Tom Facchine – Who is Allah – Understanding Allah’s Names and Attributes #16
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the best person, stating that the one who is the best. They repeatedly mention the best and the one who is the best. The best person is the one who is the best.
AI: Summary ©
It's been
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a Salatu was Salam shuffle and beato. mursaleen that we now put what's in the Muhammad Ali he absolutely Salah Mosca Tasneem Allah Houma Alim that we may in fact right now and clap Nabi Valentina was even our end man then
today in sha Allah Tala, we're moving on to a new chapter in the sheiks book she follows up with Bella.
And in this chapter he has included three names.
Li Li,
Allah and and what are
these three names what they have in common
is
the meaning of Highness or exhaustiveness. And we'll get into the meaning in just a second. Allah says in Surah Al Baqarah, who will ally you loudly.
He also says a source of Hajj will and Allah who will early you will carry.
So, as as well known, some businessman Rob Baker,
Allah
and in Salt Lake, in liberty of water here on the hill, Allah made these are all
examples of the last panel data
using
these names, and Matan
is found in sort of the rod Isley movie was shahada till cabbie rule.
So all of these meanings, they revolve around one central concept which has to do with a law's highness, his exalted Venus in absolute in both an absolute sense, okay. And in every way.
So what does that mean? One thing that that means is that
Allah subhanaw taala
is the most high.
The Most High thing means that he is, as he said, himself, Subhan Allah
established over the throne,
from the stoah, Allah Allah ash
above the seven heavens.
Now, this is something, this concept of Allah being High, Most High,
is something that has vexed and confused many people, including scholars. Throughout the centuries,
I'm going to lay out their doubts,
and their hesitation,
to affirm this particular name or attribute of Allah, the attribute that the name indicates, according to its apparent meaning. We know that when we're interpreting the Quran, or the Hadith, that the default, the default interpretation is the apparent one.
And we don't have a license to interpret the core and a law speech
in a non apparent way,
unless there is license, and that license has to have
conditions to it. conditions need to be met. If not, if there weren't rules
to the interpretation of Allah's words, a lot of speech, then the Koran would quickly mean, just simply whatever everyone, or anyone wants it it to me.
So the interpretation of the text has to have rules. Okay. Now, that doesn't mean that those rules are so restricted, that nobody can say anything about the Koran except the scholarly class. No, that's not true.
Nor are those rules, so restricted that there's only one possible meaning.
For some of or even most of
the as in the verses in the Koran. No, but nor are the interpretive rules so wide and so broad.
That simply anybody can come along and interpret them however they like.
Or such that somebody could come along and interpret the Koran in a way that contradicts other parts of the Koran, or goes against what's well known to be normative orthodox Islam.
So diving into how to interpret these names, or how to interpret them
The attributes of Allah that are generated and communicated, because of these names, takes us into all of these questions of interpretation.
And there's a lot of nitty gritty, that could be gone into, but obviously that requires some study and some time. So I'll lay out some of the
brief points, okay.
In order for an interpretation
of the four ends of the Vows,
the first rule is that, as we said, the default assumption is that the apparent meaning
is warranted is correct.
Unless there is something wrong with the apparent meaning, either a clue, either by experience or by language, or by
even by intellect, yes, it's true.
Like, for example,
Allah subhanaw taala. He says things in the Quran that indicate that everything is going to be destroyed.
Okay.
Our agenda and not going to be destroyed.
Heaven and *, which we believe exist now, are they going to be destroyed?
No, they will not be destroyed, will Allah's throne be destroyed?
Which is one of the first creations
No, it will not be destroyed, right. So there are certain things where
either through another textual evidence, or from what's understood
by the text,
we cannot take the apparent meaning of something, and we must dare resort to a secondary meaning.
But the secondary meaning also has to have rules, right? It has to be linguistically permissible.
Many words and terms have primary and secondary meanings.
Many words changed their meanings if they're put into
this prepositional phrase or that prepositional phrase.
They're paired with other words or they exist in a certain context.
And so,
the secondary meaning has to be linguistically permissible, it has to be something in usage,
and commonly understood by the autumn, especially if and this is the majority of the case when the Companions who knew classical Arabic,
they did not have questions. Like later generations had questions about these names, when they heard the name and Ami and Anna and Motown.
