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Tawheed Questions

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Tawheed Questions
Anonymous
04/28/02 at 05:10:39
i hope i will be met with patience for asking to alter the nature of the
question
being answered here.....  i know this is about ways in which islam was identified
as the correct way of belief, but within the answers given here i might be able to
find a different answer that i've been seeking.

brother haaris, you might be able to be of particular assistance to me, if you
would be willing to expound on what you've said here.  i have never had any
experience or knowledge of god, and you referred to yourself as having "thought of
yourself as atheist" at some time.  i'm not sure if by that you mean you had had
prior belief and were at that time merely in a trough of confusion, or whether
you were truly lacking a belief in a god.  whichever the case, i'm plagued by
anwers like the one you gave when i try to find out HOW it is that anyone finds a
way to believe in god.  did you, through worshipping god while in your state of
disbelief, find belief?  from endless discussions with my now worn-out muslim
friends, i'm aware that my obstacle to belief is a simple inability to grasp the
concept of something so unimaginably universally present.  my mind is just too
small.  this idea of a god is just beyond what i can conceive of.  i don't even
understand how so many people manage to so easily bridge that gap between the
conceivable and the inconceivable.  i find myself lost in the same deep struggle as
the mathematician georg cantor, who repeatedly lost his ability to dwell in
accepted reality each time he surrendered himself to contemplation of the
continuum equation describing infinity.

is your answer - that tawheed is what convinced you - to imply that through the
practice of worship while you disbelieved you broke through that barrier of
"faith" in something you couldn't conceive?  this is where i'm not clear.  or was it
that you lost faith not in the existence of god, but in something else, like the
practice of islam?

i would be happy to have such a miraculous thing as a belief in god in my life, but
i just can't understand how any of you got there.  i've been told to turn off my
mind, not to think about it so much - a near impossiblity, i'm afraid - in order to
have this experience.  i've been told to turn off my physical perceptions -
something else i don't know how to do.  and i've been told to just listen to the
quran recited, without any verbal understanding of what i'm hearing, which i find
to be a very pleasant experience, but it hasn't broken through this lack of ability.

ever the good researcher, though i thought i understood the way the term tawheed
is used, it didn't make sense to me here, so i went again to look for its meaning.  
[i've learned to carefully document my islamic sources:
http://www.salafipublications.com/sps/]

what's confusing me, i think, is that tawheed has to do with oneness or unity, and
nothing to do with belief.  that's why i ask about worship - i've also been told just
to carry out the practice of prayer as best i can.  can you, brother haaris, or
anyone else, help add to my understanding of the process of acquiring such a
belief?  i find that the quran starts with an assumption of belief in a deity of some
sort.  i'm looking for a way to the point that precedes that one, the place where
god is found, not just a way to a harmonious relationship with the god you already
know.

is the information below maybe not the best source to understand tawheed?  i
could easily be off track here...


Also in another narration: "lslam is built upon five: The Tawheed of Almighty
God.. . "6

Thus: "Testifying that none has the right to be worshipped except Almighty God",
has the same meaning as: "To worship Almighty God and to reject anything along
with Him", which has the same meaning as: "The Tawheed of Almighty God." So, it
will be clear to the honourable reader that Tawheed is the essence of Islam, and it
is the starting and ending point for all goodness and excellence.

Linguistically Tawheed means: "To make something one, or to assert the oneness
of something."7  However, what we are concerned with here is the Sharee'ah or
technical meaning of Tawheed, which is: "To single out Almighty God alone for
worship."8

Al-Bayjowree - may God have mercy on him - said: "It is to single-out
al-Ma'bood (the One to be worshipped - i.e. Almighty God) with worship, along
with belief and affirmation in the oneness and uniqueness of His Dhaat (Essence),
Sifaat (Attributes) and Actions."9

Shaykh al-Ghunaymaan - may God protect him - said: "It is to single Him out
with worship, with love, lowliness and submissiveness to Him, by complying
with His commands and submitting to them."10

The Divisions of Tawheed

And Tawheed - with the Salaf and the Scholars of Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jamaa'ah has
three divisions.

'Allaamah as-Safaareenee (died 1112H) - may God's mercy be upon him - said:
"Know that Tawheed has three divisions:  Tawheedar-Ruboobiyyah (the Oneness of
God in His Lordship), Tawheed al- Uloohiyyah (to single-out Almighty God alone
for worship) and Tawheed al-Asmaa was-Sifaat (the uniqueness of God's Names
and Attributes)."11
Re: Tawheed Questions
Abu_Hamza
04/28/02 at 16:44:23
Anonymous,

I would really recommend that you read two books that are written by the same author.  The author himself was an atheist before he accepted Islam, and describes his journey to Islam in his books, and also his struggle - at first - to accept God, and then Islam as the true way of life:

[url=http://store.yahoo.com/islamicbookstore-com/b3202.html]Struggling to Surrender[/url]

[url=http://store.yahoo.com/islamicbookstore-com/b3152.html]Even Angels Ask[/url]

Click on the names of the books to see their description and how they can be ordered online.  

