Saturday, 16 August 2014

Khutbah: The Existence of Allah and Our Purpose in Life

Indeed, all praises and thanks are due to Allah. We praise Him, we seek His Help and and we seek His Forgiveness. And we take refuge in Allah from the evils of ourselves and from the bad of our actions. Whomever Allah guides, none can misguide. And whomever Allah misguides, none can guide. And I testify that there is no one worthy of worship except Allah. And I testify that Muḥammad is His slave and messenger. May blessings and peace be upon him, and upon his family and companions.

To proceed:

O human being! Know that you are limited. You can only grow to a certain size and live to a certain point in time. Not only you, but everything around you is limited. Light, the fastest thing we know, has its limit. The entire universe, with all its vastness, has a limit to its size. And the list goes on. But the point is, everything of the universe is limited and finite. This attribute of limitedness is one common attribute that we notice of everything in the universe. Now, there's another attribute everything in the universe shares, and that is neediness and dependency. Everything, in order to exist, needs assistance from something else. Humans need food and water to survive. Our food, i.e. plants and animals, depend on a water cycle to sustain them. This water cycle is dependent on the Sun. The Sun is dependent on a whole set of other things. And the chain continues. Also, everything needed something to come about; things don't just create themselves out of thin air. So now, we see a chain where each limited thing is dependent on another limited thing, which in turn is dependent on another limited thing, and the chain keeps going. But since this is a chain of limited and dependent things, it needs to stop at some point; it needs something to bring it into existence. From here, we come to the conclusion that this chain needs something neither limited nor dependent on anything to start it off. And this "something" is none other than God – Allah ta‘ālā – the One beyond all limits, the One free of all need. Thus, we prove that this universe must have a Creator, a Creator that is unlike the creation in all aspects. And this is Allah – the One beyond all limits, whether time or place, direction or space, or any other limits that exist; the One not in need anything (al-Ghaniyy) and independent from everything.

O human being! Know that your mind is limited whilst Allah is beyond any limit. Thus, you won't be able to understand and comprehend the reality of Allah. Though what you can understand is that the Creator is beyond any limit – whether it's size, space, direction or any other limit – and so it is wrong to think of the Creator as being in any sort of shape or form, unlike what some religions out there teach. We do not concern ourselves with thinking about the reality of Allah as that's something we can't do, something our limited minds can't grasp; rather, we concern ourselves with believing in His existence, affirming the names and attributes by which He has described Himself, and also with reflecting upon His creations

O human being! You know that a Creator exists. You should also know that He demands something from you. He has sent messengers to you, the last of whom was a man by the name of Muḥammad ﷺ, who calls you to obey Him. Now, proving the truth of this is for another time as we don't have enough time to discuss this. But nevertheless, know that this Messenger ﷺ came with a Book from the Creator Himself. In this Book, the Creator tells us more about Himself – His Names and Attributes. E.g. where He says:

لَيْسَ كَمِثْلِهِۦ شَىْءٌ ۖ وَهُوَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْبَصِيرُ

"Nothing is like Him. And He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing." (Qur’ān 42:11)

In this Book is information about the unseen world – angels, devils, Paradise, Hell, Judgement Day, etc. We must believe in all this, even though we can't sense these things with our senses, as all this information has been revealed by the Creator Himself, the one with absolute knowledge of everything. But this Book also contains guidelines by which our Creator orders us to live our lives. So let us believe in this Book and what it contains wholeheartedly, and let us act upon it to the best we can in obedience to our Creator, for He did not create us except to order us worship Him. He says:

وَمَا خَلَقْتُ ٱلْجِنَّ وَٱلْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ

"And I did not create the jinns and the human beings except for the purpose that they should worship Me." (Qur’ān 51:56)

Our Creator commands us in many places in His Book to reflect upon His many creations. So whenever you take a look at something of the world you live in, reflect on its limited and needy nature, and remember the One who ultimately brought it and all other things into existence – the One beyond all limits, free of all need. Let everything in the world around you remind you of Allah. Let this all draw you closer to obedience of Him.

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