- Islamic creed
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- Creed and Quran Miraculousness
Introduction and reminder:
Honorable brother, we start with the eighth lesson of creed and miraculous inimitable Quran’s lectures.
These series of lectures shed the light on elements of mandate, and in previous lectures I talked about the universe as one of elements of mandate, and as a primary fundamental of faith, then we moved on to talk about the mind as a mean to know Allah the Almighty and that it is a reason for mandate, and I explained that the mind is related to reporting by assuring its authentication before reporting it and comprehending the text after it is reported and that one’s mind can’t be judgmental regarding reporting, so we will continue talking about the mind in this lecture.
Man and the trust:
It is a rule of thumb, as you all know, that man is the highest ranked creature, and this is only because you are human and you undertook the trust when Allah offered it to all creatures but they refused to undertake it but man said: I will, and he undertook the trust:
“We did indeed offer the Trust to the Heavens and the Earth and the Mountains; but they refused to undertake it, being afraid thereof: but man undertook it; - he was indeed unjust and foolish;-“
Your soul is a trust that you should purify:
Do you know who are you? You are the first creature to undertake the trust so you will rank above angels if you carry it out, and Allah forbids if you didn’t, you become lower than animal, so what is the trust?
First it is the soul within your body:
“Truly he succeeds that purifies it, And he fails that corrupts it!”
If you purify your soul you will succeed with flying colors:
“Truly he succeeds”
The Creator of heavens and earth is telling you:
“Truly he succeeds that purifies it”
Purify it by introducing your soul to its Creator, His method, His obedience, by spending the worthy, the trivial, the soul and precious, and by connecting with Allah, and if you purified it in Dunya (earthy life), that purification would be the price for heaven whose width is that (of the whole) of the heavens and of the earth.
Man is created for heaven and for that we can divide people into two groups regardless of their tribes, races, backgrounds, origins, sects, and cults:
“So he who gives (in charity) and fears (Allah), And (in all sincerity) testifies to the Best”
The first group believed that they are created to testify to the best which means heaven, and that you are created for heaven only and your whole existence is just to pay the price for it, therefore:
“So he who gives (in charity) and fears (Allah), And (in all sincerity) testifies to the Best”
The order here is reversed, and that means: because you testify to the best by being pious and you don’t disobey Allah, and you undoubtedly believe that good deeds are the price for heaven so you build your whole life on spending, thus there is a huge difference between a believer and a disbeliever.
This is the true success:
A believer builds his life on spending whereas the disbeliever builds it on taking.
All the Prophets gave and never took, while powerful people took and never gave, so if you took and never gave then you would be powerful people’s follower but if you gave and never took you would be a Prophet’s follower.
Hence dear brother, when you read this Ayah:
“Truly he succeeds that purifies it”
You see that this is the true success.
I swear to Allah, the One and Only, if we compared Bill Gates the owner of 90 billion dollars and another poor low profile man who, when present, is unknown and unmissed when he is absent, but he knew Allah and he purified himself, he is a billion times better than one who accumulated the largest wealth on earth, and that is because Dunya (this earthly life) is a limitedresidence and when the heart stops everything will be over, and all the money one’s own will turn to someone else.
You might live in a magnificent house, enjoy a high position, and own a luxury vehicle but your destiny is to the grave.
I swear by Allah dear brother, I’ve never seen since the birth of Adam till the end of the days a wiser man than the one who prepared for this hour, the hour of meeting Allah the Almighty, therefore because you are the first creature you are nominated to be either above angels or, Allah forbids, lower than animals:
“Those who reject (Truth)”
The ayah:
“Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book and among the Polytheists, will be in Hell-fire, to dwell therein (for aye). They are the worst of creatures.”
”Those who have faith and do righteous deeds; They are the best of creatures.”
Honorable brother, pay attention, seek glory from Allah as you shouldn’t seek it from someone else, because if you did you would disgrace yourself:
“And who turns away from the religion of Ibrahim but such as debase their souls with folly?”