The author's name for both of these books is Jeffrey Lang.

I pray to Allah (swt) that He guides you and all of us to the Right Path and keep us firm on it.

Take care.
04/28/02 at 16:45:20
Abu_Hamza
Re: Tawheed Questions
Anonymous
04/29/02 at 03:13:23
thanks for those suggestions, abu hamza.  i will read those books.

one of the difficulties for me in reading stories of those who were
christians but "fell" into atheism for short periods of time is that their
questioning often has less to do with understanding and grasping the
concept of god than it has to do with them wrestling with their perception
of god in the teachings of the particular religion they've fled.  i was unable
to find, in a quick search, the extent of j. lang's period of atheism.  but i will
find his books and read them.  i know that some other islamic teachers i've
read of who found islam also went from a christian religion - often catholicism,
it seems - to a break with god on their way to islam.

hmmm.....are long-term atheists doomed to madness??  nietzsche, for example,
was an obvious schizophrenic.  doesn't sound like a pleasant prospect.    
but, then, maybe that sounds quite sensible to you.  as an atheist i can only
conceive of something like an afterlife while teetering on what feels like the
mere edge of sanity.
 
i won't get into this in much detail, but the experience of god has been correlated
to a reduction in activity in the part of the brain that allows us to perceive a
physical orientation to our environment.  we know where we are by having a mental
definition of the boundary between the surface of our body and our surroundings.  
nothing about the way the human body works is mysterious, though we might feel
most comfortable thinking that it is.  i don't have a belief that this discounts the
possibility of god, either.  it might very well be that the ability to depress
activity in this area is just the manifestation of god's will allowing one to
believe and experience that presence.  this would be a very simple explanation
of that power of god to control our faith.  the process of gaining knowledge of
god might also be a learning process for control over that center.  there is also
a location which has been identified as the physical seat of the will, and is the
origin of all nerve impulses which lead to physical movement.  again, this could
merely be the way in which our will is manifest in our physical body, the way in
which it's wired into us.

i can't rule out any possiblities.  i only know what i've experienced so far.
 
Re: Tawheed Questions
eleanor
04/29/02 at 04:07:43
[slm]

I'm not even going to pretend, in my limited state of knowledge, to be able to answer your questions, which require a much much better informed source than me. However, one point in your last point struck me and I would like to comment if I may:

[quote author=Anonymous link=board=lighthouse;num=1019985039;start=0#2 date=04/29/02 at 03:13:23]
nothing about the way the human body works is mysterious, though we might feel
most comfortable thinking that it is.  [/quote]

Really what you could also say here is that nothing about the human body is mysterious [i]anymore[/i]. We are at a time when, due to extensive scientific research, and using advanced technology, so we are learning evermore about the human body. I will not go so far as to say definitely that absolutely nothing is mysterious... for I have yet to hear of the scientist who can create an eye, for example.

What I am really referring to here however, is the Holy Qur'an. I'm sure you have heard of this before but I thought it was worth mentioning anyway. The Qur'an was written at a time when practically everything about the human body was mysterious. There were no microscopes, for example. Yet the Qur'an provides references to stages of human development which can only be seen with the aid of a microscope. This was one of the things that helped me to understand that the Qur'an was not created by humans, rather by a more powerful existence. Since I wasn't an atheist, it didn't require a huge leap of faith for me to accept that Allah was the creator of everything, Qur'an included.


I wish you much luck on your journey towards truth, logic and self-peace. I hope you decide to stick around here and let us know how you are progressing.

Peace,
eleanor
Re: Tawheed Questions
M.F.
04/29/02 at 05:28:50
Dear Anonymous,
It seems to me that it might be very difficult to grasp the idea of tawheed if one does not already have the concept of there being anything to wahhid or worship alone.
I think that what's escaping you is the idea that there is a Creator at all.  Once you know there's a creator, worshipping Him alone would be easy and natural and the idea of tawheed wouldn't be as complicated as some might make it to look.
My father once said this to someone who considered himself an atheist, and it's very simplistic but makes one think: "Nothing can come out of nothing can it?  And yet, here we are."  No matter how far back into the history of the universe we look, we cannot possibly explain how that one massive particle that later became the universe came into existence in the first place.  Scientists know what happened milliseconds after the big bang started, and yet they can't go back a few thousandths of a second to know what was before.... It's impossible that that particle came into existence by itself.  Matter does not just happen, it's made, and then anything that happens after that is just a change in that matter.   (even changes don't happen by themselves, the particle could have just remained a particle forever, but that's a different issue).
It's very hard for me to think like an atheist because I've always known there was God, but I can't think of any other possibility other than that first particle was created.
The universe works too perfectly for it to have just come about randomly.  A particle that explodes by itself to to become a universe in perfect workign order is too much for my mind to grasp.  Too many things could go wrong.  I myself could never believe that it just "happened", or that the laws of physics (however they came about) are enough to keep it together.  
I just remembered now after writing this that the Qur'an invites specifically to look into "how creation started".   I think perhaps that that may be a good place to start in your search for God.  You sound very sincere in your search and as Allah said (not in the Qur'an but through the Prophet): "if you take one step towards me  I will take 10 towards you..."
Re: Tawheed Questions
Maliha
04/29/02 at 07:36:28
[slm]
Check out www.harunyahya.com he gives an awesome scientific and historic breakdown of the existence of God.
I pray that you find the enlightenment you are searching for (Amin)

Maliha  :-)
[wlm]
Re: Tawheed Questions
Anonymous
04/30/02 at 03:19:05
friends:
my appreciation for your kindness and all of your helpful suggestions on ideas to
ponder and ways to proceed.

