A Japanese Buddhist once told me:
Buddha is a god.
I said to him:
Does a god say about himself: I am not the first Buddha and I will not be the last Buddha?
The word Buddha means “enlightened”.
This is a description of a messenger.
A Muslim does not rule out the idea that some religious symbols were messengers from the Creator. But the Muslims do not and will not accept the idea of a divine-human being in any way.
He said:
Right and wrong are relative, so what is wrong for you, may be right for us.
I said to him:
The Truth is Truth even if the entire world agrees on its invalidity.
The tallest mountains in the world for example are the mountains of Everest, even if you or I didn’t know that this wouldn’t change this fact.
He said:
I will tell you a short story.
He continued:
A rural person was living in a village where he enjoyed a calm, clear atmosphere and rich nature.
One day, he decided to leave the village to live in the city, with its hustle.
Whenever he encountered a real problem that exhausted him, he would start by remembering nature, calmness, and his simple house in the village. Then he would begin to resort to them by asking for help.
This makes him happy and gives him reassurance, for each of us can achieve his happiness by himself, and choose his own god.
As soon as he finished his story, I told him:
If the wife feels nostalgic for her father, would she marry him?
If a person leads you to the way of the airport road, would you ride on his back and leave the plane?
Why don’t you resort to the Creator of these creatures?
He said:
You Muslims do not understand us, the Creator unites with everything. He is everywhere.
And he said:
There is no starting point and no end point for this universe.
I said to him:
How can the Creator be everywhere?
The term everywhere includes restrooms, sinks, and swamps.
Exalted be the Creator above that.
Do you enter as a human being inside the TV that you invented?
Can you, your mobile phone, and the photo you take using the phone become one thing?
We need a Power separated from us to save us from the troubles of this world before the hereafter, not to unite with us so that we may perish together and become both of us without features.
He said:
Sorry, I have to leave immediately.
I said to him:
To where?
He said what do you mean?
I said to him:
Do you know where to go?
Do you know why are you here?
Where did you come from?
The Japanese was very confused by the great surprise of my questions and said:
I want to leave the place to go back to the hotel.
I came to visit the place.
And he said:
Every sane person knows where he came from and where he is going.
I said to him:
So you use your rationality to figure out your daily life plans and you override your rationality to figure out your existential life journey.
Without knowing the answers to these existential questions:
Where do you come from?
Why are you here?
Where are you going?
You are in this case from whom who befooled himself.
God says:
And who would be averse to the religion of Abraham except one who makes a fool of himself. (Al-Baqara:130)
I once had a debate with three people of different nationalities who endorsed the newly popular science of energetics.
I remember that I asked a question as a prelude to explaining why Muslims pray in the direction of Mecca.
I said to them:
Do you know why?
An elderly woman from Venezuela said:
I don’t know anything. I only believe in myself, I believe in Buddhism, and I believe in nature.
I jokingly told her:
So you only worship three gods.
Who created nature?
I also told her:
Nature is water, air, and energy. The universe is created with all its energy, matter, place, and time.
Who created them?
She said:
I don’t care.
She also said:
Energetics has assured us that we can create our destiny.
We ask and receive what we expect through the Universal Law of Attraction.
I told her:
Was your presence in this life based on your decision?
So, decide not to die.
I also said:
Although you used words such as “science” and “energy”, these two words are not appropriate, as neither energy science is a science at all, nor energy is energy.
These are fake terms for fake concepts.
After all, believing in the Law of Attraction means that you are resorting to the universe. And belief in the Creator means that you are resorting to the Creator of the universe.
The universe is created. The creature is weak and march to an inevitable demise.
The one who lacks a thing can not give it to others.
Only the Creator of the universe, Who has the command, possesses benefit and harm.
At that time, the woman felt very confused.
She said:
I am very fond of Buddhism.
I told her:
Islam tells you to use your rationality to meditate and contemplate and differentiate between Truth and Falsehood.
Islam calls for optimism that leads to activity and to take reasons. Islam does not tell you that mere optimism attracts benefit or repels harm!