If you endorsed yourself to someone other than Allah you would disgrace yourself, as you might let down millions of things because you disgrace them but when you let down religion you disgrace yourself:
“And who turns away from the religion of Ibrahim but such as debase their souls with folly?”
Originally you were offered the trust because you are a human being and you said: I will take it, while the rest of creatures refused it and were afraid of it.
Animals were made of lust with no mind, angels of mind and no lust, while man is made of both and if his mind rises above his lust he would be superior to angels but if his lust rises above his mind he would be lower than an animal.
The mind is a complicated system:
Dear brother, we are still on the “mind” topic, and if you imagine this mind as a highly advanced computer, it would still be incapable of comprehending itself.
I read an article once where they assumed taking a neigborhood in a huge city in western world that is full of skyscrapers which have windows inside and out, it wouldn’t level up with the brain which has 140 billion dark cells (purkinje cells which are among the largest nerve cells in the body)
that have unknown functions, and are all in a space of a lentil grain, there are more than 14 billions cortical cells, while there are 70 billion pictures stored in the memory, and there are areas in the brain for judgment, exploring, vision,hearing, and sight, while the cortex has all the senses and intellectual related areas.
You think you are trivial body yet the whole world is implied within
Hence honorable brother, mind is very complicated system that is incapable of comprehending itself and it is the mean to know Allah:
“And the Firmament has He raised high, and He has set up the Balance (of Justice),”
“Will they not then understand?”
“Do they not look”
“What is the matter with you? How judge ye?”
"Then how are ye turned away (from your true Centre)?”
The Ayas that are talking about the mind and its means are close to one thousand.
Mind’s ability to comprehend is limited:
The greatness of Islam is that it is moderate, as it doesn’t cancel the mind like other religions nor does it control it, and it was said: faith ranks above mind, and if religion was controlled by mind as in the western world you would be extremist and if the mind was controlled by the religion you would be Mu'tazilah (school of speculative that proceeded to posit that the injunctions of God are accessible to rational thought theology and inquiry) so if you canceled the mind you would be canceling the mean to know Allah, so Islam is moderate.
Honorable brother, when we exaggerate about what the mind’s worth then we are making it an absolute mean for knowledge yet a limited one too.
One more time, if we have a delicate and expensive scale geared up with fantastic properties yet its use is limited to weights between 5 grams and 5 kilograms where it highly functions, but if you used it beyond its limits it would fail you, it is the same as the mind which is limited.
The mind has to see a material thing and judge it, or see the trace to reach the effecter, and to see the wisdom to reach the wise.
Mind should see foot prints to realize there was someone walking, to see the building to reach the builder, and to see a system to know the organizer, therefore the mind is limited to this mission that is to comprehend something visible in trace yet invisible in entity.
If you entered the university in summer when no classes are taking place, and you looked attentively to the halls, auditoriums, gardens, laboratories, administration, dormitories, location, overview, and public services that evaded all past defects, you will come up with thousands of facts about the university designers and their qualifications and taste of beauty but you will never know who is the dean just from the structure of the university, nor the administration system, passing system, or tuitions as these things need a document.
Mind is complemented with the revelation:
Now pay attention, mind is complemented with revelation, this means anything that is beyond its comprehension, was told by revelation, so your mind deduces that this universe must have a Creator, and then comes the revelation to say:
“See they not that Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth”
Mind can notice delicate facts such as: life is short, shares are different, there are both weak and strong, rich and poor, handsome and ugly, passionate and harsh, tyrant and the tyrannized, bossy 
and the controlled, exploiter and the used, and life is short and when death occurs everything is over, this is unacceptable by mind as there should be another life to settle injustice so the revelation comes and says:
“Believe in Allah and the Last Day”
It is mentioned in revelation that there is another life and a day of judgment when injustices are settled:
“Master of the Day of Judgment.”
