March 10, 2008
Islam Is All about Communication
Section: WRITINGS | 1355 reads
Qur’an Uses Most Precise Language: Another Living Miracle
No ordinary or scholarly (technical) document uses language more carefully, precisely and responsibly than does the Qur’an.
But after years and years – call it decade after decade – of systematic reasoning, research, analysis, agonizing and soul searching, I owe it to myself and to my readers to confess what I consider to be my rational and firmly held belief that it seems well nigh impossible to top or even match the Qur’an in saying what it says and how it says it. To get a sense of what I am saying, just go back and carefully review all the things I listed in the previous paragraphs.
Otherwise, how is it that no one in past or present has been able to produce a document like the Qur’an in part of full, even though the Qur’an itself repeatedly challenges all of humanity to try their hand at it and match the Qur’an in form or content or both?
It is clear that this is as much proof as human beings are ever likely to have in this world of the totally divine nature of the Qur’an. That means the only reason no one is able to meet the challenge of the Qur’an throughout history is because the Qur’an is God Almighty’s direct and pristine word in our feeble mortal hands.
But bear in mind that this is only an argument, even though it is quite a logical and powerful one. And for every argument, no matter how strong and seemingly solid, a counterargument of some kind is possible and conceivable.
That is why whether or not the Qur’an is from God is not a matter of pure science or empirical discovery or proof, but, ultimately, a matter of belief – or “faith” as people might call it – even though there is ample logical power and factual support for parts of that argument.
Final Answers Will Come on the Day of Judgment
It is no different from other related questions such as whether or not there is life after death; whether or not there is heaven and hell; and whether or not Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, is really a prophet of God.
None of these questions you can answer in a definitive manner that leaves no room for further doubt or dispute. That is not how Allah wants things to be. Allah is so kind, merciful and respectful of your rights as human beings – rights that he himself granted you – that he does not want to force you into believing anything you do not want to believe.
Did he not say so with crystal clarity in the Qur’an? Here is the Qur’an and my paraphrase of it: Laa ikraaha fiddeen: no coercion of any kind is allowed in matters of belief?
That is why Allah himself says in the Qur’an that people have to wait for the Day of Judgment for the final settlement of many of these beliefs and questions over which they have been fighting and arguing in this world.
Hear the Qur’an say it:
Inna rabbaka huwa yafsilu bainahum yaumal qiyaamati
Feemaa kaanoo feehi yakhtalifoon.
Paraphrase:
Without a doubt, your master himself will personally settle their
disputes on the Day of Judgment.
On that day, the question will be:
Li-manil mulkul yaum?
Paraphrase:
Who is the king today? Who in control today? To whom does
power belong today?
The answer will be:
Lillahil waahidil qahhaar!
Paraphrase:
Of course to God, the one, who has complete power, control
and domination over everything.
Is there a God?
And those disputes and arguments include the most basic question of all as to whether or not there really is a God.
This is the most important of all those quintessentially 50-50 questions that God himself has chosen to leave in our lap, tossing the ball in the court of every individual human being as it were, asking every human being to do their own research and thinking and then finally to make up their own individual minds based on whatever evidence they are able to glean and whatever fabric of logic and reasoning they are able to piece together.
Thus, the burden is on ach one of us as individuals to arrive at our own unique answers and conclusions, in the solitude of our own mind and soul, standing alone in front of God, for whom our minds constantly search and our souls inexorably hunger.
To me there can be no fairer, better or more equitable approach, or a more logical or scientific one, to the solving of this problem than this.
Laa Ilaaha Illa Allah: A Paraphrase Based on Qur’an and Sunnah
You look at the universe – the creation as a whole – and everything cries out it has a creator and he is and can only be one.
Qur’an: Laa Ilaaha Illa Allah!
Now kindly allow me to paraphrase this miraculous amalgam of these four immortal words based on the Qur’an and Sunnah.
Sunnah, as we know, is the full documented life and teachings of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam!
Here is some of what this most beautiful expression – Kalimah Tayyibah – then says and implies:
- God Almighty exists.
- God Almighty is and can only be one.
- He is your maker, owner and master.
- He is the one who gave you life and continues to sustain you throughout your lifespan on earth.
- He is the one who placed you in a family and placed that family in the thick of a societal and cultural nexus and bolstered it with a framework of all kinds of overlapping and interlocking associated social and institutional structures.
- He is the one who made earth and the whole universe as a place of work and play for you. It is therefore to him and him alone that you should submit yourself and your entire life.
- It is therefore from him and from his book the Qur’an and from Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, his prophet and messenger to you and to the entire universe, that you should seek guidance and practical instructions for all your affairs in every aspect and department of your life in this world as well as on how to prepare for life in the next world.
- It is therefore to his service and to the service of his creation that you should devote all your talents, energies and resources in every aspect of your entire life.
- If you did that then you will turn this world into a paradise for yourself as well as for all others.
- Not only that, Paradise itself will be waiting to embrace you after your death in a life of joyous eternity with all its blissful glory, purity and perfection.
- And the key to all that is the belief and assertion and practical affirmation that God Almighty is one, and he is your maker and master, and it is his will, mandate and directives on which you must base your life, both private and public, and invite everyone else to do the same.
This then is some of what the four miracle-words of Laa Ilaaha Illa Allah connote and convey.
And that is what every micro and macro aspect and element of this universe cries out: God exists and he is one and only he could have made this world and everything in it the way it is.
The Other Side of the Coin: Maybe there Really Is No God
But God is fair and just. And he wants humans to play on what the Americans call a level playing field. He does not want to skew the data. He does not want to tilt the balance in favor of one or the other group of human beings – all of them his slaves and all of them children of Adam whom he made with his own two hands.
As a result, the coin of belief or faith comes with a second side attached to it – the side that advocates a theory of autogenesis of the universe. This theory states that everything in the world came into being on its own without any help from a designer or creator.
This other side takes the same evidence that led in the first instance to the affirmation of belief in one god and to the discovery of Laa Ilaaha Illa Allah and argues for a spontaneous birth and generation of the universe without a creator, without a beginning, without an end and without any visible purpose.
It says maybe everything in the world came into being on its own, maybe one from the other, and after all there is really no God. It says in effect take the world and put it in a test tube and give it 15 or 20 billion years and then watch what happens: the world will turn out more or less the way it is – or maybe a very different way from the one you have on your hands.
If this argument sounds absurd to some of you, then the other argument using the same data and proof from the universe for the existence of God sounds no less problematic or preposterous to those who are not only not persuaded by it but also consider it patently absurd and false.
So, we are back exactly where we started. We are back to the question: Does or does not God really exist – what evidence can we find and what arguments can we make?
And that is where God Almighty wants to leave us. He wants us to take the next step by ourselves and make up our own mind as to what each one of us thinks the answer to this question should be.
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