Behind every story of faith, there is a mental awakening.
Dr. Abdel-Wahhab El-Messery says:
Materialism fails to explain man’s insistence on finding meaning to his life. When a man does not find meaning to his life, he does not continue in material production like a dumb animal, but rather he decomposes, and he becomes nihilistic, eats drugs, commits suicide, and commits crimes without a clear material reason. The issue of meaning becomes more acute with the increasing satisfaction in the material side of man. Man’s humanity was closely related to something other than materialism.
Personal Pleasures:
The Creator said in Surat Al-Zumar:
God sets forth the parable of a slave owned by several quarrelsome masters, and a slave owned by only one master. Are they equal in condition? Praise be to (God) Allah! In fact, most of them do not know. (29)
In the sense that what is the best condition for man? To be a servant of one Master or many masters?
The Creator in the Qur’anic verse did not assume that man could obtain absolute freedom by not surrendering to any deity, as some people claim today. Man, of course, did not choose his family, his homeland, his color, his race, or his size. He is a slave to his Creator in all his conditions.
The Creator expects man to choose to be His slave in the matters in which man has the freedom to choose, otherwise man will become a slave to anything other than his Creator.
Slavery to the Creator is the opposite of slavery in our concept. Slavery in our concept is for the master to take the best out of the slave. As for servitude to the Creator, it is the opposite. It is for the master to give His slave unlimited blessings, and to get endless protection from man himself and society. It grants him freedom from any other kind of slavery.
It is freedom that elevates the human status. While it may be easy for a person to be free to choose actions like stealing, committing adultery, or even marrying an animal—considered freedom in the Western sense—it is challenging to resist and conquer these desires. This resistance signifies freedom in the Islamic sense. Through a person’s triumph over their lusts and desires, they demonstrate their humanity.
Freedom in Islam is a crucial concept because it liberates humans from the slavery of emotions. The issue of freedom, according to the Islamic conception, is the most significant in human history. The ultimate goal of liberalism is to free a person from the control of another, which represents a material authority indifferent to moral coercion.
In Islam, freedom means having a free heart and unbound feelings, with fear only from the Creator. Consider a woman who chooses to commit adultery to earn money due to financial and social pressures. In the Western concept, she may be seen as having obtained freedom, but in reality, she is a slave to societal pressures in the Islamic perspective. Islam provides another type of freedom, ensuring her eternal comfort in the afterlife – freedom of feelings and their attachment solely to the Creator.
An American atheist once said to me:
You Muslims are bound by the fear of your Creator. Why did you choose these restrictions that you committed yourselves to? We, atheists, are free to do whatever we want.
I said:
We are all between the carrot and the stick, but the idea is who carries the stick that we fear.
We have chosen to be shackled to the Creator of the universe, and you have chosen to be shackled to everything other than the Creator.
We all live between the stick and the carrot. But who should the stick be with?
He said:
Why does a Muslim have a phobia of homosexuals?
I said:
Phobia means fear. Who told you that a Muslim is afraid of homosexuals, and what is he afraid of in them?
I also said:
A Muslim does not interfere in the affairs of others as long as others practice what they like in their homes, where their sins are between them and their Creator.
Just as the civil law prohibits spying on citizens in their homes, there are also in Islam the concepts of secret and public sins.
Islamic law was designed to protect society from negative influences. Everything that comes from the Creator is for the protection of society.
That is why the law of punishment is applied on the public act in society, and not on mere personal inclination.
Just as a bachelor must prevent himself from fornication by resisting his desire, and who has inclinations to steal must prevent himself from stealing by resisting his desire, so must who has homosexual tendencies prevent himself by resisting his desire. This is the human test in this life.
This applies to all sins, including drinking alcohol and others.
If you lived in the fifties of the last century, you would be an opponent of homosexuality now.
He said:
Yes. I was in the past an opponent, and now a supporter. This was a normal vision in the past, and now it has changed.
I said:
How will you convince your old self that you were wrong? What is your standard for differentiating between right and wrong?
A person’s whims, desires, and inclinations remain affected, captive, and restricted by many things, such as education, upbringing, experience, social norms and pressures, etc. Humans need a constant law valid for all times and places.
Alcohol and smoking have become an accepted social norm in many countries, despite its great and well-known danger to society.
