Sunday, April 26, 2020

Apostate prophet cannot appreciate the nightsky; stars are an adornement?

In answer to the video "Walking Away From Islam"

The Quran uses different words to describe the stars, not only as an adornement, which they certainly are to anyone that has witnessed a dark night filled with stars. The Arabs were desert and sea travellers and found their way in the darkness through the guidance of the stars, which the Quran figuratively calls lamps. Desert dwellers prefered journey at night to avoid daytime attacks. A parallel is created between the night traveller, seeking physical direction by looking up to the stars, and the spiritual traveller, seeking guidance from revelation from above. This is precisely why the various forms of imagery regarding the stars being lamps comes in the context of the need for revelation and guidance
6:97"And He it is Who has made the stars for you that you might follow the right way thereby in the darkness of the land and the sea; truly We have made plain the communications for a people who know".
It of course does not mean that the cosmic bodies were made solely for geographical guidance, like the moon wasnt, as said in the HB, solely made to reckon the times of seasons and festivals
Ps104:19"He made the moon for the appointed seasons".
This is the language of religious scriptures, addressing someone in search of spiritual guidance, then pointing to the means around him to find that guidance. The spiritual traveller is in need for guidance, he constantly longs for it. That need is answered through the sending down of revelations that causes spiritual revival just as the rain coming down from the skies causes the regeneration of the dead earth 16:64-5,30:46-50,43:11. Past scriptures contain many such similitudes Isa55:10-11.

This same water may equally cause luxuriant vegetation to grow or thorny bushes, just as it may be beneficial when it falls on deep soil with fertile ground or be disastrous for a shallow ground that washes away, revealing the barren rock below 2:263-4,7:57-8,51:22. The Quran is thus like the monsoon rain, either increasing the spirituality of a receptive heart, or exposing the spiritual barenness of the willful rejector. Truth always exposes falsehood, just as the foam that is created by the torrents and the rivers of "faith" are bound to disappear
13:17"He sends down water from the cloud, then watercourses flow (with water) according to their measure, and the torrent bears along the swelling foam, and from what they melt in the fire for the sake of making ornaments or apparatus arises a scum like it; thus does Allah compare truth and falsehood; then as for the scum, it passes away as a worthless thing; and as for that which profits the people, it tarries in the earth; thus does Allah set forth parables".
The Quran likens elsewhere divine guidance to the winds of mercy, either causing spiritual progress and happiness, or spiritual stagnation and ultimate perdition should God retain the wind of guidance. That spirtual reality is pictured through the parable of a sea ship, sailing freely through the seas, carried by the winds, as opposed to the one immobilized in the midst of the ocean and eventualy sinking
30:46,27:63,42:32-3"And among His signs are the ships in the sea like mountains. If He pleases, He causes the wind to become still so that they lie motionless on its back; most surely there are signs in this for every patient, grateful one. Or He may make them perish for what they have earned, and (even then) pardon most".
All these verses and many others, have one underlying notion; if man is provided with guidance to find his physical way in this world, then how can it be expected that he will be left without spiritual guidance? This cannot be, especially considering the explicit statement that mankind's ultimate goal of existence is spiritual betterment on the way to God 87:14,91:7-10.

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