God Suffices, Part – 5, If All Will Perish, Does Love Make Sense?

“Also through that insight of belief, and the connection, relation and bond, a brotherhood is formed with all the people of perfection. Thus, through knowing that due to the eternal existence of the Eternally Enduring One those innumerable people of perfection have not gone to nothingness and are not lost, the immortality and continued existence of those innumerable friends’ perfections, whom such a person with the insight of belief loves, admires, and appreciates and to whom he is attached, yields an elevated pleasure for him.”

If we are aware that the universe belongs to an Absolute Source, then the universe itself witnesses for us that it belongs to an Eternal Absolute One. If we understand this vision of the universe, we become in sync with the universe. Otherwise, if we do not realize that every created thing comes from the same Source, we feel alienated from the rest of the universe.

• Belief helps us to establish a sense of familiarity with the rest of the universe.

We should always speak as conscious human beings free from any religious identity. The paragraph emphasizes that through the insight of belief, we get to be aware of the implications of belief i.e. we have a connection with people of perfection.

Who are the people of perfection?

This goes back to the Creator revealing the truth through revelation which is what we really see in the universe. Through the awareness of belief, the Creator is encouraging us to develop an understanding that if this universe is deliberately created, the One who creates must know.

Thirteen hundred years ago, around 750 AD, Muslim scholars emphasized on the idea that everything is created with its acts. Example: The tree is not the producer of fruits; it is given the ability to produce fruit. Almost every ordinary person in Baghdad had around 30 books written by hands in their own houses. They solved many human intellectual problems by relating them to our given freewill i.e. we are created with our actions.

In the 9^th century, in the Western world, the Cathedrals only had a couple of copies of these same hand written books. The Cathedrals were the religious institutions that partnered with land owners to set up educational institutions. The education system in Europe was established by the Andalusians who came via Spain. And so, that is how most of the education institutions have emerged from Cathedrals. Cathedral backed institutions educated only the elite and they had only a few (10 to 20 books for the whole institution of education,) whereas, Iraqi scholars educated the general public, and so education was not only open for the elite. These scholars were studying important existential matters. Example: Can human beings give existence to the next moment? What is the Source of existence of tomorrow?

How can we explain that our actions are not our product? If everything is perfectly organized, then there is conscious Creator. Example: The bird is flying. The bird is continuously created (in my observation) with flying qualities. The bird cannot be the Source of existence of flying but it is created as a flying object. The One who creates definitely knows what He is doing. Even if the bird is following its instinct, this act, including the instinct is given existence at the same time. Nothing in this world can give existence to that which did not exist.

What does it mean that the universe has a Creator? We need to go further with educating ourselves with the meaning of our existence. Having the awareness of belief is very important and needs to undergo as follows:

• First stage: The One who creates gives existence and definitely knows.
• Second stage: The One who knows must speak.

In Islamic theology, the speech of God was the pivotal point of discussion. Theology explains the universe under the guidance of revelation and human reasoning. Philosophy, on the other hand tries to explain the universe under the guidance of human reasoning only. It mostly rejects revelation claiming it to be a false concept.

We need to pay attention to what revelation reveals and after proper consideration, we are free to reject or accept text that deems rationally sane to our understanding. Islamic Theology is mainly and fundamentally based on understanding the Speech of God which is something that the human being can communicate through. From both stages (above), we understand that whoever made us with our qualities gave us the ability to learn, express and exchange views in the form of “words”.

• THINK: How can we transform our thoughts into words?

Words are transformed in an interesting way. This is miraculous in itself i.e. through the wavelengths we receive into the ears, we understand something. The universe is given existence to facilitate communication where knowledge is transferred from one person to another. That is how mutual conversation takes place between conscious human beings. We usually think that the air waves carry the sound that we hear. In reality, this process is given existence and is arranged by a Conscious Source at every moment.

Who arranges this existence? Whoever has established this universe with these qualities must itself be knowledgeable to communicate with the universe because He is the Creator of the “act of communication”. My particles have no qualities themselves to give existence to things in the universe.

• Human beings need to communicate with each other otherwise we will not be able to experience our consciousness.
• Whoever enabled us to exist with these qualities in the universe must be the Source of our abilities.

How can I conclude that He communicates with me? If there is a Creator, this Creator enabled us to question the Source of our existence. The universe feels like a prison when we do not get answers to our questions. If we look into the existence of the universe and do not find any satisfactory answers, the universe becomes meaningless. The One who is the “Creator of communication” must speak to me based on my capacity. He must have the ability to communicate with me because He is the Source of existence of my qualities and I need to hear the explanation to my questions from His perspective.

• Take your human qualities seriously and take your existence seriously, you will find answers.
• My Maker must tell me what I am going to do here.
• Why did He create me?
• He must speak to me.
• That is why the Word/Speech of the Creator (verbal explanation) must be sought after.
• Do not follow your ancestor’s tradition.
• Every individual is responsible for his/her own investigation.
• We cannot borrow anyone’s conclusion.
• We are fully qualified to know who our Creator is.
• We need to establish who our Lord is and then communicate with Him.
• Belief is our personal conclusion.

Quran is guidance and it teaches us how to reason. We need to try to make sense of everything within your own conditions. We need to change our attitude towards the Speech of the Creator by questioning what the text has to do with the human being. Example: In the case of Noah’s arc, we need to ask where my arc is. Where is my flood? The Speech must be represented by a teacher helping us understand how to apply guidance using our human qualities.

People of perfection are teachers who learn from the Speech of God and help us grow as individuals. A teacher means a person employed to transfer the meaning of our existence to us. They come with the instruction book, guidance (revelation) and we hear it in the voice of a “person”. These teachers are the chosen employees from their Creator and that is why they are well educated. They usually come with miracles that are signs for human beings depicting that the person who claims to be appointed by the Absolute Source of existence of this universe has been employed to this task by Him. The miracles usually disclose unaccustomed ways in creation that are part of the created order. Example: Prophet Solomon flew a day’s journey in an hour. In this day and age, that miracle is our mode of transportation (airplane, space shuttle…).

We all have the potentiality to acknowledge the Source by using our abilities to discover the hidden treasures in creation. We need the teachers to help us develop our human potentialities and so we may increase our capacity of recognizing the Source.

• Prophets are the teachers.

Our parents, family, friends and everything that helps us or has helped us bring news from the Creator are our teachers. We would never want to lose our beloved ones and we are not going to lose them if we see them as a mirror pointing to the Absolute Source i.e. the Beloved One.

• We want to be conscious of our reality and the Quran emphasizes that it is a guide to those who want to be guided.

When we conclude that the universe has a Creator, what does this conclusion entail? Our existence is continuous and death is not the end of existence. In the scriptures, the Creator encourages us to look at the demonstrations in the universe where there are signs that He will give us another type of life to our existence. Just as we observe the metamorphosis from larva to butterflies, our existence undergoes a series of transformation as well from fetus to human being.