Arguments for Messengership – Part 14

The Reasonings (page 124-125)

“A Prophet inculcates the Creator’s grandeur in the minds and spirits of human beings. The Divinely revealed Religion he communicates requires regular worship, which enables people to continuously and increasingly feel the Creator’s grandeur. Worship directs thoughts and feelings to the Creator, which in turn, lead to obedience to Him. Obedience to the Creator, Who is also the Supreme Author of the universal, magnificent order, secures the perfect public order in human life. This perfect public order is based on God’s Wisdom. The essence of God’s Wisdom is that nothing in the universe is purposeless and meaningless. The universal order, beauty, and harmony bear witness to this Wisdom.”

Recap: The need for justice exists in order to have order among the human beings. Justice requires a universal mind and universal guidance because human beings have immense potentialities which need to be turned into abilities. To turn potentialities into abilities, we must deal with the universe, other people and everything around us. While we are doing that, we have certain contradictory feelings and tendencies.

We do not seek justice every time we interact with the universe as we may follow our egoistic desires, whims and caprices.

There is no limit to any human potentialities whether in a useful way or harmful way. If I follow my caprices and if there is no limit from outside, then I can try to satisfy my caprices endlessly. Therefore, there is a need to put a limit to it and this need must be satisfied by an order established by a universal mind.

No one can say that they have the universal mind because such a mind must not only take into consideration the whole community of his/her time but at the same time, it must take into consideration time-wise relevance of a universal mind for the upcoming generation.

Those people who do not feel the need of a universal mind and are satisfied within their own capacities, they keep renewing and updating their rules according to the newly occurring situations and events.

The Prophets are employed by the Creator of the universe and the Creator of the universe is expected to know everything space-time wise with no limit because It is the Creator of the universe by definition.

(This is the third section of the book; how do we know He knows everything is discussed in previous section about existence of Divine Being). Now, the Prophet is needed, or God’s interference is needed as to guide people in the right way according to the capacity of their potentialities.

In this paragraph, the Prophets inculcates the Creator’s grandeur in the minds and spirits of human beings. How do they do that? By communicating the Divinely revealed Religion. It means that the Prophets do not introduce anything from their own self, rather (by definition), they are employed by the Creator of the universe to convey the message of the Divine Being to human beings.

While they are doing this, they address the human mind and spirit by letting them know that their communication requires regular worship.

Now that the Prophets are introducing the law, this law is supposed to be abiding and so what does it has to do with worship? What does worship mean in this context? This text explains that this worship enables people to feel and increase the Creator’s grandeur; it means feel the Creator’s capacity as a Creator. In other words, grandeur is something which is worth to be adored.

Do I see the connection between preparing the human beings for obedience of the law that the Prophets introduced which originates from the Divine Being (i.e. the Creator) and inculcates into the minds and spirits of people the idea of worship and thus adore the Source of these laws?

The secular law system (legislative system) of civilizations tries to introduce some concepts such as nationalism, and patriotism which begs the “sense of admiration and value”. In other words, if you really esteem the authority of the state, you are expected to obey the laws the state introduces to you. That is why, nationalistic ideas have their own rituals. Example: from a young age, kids are taught to respect the flag. In some places, it is illegal to burn the flag. Why? A kind of sanctity is attributed to them because any human being understands that if a command/law comes from somewhere which deserves to be respected, then you ought to obey it. Similarly, if you do not want to be fined, then you are careful not to break the rules.

With this, we can understand that if you feel that the authoritative body does not deserve to be respected, then you are not really inclined to put the rules that imposes sanction or look into proposition inspired by Divine Revelation to practice into your lives. That is obvious.

We may become like robots. Machines do not need to respect something to practice the programs. Human beings are not like machines. If I do not respect or love or do not have any sense of admiring someone, would I really want to listen to him/her or obey him/her? No. Example: If someone does not love his friends, siblings, parents or spouse, then s/he does not really want to respect the feelings of others because s/he does not love them.

If you love someone, then you are looking for an excuse to satisfy his/her needs or whatever s/he wants you to do.

Loving someone means respecting this someone. Love without respect is bound to be fake.

I do not respect you, but I love you or I love you, but I do not respect you, does that work? No, it is not human.

If someone sends you a love letter, then it does not really mean much as it is just words. Rather, see if in practical life this person respects you.

If you respect someone, then you want to satisfy what s/he wants, or you want to obey his/her needs?