I also said:
The problem with homosexuals is that they want to change the norms of society and impose their preferences on others. This will not happen in Islamic societies. Because in Islam we are not subject to social norms as in other religions.
Some accuse Muslims who follow their religion today of reactionary and backwardness, simply because the act of perversion is not accepted in society. Accordingly, we say that He Who created us and provided us with sustenance set the criterion for distinguishing between right and wrong.
You were once against homosexuality, but now you have accepted it and your views have changed. But we haven’t changed. Because we are bound by divine law, even if the whole world laughs at us.
Today we find dancers and clowns becoming stars rising to high positions, and porn actors becoming pioneers of art.
He said:
Is this wrong?
I said:
The question here is: What results from these practices? What are the effects of this on society? Will these actions create a cohesive society that values the value of the family and reinforces the idea of fearing the Creator? Will it make society less dependent on alcohol, for example?Will it reduce the problem of substance abuse? Will it reduce the suicide rate?
The spread of pornographic films and the rise of scumbags, celebrity stars, and erotic art do exactly the opposite. It destroys society by all accounts.
He said:
It seems that the Muslim believes that guilt and pleasure are two sides of the same coin.
And he said:
Does guilt create pleasure? Or that many sins are a source of pleasure for human beings.
I said:
Of course not. not necessarily. Pleasure can be permissible.
Alija Izetbegovic
Each person’s choice as to how to do things is similar. The serial killer finds happiness in what he does. You, as an atheist, have no standard or way to convince the serial killer that what he is doing is wrong.
Many crimes were the cause of pleasure for the perpetrators. Thus, a person becomes a slave to his personal pleasure.
Pleasure reduces a person’s ability to self-choose and differentiate between right and wrong, and discourages self-control.
Slavery to whims discourages its owner from realizing right from wrong. But with awareness it is possible for a person to rectify himself.
That is why we need a system that strengthens our concept of piety. It is the degree of human awareness of the observation of the Creator.
Human beings need to submit to a source higher than their analysis of right and wrong.
The Latin orientalist Mr. Snicks says:
The Islamic religious concept has created a great deal of sophistication in the world and has freed the human mind from its heavy chains that used to hold it captive around structures in the hands of soothsayers. By erasing every image in the temples and abolishing every representation of the Essence of the Absolute Creator, Muhammad succeeded in liberating human thought from the heavy doctrine of embodiment.
The Qur’an came to be very eloquent in all areas, whether it was to incentify or intimidate, or otherwise.
As an incentive God said:
And no soul knows what has been hidden for them of comfort for eyes as reward for what they used to do[34].
Similarly, Almighty God threatens the disobedient with the punishment.
He said:
And they requested victory from Allah, and disappointed, [therefore], was every obstinate tyrant. (15) Before him is Hell, and he will be given a drink of purulent water[35].
Besides, what could be our motivation to have morals and values? To respect laws or respect others? If you say the enforcement of laws, we will then argue that law is not available in every place and at any time. It is not enough to solve all our local and national problems. Many people who commit crimes and evil deeds are away from others and law. All these religions around us prove how much people need it in their lives. We need it to arrange and discipline our behaviors on a religious basis which cannot be covered and hidden.
The necessity of religion is proved by the presence of many religions, which most nations on earth resort to for regulating their lives and controlling their people’s behavior based on religion or law. As we know, the only criterion for a person is his religious belief in the absence of regulation, since law cannot always exist with a person and everywhere.
The only deterrent that can affect a person is his inner belief that he is being watched and held accountable, and this belief is buried and firm in his conscience. When the person is involved in a wrong act, he tries to conceal it because he has an instinct to differentiate between the right and wrong; hence, he was able to tell that this act is outrageous, and that it is denied by common sense. All this proves the existence of religion and belief in the depths of the human psyche.
Religion fills the gap that laws don’t. Human-made rules cannot supply or bind minds and hearts to it at different times and places.
It was from what I read and liked, that a person’s motivation or drive to do good differs from one person to another. Each person has his motives and interests to do or adhere to specific ethics or values.
- Punishment: Can prevent people from harming each other.
- Reward: Can encourage people to behave well.
- Self-esteem: Can control the human’s desires as what one loves today may hate tomorrow.
- The religious restrain: Knowing and fearing God is the strong and effective motivation[21].
