5. DRAWINGS SIMILITUDE BETWEEN THE CREATOR AND HIS CREATION IS THE SOURCE O F ALL MISGUIDANCE
The main source of all problems in matters of creed (‘aqaid) arises from drawing similitude (qiyas) between the affairs of the Creator (al-Khaliq) and creation (makhluq).
When philosophers (and people of rhetoric) opined that no object originated from nothing, they came up with the doctrine of the eternity of the universe. And when they noticed that it was nearly impossible for someone to possess all the details of knowledge, they said that Allah only knows generalities, and not the details of things.
And when they saw that objects never come back after being destroyed, they denied resurrection of the body and limited it to souls. Thus everyone who compared the Creator to creation ended up in disbelief (kufr). Mujassimah entered kufr because they claimed Allah’s attributes to be just as they imagined them.
There are those also who try to understand Allah’s actions according to our standards. So they considered it wrong to slaughter animals, to be inflicted with illness, for a foolish person to be wealthy and for a hardworking man to be poor. This might be true by human standards, but Allah’s standards may not be understood by anyone.
All that should matter to us is that He exists, that He is All-Wise and that He is the Owner of all things. Comparing His actions to those of humans is sheer ignorance. Do not you see how the first of objectors was Iblis when he said,
“I am better than him.” [al-A’raf (7): 12]
And then his viceroy Abu’l-‘Ala Al-Ma‘ari said (in poetry):
He saw from You that which he did not like so he became irreligious.
We ask Allah to guide us to submit to Him:
“O Allah do not misguide our hearts after You have guided us.” [Al- Imran (3): 8]
If we are unable to analyse His actions, then how will we understand His essence? And how could we compare His actions to ours? Shouldn’t we wonder about how Allah rejected our Prophet’s request to seek forgiveness for his mother and uncle, how he used to go hungry while the entire world was under his control, and how his Companions were killed while victory was in His Lord’s Hands?
So how could we object to an Owner whose wisdom has been established and whose authority is settled?
(Source: al-Hafiz Abu’l-Faraj ibn al-jawzl [d. 597AH] “CAPTURED THOUGHTS being” a translation of his masterpiece ‘Sayd al-K hatir)
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