Buddhism invites you to a static meditation that clears your mind. Whereas, based on this meditation, the mind must be disabled and calmed until it reaches a stage similar to hallucinations.
There is no such thing in physical science called positive energy or negative energy.
I told her too:
Ask a group of energetic specialists for their interpretation of it, and you will get different answers.
You will find that every energetic specialist claims to be the one who has the truth. while none of them have it.
They perform rituals, utter words, and murmurs while performing the phantom traction of energy manually, intentionally or unintentionally, to delude the patient that he has been treated. Neither the energetics know the truth, nor the patients, believe in them.
I continued:
You blame the believer for his belief in the Unseen, while your entire concepts are based on the Unseen.
You believe in cosmic energy and the universal spirit. This is Unseen.
And you seek to benefit and repel harm by resorting to amulets and talismans.
All you are doing is just Proof that you are in Need.
- A Need for safety
- A Need for help
- A Need to attain good
- A Need to repel evil
This will not be obtained except by resorting to the Creator of the universe.
All the concepts that you adopt and the scape of the True Concept of the Creator in the religion of Islam is to abandon responsibilities.
The True Concept of God:
- He is the One and the Only.
- He has no human attributes or animal attributes.
- He does not unite with His Creations.
- Nothing is similar to Him.
- Forgiving, Merciful, and severe in punishment
You do not want Judgment or punishment.
The criminal escapes from accountability for the murder he committed, and the thief is happy to steal as he is safe from punishment.
If the student is afraid of the test, does he have the right to deny the existence of the school principal?
I also said:
Advocates of energy healing philosophies use the words “positive and negative“.
They mention negative energy and positive energy in their physical sense, and they say:
A bad or harmful thought releases negative energy, while a good, beneficial or peaceful thought releases positive energy.
Does thought produce energies?
Surprisingly, however, energetics has no physical definition; It is not electromagnetic energy, gravitational energy, or other concepts of energy in physics.
When we study physics, chemistry, biology, and other sciences in the United States of America, and then study them in Japan, Russia, or China, we will not find any difference between them. We will not discover, for example, that the laws of electromagnetism vary according to the country, and chemical reactions of the same materials will not produce other diverse substances, each according to the culture of the laboratory scientist experimenting.
We will not find in one book that the cell contains DNA, and in another book that the same cell does not contain it, according to the personal opinion of each specialist. The reason for this compatibility is that scientific information is the same everywhere. It is the one that explains things correctly. Any change of scientific information after it is proven requires all countries to change their information to be unified.
I also told her.:
As for energy science, it does not have any mathematics to explain it, and there are no scientific measurements for it, even in an indirect way.
All that is available in this field is good narratives and verbal formulations, and personal experiences not based on science, and psychological feelings. (All these feelings have Scientific explanations that have nothing to do with hidden energy).
Energetics is only a religious term, used by Pagans in East Asia. It is not a description of something scientific or materialistic that can be experienced, or dealt with.
Therefore, non-physical energy is called an Energy-non-subtle pseudoscience.
Positive and negative in physics is a hypothetical division.
If we say: the “x” ions are negative ions, and the “y” ions are positive, this is a hypothetical report in physics to facilitate equations no more. If we reverse it and say: The “x” ions are the positive ones, there is no problem with that. It is only a hypothetical division.
And the places have neutral Energy, There is no place with negative energy and another a positive energy.
She said:
Look at the asceticism of the Buddhist, and his wanderings in the deserted places for stillness contemplation.
I told her disapprovingly:
Do you mention this example as a compliment or a slander?
Is the purpose of human existence to go to deserted places and waste time in sessions of stillness?
The smallest insects are more aware of the purpose of existence, building the earth and repairing life than many humans, so you find swarms of ants working diligently and systematically for their benefit and the benefit of their children.
That’s why Rhonda Byrne, one of the most famous advocates of the law of attraction says:
You are god in the physical body (1)
This led to the sanctification of the human soul. It led as well to the glorification of the world and made the desires one of the utmost objectives.
