Tom Facchine – Who is Allah – Understanding Allah’s Names and Attributes #23
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The speakers explore the concept of time and how it can be measured, including physical and mental aspects of the results. They also discuss the importance of understanding the relationship between time and space, as well as the need for people to be understood and satisfied by their emotions. The Sharia weighting of " assurance" and "monarch" in relation to " assurance" and "monarch" is emphasized. The segment also touches on the loss of power and the importance of creating space within the creation process.
AI: Summary ©
This amount of money Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam, ala Ashoka, MBA Rama, Celine nabina, or put Latina Muhammad Ali
MyScript asleep Hola Hola. Hola. We may have found out that nothing that I want them to know as even and yet.
So
tonight's names after us and I'd like to welcome everybody to allows names and attributes tonight's names the shape
of the result, I feed a whole lot he puts four together in one chapter.
They are Oh, well.
I'll ask him while here, well about them.
And these names, especially the last two are somewhat esoteric. They're somewhat
subtle
to understand, compared to some of the other ones are very obvious alive Elbasy, Atewa, things like that. But okay, and even I will ask it, the first and the last. That's fairly clear.
But a VA here and Abelton which I'm going to
not translate right now, once we get to the different possible ways that we could translate that, you know, it's kind of interesting to delve into what are the possible shades of meaning, and what is
it and what is possible with that?
The literal
how we can transplant I guess the the literal translation of ball here is something that is apparent.
Okay, we say the hook is the prayer time, because we look up and the sun is the most apparent that it is throughout the entire day. Right? It's right, overhead.
It's out in the obvious.
And Belton often refers to something that's internal and inside.
So those are kind of the polls or the general ideas.
The general ideas behind these two names of Bahia Abelton now if we go to the hottie will find that the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam, we use these four names together in one single dua, which is why the sheikh I think the whole lot puts them together in one chapter and also for another meaning, I think, which I'll talk about Inshallah, so this is a authentic hadith in Sahih Muslim, where the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam.
He says after this isn't the beginning of his dua, it's a long shot. But towards the end of the DUA, he says Allah Houma, and tell Oh, well, Felisa, Cobla cache.
What ends I'll ask you later about the caching. What ends are law hero, Felisa thought Bokashi
what ends badly no laser do wanna cache
Okay,
now we see where our Arabic really really put our Arabic to the test and we're going into the end the area or the province was set up so he says, I'll translate literally
Oh Allah, you are the first
four there is no one before you are nothing says before you.
And you are the last for there is nothing after you. And you are the I'll leave it untranslated vol here
for there is nothing above you
folk folk, us
and you are about in
for there is nothing doing
doing data and doing it can both mean below
but it can also mean closer.
Okay, like when I last met with Allah he says Danya to describe the fruits in paradise. Not necessarily because yes, they're low but more because they're close.
Right? They they lean towards you.
Right and so this route, then I do
do an IQ can mean both low but it can also mean close proximity.
So we have again, a loss prasada or the prophesy something he says that Allah is the first. There's nothing before you. The last there's nothing as to the VA here. There's nothing above you
and the Belton there is nothing
Doing it below you literally or a wall? Or closer
to how to finally say so all encompassing in an internal and external way. Very good. Yeah. So, so let's talk about
what's the common thread?
I'll maybe let's see what else we have from
our participants. What's the common thread throughout these names? Why are they put together in one chapter so that she had a family has an answer, all encompassing, in an internal and external way?
Why are these four names together in one do? What did they have to do with each other?
This is not an easy question. This is not one of those positional
good, do you mean physically? Or rank? Station? Otter? What type of position?
All around physical.
Okay.
Space. Right. Time and Place? Yes, in a
time
and place.
I like it. It's very sustained.
Unique only and let us know. It's not just in one aspect, but all aspects. Very nice. Yes, that's right.
So I'm going to run with what's the service not Rob said.
Because that was what I what first jumped out to me. And the shake doesn't say this in his book. But what I infer from his chapter and what he's written, is that why these are all together is because
they, I should say, because our experience, okay, as creatures. Last creation
is fundamentally influenced by inseparable from
our experience of time, and space. Okay, they are perhaps the most fundamental aspects of what it means to be a creation are part of the creation.
Everything in our existence is marked by time.
Everything in our existence is marked by direction and motion and things like that.
And both of these arenas, okay, the arena of time.