It was obvious to them. Right? So if it was obvious to them, if they weren't asking questions about it, if it wasn't this really, really convoluted thing to understand.
Then we need to lean on both the apparent meaning and if there is a secondary meaning, the meanings that are in common usage in classical Arabic, especially during that time period. So all of this to say that many people throughout the centuries have entertained a doubt about the meaning behind these names.
If Allah is the Most High,
meaning that he is above everything, do we violate
Allah's perfection
by implying that he can be described with a direction
of Highness above?
Does this in any way
imply inadmissible inadmissable things about Allah subhana wa Tada
Allah subhanaw taala he said,
well let me Aquila who who for one I had, there's nothing like well, Asa chemically he shaved well, who was severely Basia.
There is nothing like Allah subhanaw taala in all of creation.
So how can we come? And we say that
Allah is Most High and he's above everything.
When I can be above my chair
when this pen can be above this table,
this is a very worldly kind of example.
How do we solve this issue? I'll leave it up to you guys. Let's hear it. Let's hear it. You have in the in the
In the chat box, or if you want to unmute yourself, that's fine too. So the doubt is that by saying a law is literally or by the apparent meaning the most high
then we have described the law with a direction and a place.
And this likens a lots of the creation
and likening a lot to the creation of something he is prohibited we can't do is something that takes away the divinity of a lost power to Allah.
Okay, so if we say, for example,
in a way that B fits his majesty, so if we say that he's high, or he's above everything in a way that fits his majesty.
So is it just a magic formula that makes it okay?
Or is there something What's What's the idea that's tucked into that phrase?
In a way that B fits his majesty.
Other other responses or anyone wants to build off of that?
How do you solve the issue? Somebody says that
the books on my shelf are high.
So if Allah is High,
that means that we're comparing him to the creation of you say in a way that befits His Majesty, what's the difference?
What way of being high buffets His Majesty.
Someone because ask.
Or somebody might argue being high does not really fit his Majesty in the first place. If it did, you would not have to say that. Oh.
It is not limited or tangible. not restricting a lot. Okay.
The shape family says it is not restricting a loss to say as I Why isn't it restricting a lot?
doesn't limit him to have direction? If I didn't limit a lot to a direction of above.
Then wouldn't he be in more directions perhaps maybe in every place? So isn't that limiting?
Shadow family's thinking high in status we're gonna get there. That's one of the meanings that's undisputable. So had a family.
He is everywhere with his knowledge. Okay. Again, that meaning is undisputable.
Isn't a figurative abstract sense like high above is at his glory. Again, that meaning is indisputable. Nobody argued about that meaning everybody agreed? said yes. And we'll get there in a second. You know, a lot is high and status. Yes. A lot is high in the sense of His glory. Yes, he is everywhere with his knowledge, meaning his knowledge extends everywhere and encompasses everything. Everybody agreed on those meanings. However, the meaning of a law being above
the creation
the CHE family says it's not restricting Allah saying he is high.
Why not?
Not going to let you go.
Now, these are good answers, you guys have done well.
Okay, that's something to think about. He is above the heavens and earth so separate from creation. Okay, so we're seeing what you've uncovered there with your answer is that the people who assume
that
we are ascribing a place we've taken it down so this doubt it has to do with directionality and place. So you just destroyed the doubt that has to do with place, okay. Because you say basically, the implication of what you said is that place exists in the creation.
Okay. And so, we're saying that he is above the creation, but not part of it. So it addresses their concern.
Shake family says we are not limiting hi to a human sense. Okay. So we're going to the secondary meanings, honorable things like this, okay.
Okay, I'm going to give you some other food for thought and we'll try to answer it from the other texts because in either in theology, Aikido or Insuk it's never about having one piece of evidence. It's always about gathering all of the evidence and then making it fit together.
Right. So a lot of times on it, he says in solids are natural.
Yeah, California rubber
Home means out the
folk, Allah uses the word above. He says that they fear their Lord who is above them mean filthy
I shall not the Allahu anha. She said in response to the situation that began or that occasioned
sort of emoji Adela have very good. Very good yes, yeah, you anticipate one that I was gonna say Mashallah.
So the story of sort of sort of medalla you have a woman that's coming to the Prophet salallahu alayhi salam complaining about her situation.
