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foreign speech.
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Alhamdulillah.
All praise is due to Allah and may
Allah's peace and blessings be on the
last prophet Muhammad
Sam and on all those who follow the path
of righteousness until the last
day. I'd like to welcome you dear
viewers to another in our series in the
names of Allah.
In this series, we are looking at names
of Allah which have been revealed to us
in the
Quran and in the Sunnah of the prophet
sallall.aii as these are the only
reliable sources for names.
The names of Allah are as he named
himself, not as we as human
beings would choose or
uh create for him considering that he
best knows
himself. So we have restricted this
program to the names found in the Quran
and the Sunnah of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam. And in this segment
we're looking at two names. Two names
which are of a common origin. One is
alik and the other
al. These are names number 15 and number
16. The name alik is found 11 times in
the Quran.
among them from surah
alash. He is Allah, the creator, the
originator, the
fashioner
and is mentioned only two times in the
Quran. Among them is that found in surah
al verse 86.
Indeed your lord is the all knowing
creator. Now if we look at the root of
these two names we'll see that the
common
uh gerand or verbal noun that it comes
from is
khulk and khulk means or has two basic
meanings. One, the creation of
something which is completely original
without there existing something like it
before and its creation from nothing and
the other is an estimation and
measurement relative to
Allah. The divine name alik and its
intensive form
alak refers to the original creation
making and measurement of the universe
and its contents. Allah is the creator
of the universe and whatever it
contains.
As Allah asks in surah fat verse three,
is there any creator besides Allah? No,
he is the one and only creator.
Everything besides
him is
creation. And
everything which we consider to be
created is in fact
manipulated by human beings or by the
creatures in this
world. Human beings are not able to
create from nothing. Whatever we
create is a manipulation of whatever
already existed.
So although we refer to creation in in
human sense, it is really used in a
metaphorical sense. It's not true and
real creation. It is a manipulation of
what already
exists. So for example, the chair that
I'm sitting on, uh it has metal, it has
wood, it has cloth. Now each and every
one of these units were from something
else. The cloth came from cotton for
example which is from plants and the
wood came from a tree and the metal came
from rocks. So these things were
manipulated and reorganized or
reassembled to produce this chair. You
know maybe the first chair made in this
particular design. So it has that
element of originality to it. But still
it is not from nothing. It is from
something which already exists. Only a
law creates absolutely from nothing.
And the term the fact that the term
creator is used for other uh elements in
the creation can be found in surah verse
14 meaning blessed is Allah the best of
creators. In that verse, Allah is
identifying other
creators. But as I said, this is just
from a metaphorical perspective. Those
other creators are not true creators in
the full
sense. So this uh characteristic of
being the creator is a unique
characteristic that he and he alone is
the creator from nothing. Everything
else besides Allah is
creation. So when we think of the basic
principle
of the unity of
Allah, it has a dualistic element to it
in that the unity of Allah is distinct
from the unity of his creation. We have
two unities here. The unity of Allah and
the unity of his creation.
They are different and distinct. They
are not mixed in any way. You know the
creation is a product of Allah's
creative activity. Now some people who
had
difficulty grasping how can something be
created from
nothing. Their understanding and this we
find in Hinduism for example is that
when God
created since it was just him and there
was nothing else. He took from his head
and he created some human beings from
his arms and he created another set of
human beings from his legs another set
and from his feet another set. So you
have four basic casts or uh social
levels in Hinduist Hindu uh philosophy
or Hindu the Hindu
faith and they arrived at that because
they couldn't understand the idea of
creating from nothing because they in
looking at themselves looking as human
beings everything we do is creation from
something. So they have taken this in
their inability to conceive of a
creation from absolute nothing. They
have then taken the practice of human
beings and given that to God. So they've
made him in fact like his creatures.
Now if we go on to the effect of belief
in these divine names
Alik and
Al what they affirm for us first and
foremost as believers is the logic of
belief in
God. Allah said in
Were they created from nothing? Or did
they create themselves? Or did they
create the heavens and earth? Indeed,
they are
uncertain. In this these verses 35 and
36 from surah which is the 52nd chapter
of the Quran Allah addresses those
people who
claim most of the verses of the Quran
don't come from this point most of the
verses of the Quran come from the point
that people believe in God but they have
become negligent they are not uh
reflecting on his bounties his mercies
is his blessings in their lives. They're
not reflecting on this. So Allah reminds
them, have you
seen how Allah spread out the earth, how
he created the camel and so on so forth.
