The Quranic Defination of Allah(the all mighty God)

[Mohsin]

Asalam-u-Alaikum. May peace and guidance be upon all of you.

I read this artical in a lecture of IRF( http://www.irf.net ) and found this part very very interesting and informative I wanted to share it with you all.

CONCEPT OF GOD IN ISLAM by Dr. Zakir Naik

INTRODUCTION

Islam is a Semitic religion, which has over one billion adherents all over the world. Islam means "submission to the will of God". Muslims accept the Qur’an, as the word of God revealed to His last and final prophet, Mohammed (peace be upon him). Islam states that Allah sent messengers and prophets throughout the ages with the message of Unity of God, and accountability in the Hereafter. Islam thus makes it an article of faith to believe in all the earlier prophets, starting with Adam, and continuing with Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, John and Jesus amongst many others (may peace be on them all).

The Most Concise Definition of God:
The most concise definition of God in Islam is given in the four verses of Surah Ikhlas which is Chapter 112 of the Qur’an:

"Say: He is Allah, The One and Only.
"Allah, the Eternal, Absolute.
"He begets not, nor is He begotten.
And there is none like unto Him."
[Al-Qur’an 112:1-4]

The word ‘Assamad’ is difficult to translate. It means ‘absolute existence’, which can be attributed only to Allah (swt), all other existence being temporal or conditional. It also means that Allah (swt) is not dependant on any person or thing, but all persons and things are dependant on Him.


Surah Ikhlas - the touchstone of theology:
Surah Ikhlas (Chapter 112) of the Glorious Qur’an, is the touchstone of theology. ‘Theo’ in Greek means God and ‘logy’ means study. Thus Theology means study of God and to Muslims this four line definition of Almighty God serves as the touchstone of the study of God. Any candidate to divinity must be subjected to this ‘acid test’. Since the attributes of Allah given in this chapter are unique, false gods and pretenders to divinity can be easily dismissed using these verses.


(This section may sound offensive to some people but please use it as a logical concept of Islam)
India is often called the land of ‘god-men’. Islam abhors deification of any human being. To understand the Islamic stand towards such pretenders to divinity, let us analyze one such ‘god-man’, Osho Rajneesh (only some hindus believe in him).

Let us put this candidate, ‘Bhagwan’ Rajneesh, to the test of Surah Ikhlas, the touchstone of theology:

i)
The first criterion is "Say, He is Allah, one and only". Is Rajneesh one and only? No! Rajneesh was one among the multitude of ‘spiritual teachers’ produced by India. Some disciples of Rajneesh might still hold that Rajneesh is one and only.

ii)
The second criterion is, ‘Allah is absolute and eternal’. We know from Rajneesh’s biography that he was suffering from diabetes, asthma, and chronic backache. He alleged that the U.S. Government gave him slow poison in prison. Imagine Almighty God being poisoned! Rajneesh was thus, neither absolute nor eternal.

iii)
The third criterion is ‘He begets not, nor is He begotten’. We know that Rajneesh was born in Jabalpur in India and had a mother as well as a father who later became his disciples.

In May 1981 he went to U.S.A. and established a town called ‘Rajneeshpuram’. He later fell foul of the West and was finally arrested and asked to leave the country. He came back to India and started a commune in Pune which is now known as the ‘Osho’ commune. He died in 1990. The followers of Osho Rajneesh believe that he is Almighty God. At the ‘Osho commune’ in Pune one can find the following epitaph on his tombstone:

"Osho – never born, never died; only visited the planet Earth between 11th December 1931 to 19th January 1990."

They forget to mention that he was not granted visa for 21 countries of the world. Can a person ever imagine ‘God’ visiting the earth, and requiring a visa to enter a country! The Archbishop of Greece said that if Rajneesh had not been deported, they would have burnt his house and those of his disciples.


(iv)
The fourth test, which is the most stringent is, "There is none like unto Him". The moment you can imagine or compare ‘God’ to anything, then he (the candidate to divinity) is not God. It is not possible to conjure up a mental picture of the One True God. We know that Rajneesh was a human being, having two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth and a white flowing beard. Photographs and posters of Rajneesh are available in plenty. The moment you can imagine or draw a mental picture of an entity, then that entity is not God.

Many are tempted to make anthropomorphic comparisons of God. Take for instance, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the famous body builder and Hollywood actor, who won the title of ‘Mr. Universe’, the strongest man in the world. Let us suppose that someone says that Almighty God is a thousand times stronger than Arnold Schwarzenegger. The moment you can compare any entity to God, whether the comparison is to Schwarzenegger or to King Kong, whether it is a thousand times or a million times stronger, it fails the Qur’anic criterion, "There is none like unto Him".

Thus, the ‘acid test’ cannot be passed by anyone except the One True God.