And I said, is in the next room over and she's straining to listen,
and she doesn't hear everything. And so that last panel is either reveals
sentence down, as the case may be
the revelation of the sort of sorts of magenta
and I says, I was in the next room and I caught bits and I didn't catch bits and Allah subhanho wa Taala is above the seven heavens and yet he heard everything
right, so we see the understanding about Isha how she understood that folk, that above description of the throne, Allah's throne is a pie very good, right. So we're coming up with we have we're building the case, right? The Bedouin, who asked where as a law, he pointed upwards, great. It was actually uh oh, yes, the one that pointed up was a man. And then there was a female slave of more IWEA not the more IWEA that you're thinking of a different one. Who was asked where is Allah the Prophet suddenly said I'm actually asked her where is Allah? And she said the summit fee a secondary meaning a fee means to be above something.
Like we'd haven't sold a mess at Fiji the hat on or above her neck. It's not literally in her neck. Have an omen massive
we have every single Yes, exactly. The throne is above her dose we have every single Hadith and ayah that talks about things ascending to a lot like the angels like you said and so that's essentially a thumbs up and sort of Selma adage and manages about a cent to Allah
TAO to do Tarot dual Mullah eager to borrow her la
we have a sense of the word so rule saw I in dal which implies climbing and sort of out in LA he Yes, I do. Yes. I don't carry more pipe. While Anna no sorry. Hi, Jana Farrell. Right. All of these things. Good speech. Prayers raise up to him. The ascension in the Islamic Raj. Right the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam ascended with Gibreel. I mean, he set out through the seven heavens to
see that I'll tell Monza the furthest extent of creation to be given the salah that he's described as coming back down talking to Musa going back up and down and up and down. Right. So we see now if we start to gather all of the evidence, okay, we're building quite a case for the apparent meaning of being most high. Okay.
Every single time that Allah says, describes the Koran as Tenzin, so as Zelina or and Zelina sent down the revelation,
right, all of these sorts of things, they indicate
the apparent meaning of above. And more importantly than that, it indicates that none of the companions
found it problematic.
Right, because what's the tell tale with the calling card of anosognosia? Mara, it's poor Amundson. Everybody says that Quran and Sunnah as the Companions understood,
right?
And true. The companions have a diversity of views on a lot of issues. But on some issues, there isn't so much diversity, right. So the law being folk being above the seven heavens,
was not seen as problematic by the Companions at all, they did not understand it as contradicting laws perfection, they did not understand
these things as requiring a secondary interpretation.
In fact, we have the Companions making literal references
to the apparent meaning of being above
and we even have the Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam, asking someone where is Allah? If, according as according to some other people if giving a law of place
was a sin, or even coffer. Some people said,
then the prophets of Allah holiday was salam. Did he just commit cough? Does he? Did he just come in a major sin? By asking somebody? Where is Allah?
Of course not. So when you gather all of the relevant evidence, things become a little bit more clear, even if it seems to imply or necessitate something that is,
that doesn't sit right with us. In the face of all of this evidence, we must then question our own assumptions, rather than question the text and try to divert from the primary apparent meaning of the text to something secondary. If there had been maybe, for example, one example of this one piece of evidence
referring to above.
And if it would be much more open to interpretation, however, so many things that we have in the Quran and Sunnah indicate that the apparent meaning is true, in addition to the figurative meaning, which we'll talk about in a second, and that it's not problematic. It's not problematic at all.
And we should not find things problematic that the Prophet sallallahu Sallam and his companions
did not find problematic, and I lost pounds, Allah knows best. So all of that has to do with Oh, and finally, so to also, if, if someone were to say, like we mentioned, well, how can I love the above? When there are physical objects in our creation that are above
or up? Then we go back to what? My Sheikh Medina, Sheikh Abdullah, a chef at always used to say,
does a lot exist? Yes, a lot exists. Do you exist? Yes, you exist. Is your existence like Allah's existence? No, not at all. And this gets back to the phrase that was mentioned.