MF:  yes, i've considered, without resolution, the questions of the orderly
substantiation of life and the singularity issue of the purported big bang - though
recently reported to be a series of at least two "bangs".  there's a very interesting
article in the newest issue of Science (a research journal) that you, and perhaps
your father, might like to read.  it describes an even newer theory.  (i hope this
isn't laughably boring!  i've edited it down to the basics.)  here's part of the
introductory article:


.....the theory - an alternative to the standard, inflationary picture of the
formation and demise of the universe - describes a sheetlike "brane" universe
that eternally dies and rises back from its ashes, hearkening back to the
long-discarded steady-state model of a cosmos without beginning or end.

....an alternative to inflation based upon the mathematical framework of M theory,
a popular successor to superstring theory.  The result:  the ekpyrotic universe,
which describes the birth of our universe in the collision of enormous
four-dimensional membranes, or branes.  Not only did the ekpyrotic model make
similar predictions to inflationary theory, it got rid of the troubling
"singularity" of the big bang itself.

  The latest version is a more sophisticated variant of the original ekpyrotic
theory.  Two infinite branes - our own universe and a "mirror universe" - live a
tiny fraction of a meter apart.  "If you wait long enough, the branes approach one
another"....They collide, and the energy of that collision creates all the matter and
energy in our universe.  The membranes "bounce" and separate again.  The
newborn universe, on its brane, then evolves and eventually burns out.
 The theorists were surprised to realize that the collapse-and-bounce process
repeats itself ad infinitum.....The universe is born, dies, and is reborn again.

....."But as soon as I started working on this, I appreciated that time marched on -
that there was no beginning of time."



(and no, i'm not a mathematician, i'll have to look up M theory myself.  but i
think the general idea is well expressed here.)

as with all science, this is merely another remarkable human effort to describe
the world around us.

i especially (as you might have guessed) look forward to reading some of the
harun yahya books, they look to be exactly the sort of analytical investigation that
might provide a framework for me.  (the activation energy to cross that faith barrier,
in the language of my work?)  i've heard reference to calculations of physical
constants in the quran, but had not heard of these books.

i'll return with new questions or my assessments of these materials after i've had
time to get through them.  thanks for your advice.

Re: Tawheed Questions
M.F.
04/30/02 at 06:00:54
I did hear about this new theory about the universe, but just as you can't get your head around the idea of a creator, I can't get my head around the idea of infinity when it comes to matter.  Matter, or a universe with no beginning or no end in time?  It's completely incomprehensible to me.  To me the "troubling singularity" of the big bang is what it's all about.  
Re: Tawheed Questions
haaris
04/30/02 at 13:00:46
Dear Anonymous,

I shall, Insha Allah, try to answer some of your queries, by sharing my experiences with you.  Please understand though, that my answers are based on my own experiences,  thoughts and feelings and, as such, may not stand up to rigorous examination in terms of formal logic or whatever.  So, here goes ...

Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim.

A bit of background about myself, to give some context to my previous post.  I am, ethnically at least, your typical WASP.  Growing up in white, working class Essex (the UK) in the 1970's and 1980's, my exposure to other cultures was limited to say the least.  My parents were real "children of the 1960's" and I was not raised within any kind of religion, I was never baptised or anything.  "CofE" (Church of England) was just something we put on official forms, more as a matter of course than conviction.  Like everyone else I knew, the only times I went to church were for weddings, funerals or for certain occasions with the Boy Scouts (cringe!!).

In this context I considered myself an atheist: I had no religion.  Later, when I began seriously to consider the idea of God and religion, I did so agains the framework of what I knew: Christianity (more specifically, CofE Christianity).  When I rejected Christianity, I thought that I was rejecting religion itself.  Lazy thinking, I know, but I did give you that caveat at the beginning.

So, that was me, a self-confessed "atheist" and card-carrying liberal.  Then I went to University and experienced a few different cultures, most of them Christian.  Spending time in Mexico and Spain gave me a slight insight into Catholicism but I regarded that as less satisfactory even than CofE.

I think that I was probably in a similar place then to where you are now, Anon (if you don't mind me shortening your name  ;) ).  The only concept I had of God was of an old man with a long white beard (astagfirullah).  In fact, you are much closer to Islam than I was.  I believe - WARNING on my limited knowledge!! - that one of the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad [saw] (Abu Bakr?) said that "your inability to conceive Allah IS your only conception of Allah" (somebody confirm/deny this please).

