Allahu Akbar or Allu Al-Kabeer?

[Idris]

http//www.submission.org/A-AK.html

In the name of God , Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Islam is older than the Quran. Islam (submission to God alone) has always been the religion of all God's prophets. Abraham however was given all the rituals (practices of Islam), thousands of years before even Muhammed was born. See our article, "Who founded Islam".

During a discussion about the use of the term Allahu Akbar, some people came up with the idea that Allahu Al-kabeer may be more appropriate because the word Kabeer can be found in the Quran while the word Akbar is not. This issue has been discussed also in another article that reminded us that Salat began even before the Quran.

The following is the main point in the discussion that took place.

God reminds us in the Quran that;

53 "...Today, I have completed your religion, perfected My blessing
upon you, and I have decreed Islam as the religion for you..."

Islam, our religion, is perfected by GOD Almighty at the time of
Muhammad. We had made changes in our Salat that we inherited
from our parents because we are trying to restore it to its initial form
known to Muhammad. Historically, we can trace those alterations to
Salat. Here you are 2 examples

1. Amen Saying "Amen" after the opening Sura is reported in
   a Hadith. It was said that a companion of the prophet said "Amen"
   after Muhammad had recited the Penning Sura in the Salat.
   After finishing Salat, Muhammad, allegedly said that he saw angels
   blessing the one who said "Amen" and were hurrying up to take it to GOD.

This Hadith and similar hadiths were introduced when the Muslims increased
in numbers, had converts from the Christians and Jews and thus got into closer contact
with Christians and Jews. Christians for instance do say "Amen" after
reciting the Lord's prayer which is very similar to the Sura 1 of the Quran.

2. Traditionally, in the the muslim world, even the Muslim scholars agree that
   reciting Fatiha is Mandatory, but reciting any other sura from the Quran in Salat as
   only a 'sunna'. Some of the Muslims who memorize the Quran used this idea to repeatedly
   recite the Quran to improve their memory of it.

When we accepted any changes in the Salat, we did it only after we were certain
that we are following the Quran and purifying the salat absolutely to God alone. We
had no intention to create a new religion. Islam (Submission to God alone) is the ONE
and ONLY religion acceptable to God. It has to be kept absolutely to God ALONE.
We are only trying to purify it from all the man made additions that accumulated over
1400 years.

Changing "Allahu Akbar" to "Allahu Al-Kabeer"

Those who want to change Allahu Akbar to Allahu Al Kabeer has two main reasons

1. GOD never qualifies Himself in Quran as Akbar, which is a fact
   Akbar is not a GOD's attribute you can find in Quran, and so do the
   number of prostrations (Sujud) and bowing down (Ruku) for every Salat.
   We do not have any information in Quran about the Friday's ceremony
   (ie.khutba) and how to do it either. The word "Akbar" however is quranic.
   God used the word "Akbar "to describe some of His qualities, See for example,
   972 and 4010

2. Based on the verse 1746, we should use Quran Only while
   preaching GOD. Do not forget that Islamic practices are older
   than Quran

Why we do not agree with changing Allahu Akbar to Allahu Al-Kabeer.

(1). Historically, there is not a single recorded instance where Muhammad or
muslims used to say "Allahu Al-Kabeer". Had Muhammad used "Allahu
Al-Kabeer" and in the case he was wrong, GOD would have corrected
him. Remember that GOD perfected His religion with its rituals at the
time of Muhammad. Therefore, when we change "Allahu Akbar" to "Allahu
Al-Kabeer" we are in fact creating a new thing and not restoring Salat
to its initial form.

(2). 1746 "...And when you preach your Lord using Quran alone..."

Reading 1746 in RK's translation may give you the impression that
since GOD qualifies Himself "Al-Kabeer"=the Great ,in Quran and not
"Al-Akbar'=the Greatest, means we should use "Allahu Al-Kabeer"=GOD is
the Great, instead of "Allahu Akbar"=GOD is the Greatest.

But we have to look at the Quran in total and not stop at one verse, to get a clear
understanding

(3). 17111 "...extol His greatness..." (In Arabic "...wa kabbberhu
takbeeran..." is similar in English to "Talk the talk and walk the
walk"). This command can be achieved by many ways and not only by saying
"Allahu Akbar" or "Allahu Al-Kabeer". We should not restrict ourselves
to a specific formula or to say anything at all. This command could be
applied to our Salat as well as to our daily life. We say "Allahu Akbar"
in our Salat not because of this command, but because we are following
Abraham who received the Islam's rituals from GOD who said so.