Hence, anything beyond your mind’s comprehension was told by Allah, so the mind integrates with revelation.
What is the relation between mind and revelation?
This is a very important matter and again I ask: what is the relation between mind and revelation?
The mind is reality oriented whereas revelation is absolute truth oriented, and I’ve mentioned in a previous meeting, as I remember, that a man who died 50 years ago, would never believe that 50 years later the world will be able to put 7000 books on one disk, as he would never believe that you will be able to communicate with the whole world through a small device (mobile), but now all this is acceptable, so the mind is reality oriented while revelation is absolute truth oriented, for that, revelation is the source and the mind is the mean to comprehend it and to authenticate the text.
The relation between mind and reporting is that mind comes before reporting to authenticate the text and after reporting to comprehend it and this is all into it.
Mind doesn’t contradict with reporting:
Yet honorable brother, mind can never contradict with reporting for a simple reason that is mind is a balance Allah installed in us, while reporting is either Allah’s words or statements of the infallible (Muhammad PBUH) as they are both two branches of one root so when they conflict with each other it would be because one of them wasn’t proved, so we could have fabricated text that conflicts with the mind which is possible or an unproved scientific theory that could conflict with revelation, but when there is conclusiveness in reporting and mind then they both should be correlative with each other, because they are two branches of one root which is considered as the greatest privilege in this great religion (Islam).
Our Islam is scientific, and the mind never said no to anything that was brought by this religion, yet it says “no” thousands of times to any earthy religion or sect as time passes by, this is one thing.
The truth is a circle where 4 lines intersect:
If we want to discuss this matter at length, I see that the truth is a circle where 4 lines intersect, now pay attention to every word I say:
First we have the reporting line and in this field either we have unauthentic reporting, forged Hadith,
wrongly interpreted authentic Hadith, unauthentic text, or wrong interpretation.
Second we have the straightforward mind and I mentioned in a previous meeting that we have two kinds of minds: the justifiable and the straightforward.
Hence, first line: the authentic reporting
Second line: the straightforward mind
The third line: objective reality because there is forged reality like what we have nowadays when any action of violence takes place on earth, fingers are pointed at Muslims though one of our honorable brother who is residing in big remote western county ran a very exhausting research in which he collected statistics of violent acts in this big country and he found out that Muslims were responsible for only 3 percent of these actions, hence, there is a forged reality and accusations.
The forth line: pure instinct
What is truth?
Therefore, what is truth? The truth by definition is: what was brought by authentic reporting, accepted by the straightforward mind, satisfied by pure instinct, and supported by objective reality, and that is the truth.
By the way, the word “truth” was repeated in Quran hundreds of times, so what is the truth?
The truth is known when falsehood is known, and falsehood is defined by “the transient and frivolous” then the truth is defined by “the constant and purposeful thing”.
Sometimes a circus tent is set up for two weeks for entertaining and nothing else, and sometimes a huge building is built to be a university which aims at the graduation of nation’s leaders, and teaching the ascending generation the right sciences so the university has a clear goal and was built to stay and there are universities that were built 1500 years ago and still exist in the western world.
Therefore, honorable brother, the truth is defined by the constant and the purposeful thing and Allah defined it by separating it from any false actions as He described falsehood:
“For Falsehood is (by its nature) bound to perish."
And Allah separated the truth from being frivolous as any frivolous action is aimless, so the truth is defined as the constant and the purposeful thing.
You can classify anything your eyes view, as there are things considered frivolous and time wasting which means to spend time on the abject leaving the precious, while frivolous means to act aimlessly like playing dice so if man played till 3 am in the morning do you think he would become a doctor? Would he be a big merchant? Would he be a company owner? And I am sorry to say that most of people’s activities in developing countries are frivolous, aimless and time wasting.
Mind principles: causality, purpose, and harmony:
Honorable brother, we mentioned in a previous meeting that mind includes the principles of causality, purpose and harmony.
