What is "God/Allah"?
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Khi- Salam. All these verses prove that we live in a matrix simulated by GOD and all is but an illusion. There is no reality but GOD. Alhamdulillah! GOD Bless!
Oh no, not the illusionism view again... Where on those verses did it say everything is an illusion? Why do you like the trickster-God conclusion so much?
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Peace idmkhizar,
Khi- Salam. All these verses prove that we live in a matrix simulated by GOD and all is but an illusion. There is no reality but GOD. Alhamdulillah! GOD Bless!
Hmm... How do you know that "There is no reality but GOD" itself is not an illusion? How about your own writings? Are they illusions? What about your own existence? Is that an illusion? If so, then who is writing? God or some devil? So, again is that an illusion? What about me asking you all this? Is this an illusion?
Anwar Azim
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Peace be upon you,
I look on the word "god" as the word "governor", there is none that governs except the Governor. Something like that.
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peace shamsul, all,
If my memory serves me correctly, Allah can be used as a proper noun but it could also be translated, as The God/Divine/Deity
I also recall this has been discussed before (perhaps by brother Ayman).
I once read an interesting article about how humans find it difficult to conceptualise The God, and one of the main reasons given in the article was that humans do not come across infinite concepts/paradigms in our life/experience. For example, it is impossible to imagine the trait Almighty, even if we imagine the initiation of the whole universe ("big bang"), this event is negligible compared to Almighty. It just cant be pictured.
This perhaps leads to an interesting question, if it cant be pictured/imagined, can it be experienced/felt? If one approaches 'al quran' with this in mind, it can bear fruit.
Wakas
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Peace Wakas.
This perhaps leads to an interesting question, if it cant be pictured/imagined, can it be experienced/felt? If one approaches 'al quran' with this in mind, it can bear fruit.
WakasHow so? What is the certainty that you can experience/feel it? How can you feel it? With what?
Anwar Azim
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peace Anwar,
As far as I can recall 'al quran' rarely asks us to imagine what The God is like in a direct manner, but what it does do often is it cites examples in our experience/world and through this indirect reflection asks us to come to a realisation.
These do not need to be pictured/imagined (on the whole), but can be experienced/felt through the senses since they are in our experience/world.There is nothing wrong with trying to picture/imagine what The God is like, I have done this many a time, but the limitations of this should be understood. What is more fruitful perhaps is resonating what's in 'al quran' with what we experience. If we find it to be true, then through this we can experience/feel The God.
Wakas
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These do not need to be pictured/imagined (on the whole), but can be experienced/felt through the senses since they are in our experience/world.
The "experience" of "God" goes beyond the mere sense-perception.
There is nothing wrong with trying to picture/imagine what The God is like, I have done this many a time, but the limitations of this should be understood.
No there is nothing wrong to imagine. Imaginations it is said, is a chief religious faculty. It is through imagination that we can address a reality that lies beyond all rational thought processes. Imagination allows us to conceive something that is not there. And it is a arresting thought that human beings can conceive of things that do not exist.
If we find it to be true, then through this we can experience/feel The God.
The Truth of God has always been a "subjective" experience.
Regards,
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Hi all,
The word ?Allah? may well be of interest, but it does not say much about Allah.
We must have something to compare other things with; otherwise we can not fathom what we are researching.
In the case of God we can find the following from the Qur?an
The Qur?an is repeatedly mentioning the unseen and Allah is part of the unseen. (nobody can see Allah)
Ex. 7.143
?...............It (Allah) said You will never see me???.?Anything physical can be seen by us, either directly or through using sophisticated instruments.
Therefore
- Allah can not be something material or physical in our sense of the words.
Many verses are also mentioning that Allah is unlike anything else and has power over all things
Ex. 2.106
??..Know you not that Allah have power over all things?Ex. 2.163
?And your God is One.............................?We can make up a ?picture? of anything we have knowledge about; either it is a physical thing, power, energy, radio signals, wind, vacuum, or anything else we can ?think of?, anything that follows the laws of physics etc. But there is nothing else like God.
Allah can therefore not be any power, or force, that we know how to describe, but something that is totally different from anything we can imagine, and overpowering any force we have ever heard of.Allah can, therefore, not be bound by any of the powers, or laws of physics that we know of.
Therefore
- Allah is unlimited in power, of an unknown type, and can not be described.
Allah is bigger than anything else
Ex. 4.126
?And to Allah belong all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And Allah is Ever Encompassing all things.?Therefore
- Allah is larger than the whole of the Universe or Cosmos.
Allah knows what happens, everywhere in the Universe, at all times
Ex. 6.59
?And with him are the keys of all that is hidden, none knows them but Allah. And Allah knows whatever there is in the land and in the sea; not a leaf falls, but he knows it. There is not a grain in the darkness of the earth, nor anything fresh or dry, but is written in a clear record.?This means that Allah is everywhere, from inside the smallest particle of a substance to the infinity of the Universe. Allah does not necessarily have to be a part of the substance, but can co-exist with it.
Allah knows everything about any magnetic field, any electronic signal, any movement of wind or rain or any other matter.