And the arena of space, are,
they are arenas that Allah created?
Okay.
He's not confined to them.
Yet, his activity takes place in them.
Okay, so I'll go one by one. And we'll see. That's to me, that's maybe perhaps the
the common thread that unites them.
And so the results, which we'll get to this is something the first thing that should have had a family says this The feeling of being enveloped. Okay, well, I'll get there, I won't, I won't show my cards just yet.
So let's look at the first one time and oh, well, well, the first and the last.
So, obviously, this means that there was never a time in which a law didn't exist, a laws existence is eternal. There's never going to be a time where Allah won't exist. He's going to be remaining after all. In fact, even that language, which comes easily to the English tongue doesn't make sense in describing a law because Allah created time itself.
What is time,
except certain celestial bodies rotating.
And we measure those rotations and count them
in order to capture the duration
of our material existence. Right and anybody who you know an elementary school they teach you that what is it Venus spins like so fast. And so
it's the days are extremely quick and other planets such as some of the gas giants they spin extremely slow and so, you know, their days are a lot longer. So all of this our concept of time which is so fundamental, and regular
to how we experience
The world is a relative thing. And it is a creative thing. And an a state of some people conceptually is to imagine that time is this sort of eternal thing at time is this sort of almost godlike the
time is, is only possible after the creation
because it's measuring things
through the creation
and only last month out, it knows the true scope of the timeline of history, we can probably probably Yeah, that's true. That's true, of course. Right? So time is a creation of Allah. And this isn't a hadith of the prophesy centum it's a hadith could see where he informs us that Allah said
that the son of Adam or which means people, curse time.
Okay, this is something that people even in our society do, but even back then used to do as well.
Maybe they'll believe in after in an afterlife, and so they hate aging and they, you know, are really dreading dying. What they think is non existence after the body dies after the soul is removed from the body and so on and so forth. And so they actually, in their spiked and in their anger, they curse time. So Allah Allah Spano is Allah says in the Hadith quotacy Quincy he says, Don't curse time
for I m time.
Now before we take that statement, literally he explains it and says, no call label Leila when the * and under her no call label Leila wonder how I am time. How am I time because I'm the one who alternates night and day.
So Allah is reaffirming what we already established here that what is time to us even though it's so Allah has made it so regular and predictable, that it seems like this eternal essential thing. What is it really except the alternating of night and day which Allah is the One who does that.
And so when he says enter data, ion time, he's not saying that literally, he is time no time is his creation. But Allah is saying that he is responsible for
the marking of time the things that we use to mark time and the regularity is all by Allah's doing in the first place.
So time is a creation of Allah. Right?
The fact that time is a creation of Allah.
And the fact that Allah subhanaw taala is eternal and beyond time,
was the source of some doubts for certain people in the past and even today.
Some people, they were troubled
by what seemed to them a contradiction, that Allah subhanaw taala can be eternal, can be beyond the time not to be governed or limited by time and yet his actions occur in time.
Right, the last bounds adda spoke to Musa Ali, he's on the mountain at a specific time.
He made more Hamlet's and Allahu Allahu wa salam are prophets at a certain time, sensitive real at this time, and this time and right. So there's all these actions that Allah does that occur within time.
How is that possible? If Allah is eternal?
Some people they became troubled by what they thought was a contradiction here. And so they sought to reinterpret, and explain away. Allah has attributes that involve him having actions that exist in time by saying no, a lot doesn't really do that. We don't need to resort to anything like that. All we have to do is say that Allah has called it
a law is Abel a law has ability and capacity to act in time, it doesn't detract from the fact that he is not limited or confined within time. And we're going to see that there's a parallel here to what exactly is the nature of space and matter as well, which is why these names come together.
Reflecting on reflecting on the fact that time is a creation of Allah.
And that Allah subhanaw taala is beyond time itself.
That time is meaningless to Allah. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. It's all the same beginning of the universe, young Liam, it's all
already happened, in some sense to Allah. And because of his knowledge, it should give us a sense of permanence and stability.
We should realize that the most permanent and stable thing that we're aware of is Allah subhanaw taala.
That even things that Subhanallah, if you look at the
prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, one of the torture techniques that they use is to disorient us to time, artificial lighting and sleep deprivation and things like that a human being can't really exist, or survive without a regular sense of time. And as much as that aids us, and makes us feel safe and secure, Allah is even more permanent. And even more stable than time itself.