1- Causality principle:
Would your mind believe that a plane of the most developed designs was built up in scrap yard by placing dynamite and exploding it and as a result the plane was built?
Is there one in 1.5 billion chances that any human would accept that?
The plane is an outcome of hundred years of expertise and engineers, experts in physics and chemical laws, in astronomy and machines, in motion, in wind resistance, and enormous amounts of money.
Would it be possible that a plane is built out of an explosion in a scrap yard?
That resembles saying that you planted a bomb in a printing press that has ink, letters and paper and you expect an awesome dictionary of 1000 pages, with sorted verbs in red color, explanation in green color, and a biography dictionary included, all this as an outcome of that explosion, is that possible?
Dear brother, an American scientist wrote a book entitled “God manifests the scientific era” where in one of its chapters he said: All universal atoms won’t be enough to accidentally create one atom of any amino-acid.
Therefore mind would never accept anything without a cause that has a cause that has a cause, in sequence till you reach the Creator of causes (Allah).
The Great Allah is in our minds leading us to Him, who is the Creator of causes? Allah the Almighty would be the answer.
Causality system is based on installing it by Allah in His creatures where the mind uses it to lead you to your Creator gradually, just like asking which is first the chicken or the egg. But who created the first chicken?
It is the causes’ Creator (Allah).
One more thing, once I purchased a glass disk and it was written on it: “This disk prevents milk from spilling over”, so I bought it, put it in the bottom of the vessel, filled it with milk and it didn’t spill when it boiled and the problem is solved.
But in mind it isn’t solved yet, sometimes you have intellectual needs that are solved, but this one (the glass disk) wasn’t solved in my mind and I remember that I kept searching for the secret behind this disk for more than a week I even discussed it with high school teachers, and finally I found out the secret;, in this disk there was a small dome with an opening so when the milk boils a lot of air bubbles come out of this opening and make a hole in the cream layer which stops milk from spilling over, and basically the spilling over mechanism is the following: the cream layer is impermeable so the bubbles come up from all directions when milk boils and the milk spills over as a result but this disk accumulates all the bubbles and lets them out through one opening so it comes up like a rocket and makes a hole in the impermeable cream layer and the problem is solved.
Therefore sometimes you have problems that need only comprehending their causes to be solved, same like answering how milk spills over in a vessel?
2- Principle of purpose:
For example: Why the brain is in the skull? It is because the brain is the most dangerous and sensitive system in human being.
Why is there a fluid between the brain and the skull? Because it works as a shock absorbent.
Astronomers built their space ships imitating the brain for protection.
There is a fluid between the capsule where the astronomers are and the body of the ship so when a collision with an air layer occurs it spreads the shock all around the ship’s body.
When a child falls to the ground you can hear the thud of the collision between his head and the ground yet the brain remains intact and that is because of the shock absorbent fluid around the brain as it spreads the shock all around the brain area.
Why is the eye in a bony socket? If not, then anyone who falls to the ground would lose his sight, so
the eye is in a fortified fortress. The purpose of putting the eye in a bony socket is to protect it, the purpose of putting the spinal cord in the vertebral column is to protect it, the purpose of putting the red cells generators (the most serious generator in human being) in the bone marrow is to protect it, the purpose of putting the womb (the place of rest, firmly fixed) in the pelvis is to protect it, and the purpose of putting the heart in the chest cage is to protect it.
Therefore thinking should be in the purpose and not in the cause; what is the purpose of putting the heart in the chest cage? If someone was hit severely on the chest, the bones will absorb it keeping the heart in fortified fortress. What is the purpose of sensory nerves’ absence in the hair? Because if they existed then every hair cut would need a hospital and an operation under full anesthesia. What is the purpose of sensory nerves’ existence in teeth?
So if a decay reaches the sensory nerve you wouldn’t be able to sleep at night (because of pain) and you ought to go to the dentist and fix the decayed tooth or you will lose it.