The following verse of the Glorious Qur’an conveys a similar message:

"No vision can grasp Him But His grasp is over All vision: He is Above all comprehension, Yet is acquainted with all things." [Al-Qur’an 6:103]

________________________________

I read some older threads, in one of them, someone posted that the Quran claims that Jesus(P.B.U.H) is God (God forbidding). The above critaria clearly discards this claim. The writter of that post was probably misquoting from the Quran, or the Bible or even both. When someone claims that Quran is coppied from the Bible as there are many similarities, one must concider that the Devine sourse(Allah(the all mighty God)) is the same for both the religiouns scriptures.

[Avinash]

Originally Posted by Mohsin

The Most Concise Definition of God:
The most concise definition of God in Islam is given in the four verses of Surah Ikhlas which is Chapter 112 of the Qur’an:

"Say: He is Allah, The One and Only.
"Allah, the Eternal, Absolute.
"He begets not, nor is He begotten.
And there is none like unto Him."
[Al-Qur’an 112:1-4]

The word ‘Assamad’ is difficult to translate. It means ‘absolute existence’, which can be attributed only to Allah (swt), all other existence being temporal or conditional. It also means that Allah (swt) is not dependant on any person or thing, but all persons and things are dependant on Him.

Surah Ikhlas - the touchstone of theology:
Surah Ikhlas (Chapter 112) of the Glorious Qur’an, is the touchstone of theology. ‘Theo’ in Greek means God and ‘logy’ means study. Thus Theology means study of God and to Muslims this four line definition of Almighty God serves as the touchstone of the study of God. Any candidate to divinity must be subjected to this ‘acid test’. Since the attributes of Allah given in this chapter are unique, false gods and pretenders to divinity can be easily dismissed using these verses.

(This section may sound offensive to some people but please use it as a logical concept of Islam)
India is often called the land of ‘god-men’. Islam abhors deification of any human being.

Namaskar Mohsin,

In Tantra the serious spiritual aspirant will never "deify" any human figure. If some practitioners worship the Guru, then that Guru can only be that same Endlessness, Absolute or Eternal that is called Brahma or Allah in your religion.

In Ananda Sutram, Chapter 2:4 it is said:

A'nandam' Brahma itya'huh
This Infinite Bliss is called Brahma

a'nandam = bliss
Brahma = Supreme Consciousness
itya'huh = thus it is said: iti + a'huh

Purport: Limitless object is one, not many. Many-ness can have no quarter in endlessness. That self-same blissful entity is indeed Brahma, Who is the composite of Consciousness and Energy.

And in Ananda Sutram, Chapter 3:9 it is said:

Brahmaeva gururekah naparah
The Guru is One, He is Brahma only, no other

Brahma = Supreme Consciousness
eva = only
ekah = one
na = no
aparah = other

Purport: Brahma alone is the Guru. He alone directs the units to the path of emanicipation through the media of different receptacles or bodies. None except Brahma conforms to the real significance of the word Guru.

So God or Allah can never limit Himself to some singular finite form. This realization is not unique to the semitic religions but indeed originated firstly in the Tantra of ancient India and was later adopted by your profet into his particular form of Islam. It is not surprising that many other tantric ideas and practices are mentioned in the Quoran as well.

[Mohsin]

Originally Posted by Avinash

So God or Allah can never limit Himself to some singular finite form. This realization is not unique to the semitic religions but indeed originated firstly in the Tantra of ancient India and was later adopted by your profet into his particular form of Islam. It is not surprising that many other tantric ideas and practices are mentioned in the Quoran as well.

True about the oneness of God, but when did you thiink the Tantra thought/belief came into existance, because it is the Islamic belief that Adam(P.B.U.H) was the first man on earth and also a prophet of Allah(the Almighty God), we can draw the links of the Prophets(peace be upon them all) mentioned in the Qur'an to Adam(P.B.U.H) and the massage of all the Prophets(P.B.U.T) was the same when regarding the oneness of God, i.e of monotheism. Also, the Prophet(P.B.U.T), twenty five of them which are mentioned in the Qur'an, never visited India. Few never got out of their countries. So do not think about thoughts being coppied.
Keep Cool.
Sincerely,
Mohsin.

[Avinash]

Namaskar Mohsin,

Originally Posted by Mohsin

True about the oneness of God, but when did you thiink the Tantra thought/belief came into existence,.....

Tantra is not a belief but a science of the mind (an introvertive or introspective science). Its practices lie at the heart of all the great religions.

....because it is the Islamic belief that Adam(P.B.U.H) was the first man on earth and also a prophet of Allah(the Almighty God), we can draw the links of the Prophets(peace be upon them all) mentioned in the Qur'an to Adam(P.B.U.H) and the message of all the Prophets(P.B.U.T) was the same when regarding the oneness of God, i.e of monotheism. Also, the Prophet(P.B.U.T), twenty five of them which are mentioned in the Qur'an, never visited India. Few never got out of their countries. So do not think about thoughts being coppied.

Religious myths are not a part of Tantra so I cannot comment on those beliefs (except that they are not mine). The scientific view is that the first (wo)man on earth was an ape who realized that (s)he had a seperate individuality.