We're in a, in a way that befits His Majesty. Right. Allah's existence is perfect. And suits him and his majesty and perfection and everything else, as far as our existences. miskeen, it's very, very limited. It's weak, it's dependent. It's not absolute, and so on and so forth. Yes, exactly. You're basically you're eliminating what's called TestDb. You're negating any sort of likeness between the two, even if they share in the name, or the category of equality. There's no comparison to be made. And the secret of this move is actually in an IRA. One of the ones that we mentioned earlier this class, Lisa committed to he shade, there is nothing like him. Well, who was Semyon Busey? Allah says
there is nothing like him. And he is the All Hearing all see.
So that's the two sided coin that Allah gives us to weigh everything with? Yes, there's nothing like him. Yes, he sees and he hears
somebody who took the first part of that and left the second part, they would say, Well, how can Allah see in here I see in here, and I'm part of the creation.
Right? Last season, here's
and there's nothing.
So all of the other secondary meanings, right? Because we don't have we said that there could be the rules of interpretation of the Revelation, the Quran and the Sunnah. Right? It's not so narrow that only one meaning is ever true. Right? So the apparent meaning of these is of in the Koran and these names we've just established is true.
The secondary meanings are also true, right? Which all of you, you know, chimed in and did very well. So Allah is Exalted in the figurative sense. And the secondary sense of being most high in his abilities. And his attributes, those attributes and abilities are the fullest expression of those characteristics. Right? And this is what eliminates the tests V. as was just mentioned, so, yes, I see, yes, Allah sees, but there is no comparison between those two types of seeing, they're completely different. A lot of seeing is the fullest expression of that ability. And characteristic, his vision is perfect. It's not secondary or dependent upon physical materialistic causes. Right?
It's not limited by a line of sight,
such as ours is all these these sorts of things that make our sense of sight
light's very limited and quaint. Those restrictions do not apply to Allah Spano Tala, all of his characteristics, whether it's Rama, mercy, whether it's that he's a dude, and mawatha His love, right? His his looks, his gentleness and his subtlety, who will a thief, all of them are to the furthest the utmost extent of perfection, the pinnacle
of those characteristics.
Not only does no one come close to approaching his attributes, the creation can't even fathom the degree of perfection that his attributes represent.
Another meaning that we get from these names is the Exalted meaning the dominance over everything, everything is creation, other than Allah. And so everything is dependent upon Allah, both for maintenance, sustenance, creation, in the ends in the first place, and then everything will be returned to Allah will come back to Allah, on the Day of Judgment, for salvation.
Nothing even moves without his permission, and he is aware of all
one of the things that this constellation of names
suggests, when we reflect on it is the order
that exists in the universe. Right? Often in these classes. And in the Sunday class, I've compared the Islamic cosmology
in Islam, Islamic sense of the universe, how it's structured, how it's put together, how the pieces interact with each other, we've kind of thrown that into comparison or relief with maybe the more dominant secular model of chance,
random causality, right? The material world as operating like a machine in a mechanistic way. Okay. We said, and this is a plug for the Sunday class because a lot of people have given feedback that they enjoy mashallah, that
the first step for a believer is to believe in beautiful things and be believing in beautiful things yields beautiful action.
Whereas believing an ugly things, yields ugly action.
So you take a worldview in which you believe in randomness, and chance, and competition and scarcity.
Right, we're all just basically monkeys that had a genetic mutation at some point, and then became the way that we are now a little bit smarter, a little less hairier. Right. And then once we die, we're worm food. That's that's an ugly belief. And indeed, it leads to ugly actions. Compare that to the sense of cosmology that Allah subhanaw taala is at it. And Allah alludes to add the Supreme, the Exalted, reigning over all of creation, everything else, but him
is his doing and his dominion. Think about the degree to which a lot of control is in control over all of that. And then think about how dependent we are on him. subhanaw taala yet how much we can trust that he has ordered everything in a sensical. And due to what we know about him merciful way.
Right. All of the sudden, the things that the atheist might see as signs of scarcity and randomness, and the brutishness of life, become almost somewhat miraculous, they become part of the whole order. It's a balancing act. Right? It's not so much that all of the animals are locked in this eternal struggle over finite amount of resources. And they're killing each other, just to survive.
As it is that Allah has balanced every creature among the other creatures in an ecosystem that
everything
is given and do proportion.
And you even find cooperation.
And you find symbiotic relationships, relationships that are mutually beneficial.