Then Allah brought me into contact with Islam, Alhamdulillah.  Circumstances lead me to begin reading about Islam.  At first, I wanted just to understand Islam and what it really stood for.

I didn't really find a way to believe so much as realise that my reasons for not believing fell away.  What I found was that I believed in a "force" that made the universe tick (forgive my simplification, I'm a lawyer not a physicist), whether I called it "nature" or "equilibrium" or whatever.  That force is kind of like a halfway house to a belief in God, except it does not provide any meaning.  I didn't have any problem conceiving the idea of something that was beyond my ken.  After all, I was prepared (and still am!) to believe that the number sequence will go on forever, that I wil never be able to view every single prime number and even to admit that I can't really comprehend the size of the sun nor do I really know what kind of speed 300,000,000 metres per second is.

To be honest, my main problem was arrogance.  I didn't want to believe in a God because to do so would mean that I would have to worship that God.  To believe in nature is fine: you just accept that things happen in a certain way and then busy yourself in looking at how that happens.  Lo and behold, you're a scientist.  You don't need to worry about the reasons behind it all (or, if you do, then you put it down to a need to procreate, as though endless procreation were an end in itself).  Things just happen and that's the way it is.  The real problem for me, as I say, was to admit to myself that the "force" that created the world and universe and that kept it running was "God" and that He deserved to be worshipped.

What helped me bridge the gap from "abstract force" to "God" was the reading that I undertook about the Islamic worldview.  The more I read, the more Islam and the Islamic worldview seemed to make sense to me.  As sister Eleanor said, the Quran contains so many miracles within it, the character of the Prophet Muhammad [saws] was so fine, his acheivements in every field so extensive that gradually I began to realise the truth of Islam.

Of course, the lynchpin of the Islamic worldview is tawheed.  And looking at tawheed in itself can help you bridge that gap I speak of.  As you've noted, the study of tawheed is generally split into three types.  I should stress that the distinction is one purely made for the purposes of study.  This is not a "three for the price of one" trinity.  There is some overlap between the three and they are all interdependent and Muslims must subscribe wholeheartedly to all three.  Splitting into these three types merely aids understanding.

First, tawheed of Lordship (tawheed ar-rooboobiyah).  This, in essence, is the doctrine that God alone is lord over all creation.  Nothing happens without His knowledge and decree.  This is, on the face of it, not a lot different to the "force" idea.  There is one force that controls the workings of the universe.  Of ckurse, in the Islamic worldview, this force is not an abstract concept, it is God.  No "touch wood", no "I hope that this works".  To wish for something is to ask it of God.  Nothing else.

Secondly, tawheed of Worship (tawheed al-uloohiyah).  This is the doctrine that nothing other than Allah is worth of worship.  No idols, no "sons of God".  When you pray or hope, you pray directly and exclusively to God.

Thirdly, tawheed of the names and attributes of God (tawheed al-asma was-sifaat).  This, to me, is part of the miracle and truth of Islam.  Tawheed of Lordship helps one arrive at the "concept" of God.  Tawheed of Worship permits the thought that, if (I use the word "if" only for the sake of this argument.  I have no doubt) there is a God, a sole God who is alone the creative and maintaining force of the universe then that God has the right to be worshipped.  Tawheed of God's names and attributes is what allows us to form some conception of that God.  It bridges that gap.  The names and attributes of God allow us to grasp the essence of God in the only way that we can: through our use of language.  In the way that a mathematician will use "dx/dy" to describe the tangent made by two points on a curve as the distance between them tends towards zero even though he really can't conceive of the extent to which that distance shrinks, so the names and attributes of God allow us to conceive God even though (as you rightly pointed out) his true essence is well beyond our ken.  God is the Almighty, the Merciful, the Generous, the All Appreciative, the Everlasting and many more.  He has hands and a face (although NOT in any anthropomorphic sense).

All I'm saying is that to learn more about God and what He has revealed about Himself will, God willing, help you bridge that gap that you have in your conception now.

I pray that God grants you the understanding that you crave.  In the unlikely event that you think I can help you further e-mail or I-M me, my details are in my profile.

Once again, I make a caveat for my own lack of knowledge.  I reserve the right to come back and alter or delete anything here that makes me look stupid ;) .

If I have erred at all, please can someone with more knowledge correct me.  Jazak Allah Khair.

Sorry for making this post so long and self-indulgent.

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of all the worlds.
Re: Tawheed Questions
Barr
05/02/02 at 01:33:18
Assalamu'alaikum :-)

InshaAllah, to help us answer your question more accurately, perhaps U can help us with this question... :)

[quote]i know this is about ways in which islam was identified  
as the correct way of belief, but within the answers given here i might be able to  find a different answer that i've been seeking. [/quote]

What are you seeking?

Hope this will help, inshaAllah.

