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in
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alhamdulillah all Praises due to Allah
and me Allah's peace and blessings beond
the last messenger of Allah I'd like to
welcome you dear viewers to another in
our Series in the names of
Allah in the previous segment of our
program we began to look at the
misuse of Allah's
names we began the whole series by
looking at a an instruction which Allah
gave with regards to his names this
instruction is found in the uh chapter
the seventh chapter of the Quran
verse 180 in which Allah says
there all the beautiful names belong to
Allah so call on him with them or call
on him by them or through them that's
the basic theme of this whole series how
to call on Allah using his
names calling on him of course is
worshiping him that's the essence of it
because Prophet Muhammad Sall alhi
wasallam had
said calling on anyone is an act of
worship right so what Allah is asking us
here to do is to worship him through his
names now we looked at what was meant by
it according to the scholars we said it
meant to understand Allah's names it
meant to to know them to uh to act in
accordance with them to believe in them
I mean this is all included in the
requirement to uh worship Allah through
his
names in the previous episode as I said
we looked at a a turn away from that
where people deviated
from the correct path with regards to
his
names there were those in the past who
deduced the names of their Idols from
his names the qur worshiped a lot taken
from
Allah also people deviated in the past
and in the present by
turning the names of Allah into
numbers by the abjad
system and from it creating am and
charms
Etc where these numbers are put into
charts and the wearing of these
amulets or hijab people have different
names from it for it uh they use this as
a means of bringing good for themselves
or warding off evil and of course this
is something unacceptable Prophet
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam when
he found some of his companions or those
who wanted to accept Islam wearing uh
charms he warned
them those who were wearing it and
wanted to accept Islam he refused to
accept their Declaration of Faith until
they removed them those who were found
wearing them he warned them that they
would uh destroy
their so we know from the basis of uh
the Islamic teachings that wearing of
charms and amulets are not accept cable
islamically the third group that we
spoke about in the last uh
session were those who call on Allah
using
ways and turning his names
into uh
sounds and repeating these sounds
continually not dissimilar to that used
by other non-muslim uh uh systems there
are other religions that have sounds
that they repeat they believe these
sounds will cause certain things to take
place so people who take Allah's name
like Allah and repeat it over and over
again Allah Allah Allah Allah Etc you
know and they may go into transes they
may fall down they may speak in tongues
a variety of things may happen to them
as a result of this but we should know
that this is not from
Islam all of this is against the
teachings of Islam it represents
innovation in the religion it was not
the way of prophet Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wasallam he didn't do this this
is not how he remembered Allah he taught
us meaningful phrases Subhan Allah
alhamdulillah he taught us these phrases
of praise praise of Allah or asking
Allah's forgiveness this is what he
taught
and whenever he told his companions to
to remember Allah repeat repeating uh
his names it will be in uh meaningful
phrases and he didn't jump up and down
spin around and do some of the things
that people today do claiming that they
are remembering
Allah so having understood these false
ways the next
major area that we need to look at is
the sources for the Divine names of
Allah because we already said that to
derive names ourselves this is uh not
acceptable so where do we find the names
from well the sources fundamental
sources of the names must be from the
Quran and the
Sunnah from Revelation Allah know knows
what his names were are what he taught
Adam he knows them what he taught The
Messengers of Allah he knows
them and that has to be the source for
our knowledge of the names of
Allah this is the only reliable source
anyone who claims a name from other
sources is claiming that they know about
Allah what even the messenger of Allah
didn't know what even his companions
didn't know and of course any such claim
has to be
false
now the Hadith we mentioned earlier the
statement of the Prophet Sall wasallam
in which he said that Allah has 99
names and whoever guards them will enter
Paradise there are some narrations of
this Hadith in which the lists of
Allah's names have been mentioned they
can be found in some of the books of
Hadith and Ma and Abid da however the
scholars of Hadith those who are experts
in the science of
Hadith they have identified These Chains
as all being
inauthentic even though they are found
in some of the books of Hadith the
scholars the experts have identified
them as being inauthentic that in fact
these different lists of Allah's names
were
included inside
of existing Hadith which were
authentic but all of the lists that we
know of even if we see them printed in
the backs of the Quran especially those
printed in Asia you'll find them the
whole list is there those are mainly
taken from these hadiths which are such
not authentic and what you find when you
actually look at these lists mentioned
in the Hadith these inauthentic hadiths
is that they fail to include many of the
established names of Allah like a the