If your mind wondered around thinking of purposes: why this joint is bent towards inside?
What if it wasn’t a joint, what is the purpose of this joint? So you can eat, and if you didn’t have that joint you would need to lay face down to the ground to eat just like the cat.
Why there are muscles in the bladder? So it will void in a short time or else you would need 15 minutes or half an hour to void the bladder if not for the contracting muscles. Why do you have a bladder? Because the kidney secrete one drop of urine every 20 seconds and if not for the bladder (where urine accumulate) you would be in need for diapers because the process will last for 5 hours.
Why does your mind reflect on your own creation? So you will know the greatness of Allah the Almighty.
Why Allah put in the infant’s spleen an amount of iron enough for two years? Because there is no iron in mother’s milk.
So subconsciously you think of the cause and the purpose.
I saw once a tape recorder that has two protrusions higher than the level of its buttons, why? There is a purpose, so if the record player falls those two protrusions will protect the buttons from smashing.
I told you once about the time I was in umrah (voluntary short pilgrimage that can be performed at any time of the year) and there was Quran’s bookcase in the Prophetic sanctum with a slanted top shelf, why? A person might put an unsuitable thing without noticing over the quran and this is why the top shelf is slanted.
If you observe yourself, you will find that every intellectual activity acts according to cause and purpose, and reason and aim, so causality and purpose are the mind’s principles.
3- Harmony:
If someone was accused of homicide, and the crime took place in Damascus but he brought a report from Aleppo’s Mayer that at the time of the crime he was at his presence, what will the judge do?
He will set him free because the mind can’t accept that someone exists in Damascus and Aleppo simultaneously.
Thinking is a very delightful thing and the mind is the greatest gift of Allah because of its very widespread activity.
I once watched a kid during his early steps who was placed in a room with U shape seats, and a piece of sweet was put close to him yet can be reached only by walking, so he took the longer way by walking by the seats holding on to them in the opposite direction till he got to it, so he thought of the purpose (the sweet) and realized that he should go the opposite direction to get to it since he can’t walk directly to it.
The complete attitude towards causes:
Honorable brother, Allah has established a reason for everything, but the western world assumes that the cause is the Creator of the results, which is not the case as cause doesn’t create results but comes prior to result, and then who creates the result?
It is Allah the Almighty.
Hence some Aqida (creed) scholars said: “by it not because of it”, which means by Allah’s will not because of reasons.
Now we have a complete and an incomplete attitude, the complete one is that you, as a believer, should resort to reasons as if they are everything then trust in Allah as if they are nothing. These are meticulous words that all people need.
When you intend to travel by car, you run a full check on it, tires, breaks, oil, and all the wiring and by doing so you are resorting to reasons but this doesn’t assure your safety, that is assured only by Allah, so you resort to reasons as if they are everything then you trust in Allah as if they are nothing and this is the complete attitude.
Therefore the western world resorted to reasons, trusted in them, idolized them, and forgot all about Allah while the eastern world didn’t resort to reasons so they ended up in the sin domain and the western world that resorted to them ended up in the polytheism domain.
The complete attitude is to resort to reasons as if they are everything then you trust in Allah as if they are nothing and this fact was detailed in this Hadith:
((Allah, Most High, blames for falling short, but apply intelligence, and when the matter gets the better of you, say; For me Allah sufficeth, and He is the best disposer of affairs))
I give in by saying it is over and I have nothing extra to do.
I read once about one of Al Azhar’s scholars who was knowledge seeker and he enrolled at Al Azhar but he failed the exam so he quit school.
One day he was sitting in his village when he saw an ant climbing up the wall and after covering two meters it fell down so it tried again and again and he counted 43 trials so he was embarrassed at himself and he went back to school, studied hard and became one of Al Azhar’s scholars.