Peace, Anon  :-*

Re: Tawheed Questions
Anonymous
05/05/02 at 02:26:15
sis barr,

..........to find a different answer that i've been seeking.  < you ask me what answer
this is?

the answer to your question, what i'm seeking, is in here:

whichever the case, i'm plagued by answers like the one you gave when i try to
find out HOW it is that anyone finds a way to believe in god.  

i don't even understand how so many people manage to so easily bridge that gap
between the conceivable and the inconceivable.

i would be happy to have such a miraculous thing as a belief in god in my life, but
i just can't understand how any of you got there.

i'm looking for a way to the point that precedes that one, the place where god is
found, not just a way to a harmonious relationship with the god you already know.



i wasn't even looking for anything like a god or a religion when i came upon some
pretty amazing muslims in the last half year or so.  i found the general societal
prevalence of such a belief (in a god) quite intriguing, but incomprehensible,
nonetheless.  but, who these people i met - these muslims - were individually,
and the way in which i observed them to relate to their religion and their god, led
me to investigate this little problem of the possibility of a god a little further.  up
to that point i had gone my entire life with an essential inability to comprehend
this idea.  infinity has also haunted me since i was a child, but i actually have an
easier time with that, maybe simply because of the way a number line can be
conceptualized.

as an insatiably curious person, i am one who derives pleasure from
problem-solving.  and i don't mean analytically, necessarily.  i like to go inside
problems and find their answers within them.  i spend a lot of time "inside" the
protein molecules i study - they can be computationally simulated in a
pseudo-three-dimensional space, and inside them (once you get there!), you can
feel the charges and the orientations of the atoms, you can feel the way the space
is filled by electron densities and the way the parts of the molecule interact with
each other.  (ok, so it's not everyone's idea of a fun time, no doubt....)

so, my observation of individuals (muslims) who had my very kwn values at
heart, yet who traced these values back to a religion and a belief in god, set my
curiosity antennae ablaze.  was there really a god, after all, hidden here within
THIS religion??  i think you will find that most people who immerse themselves
in science are like me - not at all like the stereotype of scientists or science that
i find perpetuated among, especially, people who consider themselves to be
religious.  the intimate, and partly necessary, connection of godlessness to
science was way back in the 18th and 19th centuries!  i ask anyone who is lost on
this question to read history to keep your place in the timeline of the world's
social and political structures - religion at that time attempted to overrule
scientific investigation as forms of heresy.  what else could a seeker of knowledge
do, to maintain the search, but to divorce oneself and one's work from a crushing
force that sought to stifle the ideas from disloyal minds?  good scientists never
close their minds to any idea or information, to any awareness of false
assumptions, or to any substantiated evidence of the possibility that they are on
the wrong track.  in fact, we thrive on having our assumptions shaken up, to find
that we have amusingly tricked ourselves by our simple human inability to
maintain clarity when we are deep in an investigation guided by our own ideas and
not the ideas of others.  there is too much to learn and too much work to do for us
to want to waste our time in deadends - we'd rather abandon a wrong direction as
early as possible and get ourselves turned around to a more fruitful endeavor.  

i found myself in the position of feeling the need to give this possible god at least
some portion of the degree of time and effort i put into any other thing that raises
my curiosity.

so i started with the questions.  ceaseless, endless, overwhelming questions, in
both number and content.  but the answers to the questions were only half as
interesting as the way in which the answers were given, always with patience,
and always with feeling.  hmmmm......it was almost as if the answers that were
given to me were from my own perspective on the world - one without any god
whatsoever, but surprisingly what i was encountering in this islamic view was
just unnervingly similar to own perspective and values.  i'd developed a pretty
substantially independent and self-sufficient place in the world, of necessity but
also of reason, it had seemed to me, and knew that there were large numbers of
people throughout the world who engaged in religious practices and beliefs - i
just considered myself somehow different from them.

and now i'm here.  don't quite remember how i got here, or even always
understand exactly where it is that i am, but wherever it is, it seems to have
glimpses of god in it.  how much i'll find here, i don't know.  when i'll find it, i
don't know.  even IF i'll find it i don't know, but now have some small sense of the
diminution of that particular "if".
Re: Tawheed Questions
Maliha
05/05/02 at 17:10:47
[slm]
I am still hazy about what your particular search is about...Are you looking for evidence in the existence of God? Science until the 18th and 19th Century was studied as a part of the search for understanding the world in order to understand God...The search for knowledge especially in the so called Medieval ages (where the Islamic civilization was pioneering in all kinds of scientific, mathematical and social breakthroughs) was not compartmentalized for the study of creation was considered a way to understand the laws of the Creator and the beauty of the Wholeness of the universe itself. Within this paradigm scientist were philosophers, knowledge was championed, and the insights into creation were deeply imbedded in the tranquility of understanding our own diminutive place in the whole Cosmos. Science was not considered heresy within the Islamic thought, for it was our duty to learn, and *reflect*...A fact that is stressed over and over in the Quran..The Quran itself revealed 1400 years ago, contains amazing scientific discoveries that were only to be ascertained as late as the 19th and 20th century with the emergence of technology. Read Harun Yahya's site for more information on the Quran, and science...read about the Islamic civilization and contemplate on the framework of their study and how much it made *sense*.
I can't fathom reflection on a single blade of grass with all the intricacies involved without thinking about the force behind it...the Creator of this complex system of life which nonetheless is ordered in its very chaotic existence!!!! I can't fathom looking at my own self, so small, so helpless, so weak yet having a body with senses and systems (half of which i have no direct control of), working to ensure i stay alive by the will of the Creator, without thinking of the One who created me, the One who has control of my very next breath!!! Do you know the heart begins to beat even before the brain is developed in a foetus? Who causes that first electrical pulse to generate within the body? Who causes the earth do revolve around the sun, to rotate, who causes the planets to exist in such orderly orbits, who causes the night to change to day...It's inconceivable to truly reflect upon the perfections of the systems around us and not come to a definitive conclusion that there is a FORCE behind all this and just like a painter paints, a builder builds, a poet writes, a scientist discovers, each so proud of their miniture creation there is a Creator and that Creator is simply God...Whose existence is above creation, who is eternal, who is infinite, who was the beginning and the End, above and below, Just, Merciful, Beneficent, Glorious, and Who Encompasses all....
The soul finds solace in the rememberance of God, the Mind finds the clarity its been searching for, and the heart finds contentment...
Life is too short to dwell on abstraction...Reality is quite simple.