(4) 1313 "The thunder praises His glory, and so do the angels, out of
reverence for Him.".

1744 "Glorifying Him are the seven universes, the earth, and everyone
in them. There is nothing that does not glorify Him, but you do not
comprehend their glorification, He is Clement, Forgiver".

2441 "Do you not realize that everyone in the heavens and the earth
glorifies GOD, even the birds as they fly in a column? Each knows its
prayer and its glorification. GOD is fully aware of everything they do".

Praising GOD, extolling His greatness should not be restricted to
reciting a formula. It could be done by many other ways including
thinking of Him silently. And remember 2237 "Neither their meat, nor
their blood reaches GOD, What reaches Him is your righteousness.".

(5) Al-Kabeer means the Great and not the Greatest (superlative of
great). In the contrary, in Arabic, "Allahu Akbar" means GOD is greater
than anything someone can imagine or GOD is the Greatest of all things or
simply means GOD is The Greatest.

Some people objected to using Akbar as they thought it may imply comparing
God with someone else. Quran clarifies this issue for us by insisting on using similar
terms to Akbar. "Allahu Akram"=GOD is the Most Generous or
"Allahu Aalam"=GOD is the Best Knower. "Ahsan Al Khaleeqeen"= the Best creator.
Therefore Akbar is not a word you cannot use for God. See what God used for
Himself already and how He described some of His qualities as "Akbar"

(6). 17110 "...Call upon GOD or call upon the Most Gracious; whichever
name/attribute you use, to Him belongs the most beautiful
names/attributes.". As you can see this verse does not mean "...whichever
name/attribute MENTIONED IN QURAN you use...". On the contrary, this
verse condemns those who restrict His names/attributes to whatever they are aware of.

(7). We may criticize those who choose "Allahu Al-Kabeer" (ie. GOD
is the Great), only for the reason that they misunderstood the Quranic
verses mentioned above, refused to follow the clear teaching of a messenger
who corrected the Salat for them, and for their inability to see that to God
belongs all the beautiful names including Akbar, Ahsan, Akram,,,,etc.
Allahu Akbar is not a distortion of GOD's attributes . This is true for the simple
reason that we can not prove that "Akbar" is not among GOD's most
beautiful names/attributes. We have no proof that it was not what Muhammed
used, and it was confirmed by messenger of the covenant, (the messenger who
corrected every other aspect of our salat, zakat, fasting and Hajj) as the correct
one to use. And for the weakest at heart, it is even much safer to continue to use it.

(. 1698 "When you read the Quran, you shall seek refuge in GOD from
the Satan the rejected.". So, before we read Quran we say "I seek
refuge in GOD from the Satan the rejected.

5696 "You shall glorify the name of your Lord, the Great (Al-Azeem).".
So, we say "Glory to my Lord the Great" while bowing down (ruku) in
Salat and in other different places and times.

871 "Glorify the name of your Lord, the Most High (Al-Alaa).". We say
"Glory to my Lord, the Most High" in our Salat while prostrating
(sujud), and in other places and times.

17111 "...You shall magnify Him constantly." "...wa kabberhu takbeeran" (Arabic text).

GOD here does not say "...wa kabber ALLAh Al-Kabeer" (And extol GOD the
Great) in order for us to say "Allahu Al-Kabeer". GOD does not say
either "...wa kabber ALLAH Al-Akbar" (And extol GOD the Greatest) in
order for us to say "Allahu Akbar". This verse obviously does not
follow the same pattern as 5696 and 871 which could refer to what to
say in ruku and sujud.

(9). God proved to us in the Quran that when He wants to change a practice
in His great religion, He does it clearly and spells it out. He did that for fasting in
Ramada. See 2187 allowing sexual intercourse during the nights in Ramadan.

Today, changing "Allahu Akbar" to "Allahu al-kabeer" does not follow the
same pattern. Had Muhammed erred he would have been corrected. Had the
messenger of the covenant erred he would have been corrected. clearly loudly
and with a strong proof.

(10). 678 "When he (Abraham) saw the sun rising, he said, "This must be
my Lord. This is the biggest (Akbar).".

Abraham used the word Akbar to describe what he believed to be the Lord,
because the Lord must be the greatest.

Abraham was the one who received the Salat rituals, and the one who
qualified what he thought the Lord as Akbar. Coincidence?

(11) We are not worshiping Quran. We are worshipping GOD Alone using Quran
alone. You can make it to heaven if you worship GOD Alone even though you
do not use Quran.

(12) We need to remind ourselves that we inherited the Salat rituals and those
numbers from Abraham generation after generation. We keep doing the same
numbers in our daily Salat mainly because of so.

