What Is Worship? – Part 5

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“Allahumma efta7 alayna hikmatek”
Oh Lord, Open upon us your Wisdom

12:40 “All that you worship instead of God is nothing but names which you have invented – you and your forefathers, for which God has sent down no authority. Judgment rests with God alone. He has ordained that you should worship none but Him. That is the right religion, but most people do not know.”

  • Asmaa’: Names: Qualities manifesting to us in all acts of creation. Our responsibility lies in reflecting on, “Who do they belong to?”
    • Ex/ the bird is flying. Does flying belong to the bird or The Creator of the bird? The creator of the flying?
    • Every thing is an act of creation that belongs SOLELY to Its Maker.
      • Ex/ I eat and I feel satisfied. Eating is an act of creation, food is an act of creation, and feeling satisfied is another, separate act of creation; all of which belong to The Creator.
  • “Judgment rests with God alone”: Judgment is an inadequate translation. We have to understand the concept. Rather, “The Decision/Authority of deciding the True Owner of what we are observing and experiencing.”
    • No power/authority has been given to anything in this world that it may claim the ownership of itself or anything else. All authority/decisions/”judgment” of truth belong to The One who owns the whole universe, who must be Absolute if Owns the whole universe.
    • The qualities of the beings which point to the Qualities of their Maker. Through these qualities I can confirm the existence of the characteristics of The Creator. These qualities are called in the language of the Scriptures, “Names.”
      • Existence is the key word: Wujood in Arabic
      • If someone describes/relates the Creator within the concepts of the universe, it cannot be the Creator. We cannot speak on describing His Qualities, because we would subsequently relate the qualities we are familiar with in this world.
        • SubhanAllah: means God is beyond any description
      • The quality of flying is observed (for example), within an order. I have to explain the cause of existence of this quality! As human beings, this is how we use our faculty of reason. The “name” or quality is a sign to the existence of the quality of The Originator/Maker/Orderer (giver of order)/Giver of existence.
        • Important to realize that flying cannot belong to the bird, cannot be created by the bird. But the bird has it! The human question is, “Who gave it to the bird?” That is the Giver of Existence of flying, in this example.
      • Another example: The quality of compassion in a mother is observed. Can I say the mother is the cause of existence of this quality? Compassion was GIVEN to her by her Maker. So where is the source of existence of compassion? It belongs to the One that caused her to exist with this quality.
      • Whoever made this universe, made it with qualities. As a human being with consciousness, intellect, reason, I must be able to explain my observations. Qualities can only be explained by attributing each one to the source of these qualities.

Conclusion of discussion of “Names” above:

    • 1st: notice the qualities of perfection in the universe (i.e. “Names” in the language of the Qur’an) (for example: I have a perfect shape, a perfect mind, perfectly engineered hands that are very practical). Question them. They must have been given to the thing because they cannot be the originator of the qualities observed on them.
    • 2nd: They were given existence by The Giver of existence of the whole universe.
    • 3rd: He is exalted! Beyond the universe, beyond the qualities that I see.
    • The names help to cue us that all of these qualities do NOT belong to the things themselves, which is frequently our primary mistake. Rather, all of these qualities belong to The Source of Existence of the whole universe. This guides us to a conclusion of “SubhanAllah” – the Creator is far transcendent above the capacity of the thing, which bears the quality on itself. Thus, the Creator cannot be described with the qualities manifested on things; He is the Transcendent Being.
      • The point is to see that the things are coming into existence perfectly. And The Source of this perfection is the Source of the whole universe’s perfection. We are guided to see this through constantly bringing our attention to many perfect qualities, all around us, to help us negate the idea of them belonging to the things themselves (i.e. “la ilaha”), or to anything else within the “cause and effect chain” in the order that was created.
    • We have to have a comfortable, relaxed mind when we say, “I believe in God.”
      • Belief comes from attributing the qualities of perfection to the Being that deserves to have it This Being is not of nature of this universe must be out of nature of this universe.
    • We have 4 venues to help us reach out to The Creator: Universe, human beings (our nature), revelation (speech of God), & messengers of God. None of them should contradict the other; all point to the same Cause of Existence.
      • Therefore, our human nature MUST be able to comprehend the sayings of the messengers of God.
      • Ex/ if someone says, “be patient and study for 4 years and you will understand.” Okay, this is reasonable, I am used to it. I study 6 years to be lawyer/doctor etc. But DON’T tell me, “it is not within your capacity in this world to understand. Wait for the next world to understand.” This is a wrong, but often used methodology to understand matters of Belief.
    • To say names/qualities observed on things is a “mirror/reflection of God’s qualities” may cause a misunderstanding. It is not a static event. Rather, we have to experience the dynamic process.
      • In the mirror is a manifestation – a manifestation of a deliberate action, a deliberate choice. This shows me the existence of the qualities of the Maker arrive at the conclusion that The Maker must have Conscious Choice.
    • Look at the process in this verse that teaches us how to arrive at the “right religion”.
    • Names Worship Religion.
      • When you acknowledged the perfection (names) of how everything is being subjugated and made for you, and you feel so appreciative/grateful (Worship), and you are filled with emotional satisfaction/want to direct all of your emotions in a particular way, then religion advises us, for ex/ you human beings should come to the conclusion of “God is beyond description” (subhanAllah.) Or, “all the qualities in this world which deserve to be praised belong to God alone” “ (elhamdulilah.) Or, “You need to perform your prayer in this way or that way” etc.
        • Religion, instruction from The Creator, guides us how to communicate and respond back, and should not contradict our human nature.
    • VERSUS: oft repeated phrases such as, “In our religion, we worship God. He has the name All Powerful! He has 99 names”–METHDOLOGICALLY WRONG! LOOK AT THE SEQUENCE OF THE VERSE (aya).
    • We cannot imitate, or just copy what people say, and expect to have belief.
    • Ex/ People often say “peace and blessings be upon prophet Muhammad”, but why? “because the Qur’an says so”?
      • Qur’an says, “Verily God and His angels send blessings on the Prophet, Oh you who believe, send you also blessings on him and salute him” (33:56).”
      • It means that God is telling us that He is really appreciating his teachings. The angels* (universe-*see below in part 6 for deeper explanation of angels) is happy with these teachings. This verse is prompting me, “You should see the harmony in your emotions, and should arrive at harmony and appreciation with his teachings too. As a human being, we direct our emotions, our thoughts, but also our tongues/bodies/our whole humanity to communicating/expressing the truth within. So we say, “Peace and blessings be on him” or Allahumma sulli wa sallim alla Muhammad, or Alayhi el salat welsalaam, because I, TOO, am very happy with his teachings.