Peace,
Maliha

:-)
Re: Tawheed Questions
mwishka
05/05/02 at 20:45:24
(finally gave in and registered....)

hi maliha,

i'll do my best to be brief.  :D  words seem to be one of my greatest weaknesses.

i'm not looking for evidence of god as much as a pathway to FEEL that presence, as so many other people seem to have no difficulty doing.  i don't question anyone else's faith - quite the opposite, i marvel at their good fortune.  that's why i asked brother haaris if he was led to belief by following the devotional practices of islam while he held no belief in his heart.

you say to you it's inconceivable NOT to conclude that there is a creator, and this is indeed the answer i usually get from people of faith - that nothing else would make sense to them.  what i'm trying to find is the point where that belief forms, and what causes it to form, because i take this idea of a god quite seriously, not as something a person can consider lightly or trivially.  and i don't think a relationship with god could ever be just a purely rational choice, something someone could choose based on evidence without having an emotional experience of that relationship.  when you were a child do you remember becoming aware of the presence of god?  no one i've asked seems to remember such a thing in their lives.  but it's that very personal, individual aspect of coming to god that i'm trying to understand.  i realize this is quite an alien question to someone who has never been without that belief, or never doubted it to any great extent.

though it had been suggested to me a while back that i write in here and ask these questions, because you all were such nice and friendly people, i chose not to for a long time, because most people just have no idea how to respond to the idea of a lack of god, but, also, because i'm not even sure there's anything anyone can actually TELL me that could create such a change in my perceptions.  i think it's more likely that it will be a long and messy process, difficult and unwieldy.  but when you've driven your friends to distraction with questioning, and you haven't managed to leap that hurdle, anything is worth one shot at least.

as for science, it's definitely to the loss of all societies that studies are no longer as integrated as they once were.  you can even get a degree in a science without any real study of ANY of the humanities - you go out into the world with half an education.  historically, it was well before the 18th century that researchers became less theologians and more scientists, but it was a late 18th, early 19th century split with christian theology that forced many of some of the world's greatest thinkers in science to remove themselves from religious control in order to work freely.  (i think heresy might even be strictly a christian idea.)  this was long after the great flowering of islamic scholarship.  my own feeling now is that islam needs to reinvest itself as a body in all areas of scientific study, without antagonism, as it was able to do so long ago.  a few days ago i read something here about this very idea - i think jaihoon put it up.

as one of my kindest friends has said to me, the heart that can't perceive god is, for whatever reasons, closed.  i think of myself as a warm, kind, and very open-hearted person, but it seems that might not necessarily be the whole truth, in ways that i haven't even figured out yet.  ;)

in peace,
mwishka
Re: Tawheed Questions
M.F.
05/06/02 at 05:36:16
[quote]because i'm not even sure there's anything anyone can actually TELL me that could create such a change in my perceptions[/quote]