Islam considers that our existence in this world is for a supreme goal and purpose: God Almighty’s knowledge and to worship Him by having a direct connection with Him.
Therefore, the worldly life is the beginning of an eternal journey that a person resumes after death.
Any misfortunes that happen, God knows it, and have allowed it. God has absolute wisdom, and absolute wisdom is related to absolute good. There is no absolute evil in existence.
Despite the shortness of this worldly life, it is like a place of affliction and a test for human beings, so that they are distinguished in degrees and ranks when they approach the next life.
I told her to finish the point I started the conversation with:
During the Pilgrimage, all Muslim men, regardless of rank or background, dress similarly in a simple white cloth and intermingle with no differentiation in the performance of the Pilgrimage rituals.
Muslims believe that the Ka’aba was the first place of worship built by the first human and first prophet; Adam. It was later rebuilt on the same foundations by Abraham and his son Ishmael who started to circumambulate around the Ka’aba in a counterclockwise motion. Muslims believe that the universe is praising the Creator as well. This shows the unity in the creation of the universe. When Muslims do the Pilgrimage, they circumambulate like Prophet Abraham around the Ka’aba.
Moreover, when Muslims from some parts of the world pray to the Creator in the direction of Mecca they join their fellow Muslims praying elsewhere in the world in concentric human circles, they worship God in the same spiritual center.
This means that Muslims pray to their Creator all the time. In other words, when some Muslims finish their 5 minutes prayers somewhere, other Muslims start their 5 minutes elsewhere. The prayer timings depend on the sunrise and sunset and they concurrently occur with the movements of the pilgrims in Makah, which is also consistent with the movement of the universe.
This is a scene that represents the greatest unity, joy, comfort, and tranquility, and if there is an origin for the term energy, it would be this majestic scene.
No blind faith in Islam. The Qur’an calls upon Muslims to observe the world around them and reflect so that they might appreciate the majesty of God’s creation.
We will show them Our signs in the universe and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that this ˹Quran˺ is the truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is a Witness over all things? (Fussilat :53)
˹He is the One˺ Who created seven heavens, one above the other. You will never see any imperfection in the creation of the Most Compassionate.1 So look again: do you see any flaws? Then look again and again—your sight will return frustrated and weary. (Al-Mulk 2-3)
Every child is born sinless. Everyone can call upon their Creator without any intermediary. If the child is left alone without parents or any teachings, he will grow up worshipping the Creator alone. At the age of puberty, he will be responsible for his actions and he has a choice to remain monotheist worshiping his Creator alone or to change his natural religion and take a wrong path by praying to God through an intermediary (Jesus, Mary, Buddha, Idols, Muhammad… etc.).
The similarities between religions come from God and the differences arose from mankind who created different paths to the Creator.
If everyone worships the Creator God alone without partners or intermediaries (saints, priests, idols, or prophets), we would all be united. This is the key to harmony and unity in the world. God said:
O People of the Scripture come to common terms between us and you, that we worship none other than God, and do not associate with Him anybody else and do not take one another as lords instead of God. (Al-Imran:64)
I remember a nice comment from an elderly German when I explained to him the definition of the religion of Islam, that he said to me:
This is a new religion that I have not heard of before. It is logical and humanity is united with it. I live among Muslims but I have never understood Islam in this way.
I said to him:
This is the new and eternal global religion from the time of Adam, peace be upon him until God inherits the earth and those on it.
Which is:
To worship the Creator of the universe and to resort directly to Him. He is the one and only God Who created Adam without a father or a mother, and He created Christ without a father. He is the one who creates and does not beget.
Humans must abandon idolatry, abandon the doctrine of the Trinity, abandon recourse to intermediaries such as priests, and saints, and not resort to graves. They don’t have to resort to the Prophet Muhammad or any member of his family members or resort to any of God’s prophets by requesting and asking for help.
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 about 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).
A Global Religion
Faten Sabri