What's going to happen if the earth starts spinning faster, or slowing down, our days are gonna get longer or shorter accordingly. Right? What happens if the earth you know, takes a little bit longer to go around the sun, or yours are going to get a little bit longer. And we know that there will come a day
after as a man towards the end of time,
when something crazy is going to happen, and the sun's going to rise from the west instead of the East. And we can imagine that actually, a lot of told us in the Quran that that day is going to be the equivalent of 50,000 years or however many right it's going to be
different time is going to change. And that's part of the
shocking nature of the last hour.
But as certain and stable and predictable as time is a loss of power to Allah is even more permanent, and more stable and more secure than than that.
And so if we remember, and we call to mind
that Allah has the power to Allah controls time, and controls everything in the universe. And he's so permanent, that he's not even confined by time, and it should give us a sense of safety. And it should give us a sense of security, and it should give us a sense of confidence. Allah subhanaw taala, the creator of all of this is in charge and control. And so if we work for him, and please Him, then he's going to take care of everything, and everything is going to turn out all right.
So that's an Al Asad, the first and the last,
has to do with this sense of time, moving on to Allahu Abelton.
Now we're into a second most fundamental part of our experience of creation, which is space.
Everything we do, we can't, we literally can't imagine
an absence of space.
Everything that you do that you say that you think at all occurs in three dimensions in space.
This space is a creation of a lost pounds.
Allah does not exist within it.
He has remotes from it,
outside of it, above it, as he told us,
but
just because he's not confined to it spatially doesn't mean that his activity
doesn't happen or occur in that arena as well. Just as a loss activity occurs within time.
A loss activity occurs in space.
All these sorts of things that miracles that Allah has enabled the prophets to do, sending down the books of Revelation,
parting the Red Sea for Musa, we could go on and on all of the things that we know
have occurred within space within the creation and that doesn't necessarily mean that a loss of power to Allah is combined.
So that creation or exists within that creation. He is a father
and guardian, he's able to act on that creation and not be confined to it. This was another doubt that afflicted people.
So for example, this was the position of the deists, which is less of a thing in Islam than the the other doubt that occurred.
So, imagining that Allah cannot act upon creation without being in creation.
The deists theorized that okay, a lot just kind of created things in the beginning.
made the rules and laws and then just kind of let it play out.
Right? So it's not an active,
interactive interventionist
sort of relationship with what's going on in the creation.
And as we know, from the different
ask aspects of
those miracles that we talked about the lives of the prophets, everything that sort of has happened in the history of the creation, we know that that's not true. And Allah subhanaw taala is not just sitting back and letting everything run its course that he is active and involved in intervenes.
Yes, like praying in the middle of the night, exactly.
A lot of the sense that the lowest heaven, etc, etc.
That's we'll get into that as well. That's a whole other chapter and the zoo, and such.
But this is a preview to that thinking about space, thinking about Allah's relationship to space as spaces a creation of Allah, that's all a prelude to this sort of thing. So when we say that Allah is Allah him, there's a couple of things that are communicated by listening.
One because of the expansion of the prophesy sentiment, the dua of the prophesy, so he said,
and the VA here,
laser focus shape, he said, there's not above you anything. Okay? So this can mean in the literal sense, because the last month Allah is above the creation, focus on now as you lead out.
It can also mean that Allah Spano Tala is figuratively, figuratively above in the sense that he's exalted, that he is sublime
that he is far removed far above in the say like, oh, that's, he's above that, right? Somebody comes to you. And they say, Oh, my God, nobody should do this. But this happens when people gossip and they say, so and so did something. Can you believe it said, no, no, no, I don't believe it. He's above that sort of thing. He doesn't, he doesn't do that. He wouldn't have. Right we use the sense of above and in the sense of removed from or exalted above.
Right. And so this is also true of Alas, bounds, Allah, Allah is Exalted
above everything.
In his names and his attributes, and his knowledge,
and his sight and his awareness,
and His mercy, and his ability, above, above, above all, above everything.
He's also above any sort of imperfection, weakness, deficiency.
It also means manifest to be law here, this is goes back to the what we said in the very beginning of law, here's the apparent
right, if something is, is law, here, it's a parent and manifest. And so
this comes back to how
when we look at the creation,
and we see that everything is so organized,
yet everything is so complex. Everything follows a system is governed by laws, both from the smallest atom to the largest galaxy.