You're right.  I don't think that there's anything we can do that will help you feel the presence of God.  It has to come from you.  If you really do want to feel it then I think you will.  My advice is that you read a translation of the Qur'an and see how you feel about that.  
You know, you might not be able to feel God's presence before you prove to yourself that He exists.
Re: Tawheed Questions
Maliha
05/06/02 at 07:54:34
[slm]
We choose what we want to believe in and what we don't. After all that is the very basis of our free will. You have to simply allow yourself to accept the existence of God...Given all the evidence of His creation, given life itself.. and this can be a very intellectual decision, once you look at the Whole picture through the paradigm of the existence of a Creator in relation to His creation. From there you draw closer to Him through worship and that is how you establish a personal relationship with God.
I don't think that you will reach that point of "emotional" belief if you doubt His existence in the first place. Faith is established and maintained through the conscious decision to implement our will toward worshipping and sustaining our relationship with God. Once you make that decision it's easy as M.F. pointed out before, if you move one step toward the Creator He will move 10 steps towards you...
I guess you are right, it's hard for me to conceptualize anything but the belief in His existence...Cuz otherwise life is simply an empty shell and the void remains irreplaceable. Do you honestly think you exist independent of the very Force that sustains you and keeps you alive? Again it's really inconceiveable for me to think me puny self as self sufficient.
I guess I am over simplifying the whole deal, cuz i don't think it's a big deal to actually see with our spiritual eyes, since the heart itself is naturally inclined toward belief...the very reason why you are questioning and going through this process yourself. I was talking to my neighbor yesterday and she said how she doesn't go to church, although she proclaims herself a christian, and not too long ago her children (very young) started demanding to go to church and one even said "Mom i want to know God"...
Anywayz, sorry for the long post...The process doesn't have to long and messy, just allow yourself to absorb the Reality around us, read and ponder and I pray that Allah give you the clarity of vision and tranquility of heart (Amin).
Peace,
Maliha.
Re: Tawheed Questions
Dawn
05/06/02 at 08:20:16
mwishka,

I've kept out of this one for a while, partly because I am not a Muslim, nor of any other religious affiliation at the moment, and because I am struggling with pretty much the same thing, and have been for at least six years.  But at least I can share what my thoughts have been on this and where I am now.

[quote author=mwishka link=board=lighthouse;num=1019985039;start=0#12 date=05/05/02 at 20:45:24] i don't question anyone else's faith - quite the opposite, i marvel at their good fortune.  [/quote] I am in total agreement here.  I have, at times, been even jealous of people who have such a faith/religious experience, due to my seeming lack of being able to achieve something similar.

[quote]...  and i don't think a relationship with god could ever be just a purely rational choice, something someone could choose based on evidence without having an emotional experience of that relationship.  [/quote]  Again, I think you are right.  This is where, a couple of years ago, I decided that I needed to change my definition of "belief".  Prior to this, I had equated belief in the divine with a relationship with the divine.  I finally decided that if I ever stood a chance of experiencing god, I needed to make belief in god, along with a few of god's attributes, axiomatic, because if I waited for experience to precede belief, it seemed to me highly unlikely that I would ever experience belief.  Now, I know that my choice of axioms is probably not rationally based (one of the standard atheistic or strong agnostic arguments), but we humans are often not rational, so I am currently not letting that bother me (though it might in the future), and so I remain what has been termed by some, a weak agnostic (belief in god until evidence arises which indicates otherwise).  So, rational or not, it seems to me to be the best path for me, at the current time.  Nonetheless, this has little to do with a relationship with god or experiencing god, and I have yet to be blessed with such an experience.  The closest I can arrive to such an experience is by watching my daughter sleep (this past year with her has been a revelation of a sort for me!) or  listening to music, particularly classical.  Certain pieces, such as Rutter's Requiem or Bach's mass in B minor, to name a couple, give me just the tiniest glimpse of what it must be like for someone who can experience god's presence in their life.  It may be that such glimpses will be all I well ever get.  But, I keep on hoping otherwise.

[quote] ... because most people just have no idea how to respond to the idea of a lack of god, but, also, because i'm not even sure there's anything anyone can actually TELL me that could create such a change in my perceptions.  i think it's more likely that it will be a long and messy process, difficult and unwieldy.  [/quote] This has been my perception also.  And the process is turning out to be long, messy, difficult and unwieldy for me.  As is the case with axioms, sometimes you choose the wrong ones and end up with logical contradictions, incomplete systems, etc., and end up needing to alter them. (Been there, done that!)

[quote] ... but it was a late 18th, early 19th century split with christian theology that forced many of some of the world's greatest thinkers in science to remove themselves from religious control in order to work freely.  (i think heresy might even be strictly a christian idea.)  this was long after the great flowering of islamic scholarship.  my own feeling now is that islam needs to reinvest itself as a body in all areas of scientific study, without antagonism, as it was able to do so long ago.  a few days ago i read something here about this very idea - i think jaihoon put it up.[/quote]  Yes, I think heresy is a strictly christian idea, deriving from the time that church and state were more or less the same.  I have often thought that it really shouldn't have been termed heresy, but treason, for so it was treated.  And I also feel it is a shame that belief has ended up divorced from science.  Once, Islam led the way in the union of science and religion, and I hope that time is soon coming when it can once again continue on the path that it initiated.

[quote] as one of my kindest friends has said to me, the heart that can't perceive god is, for whatever reasons, closed.  i think of myself as a warm, kind, and very open-hearted person, but it seems that might not necessarily be the whole truth, in ways that i haven't even figured out yet. [/quote]  Again, I make a differentiation now between perception, as relates to belief and perception, as relates to experience.  In pondering why most everyone else who wanted to seemed to be able to have a religious experience, but I didn't seem able, I concluded that some people may just not be "rigged" for such experiences.  We know so much, but yet so little about the human brain, that it does seem possible to me that some people's neural structure may preclude them from such spiritual experiences.   Of course, this is just speculation, but we are just beginning to understand the smallest portion of the workings of the human brain.  So, given a few hundred years, maybe we will have a better handle.  Of course, I am not sure on any of this, and my conclusions change or are refined as I learn more.  But so goes the search.  And of course, if you find something that sets you off on a path which works for you, please do let me know!

