Islam in Asl - October 10, 2010 - The articles of faith - 1 of 3

Indeed all praises belong to Allah The Creator The Sustainer And the one who regulates all matters in the universe And we invoke His peace and blessings on His noble messenger His family His companions And all those who follow them in righteousness until the end of time. My dear brothers and sisters in Islam, Assalamu Alaykum Wa Rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu Of course it's nice to be back together again with the brothers and sisters after quite a long break. I hope that everyone had a particularly good summer and a good Ramadhan, the month of fasting. Sister Raihanna tells me that everyone’s excited to resume our bi-monthly sessions. Inshallah today what we’re going to do is we will do a quick review of the four articles of faith that we had covered before the break in June. The other two articles, because they need some time to go into some details, we’ll leave that for another session. But we’ll review the four, and then we would like to also give the brothers and sisters a chance to give some input into the kinds of topics that they would like us to deal with. Because the class is not just about me coming in and lecturing to you. I hope, and we hope the brothers and sisters will organize this. Our goal is to address issues that are relevant to you brothers and sisters so we’re very open to suggestions and ideas and input from you in terms of the kinds of issues and topics that you would like addressed with you. We have some ideas, but perhaps you may have very good ideas and we would like to hear from you and get that input from you. So Inshallah, our session today will be a bit short, after review we will ask you for your ideas and input in relation to the topics and issues we should move on with after today. So let’s begin as I have mentioned before, the articles of faith are six. That is every Muslim, in terms of his or her belief, has six concepts or six articles that they must have a clear understanding of The very first of these six is of course belief in God Almighty. Because as Muslims As Muslims In fact as human beings And I know, sometimes it is difficult for humans to come to grip with this But for every human being The most important issue that every human being needs to consider is God; how we perceive God; how do we understand God, And so in Islam, a lot of attention is paid to in the Quran and by the Prophet (peace be upon him) in his traditions to the concept of God, because Allah wants us to have the correct understanding of Him. And the reason for this is if we do have the correct understanding of God, then it becomes easy to do everything else that God commands us to do. And this is why you will find That The Prophet (peace be upon him) after he was commissioned by Allah as a messenger lived for thirteen years in Makkah And the Quran that was revealed over these thirteen years mainly dealt with the issue of God Almighty, who is He the concept of God, the perception of God. And in these verses, Allah refuted the arguments that the disbelievers at that time came up with in terms of justifying why they were worshipping more than one God. So it is amazing that the thirteen years, the main message that the Quran kept hammering home the people was the concept that God is one, so the first article of faith for every Muslim is believing that Allah God Almighty is One. He is one as the creator and sustainer of the universe and what that means is that it is Allah alone who created the entire universe and everything within No one helped Him to create anything No one played any role in the creation of the universe It is entirely Allah Exalted alone who did that We also have to believe that Allah is the only sustainer of the universe so not only did He create all of this but He sustains all of this And no one else sustains anything within the universe nor does anyone play any role in the sustenance and the taking care of the universe It is only God alone who does that So if you look at how you and I as humans survive, and the animals survive, and the plants survive, it’s amazing The efficiency of the system that Allah has decreed to sustain to look after the universe Especially when we begin to look at the universe itself, and we begin to realize how huge and vast the universe is that there are planets and that there are stars and heavenly bodies that are, as scientists tell us, are light years away from the earth light years away that is travelling at the speed of light for one year that’s how much distance you cover, and yet Allah created all of this and He sustains all of this and He is One in all of this; no one helps Him to do anything. And the third thing is that Allah is also the only controller and regulator of all that happens in the universe. So that no one else controls anything that happens. Or nor does anyone help Allah to control. You and I, in this life, when we do our work quite often we need help, we need assistance But Allah the exalted does not need any help or assistance. He alone controls and regulates all that happens and unfolds within the universe. Which means, that nothing happens except that Allah wills it and He permits it to happen which will mean, of course, that He knows about it. So nothing can happen to surprise Allah and He did not know that that would happen. This is not possible. This is one aspect of our belief in Allah. One as the Creator; one as a Sustainer, and one as the Regulator of the universe. The second issue in our belief in God is that we also have to believe that since God has been the only Creator and the only Sustainer, and the only Regulator of everything in the universe, therefore He is the only God that we worship. He is the only God we should worship. So, when we need help, we turn to Him for help, when we need anything, we turn to Him and ask Him and plead with him. And this is the area that the disbelievers at the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him), this is where they had problems. Because these people had believed that Allah was the Creator and the Sustainer, But they did not believe and accept that they should worship Allah alone, and this is where they associated partners with Allah. The third component of our belief in Allah is to believe that Allah has the most beautiful names and attributes. Names and attributes of perfection! So God does not have any defects. God does not have any flaws. He does not become hungry or tired or sleepy or need to drink or need to sleep or need to go to the washroom God Almighty is far removed from all the qualities and attributes of defects and imperfection This is why Allah tells us in the Holy Quran “To Him belongs the most beautiful names” “so call on Him by using these names” Pray to Him by using these beautiful names and attributes So we believe as Muslims, that God alone possesses the most beautiful names and attributes, and names and attributes of perfection And what that means is that human beings or creations can have similar attributes but not to the level of perfection For example, Allah tells us that He is All-Knowing But a human being can also be very knowledgeable But the human being cannot attain perfect knowledge, meaning that he knows every single thing. Only God knows every single thing. Allah tells us that He is The most Merciful, but human beings can be merciful, In fact, the Prophet (peace be upon him) told us that Allah has placed mercy in the hearts of all His creatures. This is why you find a mother will not abandon her young, and we see this even among the animals; among the animals, the mother will stay behind and will look after the young. Rarely of course the mother is forced to abandon her young. This is the mercy that Allah has placed in the hearts of His creatures.