Divine laws are not abstract set of rules, they are backed up by a substantial notion i.e. worship. It means respect the Source of these laws and you will love It.

When you love the Source, do you practice what you want or what it wants?

If there is a quarrel going on, then you do not want to obey the person’s needs because respect is lost. Difference between secular legislative system and Prophet introducing Divine rules to be followed by the human community is that the latter basically first establishes respect of the Source. Then, a consequence of this respect is love.

Respect & Love of the Creator of the universe turns into worship.
If you do not respect the Creator of the order of the universe, then you cannot love It.
If you do not love It, then you will never be able to WORSHIP It.

WORSHIP is a complex subject to understand. Worship comes from the French word “adoration” or “admiring”. First, we need to admire Its work and that must result in worship.

Worship means practicing someone’s respect.
It is a kind of confession of the authority of the qualities of the Creator.

Historically, we know how revelation started, developed and ended. It took a period of 23 years.

First stage: The transience of this universe. Not being able to sustain itself. The dependent nature of the universe which depends on Something else which has the Power to do anything because it is the Source of Existence of the universe and It can change the order. The first revealed verses say that everything will be destroyed. Traditionally, we understand that doomsday will come. It may or may not is not my concern. As per the Prophetic teaching, the significance of this news is to tell us that this universe cannot sustain itself.

The purpose of these descriptions is not to frighten human beings but to set up their minds that this universe cannot sustain its own existence; it is dependent on Something Else. Example: if I say that I can really explode this building, it means that the building cannot sustain itself. This means that its being a building in this shape does not depend on itself but Something Else. The building cannot protect itself by itself. The Quran says that one day, which means that one moment it will happen because the universe cannot sustain its existence. We must make everything realistic for our own life.

Second stage: Human beings are going to be taken into account for their own life, hence the news for the existence of resurrection. That is, I will be resurrected, and I will be accountable before my Creator.

Third stage: I better take notice of my Creator and take notice of my potentialities/capacities in this world, why are they given to me? The answers to this question are mainly taught to human beings through the stories of the Prophets. The stories of the Prophets that are narrated are just an excuse for letting me know what to do with my human potentialities, but the main message is that there will be an employed person to your nation and s/he will introduce to you who your Creator is. And so, with this, I cannot say that I prefer to be unmindful of my Creator because if you disobey the message of the Creator then you will be destroyed. That is, if I do not listen to the message of the Prophet, then my life will be in a horrible situation and I will not be able to prosper.

All Prophets came with the same universal message: “the universe has an Owner and this Owner has power over everything It does, and you better acknowledge It and use your human abilities to get to know It better and establish a friendly (wali) relationship with your Creator and see Its wisdom in creation and act according to Its will”.

This means not to be a slave of It, rather Its Will is the most appropriate purpose in your existence. “If I follow Its Will, I will be following the most appropriate path to benefit from my humanity at the best”. This is the relationship the Prophet introduced to us.

If I do not listen to It, then many calamities befall me.

There are many nations where people were subject to Atheist understanding of life; nothing happened to them, no blowing winds destroyed their villages. Now, there are some nations that say that I do not acknowledge any morality and that existence consists only of our body. That is their ideology. What happens if these people do not listen to the Prophetic message? If we take the scripture literally, then we see that people are not destroyed physically including their places. Example: In the story of Noah, everyone was sunk into the flood. We must understand that we are not experiencing such things in our lives. There are group of people who do not pay attention to the Prophetic message. Are they destroyed or oppressed by one person? Not one person can oppress billions of people. These people may be unhappy with something. Even a few people cannot really control one million people, it is impossible. To various extent, some may agree with their administration. All Prophetic teachings are figurative teachings. Example: Have you heard that China was destroyed and only a few were saved?

If you do not accept the message that you are under the supervision of an Absolute Being and It is Wise, Merciful and knows what It is doing, It sustains you and takes care of you and everything exists because of It and if you reject this idea and say that I exist by myself, then what happens? In your life, there will be continuous destruction because every day you are getting closer to continuous execution and thrown into annihilation. You try to enjoy something, as soon as you try to enjoy, it turns into a kind of poison because you lost it. It is gone, and you cannot get it back. I cannot guarantee that I will be given tomorrow as well or a next time. If it is given, then you have it. If it is not given, then you cannot have it. Example: If the banana is created for you, then you can have it. Can you make a banana? No.

