What are the differences between the belief of "God" of different religions and the belief of "Allah" described by the Quran; and what are the characteristics of the Creator according to Islam?”
The Quran answers this question concisely with a short chapter that has deep meanings. With this chapter, Allah wants to correct a widespread mistake among humans; He also saves Muslims from the mistake that Christians made. Allah answers the question above in the chapter of al-Ikhlas as follows:
“Say: He is Allah the One and Only; Allah, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth, not nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him.”(al-Ikhlas, 112/1-4)
The first verse rejects all kinds of polytheism by stating that Allah is one and not more than one. The second verse states that He does not need anything but that everything needs Him all the time. The third verse states that the belief of trinity is wrong and that something that is born and that bears a child cannot be a deity.(1)The fourth verse states that, He is different from all creatures as a creator and that it is not appropriate to liken Him to anything.
The Quran mentions an active creator who is creating all the tiem and who maintains the realm of existence constantly with the manifestation of His name al-Qayyum (the Self Existing, the Self Subsisting). The Quran answers the deists who claim that God created the universe as if He wound a clock and left it on its own as follows:
“Of Him seeks (its needs) every creature in the heavens and on earth: every day in (new) Splendor doth He (shine).” (ar-Rahman, 55/29)
The verse states interestingly that all creatures ask Allah to meet their needs at any moment and that Allah answers this request. When we read the verse reversely, we deduce the meaning that if there was not constant creation, the prayer of the creatures would be meaningless. The following verses inform us that the universe is maintained by the Creator constantly with His name al-Qayyum:
“Allah! there is no Allah but He―the living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal.”(al-Baqara, 2/255 and Aal-i Imran, 3/2).
(1) To liken Allah to a human being is a basic mistake that many religions make. Christianity and Judaism attribute a son to Allah while it is believed in many polytheistic religions that God was born. I was surprised by the statement of a Hindu speaker in the organization called World Prayer Day held by the Unity Church in the second week of September when he said, “Today is a very important day for us because today is the birthday of the greatest God that Hindus believe in.”
“The text above was summarized from Dr. Furkan Aydıner’s book in which he included the notes he made while he talked with some atheist groups.”
0 comments :
Post a Comment