'Allah has the most beautiful names. Call Him by those names. So call upon Him by them, and keep away from those who abuse His Names. They will pay (i.e. be punished) for what they do.' (Al-Arraf, 7: 181)
Allah says in the Quran that He is One. He is the only God, the sole Creator of everything He has created, and there are no other gods besides Him, nor does anyone have the power to create like He does. He exists, and no one created Him. He is unique, the Originator of all. And Allah says that He has many names, attributes that describe what He is like – Asma’ul-Husna – the most beautiful names.
Moreover, in the verse that I have recited,
Allah says that there are others who try to misuse or take His names in wrong
ways. This means that some people either ridicule Allah, as idolaters or
atheists do, or they take His attributes as if they are gods in addition to
Allah. But Allah says, His attributes are His attributes, names that qualify
Him alone as God. Thus, He has given humanity permission to call Him by His
proper name, which is Allah, but also to use His attributes and call Him. And
in the intention (Niyyah) they have when they call Him by these
beautiful names, they should have Allah Himself in their thoughts, and not
other creatures or idols of man’s own creation and imagination.
This brings us to a fundamental point of the
Deen of Allah: Tawheed (the Oneness of Allah). Allah has established His
Tawheed in the Shahada ‘Laa Ilaaha Illalllah Muhammadur Rassullullah’
(There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah). He has
established the law according to His Tawheed above all, because people need to
understand that their sole God, their sole Creator, is Allah, and that they
must not fall into false conceptions of the existence of God, nor should they
associate other partners in the worship of Allah.
To understand this better, there is a Hadith
reported by Hazrat Abu Huraira (ra), who of course learned this from Hazrat
Muhammad (pbuh), where Hazrat Abu Huraira (ra) says: ‘Allah has 99 names,
that is, 100 minus 1, and whoever believes in their meanings, and acts
accordingly, will enter Paradise; and Allah is Witr (One), and He loves the ‘Witr’
(i.e., odd numbers).’ (Bukhari)
The Hadith mentions 99 names of Allah, but
there are more than that. The Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) emphasized
the 99 names of Allah, and thus, if a person learns them, and reflects on Allah’s
attributes which they can imbue in themselves, such as Al-Kareem ‘The
Generous,’ and develops generosity within them for others, whether towards
fellow humans or animals, then this is a practical way where they act according
to Allah’s attributes. Therefore, those who understand the meanings of Allah’s
attributes and imbibe them will progress, not only in this world but also in
the Hereafter.
But there are attributes reserved only for
Allah, where even humans cannot reflect these attributes in any way. Allah is
the One who gives life and takes life [Note: Only Allah has this right and
that is why anyone who murder someone or takes his own life is highly condemned
by Allah], and only Allah is All-Powerful, the Originator. Here, the
Originator means the One from whom everything has begun, and it is indeed
Allah, and no human or any other creature has a place in that role as the
originator. Allah is All-Powerful; only He is All-Powerful. There is no other
being as powerful as Him. He is without equal and does not resemble anyone,
whereas humans have others who resemble them. And Allah alone is the Creator.
He has no partners in commanding Him, but it is He who commands everything in
the universe. Here, when I speak of the universe, I speak of everything that
Allah has created, whether it is one world or 18,000 worlds.
We must understand that Allah is alone. Before
Allah, there was no one, neither before nor after. No one created Allah, and
Allah has existed for all time. We can even say that in the ranks of Allah’s
creations, we are relatively recent for Allah. As we say in English, Allah is ‘TIMELESS.’
Time has no effect on Him, but rather, it is He who controls time. And this
power to control time belongs solely to Allah. Humans do not have the power to
control time. Humans cannot create planets from nothing, yet Allah has the
capacity to do so, just as He has the capacity to create a human without a
father or a mother. And in this, we see the creation of Adam (as) as a great
beauty of Allah’s creation, because he not only existed without a father or a
mother, but Allah breathed His own breath into him, and consequently, all his
descendants whom Allah placed in his loins received the divine essence in them.
This is a gift that the entire human race received at birth, but it is their
environment and the choices they make in life, through the free will that Allah
has given them, to either follow the path of Allah or follow the path of Satan,
which makes them either take the right path or the wrong path. And those who
strive to reach Allah, making an effort to come closer to Him, are the ones who
will prosper on earth and in the heavens. They are the ones who understand the
value of Allah’s Oneness, who firmly uphold the Tawheed of Allah, and transmit
this fundamental knowledge not only to their children but also to others in
their country and around the world.