When you enjoyed the banana, you know that you are dependent on the Creator of the banana. If It creates it, then you will have it. If It does not, then you cannot have it. If all your people and everybody were to come together, they cannot create a banana. This is the Quranic claim. Anything that you attribute power to is your “idol”. Example: human mind or consultation or helping each other is an “idol” if not appropriated to its Source.

You know that you are totally dependent on something which provides you sustenance, life, happiness and human qualities… If you lose that something, you are left with continuous degradation. Although, you do not accept the Creator of the banana, you know deep down that you are in need of the Creator of the banana, that is why you are using what It has given to you.

If you ignore the Creator of the banana which happens to be the Creator of the universe, then you are begging for something which has no meaning in the universe and you are in a vacuum.
Your universe is totally unstable, and its existence is not guaranteed.
Not only your material things but your whole existence falls into degradation and ruins and you will be in complete compost. This creation is not the only creation; you will be responsible for how you have lived.

Third Stage: We have sent Prophets and these Prophets are to be obeyed and that is how human spirit is subject to education and training by employed instructor by the Creator and introducing you the message of the Creator explaining why It has created you and which kind of Being It is.

Fourth Stage: If you do not take notice of the Creator of the universe, then everything will collapse on you. Your humanity will derogate, and you will lose all its value and you will be always suffering with the pain of falling into annihilation and you will lose everything forever. Example: the destruction of the best orchards of certain tribes when they did not listen to the message of the Creator. It means all their sustenance were gone. How? By the reality of the fact that if they do not listen to the message of the Prophets, they will live in a psychological state of mind that they will lose all providences because they cannot sustain anything and themselves.

Fifth Stage: How are you going to establish a relationship with the Creator within the conditions of this universe? The Creator introduces Itself demonstrating the kind of qualities It has. The Prophet introduces or presents to you how are you going to connect yourself to your Creator of the universe? Apart from the consciousness of Its qualities, how are you going to arrange your personal life, social life while you are in this world so that you should not contradict the purpose in your existence?

Sixth Stage: How am I going to worship the Creator in this world? Through worship which is really the sequence of admiration, respect and love, only then can you obey the Creator of the universe. If you do not admire the quality of somebody, then you do not respect him/her. If you do not respect him/her, then you cannot love him/her.

If you do not love someone, then you do not want to go ahead with Its will and desires, in other words, you do not want to obey him/her.

Obeying is not obeying the enforcement of the laws, rather out of love and respect of It, you obey. Example: Among loving couples, a husband may say that I know my wife wants this so let me do this as she wants it, that is obedience to her choice/will. That is the process of worship which goes through this sequence:

Admiration + Respect + Love => Worship

The Prophet practiced this by instructing what to do and what not to do. During the last stage of Prophethood did the Prophet introduced certain rules. These rules start administering/directing personal lives. First form of ritualistic worship introduced was praying, fasting and then giving to charity. Then, how am I going to arrange the social life with people in a peaceful manner? That was followed by establishing the administrative body of the believer’s community, after which the Prophet died, finished and the revelation is complete. That is the perfection.

We know that the stages should not be skipped. If you do not establish the very essence of the existence of this universe and go into social administration, then it will end up in dictatorship. Then, you will have to impose your rules on people which will not make sense to them. That is like, without admiring, respecting and loving, you expect your spouse to obey you. In this materialistic world that is what we do. There are laws describing the responsibilities of the wives and of the husbands. The laws are external as if someone is interfering into your personal life. How does the revelation make it internal? As a result of human natural state, the way you are created, you do not have to impose the laws on anyone.

If there was some delicious food presented in a nasty way and just put up there without anyone saying anything, will you eat it? What do you expect? An invitation, saying: “please help yourself, let us enjoy together”. Then you love it and eat it.

Secular laws treat human beings like robot. Example: you must take care of the children. You are responsible to pay the bills because you are the husband. They call these “family laws”. Another example do not destroy the environment. Why? There is a balance in the world, do not spoil it.

First, human mind and spirit need to be inculcated with the sense of worship i.e. how the worship develops in the mind and spirit of people? There is a relationship between acknowledging the need for the guidance in your personal life and then in your social life and then guidance in your relationship with the rest of the universe (not limited only to human life but also plants, animals, mountains…)

Your relationship with anything in creation must be established on the guidance of the Creator of the universe.

