We used to hear cabin crew instructions about the importance of taking care of ourselves first and then our children that were also in danger during the flight.
These instructions are similar to what the priests of the world did when they asked their followers to resort to the Creator directly and to avoid approaching them due to the fear of infection after the Corona pandemic.
Those who resort to idols in request and worship rushed to sterilize their gods and not approach them due to the fear of infection.
God said:
If you call upon them, they cannot hear your calls. And if they were to hear, they could not respond to you. On the Day of Judgment they will disown your worship ˹of them˺. And no one can inform you ˹O Prophet˺ like the All-Knowledgeable. (Fatir :14)
As if humans are the virus as a result of their actions, and Corona is the cure.
Until the earth became strait to humans and their souls were also straitened to them.
God said:
… until the earth became strait to them notwithstanding its spaciousness and their souls were also straitened to them; and they knew it for certain that there was no refuge from Allah but in Him; then He turned to them (mercifully) that they might turn (to Him); surely Allah is the Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful.(Al-Tawba:113).
The Corona virus is one of the most powerful divine messages that tell people:
At a certain moment sooner or later everyone will turn to the source of his being, willingly or by force.
No matter how much we rely on each other and strive to make humanity happy, there will come a day when we and humanity will not be able to save ourselves. We will feel that we need a source who’s greater, more powerful than everyone else, and does not depend on anyone.
This source is:
- The Creator of Buddha, Ram and Krishna.
- The Creator of monks, saints and priests.
- The Creator of the prophets of God Muhammad and Christ, may peace be upon them.
It is not permissible to demand from the creatures.
There is no Trinity, no divinity, no refuge to a prophet. The different races are not required to search for a god of their own, and there is no good or evil god.
When I was young, my father was like a superman for me. He was capable of anything, fulfilling my requests, no matter how great they are to me. I never saw him getting tired in fulfilling my wishes.
I never liked to see him tired or sick. For me he was the hero who never gets tired.
We often heard the expression, “The woman and the little child think that the man is omnipotent.”
Our desire as human beings to have a source of absolute power that humans embodied in the character of Superman stems from an instinct planted in our hearts on the fact that there is a Higher Power different from humans, free of human qualities, and capable of everything.
Just like how the death of my father assured me that he is a human being who gets tired, has needs and dies, it also confirmed to me the existence of a Great Power that does not depend on others, independent, does not get tired, does not have needs, and does not die. It is the Creator.
That is why I always focus in my lectures for Muslims and my dialogues with non-Muslims on the importance of the True Concept of the Creator، which is distorted in all the religions except in Islam.
The religions that have ascribed to the Creator human attributes, such as having a child, getting tired and not knowing, sighing and regretting.
This became worse when some religions considered that the Creator would embody in an insect, a tree, an animal, or a human being. The worst of that all is that they made the Creator the sin itself, exalted be God far above that.
A young American once asked me how to balance our urgent need to connect with our Creator to win eternal bliss with the pleasures of this life.
I told him what I heard once and I liked it:
When you have an important and fateful test the next day, do you spend the night thinking about breakfast or the test?
He said:
I spend my night thinking about the test.
I said to him:
The pleasures of life are like the breakfast meal, but knowing the purpose of your existence, the source of your existence and your destiny after death, and communicating with the source of your existence is the test. There is no contradiction between them.
No matter how varied and expensive the breakfast was, and how luxurious the restaurant is, it would not occupy the thoughts of those who want to pass the test.
The young man said:
I really liked the idea of communicating with the Creator directly and not through a priest?
I said to him:
In fact, it is more than the idea of like or dislike. Your communication with the Creator directly is one of your rights.
The right of the Creator over His creatures is to worship Him alone, and the right of creatures is to communicate with Him directly.
It always caught my attention how young people are attached to social media these days, especially before the spread of the use of cameras, and I said to myself:
A man may talk to his friend for years without seeing him. He may feel comfortable and harmonious by talking to him from time to time, and when he meets him directly, he will be overjoyed.
As soon as I am asked about the reason behind the strong attachment of the Muslim to prayer and his frequent encounter with his Creator daily at any moment, and through the five daily prayers, I mention this example.
When a Muslim communicates with the Creator to repent of a sin, to thank a blessing, or to seek a need, and by acknowledging that whatever bad happened to him was from himself and the good he obtained was from the Creator, he would have achieved the goal of his existence, and his soul would be filled with tranquility and his life would move on with happiness. Therefore, the moment he meets with the Creator after death will be the happiest moment of his life.
Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “I am only a man like you, ˹but˺ it has been revealed to me that your God is only One God. So whoever hopes for the meeting with their Lord, let them do good deeds and associate none in the worship of their Lord.” (Al-Kahf:110)
A young man in his twenties from Chile asked me about the concept of Pantheism.
I was surprised when he gave me the term in Arabic even though the dialogue was in Spanish.
I asked him about it, where he said:
One of my relatives spoke to me about this concept, for I am of Arab-Christian origin.
I was very surprised and said to myself:
How difficult these times are for the youth, in which concepts have been distorted and young people are unable to differentiate between the reality of their existence and the origin of this existence.
I said to him:
If you have a circular electrical wire, you can somehow make it square. But it is impossible to call it round and square at the same time.
Either it remains circular, or it turns into a square.
A drowning person who is waiting for a helping hand to save him from death and perishment will not be satisfied with uniting with the sea water as a mean to be saved. He is looking for an independent being who will take his hand and lead him out of the hell he lives in facing the threat of death.
How someone who takes a picture from his personal phone can unite and become a single thing, with the phone and the picture.
How can someone who plays electronic games be part of the game?
We need a Power greater than all to guarantee our salvation and security after death, not to unite with us and make us both faceless.
The Creator is unlimited, eternal, He is before everything, after everything, and none of His creatures can be equal to Him.
Persistent need:
- The agnostic says: I believe in the existence of a power and energy in the sky that created this universe.
- When an atheist feels intense fear, he turns to the power in heavens.
- In Buddhist traditions, he turns to the power of heavens when he hears the frightening sound of thunder.
- The Hindus believes that the power in heavens is the one and the only God, to whom they resort when the earthly causes are interrupted.
What is the greatest secret of this Power in the sky, which represents the source of existence, to which everyone resorts in adversity, while the Muslim resorts to it in adversity and happiness.
If everyone resorted to it as the Muslim does in adversity and happiness, mankind would get united.
The Creator is one who has no image known to mankind. He has no son. He does not come to earth in the form of a human, animal, idol or stone.
Notes:
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 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.
From the book:
A Universal Religion
Faten Sabri