(13) GOD asks us to remember Him during Hajj. Of course going to Mecca
and the Hajj rituals are forms of praising, glorifying, and
commemorating Him. Muslims use a special and beautiful formula while
walking around the Ka'bah which is "Labbayka Alaahumma Labbayka" (Here
I am my God, I have responded to You, here I am). "Labbayka Laa Shareeka
Laka Labbayk" (Here I am I have responded to You, and I proclaimed that
there is no other god besides You; here I am I have responded to You)...

This formula is not in Quran. Should we then change it to something
else? We don't think so.

(14) We are doing 5 Salats daily because this is what it comes to us
from Abraham, generation after generation. Now we can see four mentioned
salat in the Quran, (three of the four by name) and also the middle prayer. There is no middle
for a four prayer, and five prayers as we inherited them is the next logical acceptable number.

(15) The khutba (Friday's ceremony) and how to do it are not in Quran.
Should we disregard it or just do it the way we are doing now because
this is what we inherited from Abraham? confirmed by Muhammed, then
confirmed again by the messenger of the covenant.

(16). We should draw a line somewhere. Or we take the whole Salat
rituals (including the number of ruku and sujud and what to say) from
Quran, or just follow what we received from Abraham, generation after
generation, unless if there is something against the spirit of Quran
such as praising Muhammad and his family.

(17) We had two proven incidents in the life of Islam (Submission) where the
rituals of Islam , including Salat, Zakat, Hajj and Fasting were corrected or approved
as it was. One by the prophet Muhammed continuation of what Abraham was practicing,
and the other more recently by the messenger of the covenant. God never told us to follow
our personal opinion or the opinion of the scholars but INSIST on us following His messengers.

God's messengers DO NOT contradict each other but confirm what was previously revealed
by God. God never sent a messenger to correct the mistakes of another messenger. The messenger of the covenant never corrected the prophet Muhammed but he corrected the corruption created
by people's personal opinion after Muhammed's death.

All these preceding reasons, are examples of the of many reasons to continue using
"Allahu Akbar" in our salt..

http//www.submission.org/God-names.html

God?s ?Beautiful Names? and attributes

By A. Salmawy

Much has been written lately by some believers about the ?Asmaa Al-Hosna? or God?s beautiful names. Primarily, this group of believers are saying that God?s beautiful names are only those in the Quran, and consequently in our Salat we should use the name Allah Al-Kabeer and not the traditional Allah Akbar. The claim is that Kabeer is one of the names of God in the Quran while Akbar is not.

They also say that only the names that are in the Quran can be used to call on God. This has been repeated by various articles mainly in the Journal of Submission.

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that these claims are a result of a lack of understanding of the Quran, and also to demonstrate that these believers have in fact abused and corrupted the meaning of a number of Quranic verses.

1- In his recent article in the JOS, the author starts his article by saying

?Of course God is not limited to any fixed number of names and attributes? ??

but soon enough he contradicts himself by saying

???and therefore the only valid conclusion must be that God has stated ALL these names in the Quran? !!!!

How can he claim that God is not limited to a fixed number of names and then conclude that all these names are in the Quran???

To arrive at this paradoxical conclusion he abuses the meaning of a clear Quranic truth, that being that the Quran is complete and fully detailed. He states that since the Quran is complete and fully detailed then, and in his own words, he says

?these names must be in the Quran, it can?t be otherwise?.

The corruption in the meaning of the completeness and detail of the Quran stems from the fact that the Quran is complete and fully detailed regarding all the Law of God that we must follow for our salvation. The Quran is not fully detailed when it comes to demonstrating God?s greatness or attributes. This is simply because God?s attributes and greatness is infinite, it cannot be contained in a book.

It is ironic that the author refers to verses such as 6103, 4211 and 1124 that demonstrate that it is beyond the human being to comprehend the greatness of God, then he insists that we should limit our understanding of God?s attributes to the names that are mentioned in the Quran !!!!

There is no doubt that God?s attributes are a thousand million more than those included in the Quran, and which are mentioned in the way of a sample. Some of these untold attributes we may be able to understand and a million others beyond our comprehension.

2- Another Quranic truth that has been abused by these writers is 1124. This glorious verse asserts that nothing can be compared to God. From this truth they have arrived at a corrupted deduction stating that only superlative adjectives may be associated with God?s name and not any comparative adjectives. As a result they claim that the superlative ?Al-Kabeer? (The Great) is the correct name to be used in our Salat and not the comparative ?Akbar? (Greater).

Sadly, and by making such a claim they have shown their total ignorance with the Quran.

