasting, how can he die on a cross? And say, Well, it's a mystery. We don't we don't know.
Well, Allah is free from need, how could he have to eat and sleep? How could he get tired on the seventh day and need to rest supposedly? Well, it's it's a mystery, we don't know. Right? You see how that's kind of the opposite extreme, where everything that seems to contradict, there seems to not be coherent, is just Well, put your hands up, and we just we don't know, we can't know. It's all a mystery. How is Allah one, but three? That's the big one. It's a mystery, we don't know. We can't know. So let's not miss in between these two extremes, right? Because Allah gives us criteria in the Quran. To define what is divine.
We talked about this in the clip a couple of weeks ago.
Allah tells us, Divinity has to speak, because it has to be able to communicate guidance. And it has to be everlasting. It can't be temporary. And it has to be all powerful, it can't be weak.
And it has to be all knowing it can't be ignorant, it has to be all informed, it can't forget,
and so on and so forth. All of these sorts of qualities which are must haves that shape what divinity is, so we take from Revelation, the criteria and then Allah tells us go out and apply it.
And you'll find that what is the fine
a law meets all these criteria and nothing else can
because everything else is part of creation, therefore it's temporary. Therefore it has needs therefore, it is limited.
So in Islam, we have this kind of revelation based rationality, principles to apply
things that are supposed to make sense.
But
Allah has informed us what we have to know for our salvation.
And he hasn't informed us of anything just for our curiosity, just for our just for trivia.
So when it comes to the finer points of how does a loss see how is the law here?
How
was ALLAH decide? Or will?
All of these sorts of things? These are things that are beyond our scope? These are things that Islam says, Wait, we can't, we can't know, not only don't we know, we can't know.
So we're between these kinds of two extremes. And if you're ever looking for an analogy, there's this interesting way with where, in our culture and society,
we forget that our mind has a material.
Foundation, our mind
is fundamentally material. Right? Kind of like we forget, when we use the internet, that it's all servers and wires somewhere in a shack or in a huge, whatever. Cloud services, right even the language that
it the IT industry uses kind of is trying to hide the fact that there's a material aspect of this of this thing.
It does exist with wires and electricity and components and plastics and things like that.
Well, our mind is kind of the same thing. We talk about the mind, the mind the mind. And we can lose, lose sight of the fact that it's actually based in a material creation.
Right? It's actually all right up here.
If we remember that it is material, fundamentally, that it's way easier to accept that it has limits.
Right? And there's two types of limits. So I give the analogy of like a weightlifter. So if you go into the gym, and let's say, I've never lifted weights a day in my life.
Okay.
I go to the benchpress. And I put on 100 pounds
on the
on the bench press, I'm probably not going to be able to do it. Maybe Maybe I will. Maybe I'm, you know, just blessed, but probably not probably not going to be able to do it.
That's my personal limit. Okay, but is everybody in the gym limited? In the same way? No, somebody in the gym can benchpress 100 pounds.
So there's limits, there's personal limits that are different from individual to individual. But then there's categorical limits.
Can anybody in the world benchpress 4000 pounds?
No, we can't. Why? Because our muscles have a material existence. And those material muscles of our have hard and fast limits, there's a certain point at which no one can go beyond
doesn't matter how much you lift, how strong you get how
many whey milk shakes, and protein shakes you drink,
you're going to have a limit someday. And everybody will. And so the mind is no different. What the mind is able to achieve is going to be different from person to person, there's going to be individual limits, somebody's going to be smarter than me, they're going to be able to understand something quicker, faster, remember it better.
And then there's going to be some people who maybe aren't as intelligent as me. And so it'll take them longer, or they won't get it or they need it really broken down and explained in a really, really nice simple way.
But then there's there are some things that are just beyond the pale. Some things that are just so far beyond the limits of what our human brains can even fathom that no one can nor will ever be able to understand.
So whenever we get into how questions with a law, these are these types of things. How does the law see how does the law here?
How does the law the side, how does the law judge?
How does the law know these are all things that are beyond our categorical and collective ability to grasp with our created intellect. And so that as part of allows uniqueness has incomprehensibility
the machine can understand its creator.
We're more than a machine Hamdulillah I don't like to use too many machine analogies with people but
we can't truly grasp our Creator either.
Allah is unique in his freedom from flaws and limitations.
Due to a consequence of all of these kinds of
qualities, attributes, characteristics that were taught
Think about
he is unique, in his free from flaw, his free from limit his free from deficiency.
Everything else in this world, everything else that exists is created and therefore limited
in its activity
we talked about this many classes ago, I don't know, I know that the shake family isn't here
tonight so I'm going to ask all of you all
does Allah have any limits?
Are there certain things that a lock can't do?
And why?
The hint is that this is the response to the age old question that atheists like to ask, which is, could a law or God create a rock that's so heavy that he can't lift it?
Does the law have any limits?
So Cyrus says no straight up.
And the other answer we have is he only cannot do or would not do things that are not befitting to him.
The next answer is no. Because he is the creator and set the boundaries and limits so he set the limits so he has no limits. Okay.
Here's the question. Can Allah forget?
Can Allah forget? No, he's all knowing.
No. Isn't that a limit?
Someone says, Do you wait a second, you told your teenage son I always give the teenage son because I was that argumentative teenage son, your teenage son comes to you? And says, you told me that Allah has no limits.
Well, Allah can't forget. So there you go. There, he's limited. He can't do whatever he wants.
What would you say?