You know, he gives this as a reminder to
them of their uh need to accept
uh Allah as the creator and give the
praise and thanks, gratitude which is
due to him through worship.
But in this verse and a few others like
it in the Quran, Allah actually tackles
that small
minority, few people in this world who
actually believe there is no
God. So he gives them a
logical scenario to reflect
on. Were they created from
nothing? Were they created from nothing
or by
nothing? This is the first question.
Now, common sense says that
nothing cannot produce
something. Nothing cannot produce
something. So that's canled. They could
not have been produced by nothing.
spontaneously coming into existence from
nothing. That's goes against all reason.
So that's the first option that Allah
gives them. Is that what you claim? Or
the second
one or did you create
yourselves? Did you create yourself?
This is another
possibility which again is
illogical. Could we have created
ourselves? To create
oneself, one first had to not
exist. And if you didn't exist, how can
you create
yourself? Because for you to do
creating, you must exist. So therefore,
it's not possible that you created
yourselves.
This is the beginning of a logical
argument which Allah is giving to those
who deny that there is a
creator. We'll continue that after the
break. Inshallah. We're going to take a
short break here and we hope to see you
after this break.
When you are weak and the road seems
long,
remember seek.
My name is Shituni and this is brought
to you from Huda TV. Um in today's
edition, we'll be discussing about the
day and night. Allahh equated a samat
with darkness, the firmament with
darkness, and equated the earth with
light. Why are there really pillars that
cannot be seen or is it an unseen
pillar? Everything is running but the
relationships are fixed so that it would
appear to people as if nothing is
running. You see, we are destroying the
our environment with our own hands. And
that's why the Quran
says the road seems long.
Just remember, seek strength from the
strong.
Alhamdulillah. All praise due to Allah.
And may Allah's peace and blessings be
on the last messenger of Allah. Welcome
back, dear viewers, to our program in
the names of
Allah. And we're continuing to look at
two
names. Name number 15 and number 16. the
list that we are following alik and
al and I will just remind you as I said
in the list we're following because this
is not to say that these are names
number 15 and 16 it
depends which order you want to put them
in uh what list you want to make are not
uh insisting that this is these are the
actual numbers we're only for our
purposes is in listing and working our
way through 99 of Allah's names. This in
our list is 15 and
16. So we began to look at an argument
which Allah presents. We said knowing
Allah is the
creator. It should give us a sense of
empowerment
to accept or to know that the belief in
a creator is a logical and
reasonable belief because those who deny
God's creation that God's existence and
that the creation is from God say it's
just an accident they basically argue
that belief in God is
irrational. It is something
illogical. Uh people just it's blind
faith as they call it. Whereas their
belief is that what they believe is
logical that this is all a big accident
and that's why we're
here. However, Allah presents a logical
argument for them in surah at verses 35
and 36.
He asked
them, "Were they
created from nothing or by
nothing?" They have to say
no. If nothing was there, how could we
come into
existence? The other
option or did they create
themselves? Again, we said that's not
logical.
That's not logical because they would
have to have not existed to then create
themselves. And Allah goes on to
say, you know, not only did they create
themselves, but they also created the
heavens and the
earth. Indeed, they are
uncertain. Even if they wanted to make a
claim for themselves, yeah, we created
ourselves, but the heavens and the earth
problematic. It's too much. But even to
say that we created ourselves is
nonsense. It's
illogical because as I said, you have to
have not
existed so that you could create
yourself to come into existence. And if
you are not existing, you can't do any
creating. So those two options are
finished.
Allah in this verse does not mention the
third
option that is somebody created you.
Somebody had to create you. He just
leaves it there for the person with a
mind to think to grasp it. He only gives
the two options which could not be what
else is left but that somebody created
you.
That's the logic for the belief in God.
There has to be a
creator. So this is the argument
presented by the Quran by Allah in the
Quran.
There are some people who say well okay
yeah uh uh there was a creator and he
created me but he was created by
somebody
else and that somebody else was created
by somebody
else and so on and so forth and so on
and so
forth going
back reality is
that if you're going to go back
infinitely because that's What you are
saying now each creator had a
creator
then that is like
saying there was no
creation. The very fact that we exist is
proof that there had to be one
creator because if each creator had a
creator, you're going back infinitely.