Allah is observing what is going on in any microscopic object, like a cell of the human body, or any other object we can imagine.
If a tree loses a leave, anywhere in the World, Allah knows all about it.
If a seed is growing in the soil, Allah knows all about that too.All this has will/is/has been happening forever.
(Forever means there is no beginning and no ending, therefore time is irrelevant)
Allah is bigger than the infinite Universe and has always been there and will continue to be there for ever.Therefore
- Allah is absolutely everywhere, unlimited by space and time.
Allah is omniscient
Ex. 49.16
Say, "Will you inform GOD about your system? GOD knows everything in the heavens and the earth. GOD is Omniscient."As God knows everything, in fact, is omniscient, God must have an unlimited, what we call intelligence, if not, God could not have full knowledge of everything.
Therefore
- Allah has unlimited intelligence.
So, to reiterate
- God can not be something material or physical in our sense of the words.
- God is unlimited in power, of an unknown nature, and can not be described.
- God is larger than everything, and God?s qualities are unlimited.
- God is absolutely everywhere, always, unlimited by space and time.
- God has unlimited intelligence.
When words like ?never?, ?all?, ?everything?, ?everywhere? and so on are used, there are no two ways about it. No half-measures of any kind. ?All? means absolutely all, without any compromise.
If we look at it from a scientific point of view, we will find that there seems to be ?something? of a nature similar to what the Qur?an describes.
However, most scientists make a fatal mistake when looking into this question. They take ?now? and ?here? as a point of reference, and go back in time to try to find the time of beginning, and also where it was.
They may arrive at a time some billions, or whatever, years ago as an initial beginning of it all, because we humans can not comprehend eternity. There simply can not be any beginning. ?Something? just is.For instance, there exist many theories about the shape of Cosmos, lately there is a theory of the Universe being flat. I.e. it expands and will continue to do so forever. Then what is it expanding in? It can not be ?nothing?, it must at least be empty space?
Well, anyway, with this kind of ?understanding? of the God, or the ?something?, we may also begin to have some notion of the real greatness of this God, or at least, forget about our futile experiments with religious rituals and begin to look at everything in a more realistic way.
The question raised by shamsul-arefin is of extreme importance even though we will never have full knowledge, just some indications that may move us from magic and superstition into the WORLD OF REALITY.
Best regds
Ali Omar
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Peace Omar,
Allah is bigger than the infinite Universe and has always been there and will continue to be there for ever.
If you say "inifinite Universe", you can never say how big it is, for the simple reason that it is inifinite. Thus, you cannot even say that "Allah is bigger than the infinite Universe". How can you compare two infinites, assuming that you assume that Allah is infinite?
Anwar Azim
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Is anything impossible for Allah?
Yes there is one thing that is impossible for God and that is Hate. Because God is Love
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There is another thing I am not sure if Allah can do or not..which is to destroy Itself or choose not to exist at all....P quite tuff question right ?
anyway....actually I wanted to know the grammatical implication of the word "Allah". Cause there are articles by the traditionalist which says that you cant mention God or Vogoban or in some other language to refer to this supreme power. So I was wondering how did they drag that conclusion ? based on such interpretation, they force ppl to use Allah rather than God and somehow also say that "Allah" is the only name which believers should use.
thats why I created this thread to discuss the details and usage of this arabic word "Allah".
I hope its clear what I want to know actualy..P
Peace
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Hi,
We can not help but to put limits on God. ?
Hate and love are human perceptions and, when analyzed, are just variations on our scale of emotions. Hate and love are therefore illusions, just as is existence.
The ultimate ?something? is the source of all emotions.When we say something exists it just means that we have a perception of it. To us, God must, what we call ?exist?, because we have a notion of ourselves and everything else we can perceive, to exist.
For God, existence and non-existence is irrelevant.
For instance, do you exist when you are totally unconscious? At that moment, how do you know? rollThe same is true for all utterances that we call words, names and so on. These are all limited to our own perception. God knows what is in our minds and doesn?t need words.
Words are, when uttered, just various types of sounds; when written, various types of images. They don?t mean anything at all unless we put meanings into them.
The meanings we put into words depends on our language, culture (time and place etc.), so that one word in one language, in one culture, at one time and place, may mean a different thing compared to another instance.God does not need words to communicate with us, neither do we need words to communicate with God.
Maybe humans, at one time, also had this capability to communicate between each other, but we seem to have lost most of it, although we see instances where humans still show some of this ability.
However, in order for us to communicate with each other, we have invented, and developed languages, and given certain meanings to words, both written and spoken.When God ?sent? information to us through messengers, the messengers, consciously or unconsciously, formed this communication (revelations) into words of their own language, culture, time and place.
Therefore, when God communicated with Muhammad, the message delivered in the communication, was formed into words of his language, Arabic, as these were understood at that time and place.We have put negative and positive meanings into words, which vary depending on our language, culture, time and place.
What is told us in the Qur?an is that we should not use any word which we perceive as negative to mean the ?most positive?, or ?the ultimate all?.I believe the reason that the word ?Allah? is used in the Qur?an to signify the ?ultimate all?, or God or whatever we prefer to call it, is because the people at that time had a positive perception of this word. Maybe something they perceived as the best, the greatest etc. As love is a very great power, this could be one of the meanings, but I believe there are more to it.