Religion greatly influences moving people’s feelings and emotions, whether positively or negatively.
This influence indicates that the origin of people’s instinct is based on knowing God. It may be used in many cases intentionally or unintentionally as a motive to move it, leading us to the risk of misunderstanding the purposes and teachings of the true religion, which has bad impacts on the individual and the community.
Scholar Ibn al-Qayyim summarized the conclusion in these beautiful words:
“In the heart, there is a dishevel; it can’t be accumulated unless we direct ourselves to the Creator, and a desolation, can’t be not be removed unless the human is left alone with Him in his solitude. Sadness exists within the heart; it will not go away unless we acknowledge the pleasure of knowing Him and our sincere treatment with Him. Anxiety exists within the heart; it won’t go away unless we meet with Him and escape from Him to Him. There is a fire of heartbreak, it will not be extinguished unless we get satisfied with the destiny, His commands, and whatever He forbade us from, and for us to embrace patience on that until the time of His meeting after death. There is a strong request; the request does not stand without God being the only required. Neediness exists within the heart; only His love, His constant remembrance, and devotion to Him can fill this need, and even if one gets the world and everything in it, that need will never be met”.
The atheist said:
But Muslims hurt others, steal and commit crimes.
I said:
I am talking about Islam. I am not talking about what Muslims do, or what I do, or what a country or people do.
When the social dynamic becomes based on a culture of political or economic problems and so on, we find that this will affect people’s dealings with each other.
I am talking about a perfect message from the Creator that gives us the best quality way of life in this world, and the best way to deal with people in the community. A message that provides us with an ideal way to have a happy eternal life with the Creator because of our strong relationship with Him and following His commands and avoiding His prohibitions.
Between atheism and the concept of carrots and sticks:
The first to present the carrot and stick theory of encouragement and motivation was Jeremy Bentham at the beginning of the industrial revolution in the year 1800 AD, as it was used in an Australian newspaper in its commentary on stimulating productivity in the aftermath of World War II, and after that the expression was recorded and documented in the Oxford Dictionary supplement in December 11, 1948 AD.
It means the method that combines the offer of reward to induce good behavior and encourage good action, and the offer of punishment to discourage reprehensible behavior and avoid bad action. Jeremy derives it from the old story that the best way to move a mule who pulls a cart is to put a carrot in front of him hanging out of his reach, and if he doesn’t move the cart driver hits him from behind; So he moves forward and drags the cart with him, hoping to reach the carrot to eat it, and on the other hand, to escape from the pain that is inflicted on him from hitting the stick. In this way, motivation and compliance theory works to achieve two objectives.
The first goal is:
- It is to obtain the benefit and reward represented by the carrot.
The second goal is:
- To avoid the fear, threats, punishment, violence and pain that the stick represents.
Religion and atheism are based on the opposite approach to life.
Religion tells man: you are guilty, you have to stop, repent and feel the guilt complex.
- Atheism may seem wonderful at first sight, as it gives man freedom. It provides a sealed voucher to do everything that the devil does not think of, for God does not exist to judge man according to atheism, and pleasure is the ultimate goal of man.
- Atheism tells man to sin and violate taboos, and considers him right in any way.
- Atheism justifies the most heinous crimes in the name of relativism, nihilism, absurdity, and material determinism.
What I read and liked:
Atheism is a very lazy, superficial judgment on a very deep case, strong and enduring, and full of evidence. With the fact that there is in the soul of the atheist a deep belief in the existence of God.
- Religion obliges man and restricts him if he commites a mistake.
- Religion establishes the beginning of the world and atheism establishes the end of the world.
What I read and liked:
Atheism is a presentation of the major issue and the great and confusing questions that occupy a person in a negative way, and atheists assume the inevitability of a person’s commitment to this negative image, embracing it and considering it a permanent life position that he lives and dies on.
While there are hundreds of evidence for the existence of God such as the evidence of causation and many other evidence, while on the contrary there is no scientific evidence on what the atheist claims, yet the atheist simply arrogant.
What is man from an atheistic perspective?
- Man from an atheistic perspective is an evolutionary pattern with three dimensions. He is a social animal. He is the son of Darwin raised by the theory of survival of the fittest.
- Man, from an atheistic perspective, lives and dies, and neither his existence nor his death has any value.