And when there are instances of one
dominating over the other and taking its life and eating that's part of the sustenance that Allah has, has, has given and Allah has given
All in bounty, we said I think in, in an earlier class, talking about Allah, that is
how much bounty is in laws created world. It's not like
in nature, we're not talking about human made scarcity. It's not like we see animals just dropping dead, because they don't have enough to eat. Because there aren't enough resources to go around. No. The only time we see that is when humans have taken away their habitat, or humans have hunted their food or gotten rid of their food source.
A more clear example would be things like planted crops, we talked about corn, right? A single kernel of corn
can bring about an entire new corn plant.
Every corn plant has three, maybe two or three ears of corn. Every year has hundreds of other kernels. Right? So the materialist mind, looks at the crows, looks at the squirrels looks at the farmer and sees Oh, all of these guys are locked in a
a battle, an existential struggle for survival and scarcity. Right, the corn is scarce, and they have to compete against each other and struggle against each other out, outsmart the other in order to just barely survive somehow to live to see tomorrow.
Right? Whereas you see what Allah has done, Allah has put enough corn for all of his creatures last put enough corn for the birds and he's putting enough corn for the squirrels and he's putting enough corn for the farmer both to eat and both for seed everything.
You look at an oak tree, a single oak tree, how many acorns does it produce?
Some of that's food for the squirrels and chipmunks some of that is going to be for the next crop of oak trees.
Mashallah.
Yes, so we have a comment when wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park, the rivers became healthier, and even populations of smaller animals and their prey increased right? Mashallah. That's a very clear example, how everything's part of this beautiful creation imbalance that Allah created. And there's mercy and there's bounty in the balance.
Right? But how we look at that?
How we our worldview, our cosmology, our sense of what is going on in the world, how is the world structured,
the Islamic cosmology is a beautiful one.
It's a beautiful thing to believe in, and it produces beautiful action.
So when you think about a law being, above all of this, both in the apparent sense of the word, we don't mean literal, per se, but let's say apparent meaning of the word. And in the secondary meanings as well, the most exalted the having dominion over all of this, you realize the extent to which a law is in control of everything? Does it make sense then that we despair?
Does it make sense then that we worry about the things that we've already tried our best at?
We've put forth our effort. We've probably worried a little too much about how it's going to turn out.
And then we fret and we fret.
And we worry and we worry, and we're even irritable to the people around us, maybe because we're spending a lot of our time worrying.
And the law is above it all. Controlling everything, orchestrating everything every single second.
Does that reality of a law warrants our worry? Does it warrant our
our fretting
our DIS ease literally?
No, of course, not.
Just like we despair when the things that we don't want come our way.
Because we, we have once everybody has once, whether it's a spouse, whether it's children, whether it's a job, whether it's
particular, whether it's health, whether it's longevity,
or something for someone you love.
And then well, a lot brings out something that isn't what you want.
Or even worse, the opposite of what you want. We despair.
We feel sorry for ourselves. We move around. We let it affect our
ability to be nice to other people to be charitable to other people, to put ourselves in the service of those around us.
Allah is above everything. Allah is Exalted above his creation, constantly managing it constantly orchestra
reading it, constantly conducting it.
If Allah orchestrated this thing in your life do you think it would really be that in the ultimate sense do you think that it would really
not have wisdom in it not even have mercy and love for you in it
even if the medicine is bitter
Allah does everything well
and he is above everything exalted orchestrating and in control
we're close enough to the end of class and we
don't have I don't have anything else to say I should say
regarding this chapter, the next chapter it could be that Ali will save for next week inshallah. If anybody else has any comments concerns, reflections anything
Masha Allah, may Allah grant us all long enough life to realize that the longer you live, the more you realize everything is planned by Allah.
Yeah, that's my experience
my salah, which is why our elders our are one of our greatest resources. Right? You see the we were talking in the last week about the respect and the level of service that's due to our elders. Our elders are one of our most tremendous assets and regretfully,
probably number one asset that we waste
when it comes to taking advantage of all that they've learned, their experience, their outlook
it's hard to listen to other people when they don't agree with what you already think.
And so, we have a lot of cultural forces telling us that we should be listening to ourselves. But Mashallah.
Okay, thank you very much, everybody for your participation, reflections. May Allah benefit us by this insha Allah and keep us sincere. A lot of it's on an item. I said everybody from left to right