A Primer to the Muslim Belief in the Creator

02. October 2012 Basics, Creed 0

It was said:

In the Arabic language, the word “Allah” used to refer to God, the Creator.  Muslims believe in One, Perfect, Eternal and Everlasting, Omnipotent and All-Knowing Creator, Who is the Creator of everything and absolutely does not need or resemble anything.  Muslims do not worship Prophet Muhammad or any other human being; Muslims do not worship the Ka`bah; Muslims do not worship the moon.  Muslims worship the Creator, and Muslims are certain that the Creator has no likeness to the creations.  Whatever one imagines, Allah (the Creator) is categorically different from that.

In Islam, the intellect and Faith are in harmony.  The Muslim belief in the Creator is rationally consistent.  The proof for the existence of the Creator is the existence of the creations.  This universe could not have possibly “created itself,” because something that was not existing could not possibly do something.  A thing must be to do.  That is, for something to act, it has to exist.  Furthermore, given the complexity of the cosmos, it is absurd to think that an incredibly large number of particles “just happened to arrange themselves”—all by themselves—into an orderly universe.  The truth is that there is a Creator Who brought this universe and all its contents into being.

Muslims believe there is only One Creator.  God has no associates, no partners, no family members.  Since, by definition, God is clear from every defect, we know that God has the Perfect Power and Will.  Whatever God wills to be, it shall be.  No one can overcome the Power of the Creator; nor can they prevent, interrupt, delay, or accelerate what God has willed.  If there were two (or more) alleged “gods,” as some people claim, then it would lead to absurdities.  If one alleged god willed for the sun to rise in a given place, and another willed for the sun to set in the same place, we know that both could not occur at the same time.  It must be the case that either one or neither of their wills is fulfilled.  If neither is fulfilled, then neither of them is the True God.  If one of their wills is fulfilled, then that One would be the True God and the other would not be God.  This is an elementary proof that there must be only one Creator.

Muslims believe that the Creator is Eternal (Beginningless).  Allah (God) exists without a beginning, and everything else exists with a beginning.  Allah is the Creator and everything else is a creation.  As we established, there is only One God.  God is the Creator, that is, the One who brings things into existence.  Allah existed before the creations.  God was before time.  God does not have an age, because God is the Creator of time and is not measured by time.    Allah is not an event—that is, God isn’t something that wasn’t and then started to exist.  Anything that starts to exist is originated, and God is not originated.  God is not subject to change, for change involves becoming different.  God is God and does not become something else.  God is Perfect, and God is not subject to development or alteration.

God knows everything—without exception.  Allah knows what we will do before we do it.  God has the Perfect Power over all the creations.  Allah has the Perfect Will.  Whatever God has willed to be shall be and whatever God has not willed to be shall not be.  Everything that occurs, occurs by the Knowledge, Power, and Will of God.  Our bodies, our thoughts, our feelings, our actions—whether pleasurable or painful, good or bad, wise or foolish—all occur by the creating of God.  The sincere person must submit to God and recognize that God owns us, and God owes us nothing.  God is not obligated to grant us a sip of water or a morsel of food.  Whatever bounties God grants us are by God’s Generosity, and whatever suffering we experience is by God’s Justice.

The Creator does not need anything—Allah existed before any of the creations without being dependent upon anything.  And after God originated the creations, God did not transform and start to become in need of the creations.  God exists without a place.  God is not in all places.  Before there was a place, there was a Creator.   God is not inside of Heaven or Paradise (nor above Heaven or Paradise).  God is not inside our mind.  We may use our minds to recognize that God exists, but God is totally unlike what we can imagine.

God exists without being in a direction; Allah is clear of having a volume, size, shape, or dimensions.  God is not an object or an image.  God is not a material being; God is not a spiritual being.  Both the material beings and spiritual beings are subject to time and space.  God is far greater than something that would dependent upon the creations.   The Creator is not attributed with motion or stillness.  Motion and stillness are the properties of objects—things that take up space.  Objects require the space they occupy.  Allah existed before space, and Allah does not require any of the creations in order to exist… Allah is the Creator and everything else is a creation.

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 WARNING

There are some irrational silly-minded people who twist and distort the Verses of the Qur’an and Hadiths (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) and think that God is a giant object with a smiling face, fingers, and a shin—this is contrary to the Muslim belief.  There are others who call themselves Muslims, but they think God is a human being.  Anyone who prays to something that occupies space is not praying to Allah, and the person who worships something other than God is not a Muslim.

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Allah does not resemble anything—God is far greater than what we may find in the recesses of our minds or in the distant galaxies of outer space.  Allah is not light, nor is Allah darkness.  Abu Bakr As-Siddeeq, the first of the Muslim rulers after the death of Prophet Muhammad, said: “Knowing that you are incapable of imagining God is knowledge in itself.  Attempting to fathom God’s Reality is disbelief and paganism.”  Muslims do not pray to objects or images—whether those objects or images are here on earth, in our minds, or beyond this earth.  Muslims worship the Creator and only the Creator, the One Who has no needs and no similarity.

This is a brief summary of some of the things the Muslims believe about the Creator.

 

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