Lord Al the Creator adad the able Al the
near while at the same time they include
names which cannot be found in the Quran
or in the Sunnah like
asab and which means the patient Al
which means the
reckoner Rashid the Discerning and Al
the Eternal these names cannot be found
in the Quran and the authentic Sunnah
so those lists as I mentioned in spite
of the fact that they're very popular
you can find them framed people sell
them they produce them they make them
and people buy them and put them in
their homes uh these lists are not
authentic and I should mention here that
among the ways of misuse of Allah's
names since we're in the area of the uh
false lists of Allah's names is for
people to put the names in uh
frames beautiful frames and hang them on
the
wall
believing that the presence of this name
on the wall is going to protect them
from something it's going to bring good
for
them or people wear them on pendants
around their necks or on bracelets or
they have them written on rings
Etc this this practice is really not
from
Islam yes Prophet Muhammad s wasallam
did have a ring in which it
said
Muhammad but that was a ring which he
used to uh stamp uh letters which were
sent out and it had a meaningful
sentence it wasn't again a single name
of Allah so we should also beware of
this practice which has become
widespread now the so the basic
principle we said here is that the names
of Allah should be extracted from the
Quran and the authentic
Sunnah so what we're saying here
basically is that the names of Allah may
be
determined by Revelation only so there
what is known as
they're fixed we cannot
deduce names which don't already exist
and that makes sense because the human
mind is not capable of knowing
Allah beyond what Allah has revealed to
him the human mind has its limitations
and as such if we were leave if we to
leave it to Human reasoning and logic to
determine what the names of Allah are
then we will end up with all kinds of uh
incorrect uh
terminologies as we can find in the
world in many of the religions around
the world today where people have given
Allah a variety of different names names
of their own making you know which refer
back to Allah's creatures Etc so uh we
don't leave it to human reason and logic
or emotion and experience to deduce the
names of
Allah the names are those which he has
revealed to us so only if we have it by
Revelation
clear uh authentic Revelation then we
accept those names which have come and
we don't deny them we don't make up new
ones and we accept what has been
revealed with that we're going to take a
break and uh inshallah we will see you
after the
break when you are weak and the road
seems long remember just remember seek
string from the
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strong
the Quran is Allah's Universal
Revelation to all of
humanity all of mankind within their
hearts desires to worship and know their
lord it's part of our fitra or the
innate moral nature on which every human
being was created the human being
desperately desires to know for what
what purpose would I put here on the
Earth
are the road seems long remember just
remember seek strength from the strong
alham all praise due to Allah and may
Allah's peace and blessings beyond the
last messenger of Allah welcome back
dear viewers as we continue to look at
the sources for the Divine name
names we already established the basic
principle that the Divine names should
only be extracted from authentic
Revelation either in the form of the
Quran or in the form of the authentic
narrations from the Sunnah these is are
these are our basic two sources to take
names from our reason our logic or or
from the expression of philosophers and
others this is not acceptable in trying
to uh describe Allah based on the names
that are revealed of course the
descriptions can exceed those which are
specifically mentioned in the Quran and
the Sunnah but the names when it comes
to the names themselves these have to be
limited to the Quran
and the
Sunnah now there are before we actually
go into look at the names of Allah
themselves 99 of them inshallah we will
try to cover in our series uh in the
future before looking at them there are
some basic rules governing the
understanding of the names because we
said that on one hand we need to
identify them we have to ident ify The
Source from which to get them we had to
understand how to use them and then we
ought had to understand how not to use
them so we have looked at all of that
now we're going to look at issues
concerning the understanding of the
names themselves because if we're going
to apply them we must understand them
the first rule concerning the texts of
the Quran and the Sunnah is that it has
to be taken literally as a basic
principle we take the texts as they come
we don't go to interpretation to
Metaphor Etc
until we have no other
option and there are supportive text to
justify shifting from the obvious
meaning and this
principle uh we should understand this
principle is a quite reasonable and
logical principle because the Quran was
revealed in
Arabic the prophet may God's peace and
blessing be upon Him understood the
Quran as it was revealed and his
companions understood it the same
way it is the norm for language that we
take words on their Fai value that word
words mean what they
say if we are to turn these words into
symbolic or metaphoric
meanings without any Clear Proof or
evidence for
justification then the language becomes
meaningless it becomes a set of symbols
which only a unique and special few May
understand or everybody is open to
interpret things as they please and if
that's the case then the essential