First, they have shown their ignorance to the fact that in the Quran God compares Himself to other things.

On the one hand, God uses the superlative name ?Qareeb? (near) for Himself. This is found in 2186, 1161, and 3450. In these verses there is no comparison between God and others.

However, if we read 5016

"We created the human, and We know what he whispers to himself. We are nearer to him than his jugular vein."

In this verse, God uses the comparative (nearer) to describe His position in comparison with the nearness of the jugular vein.

The same word ?Aqrab? (nearer), which is the comparative form of ?Qareeb? (near) is also used in 5685.

Other verses where God speaks of Himself in the comparative mode are

• ?Best Provider? 5114, 2285, 2372, 3439, and 6211

• ?Best Supporter? 3150

• ?Best Schemer? 354

• ?Best Judge? 787,10109, 1280, 657

• ?Most Accurate Reckoner? 662

• ?Best Forgiver? 7155

All these comparisons in actual fact demonstrate the true meaning of 1124 and which they have failed to understand.

The meaning of the words ?nothing can be compared to God? (1124), does not mean that if one compares anything to God one is inevitably thrown into hell???..after all God draws many comparisons as was shown, it simply means that in any comparison, God will always be the triumphant.

You can make a million comparisons, day and night, but in every one the name of God will emerge as the clear victor. That is the meaning of 1124.

3- The next important matter that has been put forward to them, and which they have never been able to provide a convincing answer to, is the following

The Student of the Quran will be able to witness the difference between two types of Quranic commandments

Command #1

"Glorify the name of your LORD, THE MOST HIGH" 871

"You shall glorify the name of your Lord, THE GREAT" 5674

Command #2

"Extol (magnify) your Lord" 743, 17111 and others.

In command 1, God commands us to use SPECIFIC NAMES (The Most High and the Great).

However, in command 2, NO SPECIFIC name is indicated.

In command 1 God is telling us to use specific names, however in command 2 God is saying MAGNIFY the Lord, to magnify anything you make it larger. Hence, if you magnify KABEER (Great) you make it AKBAR (Greater).

If God wants us to use the word Al-KABEER, He would have specifically told us so, in the same way He told us to use the names THE MOST HIGH as in 871, or THE GREAT as in 5674.

The command in 17111 is to magnify or make larger???.AKBAR is greater than KABEER.

For that issue they have no answer.

4- Again, they still have not provided a clear explanation to the fact that the command to magnify the Lord is pre-Quranic??..it appears in the Old Testament and the oldest books of Jewish prayers.

If calling upon God can ONLY be done by using the names mentioned in the Quran only, then we must conclude that before the revelation of the Quran (1400 years ago) it was not possible for believers to call upon God by any names !!

It is expected that someone may claim that the specific command to magnify or extol God is a Quranic command and must be executed using Quranic words and names from the Quran. That is wrong too! The command to magnify God has appeared in the older scripture dating back to the Torah and probably before. One of the Prayer books that lists prayers from as far back as the days of Jacob or before show that the reader in the morning service takes the scroll of the Law and says

"Magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together"

(The Authorised Daily book of Prayer, 25th edition, Eyreand Spottiswoode ltd., 1957, page 66)

The command of God to the people of Israel to magnify His name is obviously pre-Quranic.

The Jews had no Quran to extract God?s names from, however they were still obeying God and magnifying His name without having to wait for the names that would appear in the Quran centuries later.!

5- Verse 7180 commands us to call God by the beautiful names. It DOES NOT say that these beautiful names are ONLY in the Quran. To insist on that is but a corruption of the meaning of the verse, as this would add the word ONLY to 7180. To add or subtract one word to the meaning of any Quranic verse is a corruption.

A well known example of a similar corruption of the meaning of the Quran by adding one word, is what we witnessed in the corruption of the meaning of 3945.

"When God alone is mentioned, the hearts of those who do not believe in the Hereafter shrink with aversion. But when others are mentioned besides Him, they become satisfied."

The corrupt interpreters added the word (gods) after the word "others" to make it instead if using the word others by itself as per the original Quran.

The attempt to limit the Beautiful names of God in 7180 to ONLY to those in the Quran is a similar corruption to the one given above, and which changed the meaning drastically by adding the word ONLY to the text. To impose a limitation to the meaning of a Quranic verse, and which does not exist in God?s words, is a grave corruption and is a man-made innovation .

Surely if God wants to indicate that ONLY the beautiful names of the Quran are the ones to be used, He would have specifically said so.

To God belongs all the beautiful names in all languages,

all scriptures,

and at all time.

God be praised