– Question: When I see compassion, how can I arrive at the conclusion that The Creator is compassionate? Answer: No, not that He “is” and subsequently describe/relay my understandings of compassion to Him. Rather, He must be compassionate, i.e. must be the cause of existence of compassion.

– Answer continued: When I say Bismillah ElRahman El Raheem, or Allahu ElRahman, (from the scripture) for example, it is referring me to witness “Most Compassionate, The cause of existence of all observable compassion.” 1st I must see that all the qualities that I observe must belong to someone (names). Whoever created this universe’s qualities that I am observing, must be the cause of compassion. The Qur’an is instructive speech, teaching me to confirm belief through my present day experiences, to have conviction. Now, when I read the speech of God, I say, “this statement is true!” Quran says now, “El Rahman El Raheem”, it means “Oh reader, you have to find out that I am compassionate, look for it and confirm it! Don’t imitate/simply copy what others are saying!” But we are always taught to imitate, to just take what we have heard from parents and/or Sunday schools and repeat! We have to be convinced that this statement is correct!

– Question: “what about Bad qualities? Like in war, evil killings for example… what about a bad, evil mother?”

– Answer: “Is there any evil in the act of EXISTENCE???? We have to be careful and we have to study this topic! It is borrowed language! In existence, i.e. the acts of creation coming into existence, there is NO EVIL! Someone’s choices may be wrong, but the creation-side is not wrong. For example, a person stepped on my glasses, he is evil! No, it is within the perfect order of creation, it is breakable, it is within the perfect principles of creation. Creator says if you want to break the glasses, step on it. Our relation with the thing may be evil, but the act of creation in and of itself is still pure good. Another Qur’anic verse refers to this, which is summarized as: “Whenever good happens, from God. Your misuse of creation, is YOUR mistake fa min nefsik.”

-Question: but when person is compassionate, shouldn’t we say person is compassionate, instead of The Cause?

-Answer: We have to study this. Study the universe and follow the order of the universe. When I water the flower, I see that it grows. If I push it this way, it breaks. This is how we communicate with God. We will study Divine Determining (Qadr) right after this series (insha Allah!). There is nothing in CREATION that is evil, but perhaps in my interpretation, in my choice. Someone may say death is evil! Can you imagine if there was no death, we would all think we were gods. Death is beautiful! If I put the knife here, God keeps his promise embedded within his order/system of creation, as The Creator of death. “Qatil” killer is different than “Mumeet” – giver of death. This is the language of the Qur’an. God never says He is The Killer. To kill is a choice. If I smash the laptop down, it will break. It is evil for me, in my interpretation, and it will cost me $1,000. But it is great for the manufacturer, and they will make more money when I buy another one.

-Question: what about greed? I am frugal for example. Would I direct this quality and trace back to the Source? Answer: we are always given 2 options to choose from when exercising free will. There must be a more preferable one. When I choose the bad one, it becomes a bad one for me, but not for The Creator.

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