And we're left to only conclude that this is the result of a single intelligent will.
This is Allahu Allah is alive. It's obvious that Allah exists.
Yes, so let's rock man, we find a lot of these sorts of things. You're right. Exactly. If you look at all the things that Allah mentioned in songs, the rock man
about how fine tuned the universe is,
then we have nothing left to conclude, but that Allah exists and is behind it all. Allah is law here. He's He's manifest.
And this is well known anybody who, you know, they're on social media, you have the argument about the watch. You know, if you see the watch, you know that there's a watchmaker, well, we see this creation, we have to know that there's a creative. We can't we don't have any meaningful way to explain the level of organization and the level of complexity and the beauty and the the beauty that exists in the creation. We have nothing to explain that. Randomness doesn't explain that. Evolution doesn't explain that. There are things that are beautiful in this world that don't have a functional mechanical purpose.
Right there are clear
Questions that are unlike any other thing that's out there.
That's another discussion. But just to bring it back to the main point that Allah's hand, figuratively speaking is obvious. Allah's existence and his creative power is obvious. It's manifest Wahoo of law he is he is the parents the manifest.
Similarly, Abelton and we said that the prophesy Salam said that what Enzo Valbonne lays I do, what I can shake,
and how den dune means not just low, but also close. And the fruits of Paradise are described as Danny, as you know, coming close.
All of this to say that, yes, a lot is removed physically from the creation. He's above the heavens and the earth. He's not confined to spatially
within matter, within the universe, and yet, and yet
his activity, his knowledge, his mercy, his awareness, his ability is closer to you than you are yourself.
His
intimacy, we could even say intimacy,
in the literal sense of the word.
Allah is more intimately aware
of everything that goes on in the creation. He's intimately orchestrating
and controlling and wheeling and creating everything in creation.
To the point that he is the closest, most intimate thing to us that exists.
More than your sense of self more than you who you think you are, more than the stories that you tell yourself about your life. I'm the sort of person and
ongoing this and this is my story, Allah is closer to you than that, more intimate to you than that, whether whether you realize it or not.
So reflecting on
these names of volume, well about that
should give us
exactly what Mr. hodda family had said in the beginning.
When we realize that
the two fundamental things that
all of our human life is experienced through time and space.
We know that Allah subhanaw taala
is first unless
he's outside of time and yet he acts in time. He's outside of space, and yet he's acts in space.
We should have a feeling that of being like you said, enveloped, right?
Like every single thing that we do,
we have Allah right there with us. We have Allah right there beside us helping us orchestrating, suggesting maintaining, creating, providing,
securing blessing.
And knowing
knowing everything, even our deepest desires, our most
audacious hopes,
our unfulfilled sort of wants and dreams, all these sorts of things. Allah is so intimately
intimately aware of them.
And someone sent a message it's a very good question.
What about men Dorney law?
We say in the Quran, it says hello,
Ali Hutton mean Dooney law who are tougher the mean do any law he and dad
we use this expression mean Dooney Allah
doon the same phrase of the prophets I seldom used
and it's translated as besides.
And so they say I don't understand the relationship between the sides and
dune and besides and Belton.
I would say that the
original meaning of the roots
has to do with either low loneliness, or proximity.
And when we use it in a phrase mean doing
It means besides. But it also means sort of
Allah is saying that they are below him.
Right?
What else can you take in worship besides Allah, statues, people, prophets, saints, holy men, things like that? What's their? What's their status, in the creation? What's the rank,
all of them are lower.
Right? In reality. So that's actually very interesting. Because you say mean doing the law allows, it's almost like a burn, right? A loss calling them out. And all these like he does in other instances, like even these things that you are taking, besides a lot,
they are lower in status than a line loss. And thus, they don't deserve any of the sort of attention or devotion
which you devote to them.
So just a last thought, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts as well. Knowing that
I lost comments Allah is all about then
takes care of our one of our most fundamental human needs.
And that is our need to be known.
If you can imagine, for example,
everything that people can want in life, let's say you have, you know, a handsome or beautiful spouse, that you know, and wonderful home and a stable job, all these sorts of things that people want, right? Security, wealth, status, etc.