If you do not really respect the Creator of the universe as the Establisher of the order, then you do not really respect the order of the universe. If you do not really establish that the Creator of the universe instituted the order of the universe in the best way (if I do not acknowledge the Creator), then I do not respect His work. In order not to destroy the nature of this universe materially, I still need the notion of “worship” in my mind, so that I will respect the order of the universe. As a result, I will respect the order within my personal life and social life.

Three things are happening at the same time:

Respecting the order of the universe, personal life and social life. How am I going to manage my human potentialities?

How am I going to develop my potentialities into capacity? That needs a process. This order must also be respected and performed under the guidance of the Creator.

How am I going to arrange my relationship with other people?

Order in social life, order in personal life, order in the universe need to be respected. If you do not admire the Source of Existence of all these things, then how can you respect it? Why should you respect it? If you do not really admire the quality of the Maker, then you do not respect and you do not love and worship. That is why human beings need a Prophet which teaches people how to turn their behavior/attitude towards their social life, personal life and the relationship with the rest of the world through worship. Unfortunately, introducing the rules, among the secular societies, reduces the spiritual values with the augmentation of patriotic values. Even if you love your country, what happens? It turns into enmity towards people who do not belong to your country. Patriotism has potentially the seed of enmity towards other communities because of the conflict of interest where you must take a side and support your own country. In case of clash of interest, you take a side of your own country, not to be “just” necessarily. If you have the notion of having a “just” relationship, then you cannot be patriot.

You can be patriot of the universe, not of your country because that would be artificial.

You can be a member of a nation of humanity, not of a country. In order to have this universal understanding, you have to acknowledge that none of the parts of the world belongs to any created beings. It must be universally established. Whoever created the whole universe, all the parts of the world belong to It.

We must respect, but first, we must admire It i.e. acknowledge Its qualities.

If you do not acknowledge Its qualities (that the Creator of the universe has Absolute Power), then how can you admire It?
If you cannot admire It, then how can you respect It?
If you cannot respect It, then how can you love It?
If you cannot love, then how can you worship? IMPOSSIBLE!

Acknowledging the qualities of the Creator is the fundamental teachings of the scripture presented to human beings through the Prophets by the Creator, introducing Itself. Otherwise, if the Creator did not introduce Itself through the message sent via the Prophets, then how would we know, and we would just admire the things as they are. Let us assume that we have never heard the notion of “God”.

Have you spoken to anyone from a community where they have no notion of God? When you say God or spirit, it never makes any sense to them. People would not have any notion of “God” if they are not introduced. Assume that you were born in an “Atheist” family where values were placed only on food, shelter and working. When you are told that there is God, the Creator, you say what? Not everyone has a notion of God in their mind through some extent. If you are in this world always, then you say this world consists of what I am seeing and experiencing. You do not even say that this world is wonderful; you just say that it happens to be like this. That is life and that is how it is. We human beings need our Creator to interfere in our lives and introduce Itself to human beings. But after being introduced, we can understand It and confirm It (because potentially we are able to understand It).

If you have not taken computer science education, will you know what it is? Only after being taught and introduced, you understand how it works. If you are not taught, you do not understand how it works. There is a difference between potentiality and abilities. Potentially, I can understand how a computer works. Unless I am taught, it is not within my ability to know how it works. That is human nature. That is why we all go through the education system to learn one way or another to turn these potentialities into abilities.

Potentially everyone can do everything as a human being. I study something, and I turn my potentiality into that subject, there are different ways of developing these potentialities into abilities.

We need to be introduced to the existence of something who has given existence to this universe and its qualities as witnessed by His work. That is how potentialities turn into abilities. Only being taught is not enough (there is God and that is it), it is not enough. It needs to be supported by evidence that human beings will experience It and confirm It. Example: If I say, I love you. You say that he told me that he loves me. But you need to experience it i.e. signs of His love. By word, it does not mean anything. That is why, revelation by itself does not mean anything. What does it need? The universe; to experience and gather evidence from what I can reach.

Revelation without universe does not work. We need to wake up to this point!

Reading the Quran as Muslims does not mean much, you must bring evidence, support it and make it work together with evidence. That is why the universe is created and then Prophets are given revelation at the end. This revelation will guide human beings to respect the order in the creation because of admiring the Creator and then respecting the order within yourself as an individual human being and then respect the order introduced by the Creator via the Prophets at the society level. These stages cannot be reversed.

You cannot establish “sharia” (the order in the universe) without first establishing the order within yourself.