- Man, from an atheistic perspective, is a son of nature, son of reason and physical calculations. he is the son of earth.
Does a person then remain a human being?
It is said that the atheistic mind is like an X-ray mind that can give us a picture of the human skeleton, but it cannot convey to us a picture of the human face in its joys and sorrows. Coincidence is a concept used by the atheist in order not to think.
Ali Izetbegovic says:
Human transcendence could not have been discovered by biology or psychology, nor by any other science; Human transcendence is a spiritual matter. It is easy for science, after objective observations, to decide that inequality among people is very possible, even logical.
Dr.. Mustafa Mahmoud. Book: The Qur’an is a living being.
Mental awakeness:
Will Durant says:
Religion has a hundred souls. If everything is destroyed the first time, then it will perish forever, except for religion, because if it was destroyed a hundred times, despite that, it will appear and revive after that.
The most famous French atheist _ the famous philosopher (Michel Onfrey) who holds a doctorate in philosophy. He was hosted on the most famous channel, C_NEWS, with the most famous announcer in the most famous program (Face to Face), to criticize Islam and despise Muslims, so he shocked them with his opinion, and on the air.
Michael Onfray said:
I think Muslims are teaching us an important lesson, and they have every right to do so.
A lesson in how to counter materialism.
Because no matter what we see in them, they are people with an ideal.
They are people who believe they can transcend the physical horizon.
They are people who possess spirituality and a moral system that they adhere to, and values that they live by.
They think we should be ashamed that we are getting rid of the elderly in our society by consigning them to hospices.
They forbid participation in sexual relations in this way with any party and in any form and consider sexual relations outside marriage not honoring women.
I think it’s not about material possession here. Rather, it is related to their sense of dignity. Because these people have an ethic of honor. While we have lost any sense of honor.
Muhammad Al-Ghazali says:
Islam is not a political party that sought power! It is a religion that dominates souls and ideas, and rules people first with the beliefs, worships, and traditions that it establishes, the morals that it educates on, the teachings that it spreads, and the rituals that it upholds, and the executive authority is part of its curriculum.
Edward Burke says:
The law of Muhammad is a law governing everyone, from the king to his least subjects, and this law is woven with the most accurate legal system. The Islamic law is the greatest fair legislation that the world has ever found.
One of the characteristics of a person is that he is an enemy of what he is ignorant of, and that is why you see the atheist when he searched for the essence of his Creator while it was outside the limits of his mind.
Faith is a relationship with God that is legally translated into a relationship with others and with created nature, as faith must be reflected in daily dealings, and for this reason good treatment, enjoining good, forbidding evil, and love are among the original faith, and it must be lived in the self first, otherwise These phrases have been emptied of their meaning, and have become mere empty frames.
Dr. Youssef El Sebaei says:
When we are ignorant of the reality of things and our lack of knowledge of the reasons leading to the results that are before us, and in the event that we are ignorant of any material cosmic phenomenon, we hasten to hang the peg of chance because it is a comfortable term for the curiosity of searching for the real reasons behind it. And when science arrives at the causes and causes of any cosmic phenomenon, you will not find any room for chance in the face of that discovery that indicates the scientific reason. Coincidence is a temporary concept that we resort to and it disappears as soon as we know the law that explains the cause.
They say that man invented the idea of God when he felt afraid of nature! He invented religions to communicate with this god. In 1859 AD, Darwin published his theory of the origin of species, after which archaeologists and paleontologists began wasting their lives in continuous excavations and excavations in order to prove the theory! Some of them, after despair, even faked fossils for this purpose! And an army of biologists seeks in various ways to prove it and fill its gaps! Some physicists have been active in putting forward spiral ideas for the creation of the universe.
So why isn’t the one who denies the Creator the one who invented atheism to communicate with his desires without reckoning?
Logic states that it is impossible to create an idea out of nowhere, but it is possible to reject an existing idea.
Dr. Abdul Majeed Al-Najjar says:
By faith: the mind is liberated from all illusions, pressures, and sources of misleading, and it becomes a free mind, contemplative, thinking, analyzing, deductive, with a disciplined and strict approach in accepting and rejecting knowledge, whether it is read, narrated, heard, or inferred, belonging to the world of the unseen or to this world.
