Sunday, November 8, 2020

Sam Shamoun "Ramadan: One of the Names of Allah???!!!" (2)



Seeing God's name as so sacred that it shouldn't be mentioned is condemned as a great injustice in the Quran 2:114. The remembrance of God, praising Him by His name and attributes is an important part of a worshiper's rituals, continuously commanded in the Quran 
87:1"Glorify the name of your Lord, the Most High". 
See here how the Quran immidiately corrects and elevates Judaism's defective monotheism. And this is why Muslims do not call Allah their "father". There is no exclusivist relationship between the God of all creation, and the Muslims.

Another forceful way the Quran does so is when it revisits the events at the "burning bush". In the Quran God reveals Himself to Moses, with words evoking universal, indiscriminate Lordship, words which Moses would later communicate throughout his prophetic career whether in his confrontation with the Egyptian elite, or the Israelites; He is the One Lord besides Whom there are none, the Lord of all worlds/aalamin, a word encompassing in its meaning all human beings in all ages. He will gather and judge every soul indiscriminately based on its individual merit 20:12-16,28:30. The version of the HB again reveals the deep inclination pervasive throughout the Jewish writings, for monolatry and its depiction of an ethno-centred tribal deity 
Ex3:6"I am the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob". 

In the account of the Queen of Sheba's encounter with the prophet Solomon, the queen is quoted 
27:44"My Lord i have been inflicting much wrong on myself. Now I submit myself with Solomon to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds". 
In the racially prejudiced and monolatrous mindset of the scribes of the HB, this queen who had nevertheless recognized Solomon's wisdom, who had left her land, abasing herself to come and seek knowledge from another king, recognized and blessed the ethno-centric "Lord your God" and His "eternal love for Israel", but inexplicably remained a heathen 1Kings10. After all, you do not want some far away nation to come and claim their rights in the land as part of the "chosen race". The NT in Lk11 similarly doesnt indicate whether she eventually abandoned her polytheistic ways, but hints at her being higher in righteousness than the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus. It is also interesting how in the Biblical account, she praises the tribal "Lord your God" while in the Quran she submits herself, together with Solomon, to one and the same God, Lord of all worlds. 

This is the consistent Quran pattern of exposing and correcting the manipulations of the scriptures of the past.

Similarly in contrast to Ex34:14 neither did Moses report God's name as "the jealous One" nor did he call Him a jealous God (in Numbers 5:14 the same word is used for human jealousy between spouses). Moses instead said that 
14:8"if you disbelieve, you and whoever (is) in the earth together, then indeed, God is Self-sufficient, Praiseworthy". 
God is Omnipotent and is not in any need of His servants or their worship. This is a major Quranic theme, again in contrast with the pervasive Biblical depiction of God as the jealous husband, going after a treacherous Israelite bride that prostitutes itself to other gods. The Quran makes it clear, it is His servants that need Him. Therefore, He has absolutely no requirement to be jealous. Further, all beautiful and best names belong to Him 
7:180,20:8"Allah, there is not god but He. His are the very best names". 
The best name is one that possesses the pure and sheer reality of perfection without any mix of its opposite. For example life without death or dominance without defeat 
17:110"Call upon Allah or call upon the Beneficient, whichever you call upon, He has the best names". 
"HE" refers to the divine Essence, which is not restricted to any name, like Allah or al Rahman/the Beneficient, so long as such a name is the most superior and perfect like the 2 names given in the verse to illustrate -Allah, and al Rahman/the Beneficient-. Also, each and every one of those names refers exclusively to the same Divine Essence. Whether the Essence is addressed as Allah, al Rahman, al Athim, al Ghafur etc. it is still one and the same Being worthy of worship that is being called upon. This is how the Quran intricately and comprehensively restores mankind's original monotheism.
Allah is the only true deity 2:255,23:116-117,37:95-96,59:22-24,112:1-4. 

As shown earlier, He can be named by absolutely any name, so long as it is the "best of names", which includes among others, Allah. He isnt restricted to any name or any number of names and all the scholars agree that Allah's names are unlimited so long as they are the best. 

There is a prayer by the prophet in which he calls upon Allah by the name He has chosen to reveal to mankind, and those He kept in the unseen 
"I ask You by every name belonging to You which You named Yourself with, or revealed in Your Book, or You taught to any of Your creation, or You have preserved in the knowledge of the unseen with You..".
99 out of these names are special in the way they affect our existence. When the prophet urged the people to pay heed to those names, he said those who ahsaa ha/assimilates and applies them -not merely memorize them, see Quran 18:12- in the worship and in everyday life is deserving of a great reward. These Divine Names, which punctuate so many Quran verses inform us about the moral quality that human beings must strive to embody. The believer becomes a vessel of mercy, justice, etc.  Naming Allah doesnt imply knowing Allah, or encompassing Him, or giving Him a similitude. Humans exist, but nothing like Allah, who ever-exists. Anyone has experienced mercy or existence, but not to perfection and infinity. The names of Allah dont describe the reality of His attributes, but tell us that He possesses a particular attribute to perfection. To clarify further, the name "all merciful" doesnt describe the reality, the essence of Allah's infinite mercy. It tells us that He possesses the concept of mercy, which we have experience of, to perfection, which we cannot fathom.

As a side note, the report saying Ramadan is a name of Allah, and that one should therefore not say "ramadan has arrived" but instead "the month of ramadan has arrived, is known to be very weak. There are countless ahadith where the prophet refers to this month as simply ramadan 
"The prophet said; Umrah during ramadan is equal to hajj".

To limit God's names would be in effect a restriction on His majesty and God can never be contained, neither physically nor linguistically 
17:110"Call upon Allah or call upon, Al-Rahman; whichever you call upon, He has the best names". 
The most obvious of these attributes is His attribute of Rahma, or mercy. Al rahman is the most intensive form of rahma. This is because Allah is the most merciful and this is why the attribute of mercy is the only one said to be "written" upon God 
6:12,54"your Lord has written mercy on Himself". 
Rahman stems from R-H-M meaning WOMB. In order to imagine the implication of the meaning, one has to picture the womb and what it does to the fetus. It nurtures, protects, provides warmth, love etc.

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