That's because our simple minds think that that has a limit, when in fact, it's an amazing ability we can't even comprehend.
I think between your answer there and your answer before, I think we have when you said that, No, He is all knowing. So you didn't just say no. Because if you said if I said, can I forget? You say no, I'll say that's a limit.
They say No, He is all knowing.
Right?
So what we're really getting at is that Allah has an identity. Right? That identity is shaped by his characteristics.
And those characteristics have consequences as to who he is.
Allah can't forget, not because it's a limit of his ability, what he's able to do.
But because it's a consequence of who he is,
the consequence of a law being all knowing, perfect and knowledge is that he can't forget. And as was just said, That's not actually a limitation, even though that's the whole kind of HA Gotcha. Of the how the question is set up is that it's made to seem like it's a limit. It's not a limit. How has being perfect the limits.
Being perfect is not a limit. Not being able to be weak is not a limit, not being able to be overcome.
Forget forgetful, blind.
Ignorance
is not a limit. Actually. It's a consequence of perfection.
Right
So there's a difference between
who Allah is his identity and what he can do.
And if there's something that a law cannot do, like forget, it's simply a consequence of who Allah is and an aspect of his perfection.
So, remember that for your future teenage son, so.
So there are some consequences to Allah's oneness. If a law is unique, if a law is one, then it automatically eliminates certain things, it eliminates the necessity of idols, or partners. Right? We talked about how other religious traditions, they take the Divinity, the divine, and they break it up and spread it out over different entities. So you're going to be the God of creation, You're the God of forgiveness, You're the God of the rain, You're the God of the crops, you're the god of this love, romance relationships.
Know, if Allah is One, and he's unique, then it automatically disqualifies
any sort of idle, or any sort of partner.
It also disqualifies any type of intermediary, or middlemen. So well, you can only get to a lot if you go through this person. First, you have to ask the person in the grave.
And Allah will forgive you. If you ask the person in the great
how is a law, unable to forgive directly such that he would require
a son,
another god, a saint in order to forgive you.
If Allah required it, then it would be a need.
From his end that Allah is free from need.
There is no need for any intermediary because Allah is completely unique.
We also cover this it also eliminates the ability to completely grasp
and comprehend
the how of Allah's nature? How does he achieve what he does?
How does his activity happen?
We can't fully know. And this is a consequence of his being one and unique.
It also precludes or it eliminates the possibility of a law of making any sort of mistake, a law having any sort of flaw or faults or shortcoming which is what we kind of got into just a bit.
And anybody who falls into the above.
Anybody who assumes that Allah or incorrectly assumes that Allah made a mistake, or Allah is at fault, or Allah is to blame. Anybody who worships an idol or uses an intermediary or a saint or somebody a dead deceased person or something like this.
Anybody who imagines that they can know concretely, how Allah does his activity.
They have made a mistake in grasping his uniqueness. That's the root of the issue. His tell feet, his uniqueness. They have not understood his uniqueness well. And so if they don't understand the uniqueness, they're going to make one of these types of mistakes. This is actually what Allah says in the Quran. He says
that they didn't estimate Allah just estimate that you have to do Allah Hopper foundry he,
they didn't they underestimated Allah.
They thought that they knew who Allah was. But they underestimated his uniqueness. They underestimated his power and his perfection. And so because of that, look at the fruit that bore from that seed,
either straight up idolatry or something less than that.
We have a comment. I think the concept that God created us in His quote unquote, image sometimes confuses
that teenage son.
But Subhanallah you can't put the Creator into any type of comprehensible image. Yes, this is a big thing. And we have I think, two minutes here remaining. So I'll try to be brief. But when it comes to the dominant culture, we mentioned in the football last this just this weekend, about controlling what's normal, right? We're living in a culturally Christian society, even if Christianity is kind of not so popular anymore. A lot of the cultural baggage that people are operating from
A lot of the things they're reacting to when they think they're reacting to religion, capital are organized religion, the great boogeyman is really reacting to Christianity and Christian culture, not religion as a whole, not other religions, not what we would say is the true faith. And so you'll find, yes, you'll find a lot of this predominant kind of imaginary, of who Allah is, is that he's this big bearded white dude in the sky.
Pretty much right? That's gonna throw down Thunderbolts if you slip up.
So this, this conception is everywhere, it's in books, it's in movies, it's in television shows, I mean, this society does not fear,
consequences, divine consequences enough to refrain from representing representing a lot in movies and pictures and things and animations and things like that.
And so we have to be careful, we have to be very sensitive to the images and messages that are getting communicated to our children,
even in cartoons, things that are intending to joke and intended to not be taken seriously. They're often taken seriously taken seriously, or they have a residual effect.
Our children might even grow up with a Christian conception or a culturally Christian Christian conception of who Allah is just from osmosis. Just from the media that they consume, and the friends that they have and the other children that they meet with. It's possible. So you're right. So it is important to stress the difference between the conception of divinity that we have in Islam versus other faith traditions, ours, and my study is the only one that's unassailable, that has no holes in it. If you go to the other ones, then yes, it necessitates all of these just like you're kind of alluding to, it necessitates either these kinds of mental gymnastics or it leaves itself open to be
mocked because of the consequences are unsavory. We're gonna get cut off any second here. Does anybody have any final comments, questions, concerns?
I'll thank you everyone. Now if anyone's typing anything, I'll thank you now for your participation, your attention and they a lot accepted from us
and continue to educate us inshallah. And thank you and I'll see you again next