meanings of the Quran would be
lost but if we follow the normal
principle of language that when somebody
says to you something you take it on
face value as it is said if somebody
says to you for
example I
have a
car or I have a
house we don't go to you know some other
meaning we assume car means car house
means
house now this may be
obvious in that usually people don't use
the term car car to mean anything else
although we use car to refer to
toys you know toy car when a person says
I have a car we don't assume he means a
toy car not a real car we assume he
means a real car if he says I have a
house I have a house in Connecticut we
don't mean think that we he means you
know he has a dollhous you know as a kid
he had a dollhous that he played with
and that's the house he has in
Connecticut we don't go there we assume
he says I have a house in Connecticut it
means a real house you assume he says I
a car in Connecticut it means a real car
it doesn't mean a toy so that is the way
language is and that's the way that the
names of Allah and his
attributes should be taken so when for
example we find a verse in which Allah
says
instead his two hands are spread out and
he provides as he
wishes some people say well hands this
is not appropriate we don't want to say
Allah has hands because that's making
him like his creatures etc
etc so hands must mean something else uh
it must mean here maybe his generosity
you know uh but we don't have the right
to do that yes Allah is generous there's
no doubt but if he said his hands are
spread out we take it on face value but
we don't go into how his hands are we
don't go into the details we don't try
to understand it just as Allah says he
is the ever living he's living he's a
living God now his life is not like our
life we understand Life as we know it
and we believe God is living but we
don't claim to understand how he is
living beyond what he has told us that
for example his life is without
beginning and Without End that is clear
because he is informed us of that but
other than that we don't go into how it
is you know we leave it as it is so
similarly uh what we what we do with
regards to all of Allah's names is we
look at them in accordance with
verse 11 of the 42nd
chapter in which Allah says
there nothing is similar to him nothing
is similar to him so whatever he
describes himself and however he
describes himself we don't try to make
it similar to anything in his creation
because to do so in fact is to then make
him like his creation
and if he is dissimilar to
everything anything that we describe
will have to be from what we have seen
we have heard we have felt from what our
senses perceive because we cannot
describe anything that we have never
seen touched
smelled Etc or heard how to describe a
sound one has never
heard can't so when we come to
allaha we accept whatever descriptions
he gives of himself
without changing the meanings deviating
from the basic meanings in the language
we accept when somebody says or speaks
about the hands of the clock that these
hands are not like human hands we have
accepted that already we're a able to
recognize these terms in other contexts
as not being the same as the obvious
meaning of the term similarly we talk
about the face of a
mountain but we don't perceive when we
think of face of a mountain as having
eyes nose and a mouth Etc no it means
the side of the mountain so these terms
exist in the language and we accept that
when a applied to different uh creatures
it has different meanings we talk about
our legs but now when we talk about the
legs of a an
ant or the legs of an elephant I mean
these are all quite different but we're
still using the same term leg so we
since we can we can accept that within
the creation itself we may use similar
terms but they have different meanings
when applied to different uh
creatures similarly we should not have
any problem in accepting that though a
common term may be used between Allah
and ourselves what it means for us is
not what it means for Allah at
all the second principle that uh we need
to understand with regards
to uh Allah's names and attributes is
that all all of Allah's names and
attributes are
Transcendent they are perfect they're
free from any kind of deficiency in any
respect as Allah
said all the most beautiful names belong
to
Allah so we only give him those names
which he has given
himself and
if for example we find a text which
seems to indicate the name of Allah but
there is in it some deficiency then we
have to know that this is not applicable
to Allah for example the
name which means
time there is a Hadith a statement of
the prophet wasallam in which he
said what is that that really mean does
it mean that Allah is time time which
Allah created which has a beginning and
has an
end of course not that's why to refer to
Allah as ad that this would be one of
his names is not
acceptable what evidence do we have to
go elsewhere well there's a statement
which is that of Allah Prophet mham
wasallam quotes Allah as
saying
the the affair is in my hand I flip the
night and the day so from that it's
concluded that what is meant by the
statement of the Prophet Salli wasallam
about Allah being time meaning that he
is the owner of time it is in his
control he flips the day and the night
he changes it as he Wills so such a name
is not applicable to
allaha with that dear viewers we're
going to close this segment and we'll
continue to look in our coming segment
at the rules
governing how to understand the names of
Allah and from there we will begin to
look at the names of Allah
themselves when you are weak and the
road seems long remember just remember
seek strength from the strong