As I explained in another thread, monotheism existed in India long before it appeared among the Semitic peoples. There have always been contacts between peoples of distant lands (remember the story of the "three wise men from the East" who came to visit the baby Jesus?). It is highly unlikely that the tantric practices in the Islam of Muhammed sprang up anew from nowhere. The scientific explanation would be that Muhammed learnt these things from tantrics whom he had met or had invited.

All spiritual paths and religions have started under the influence of other traditions and paths. If you open your mind to the parallels and similarities, you can see that much borrowing and copying has always taken place. The Islam of profet Muhammed is no exception to this phenomenon. We are not living on isolated islands but are truly one humanity who share a common heritage. Not just the people who follow one same religion are brothers (and sisters) but all people of the entire humanity are brothers and sisters regardless of what tradition they were born into.

Regards,
Avinash

[Avinash]

Originally Posted by Mohsin

but when did you thiink the Tantra thought/belief came into existance,

The science of Tantra started in very ancient times before 10.000 years ago. It was systematized and became more unified with the advent of Lord Shiva around 7000 years ago. Anything that strengthens, cleanses or expands the mind can be considered as Tantra.

Where religion is more pre-occupied with theory (myths etc.), Tantra is a practical science with very little theory that is not connected to experience. That's why it goes together so well with Buddhism, which is also very practical. Tantra has many parallels with yoga and mysticism and is therefore related to Sufism as well.

[Mohsin]

Regards Avinash

Originally Posted by Avinash

Namaskar Mohsin,
Religious myths are not a part of Tantra so I cannot comment on those beliefs (except that they are not mine).

Well, if you cannot comment on them, I can't comment on yours.

Originally Posted by Avinash

The scientific view is that the first (wo)man on earth was an ape who realized that (s)he had a seperate individuality.

This is by far the lamest excuse or method of for combining the theory of evolution with religion. It may be supported with/by Christianity, even though they too believe that Eve was the first womam, but Islam does not suppot evolution and stories like these. There is a different story in Islam.

Originally Posted by Avinash

As I explained in another thread, monotheism existed in India long before it appeared among the Semitic peoples. There have always been contacts between peoples of distant lands (remember the story of the "three wise men from the East" who came to visit the baby Jesus?). It is highly unlikely that the tantric practices in the Islam of Muhammed sprang up anew from nowhere. The scientific explanation would be that Muhammed learnt these things from tantrics whom he had met or had invited.

I won't argue with this that Indian religion(s) is a very very old/ancient religion(s). But the Semitic religion have got their recorded stories/grounds also very deep. For one thing, we can actually point at Adam(P.B.U.H), and the archiological discoveries that have been discovered with the help of the Qur'an and the Bible go very much close to it. Still, if you are going to say that monothism was an eastern thought and impressed the Semitic people, I'll argue. You have pointed a story of three wise men visited Jesus(P.B.U.H), lets go back a thousand years and a few hundred even more to the time of the Prophet Moses(P.B.U.H) and the Old Testament. The Commandments that he(P.B.U.H) recieved had a clear and strong message of monothism. Are you still going to say that monothism was from the East, because their was never any meeting with any Indian with Moses(P.B.U.H), not that any can be pointed out. Still, if you are again going to argue, lets go even back several thousand years to Ibrahim(P.B.U.H), the forefather of both the Arabs and the Jews. The archiological discoveries strongly support the stories present in the Qur'an and the Bible. Speaking as a Muslim, there are many clear signs present in the Holy city of Makkah which prove their stories which are present in the Qur'an and they too were purely monothiest.
Regarding these above mentioned points, who is to stop me from saying that it was the early Semitic people who brought monothism to the East rather the East to the Semitic. Or, there could be a third possibility, which is that they both had got nothing to do with eachother, meaning, no coppying.

About Prophet Muhammad(P.B.U.H) and the Qur'an, I too mentioned it on another thread that Qur'an has not been coppied. Some points, I will mention them here. Firstly, Prophet Muhammad(P.B.U.H) was an illiterate. He(P.B.U.H) could not read or write. He(P.B.U.H) lived in a society where the the people were idol worshippers(polythiests). At the time Prophet Muhammad(P.B.U.H) recieved Prophethood, i.e. at the age of forty, the earliest messages were of monothism, worshipping of only Allah(the Almighty God). Also, to enter into Islam, one must accept that 'there is no god but Allah and Muhammad(P.B.U.H) is the messanger of Allah'. Now, I can prove that the Qur'an is true, there are many points that I have mentioned in other threads, so the scientific explanation of yours is not correct.

[Avinash]

Originally Posted by Mohsin

Well, if you cannot comment on them, I can't comment on yours.

This is by far the lamest excuse or method of for combining the theory of evolution with religion. [] There is a different story in Islam.

I won't argue with this that Indian religion(s) is a very very old/ancient religion(s). But the Semitic religion have got their recorded stories/grounds also very deep.

Namaskar Mohsin,

I respect your religious outlook.

Regards,
Avinash