Peace,
Dawn  
Re: Tawheed Questions
mwishka
05/08/02 at 15:36:03
dawn,

i'm glad you finally decided to jump in.  makes me feel a little less alien here.  i was surprised to find that you had been on a search of this sort for a number of years, i think partly because i made an assumption when i read somewhere that you were non-muslim in a religious studies program:  i assumed "seminary student" - quite , quite different from agnostic!  and another assumption bites the dust........

as for finding things to point me in the right direction, i've listened to quran, read quran, gone to lectures, listened to taped lectures, listened to the attributes, read whatever i could get my hands on or beg from people, prayed istikhara - in fact carried it with me constantly because i hadn't learned it, until i lost it, but haven't printed it out again, spent hours talking to the local imam, and as i already mentioned questioned and discussed the idea of god quite seriously and at great length with some very patient muslims....

this is the reason i asked brother haaris if he had devotionally practiced islam while lacking belief in his heart.

the two things that have so far allowed brief glimpses of god for me were listening to the attributes and thinking about their meanings, and reading rumi - though i know that's sort of, um, controversial here.    ;)  there's a poem called moses and the shepherd that really got through to me.  a kind of rough poem, but allowed me to identify with the type of belief that shepherd had.

i'm still reading lots (and lots and LOTS), though it's not all that easy to find people to discuss these things with.  that's part of why i registered here.  but i think, actually, i have to try harder in the direction of finding organized discussion.  i've avoided classes simply because few people can handle even the idea of atheism, and i've just felt that my questions would be somewhat disruptive to the discussion that other people go to the classes for....

because i wasn't looking at all but now find this strange kind of promsing twist in my life, it seems i had to go this far, to this place, to find it.  maybe it just would not have been available to me at any other point in my life..

(i'll let you know if i make any significant progress...)

mwishka
Re: Tawheed Questions
Dawn
05/08/02 at 16:49:03
[quote author=mwishka link=board=lighthouse;num=1019985039;start=15#16 date=05/08/02 at 15:36:03] i was surprised to find that you had been on a search of this sort for a number of years, i think partly because i made an assumption when i read somewhere that you were non-muslim in a religious studies program:  i assumed "seminary student" ...[/quote]  Nope, no religious studies program, other than self-directed ;), and DEFINITELY not a seminary student  :o :o :-/ :-/ :-/  Thanks for that laugh, though -- I really needed one today!  

And don't worry about your molecules -- I think most people would find them far more interesting than my thesis topic was!
Re: Tawheed Questions
jaihoon
05/16/02 at 18:40:10
[quote]

I think that I was probably in a similar place then to where you are now, Anon (if you don't mind me shortening your name  ;) ).  The only concept I had of God was of an old man with a long white beard (astagfirullah).  In fact, you are much closer to Islam than I was.  I believe - WARNING on my limited knowledge!! - that one of the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad [saw] (Abu Bakr?) said that "your inability to conceive Allah IS your only conception of Allah" (somebody confirm/deny this please).

[/quote]

[slm]

Though I am not competent enough to enter this scholarly discussion, I like to shed some further light on this point (in quotes).

The basic formula of Islam (la ilaha-illa Allah) includes to parts. One is negation. The other is Affirmation.

In the first part, every believer is an atheist- There is NO GOD. But then the second part makes it clear enough- EXCEPT ALLAH.

Sir Mohammed Iqbal, says in one of his poems, that a communist (who negates all forms of divinity) is very close to Islam. He only has to AFFIRM the true God, personalised as ALLAH!

Dear Anonymous, if you can kindly refer to the Quranic passages dealing with the story of Prophet Abraham, it would be of much inspiration for you. That great Babylonian seeker of truth was also an 'atheist' in the early stages. He passed on from stars-to moon-to sun- to finally the Ever Living Allah!

After calling the star his lord and then when the stars fade away, he makes a remarkable comment that applies to every living scientist in this world- "la uhibbul aafileen"- 'I like not that which sets'.

Believing in a true God only increases the dignity of man. By serving HIM, you are being freed from all other forms of slavery, including your own desires.

As Sir Iqbal says,

This one prostration that  you feel as heavy
Frees you from thousand other prostrations!

But remember, the ultimate conviction of His Unity is not derived from theories or arguments, but by personal conviction. You will know it as it comes to you. And the best way, and the only way, is to know HIM through his Final Messsenger [saw]. He is the only link to the Ultimate Reality. Revealtion is, and will always, be superior to human reasoning. Reason does take you closer to your goal, but the 'Eureaka' moment happens only when you seek the aid of revealtion.

May God show you the way to His Unity. Polytheism is insulting for the human personality, just as the 'unity of command' is applicable in management sciences. :)


05/16/02 at 18:47:03
jaihoon


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