It then becomes like a secular legal system, introducing the law and forcing people to obey but without any respect in its base. There is no difference. It is as if “secularizing religion” i.e. imposing the rules on people without establishing the base. These are the values of the secular societies. They introduce the law and tell them to obey it. Why? The law requires it. Just as the signs on the streets that say clean after your dog otherwise there is “a penalty of $300, it is a law”. Because of the law, should I take care of my dog if I do not respect my neighbors? At night, no one sees me, and I take my dog, who cares? Law cannot be applied at night. If you want law to be effective in your personal and social life, you must have the base for it. Police force is just used to regulate people who exploit the freedom. I am free to practice my whims and caprices with no end. Every human potentiality is limitless both in the negative and positive sense. Those people who do not respect the limits need to have to put limits.

When we put limits to people’s life, it must be for the sake of the establishment of peace and order at the society level, not at the personal level. You cannot impose rules of sharia at the personal level. If someone does not pray or drinks at home, no one can punish this man. Why?

Sharia laws are to be applied only to protect the order and the peace of the society, nothing to do with persons.
Example: if I do not pray, no one can punish me, apart from my relationship with my Creator.

No authority can force me to pray at home. But in a public arena, I cannot be a bad example for the sake of the public. I cannot interfere into the right of somebody. I can put a nail into my body and hurt myself, can anyone prevent me legally? No. But I cannot put the nail into your body? That is where sharia comes in. Punishment in law has nothing to with personal level, it is all for the sake of the societies as it needs an order because the society in general is a virtual entity or human construct.

You cannot teach this society who the Creator is, what values It has, respect the Creator… Social consciousness comes from individual, society is artificial. That is, the relationship between you and I is real but when you take the individual apart, there is no society. The society does not need to go through belief system… respect, love, worship…

That is why in the society level you use force but when it comes to the individual level, you cannot force anyone anything in anyone’s personal life.

Can you force me to believe in God or obey the Prophetic message? If you do not believe in God, I will kill you. Does that make you a believer? We cannot kill a “kafir” (unbeliever) but we can kill “kufur” (unbelief idea). When person attacks you then you must protect yourself physically. But if a person attacks the belief system, then you must attack it by killing the idea, that is, coming up with a counter argument.

You cannot implement Divine laws on people who do not believe in Divine, you just convey the message and give advice. Quran is full of reminders; convey the message to human beings. The modern mind of some believers implements the laws in the society including the personal lives. That is the distortion of understanding nature of revelations.

Never say: “Act in this way or do this”.

First, establish the understanding. That is, introduce the qualities of the Creator and arose the people’s emotions to admire it, which will end in respect and the respect will end in love. Love will turn into worship of God. When two people love each other, their worship is not worship of God, but they respect each other and act accordingly. Example: You know that your spouse does not want you to speak loudly when he is sleeping. That is his desire and he is not imposing anything on you. If I love him, then I do not speak loudly. That is praying, liken to my relationship with God as “worship”. Although, my spouse is not imposing his power on me, but I obey out of respect. If I do not obey him, then what do I do? Put loud music. That is what we do and how human beings behave.

This paragraph is teaching us that if the belief system or admiring (love, respect…) has not been established through worship, introducing the laws on how to administer the society/personal life, does not work. In the life of the Prophets, before introducing any kind of worshipful relationship with God, they introduced belief system i.e. believing in the nature of this existence, what things are, not self-sustaining but transient… Then, belief in the Creator through understanding that we are created for a purpose to fulfill the purpose of our existence. How? Through individual practice of prayer. Fasting comes later. Then at the end, the relationship at the societal level. The last revealed chapters of the Quran have lots of rules introduced in order to arrange relationship between human beings at the societal level.

We must follow the same stages as the revelation followed and then we will have a peaceful society. If you do not follow these, then you will never prosper, always struggle, never-ending war… If you do not educate people to keep their caprices under control as introduced by their Creator, then you cannot stop war. Every nation emphasizes the importance of patriotic feelings. Hidden competition, conflict with the other nations cannot be impartial. If you are patriotic you cannot be impartial.

If you want to be impartial, then you must be patriot of the universe because all things in the heavens and earth glorifies God and they are your friends, we witness the same God and glorify the same God.

It is impossible to stop competition because I love my country and so I must take side of my country. You cannot really have peace in the world as long as you do not acknowledge the Owner of the universe is One and everything belongs to Him. “No war!” slogans are baseless, and it is not the solution, just a baseless wish. How can you achieve peace? Obey the Divine law and educate yourself and the society accordingly.