You go back to infinity means that it
would take an infinite amount of time to
get to where we are now. Means it would
not get here. The very fact that we
exist here right now is proof that there
was one creator. Actually, this is the
argument used by
Aristotle. Aristotle and
Plato they logically proved the
existence of God. And according to
western
thought, the originators of logic, the
people who laid down the rules for logic
were the ancient Greeks. And here we
have the logicians
themselves using their minds, their
brains, their reason to come to the
conclusion that there must be a god. So
that in itself is something worth
thinking for those people who like to
claim that those who believe in God are
doing it out of emotion, out of blind
faith.
No, it is quite reasonable and logical
to believe in God.
The second uh point which should be
considered from the name alik and
al is that whatever exists in creation
is by the will and the wish of Allah
subhana wa ta'ala. As he said in surah
alas verse 68
Your Lord creates whatever he wishes and
chooses.
Whatever is considered to be creation,
whatever
exists is by his wish and his choice.
So it means then that everything which
exists is by the choice and the will and
the wish of
Allah.
Now that is a
basic part of belief in God.
There are those who
say
well if your god is all powerful he is
alaziz we believe
that
and you believe him to be good right yes
we believe God to be good the prophetam
said Allah is is good and he
loves and he loves he loves
good. So Allah is good. We don't Allah
is not an evil god. He's a good God.
That's our
belief. So they said,
"Okay, if he's all
powerful and he's good, where did the
evil come
from?" For them, as they argue, the very
existence of evil is proof that there's
no
God. There couldn't be a God if he is
good. Unless you have an evil god. And
for some people who were stuck with this
idea, you have the people like the
Zorastrians of
Persia. Their solution to this problem
was to have a god of good, Ahuramazda,
and a god of evil, Angramanu. So that
way it was solved. God is
good. Whatever comes from him is good.
And there's this other god who is like
really Satan elevated to the status of a
being able to create like God. That's
what they've done. And the evil comes
from this individual. So that way evil
is not attributed to God. But from the
Muslim perspective, that's not the case.
Our belief is that God created
everything whether whether it is good or
whether it is what we perceive to be
evil because there are many things which
are
good which under certain other
circumstance can become evil. Rain for
example, rain is a good thing causes the
crops to grow and everything but
sometimes rain comes and it floods and
people die. So it depends on the
perspective one is looking at it from.
It may be a good thing or it may be an
evil thing. Reality is that Allah
created nothing which was 100%
evil. This is a point I made on an
earlier program. Allah created nothing
which is 100%
evil. Because if that were the case,
then you're talking about an evil God.
He created something evil with an evil
intent. That's an evil god. We do things
like that. We have evil intents and we
try to implement those evil intents as
evil acts. That is that in that small uh
parameter is pure
evil relative to ourselves. That's pure
evil. We thought evil and we did evil.
But relative to Allah, even that evil
which we thought and did, if we did it
means he allowed us to do it, then there
must be some good for which he permitted
us to do this
evil. No, we don't, you know, justify
our evil by saying, well, Allah made me
let me do the evil, so there must be
some good so that my evil is a good
thing. No, evil is evil. Still Allah has
prohibited this and he has warned us of
punishment for the evil. So it's not
something that he's commanded but he has
permitted us to choose between good and
evil. And if we weren't able to do evil
then the choice would be meaningless. So
he permits us to choose it and to do it.
Sometimes if he sees in our doing it a
purely evil result that there's no good
that's going to come out of it then he
doesn't permit
it. If there is some good along the line
some way but we call the silver lining
of the cloud then he permits
it. He allows it. So
Allah whatever evil that exists in the
world is by his permission and he is the
one who takes out of what we may
conceive to be evil good. He's capable
and able to do that and that's why he
would permit it. The last point that I
would like to mention before we close is
that the belief in Allah as the creator
also should offer us some sense of
confidence in the fact that
uh Allah whatever human beings do they
will not be able to achieve what Allah
has done with regards to creation. You
know, science is moving at a very fast
pace now. The scientists are being
promoted almost like gods in this world.
They're able to do this, they're able to
do that. Seems like there's nothing they
want not going to be able to do. But
reflecting on this name of Allah brings
us back down to earth to know that Allah
is the only true creator in this world.
With that, dear viewers, I'd like to
thank you for being with us in this
segment of the program. We hope to see
you in our coming segments of in the
names of Allah.
The road seems