When the overall, underlying meaning of a message becomes clear, the meaning of each single word in a certain context can be better understood.
One very important thing is to reach an understanding of, as to what end a message was delivered in the first place.
Without this understanding it is totally futile to try to comprehend the message.
Very often we see that single words, or sentences, are picked out and analyzed in order to reach a conclusion as to what the meaning is, and the result can become utterly ridiculous, or meaningless.I would, like others here, love to hear from someone who has studied the Qur?anic message in a way as mentioned, and has been able to reach conclusions as to what the various words mean in various contexts.
In the case of Allah, or God or Vogoban it does not matter what word we use as long as the word, for us, signifies something of the greatest an/or best we can think of.
Shaytan is probably at the opposite end of a scale from good to bad, and means just that.Best regards
Ali Omar
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Dearest shamsul-arefin
The Quran says Islam is the only religion since creation. Do we think Arabic was created at the time the first atom was created? Or the single cell ameba was created?
Then what do you think Abraham would have called Islam. How about Moses, Aaron, Hud, Saleh, Shuaib & Noah. If you think that while speaking Aramaic Prophet Jesus called it Islam it is nonsense. Islam means Submission. What ever language you say it in it still is submission.
Think about the things people do to separate from others. Idolize their community, family, prophet, region, country, Color, race, money, power, clothes even religion itself. They idolize these things they can name. My community is X and we are special people descendants of Y. this is because they can give a name to their idol. Everything above can be given a name. Color ? Tan, Clothes ? rich, prophet-Jesus, family-Caesar, region-north etc. these names can be given a definition. Rich clothed people are affluent in society, Jesus is the son of god, Caesar is a royal family, etc.
If our religions name is Islam then we can give definitions. Islam = X+Y+100 multiplied by 1192 as most people do. But Islam is not a name. It is something we have to do.
Do you think that Abraham called God Allah? Ilohim was a jewish word in which they referred to god. Obviously Abraham would have called Allah by that name. Definitely not Allah. There is a reference in the Hebrew bible to god as Alah which is very close. Allah is an Arabic word for god and Muhammad was born an Arab. Jesus was a jew. Can both be Muslims? Jesus calls god ilahim and we call him Allah. Are we talking about separate gods? His gods name is ilahim and my gods name is Allah.
Allah is not something like Krishna, Shiva, Atlas or Zeus. These are names that you can name a man with if you want. When a person says my gods name is Allah it is like saying my fathers name is dad. In psychological studies there is a story of a toddler who was asked his name and the child said ?No mikey?. The name was mikey and the mother always says no mikey don?t do that, No mikey dont do this and child has heard it so many times that he has decided to himself that his name is 'no Mikey'.
God, Baghwan, Kadawul, Deviyo, Adonai, Ilohim, Teos all these are translations of the word god. Of course if you really want we can use one of these as a name.
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Hate and love are human perceptions and, when analyzed, are just variations on our scale of emotions. Hate and love are therefore illusions, just as is existence.
Love is an illusion? And yet why does it mean so much to people? Even honest atheist find hard to discount love!
Is love of a child an illusion? Is love of God illusion?
As for Satan being bad - was he not standing up for his rights? He was after all was made of Fire and Human's made of mud, so why should he bow down to man of mud when he bows down to God?
Regards,
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Dear LoteTree,
Love is not a quantifiable substance or existence; it is a variable on our scale of emotions from ?hate? to ?love?.
But these emotions can result in something very real, and tangible, and that is our actions based on, or expressions of, love and/or hate.Right, Satan is not actually good and/or bad, but in our minds Satan gives an image of something ?not so good?.
Well, at least in the minds of some of us, I can not speak on your behalf.Regards
Ali Omar
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My thoughts on the matter can be summed up by my signature
The idea of an indefinable God is not popular amongst most people...
Its a frightening concept to entertain
And, IMO, to entertain it takes a different type of humility and submission.
Its not easy to admit and accept one may never be able to define it in this life.
Its even harder to not CARE about defining this force by manmade definitions.
A credible source is trying to tell me that our "nafs" henders us from the truth here on Earth...
This "nafs" tells you that you are seperated from the whole
that you are separated
that you are "you"
and the creation is something else
and the creator is something else entirely
The nafs is our medium of illusion.
If you can break from the nafs influence,
even if it is only a wrinkle in time
That time is an opportunity for you to "see". -
SaLaM All
I will comment on a remark made by Ali Omar
Is it a logical error because we, humans, perceive ?infinite? as a limit?
Actually we can not even perceive ?infinite?.
Do you think God has the same limitations, or is ?infinite? within God?I agree with you Omar. There are only handful of things which are infinte. For example, 10/3 = 3.33333333333333333.... so on and so on. This is ofcourse man made and therefore can be wrong. But the universe if not infinate. There are only that much number of stars and more are forming. But we are just too lazy to think how much or give that number a name. Even parallell univeres are not infinite. So yes, in that sense God IS bigger than infinite http//www.geocities.com/bigjaxal/s1.gif