And if you don't have anyone that gets you
that understands you, that you can have a conversation with, and really just kind of be on the same wavelength with
is that type of person gotta have satisfaction?
Can such a person be satisfied?
The majority of people
will never be satisfied. Right? Being understood Subhanallah we are very complicated creatures. Can you think about what we need?
Because these things aren't contrived, right? If we were simply animals, evolved apes or things like that, like some people imagined,
then we wouldn't imagine that we would have these sorts of social needs in this particular way. Maybe needs for whatever for affection and compassion and stuff like that. But this goes beyond that. Human beings have a need to be understood.
And known, right? Sometimes we complain about something that happened to us, not because we want a solution, we just want someone to hear us out and kind of just understand what we're going through.
Right? A law being unbelted, the closest thing to us, closer to us than our spouse,
close closer to us than our best friend should give us this deep satisfaction of being known and understood not by some powerless bystander, not by someone who may or may not sympathize, but by the creator of the universe, the provider of everything, the person who can take care of all of your problems and give you all the solutions.
That's good stuff. Does anybody have any other reflections that they'd like to share?
I happen to have the appropriate volume of even statuses.
Root dictionary here, so just flipping through the data.
Okay, good. So one of the questions that came through
was really going over the effects that oh, well, has, okay.
on us and our faith, so one of the things is think about how fundamental
to our sense of security and well being.
The predictability of time is, right.
If we had unpredictable days, meaning that some days were 30 hours, some days were 15 hours, it was all over the place, we would get very disoriented. Right, and that would have effects on our diet that would have effect
Next on our health that would have effect on our, our mental state.
So, having a regular schedule is something that most people need.
And yet time itself is simply planets spinning.
Essentially
it's a creation from Allah. And so time itself can change. And in the end, it will change. And Allah subhanaw taala is the creator of time and so a lost power to Allah is more permanent than time more regular, more predictable than time.
And so whatever sense of security and predictability and tranquility that we get from a regular schedule, we should even more so
derive those feelings from knowing that allows power to oughta is the first the last the eternal outside of time. The creator of time.
Yes, so even a fantasy says in his dictionary by recruits a deadline well, when new and assume wacky dunya do new Allah.
Madonna, one more Cordoba. Right. So it says that it both
evidences or shows or connotes meanings of
lowliness and mokaba. Which is proximity. Closest
you call you had a daughter that a who are up GlobalMeet who it says it's closer to it.
Okay, yes, sir. If someone has you ever thought about I thought, I will ask her. Yeah, sure, of course. Go ahead.
And I was just thinking that Allah is a well after that means that he always existed, as far as we could imagine, in the past and beyond that, and in the future as well. Right. So I think that gives us confidence in the Sharia. Because
we know, like Omar knew that there's going to be a time when we're living living in non Muslim countries when the morals are going to be so different. And so if we say, well, hijab is invalid anymore, you know, things like that, like, it makes us realize that no, but Allah knew that we're going to be living in this time when, you know, there's a lot of a lot of things that we have been commanded in terms of morals and values. They are very alien.
Yes, that's wonderful. I love that. That's great. 100%. I agree.
And then a final question I have was, how does a Valhalla relate to elements?
And specifically wondering because these names didn't come together. So we saw that the shape pairs chapters progresses through chapters around certain ideas. So like, they'll see it, semi Alim we're all very close to each other, because they have certain sort of a relation when it comes to knowing.
And when it comes to these in particular, they're not closer. They're not close to an IV, or Allah or Ellen Mossad. And so, one of my reflections Is that
is that? Well, we talked about how it's paired with an O Al Asad.
But
I'm thinking that he's leaning or favoring more, because of law here does have multiple, multiple meanings. Similar to Ireland's and so on and so forth. And one of these multiple meanings is that it is the apparent SNESs and manifest this
right, of a lost power to Allah. So perhaps, perhaps he was grouping it based off with that, or perhaps there were other concerns. I need to kind of look at the chapter titles to reflecting on that.
Yes, assurance, yes. If we know that a law is eternal, he's the person that last we have assurance. Allah has got it. It's nothing for a law this is all it's all part of the game plan. As we would say,
mashallah, fantastic contributions from everybody. Does anybody would anybody like to add anything else or contribute anything else before
departing for the night
I mean, what you can feel accepted from us, thank you very much everybody and Inshallah, have a lovely evening and I'll see you next time. Inshallah. Tada.