You shouldn’t say I am done, or there is nothing I can do, look at the western world which is powerful, controls everything, has lethal weapons, controls media, has money, and has alliances
((Allah, Most High, blames for falling short))
Allah said:
"We are sure to be overtaken."
((but apply intelligence))
You should plan, resort to reasons, ask, search, and look attentively, for that Islam isn’t static it is dynamic and it isn’t negativistic it is positivistic:
((Allah, Most High, blames for falling short, but apply intelligence, and when the matter gets the better of you, say; For me Allah sufficeth, and He is the best disposer of affairs))
When are you entitled to say: For me Allah sufficeth, and He is the best disposer of affairs?
It is when you do your best and put all your efforts, like when a student who is top of his class and suddenly got sick just before the exams which affected him, in this case he is entitled to say: For me Allah sufficeth, and He is the best disposer of affairs, though he didn’t study, so if he failed he could say: this is Allah’s plan, Allah didn’t want me to pass the exam. But when you are a lazy student this saying is not accepted from you, the Hadith is very precise:
((Allah, Most High, blames for falling short, but apply intelligence, and when the matter gets the better of you, say; For me Allah sufficeth, and He is the best disposer of affairs))
One of Quranic miracles: “So I swear by the setting of the Stars”:
Dear brother, the title of this series of lectures is “Creed and Miraculous Inimitable Quran”
So we still have few minutes for two topics regarding miracles, the first is one of the most important topics which is the setting of stars.
Between the earth and the nearest blazing star is 4 light years.
The light travels at a speed of 300 thousands kilometers per second, so how much does it cover in one minute? We multiply by 60, in one hour we multiply by 60, in one day we multiply by 24, in one year we multiply by 365 and in 4 years we multiply by 4 and the result would be the distance between earth and the nearest blazing star in kilometers.
If we want to reach this star using a normal earthy vehicle, how many hours do we need to reach it?
If we divided by 24, how many days do we need? If we divided by 365, how many years do we need? To reach this nearest blazing star by an earthy vehicle we will need 50 million years, so 4 light years equals 50 million years so you would know the meaning of 4 light years, the trip will take 50 million years.
The average age of man is 70 years; and by comparison how many years do we need to reach the pole star which is 4000 light years away from earth? When will we reach Andromeda galaxy? It is 2 million light years away from us.
When will we reach a new star that is discovered which is 20 billion light years away from us? Now if we read what Allah said we would shiver:
“So I swear by the setting of the Stars, And verily, that is indeed a great oath, if you but know, That (this) is indeed an honourable recital (the Noble Qur'an)”
Settings here means that the object (star) of this setting isn’t there, and if an astronomer has read this word (setting) he would protrate himself to Allah, because this star’s light traveled to us in the light speed which is 300 thousands kilometers per second and kept traveling for 20 billion years till this light reached us, while the star’s speed is 240 thousands kilometers per second, where is it now? So what we are seeing isn’t a star yet it is the setting of the star, the same with anything you see in the sky, it is not real.
If you stood by the shore and saw the sun set behind the horizon, well it did so 8 minutes ago because between the earth and the sun there is 8 light minutes so we saw the setting after 8 minutes while the sun set 8 minutes ago, so everything you see in the universe is actually the sky history not sky reality, Allah said:
“ And verily, that is indeed a great oath, if you but know, That (this) is indeed an honourable recital (the Noble Qur'an)”
The purpose of miracles is to believe that the Creator of worlds is the Creator of man, and that the Creator of worlds is the One who descended the Quran, Allah said:
“So I swear by the setting of the Stars, And verily, that is indeed a great oath, if you but know, That (this) is indeed an honourable recital (the Noble Qur'an),
" In a Book well-guarded (with Allah), Which none can touch but the purified."
Dear brother, reflecting on Allah’s signs is the shortest way to know Allah and the widest gate to get to Him because it put you in front of Allah’s greatness. These miraculous scenes will be mentioned in every lecture of this series if Allah will.