Allah encourages us – the human race – to call
Him by His most beautiful names. Firstly, there is the name ALLAH itself, which
no one apart from Allah can take, and it is absolutely forbidden to give a
newborn the name ALLAH, but they can be called ‘Servant of Allah’ (Abdullah), ‘Victory
of Allah’ (Zafarullah), or ‘The Light of Allah’ (Nur’ullah), etc. So, we find
that when a name includes Allah, there is another qualifier attached to Allah,
where a child is linked with Allah without being called ALLAH.
Among all the attributes of Allah, Allah loves
for His servants to call Him ‘Rahman’ (The Most Gracious). Allah greatly
loves this attribute that qualifies Him, and He encourages people to call Him ‘Ar-Rahman’
so much that He even revealed a verse highlighting this attribute. In the
frequently seven-repeated verses (i.e. the Surah Al-Fatiha), He established His
attribute Ar-Rahman, and in taking the name of Allah to start the
recitation of the Quran or any good deeds, we say: Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim
(In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful).
So, Allah says in the Quran to the Prophet
(pbuh): ‘Say to them: “Call upon Allah or call
upon Ar-Rahman (The Most Gracious). Call Him by any name, for He has the most
beautiful names...”’ (Bani Isra’il; 17:111).
Therefore, the attribute Ar-Rahman, along with
Ar-Rahim, The Most Gracious and The Most Merciful, are the paramount attributes
of Allah. They are so important that we need to recite them in all stages and
works of our lives, especially in our Namaz (Salat/ Prayers), in Surah
Al-Fatiha, the opening of the Quran Shareef, without which our Prayer is not
complete.
But Allah, through His injunctions, says, ‘Be
careful! Do not use My attributes, the names that describe Me alone, to
describe and worship false gods that have no power!’ Yet, what do we see most
people on earth doing? They worship Allah’s creations and other idols of their
own imaginations, and they even take Allah’s Messengers as Allah, worshipping
them and believing that all these will help them and relieve their suffering,
granting them a better life, either in the afterlife or, according to their
beliefs, through reincarnation. But Allah says that He is Witr, One – He is not
a trinity or 360 gods. There is no god that rivals Him in His existence as God.
He alone is the Sole, Unique Creator. No one can attain salvation except by His
permission. He is the Creator of Paradise and Hell, and He alone will decide
whether a person deserves to enter Paradise or to burn in Hell.
Speaking of Paradise and Hell, it is important
for me to make an appeal that in addition to the Shahada ‘Laa Ilaaha
Illallah Muhammadur Rassullullah’, it is good for all Muslims, including my
disciples, to develop the habit of frequently reciting Darood upon the Holy
Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). The greatest Darood they can recite upon him is the
Darood Ibrahim, where they send peace and blessings upon him and his family –
whether biological or spiritual – and they also send Darood upon Hazrat Ibrahim
(as). Through this Darood, they pray to Allah to continue to bless the Ummah
(Community) of Ibrahim through Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) and his Ummah (Community)
until the Day of Judgement, with the coming of Allah’s prophets, the exemplary
Imams who will come as reformers of Islam, to keep Islam on the right path,
maintain the balance between good and evil, before eradicating evil and making
truth triumph over falsehood. Regarding this, there are specific prophecies
that Allah inspired His Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) to tell, such as the
second coming of Hazrat Isa (as) and the Mahdi. Insha-Allah, I will go
into more details on this next Friday.
May Allah keep us all firm on His Tawheed and
bless us with all His attributes that He can reflect in His servants, which do
not break His Tawheed in any way. I pray that Islam triumphs over satanic
innovations and that Allah and His army achieve victory. This victory, by His
grace, Allah has made us part of it in this era. I pray that this victory
becomes clearer and more dominant in the future. Insha-Allah, Ameen.
----Friday Sermon of 29 November 2024~ 26 Jamaad'ul Awwal 1446 AH delivered by Imam- Jamaat Ul Sahih Al Islam International Hazrat Muhyiuddin Al Khalifatullah Munir Ahmad Azim (aba) of Mauritius.