Since death has not been overcome, human beings need a spiritual life that deals with this reality and what lies beyond it. The Islamic understanding of the spiritual life is not limited to this worldly existence. It is a method that makes life and the hereafter fruitful. It is a method that can turn five minutes of communicating with the Creator in this life not only into five hours, but into eternity.
Dr. Murat Hoffman says:
Islam is the alternative life with an eternal project that does not wear out and does not expire. If some see it as ancient, then it is also modern and future that is not limited by time or place. Islam is neither an intellectual wave nor a fad, and it can wait. Do not rule out that the East will once again lead the world in civilization, for the saying: “Light comes from the East” is still a valid saying.
In the concept of Homo sapiens, man was created to live, not to perish.
Dr. Mustafa Mahmoud says:
This world is not everything, and it cannot be everything while it contains all these pains and injustices. There must be another world behind it, in which rights are returned to their owners, and every oppressor finds his punishment. With pain, overcoming it, being patient with it, and striving against it, the personality grows, the will becomes more solid and persistent, and man becomes something other than animals and plants.
The true religion is:
- Believing in God (the Creator), He has no partner or son. The Creator is neither male nor female. He is not a human. The use of the pronoun “He” is because of the language inability to have articles and pronouns to refer to the Creator.
- He does not incarnate in any of His creations or any idol. It is illogical to accept the creator of the matter to be in the form of the matter; the maker of the phone is not a phone. In the same way the Creator of the human is not a human.
- The Creator created Prophet Jesus without a father, as He created Prophet Adam without a father or mother, as He creates but begets not.
- Humans need to directly connect with the Creator, not through any idol, priest, saint, grave, Prophet, or family member of any Prophet.
- All human beings must also believe in all the prophets from Adam to Muhammad, including Moses and Jesus Christ. May the blessings of God be upon them all.
- Humans must believe in the Day of Judgment, where human beings will be held accountable for their actions.
Notes:
The reference of God to Himself as WE or US in many verses of the Qur’an denotes Grandeur and Power in Arabic. In the English language this is known as the royal WE, where a plural pronoun is used to refer to a single person holding a high office, such as a monarch. For the avoidance of doubt, the Qur’an has consistently reminded us of the SINGULAR pronoun in reference to God, when called upon by His servants.
The Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Middle East use the word “Allah” to refer to God, which refers to The Only True God.
The word Allah was mentioned in the earlier version of the Old Testament 89 times. (Refer to Genesis 2:4, Book of Daniel 6:20 Hebrew and Arabic Bible).The word ‘Allah’ appears in the original Sanskrit text. (Reg Veda – Book 2 hymn 1, Verse 11).
The Qur’an is the last sacred book sent by God, but not the only book, as Muslims believe in all the earlier revelations of God (the scriptures of Abraham, the book of David, the Torah, the Gospel,etc.). Muslims believe that the original message in all the sacred books is Pure Monotheism (unifying God in worship). Unlike the Divine scriptures that preceded, the Qur’an has not been kept in the hands of any particular group or clergymen of allMuslims which would lead to the misinterpretation or alteration of it. On the contrary, the Qur’an has always been within the reach of Muslims who recite it in their daily prayers, and they refer to it for all their concerns. Muslims read and recite the same Qur’anic text that was read and recited during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. Not a single letter has been added or removed from the Qur’an. The language of the Qur’an, the prophecies which came true, the accuracy in historical accounts, the mathematical inimitability and scientific accuracy, all prove that the Qur’an could not have been produced by a man who lived in Arabia in the 7th century and who could not read or write. God the Almighty challenged the Arabs and the non-Arabs to bring forth a book similar to the one He revealed, even though the Arabs at that time were masters of eloquence and rhetoric, they were unable to meet the challenge, and they realized that the Qur’an could not be from any other than God, the Lord of the universe.
References:
Book Why Religion? A trip from memory. Faten Sabri.
Izetbegović. Islam between East and West.
Abdul Wahab Al-Messiri | Material philosophy and human dismantling / behavior.
Youssef Al-Sebaei | Atheism is a mockery of reason.
Abdul Majeed Al-Najjar. The Role of Freedom of Opinion.
Mustafa Mahmoud. Satan rules.
Edmund Burke. Irish political thinker.
E. Dawa channel you tube