DO YOU LOVE ALLAH?Comments PLEASE
Etymologically, the name Allah is probably a contraction of the Arabic al-Ilāh, “the God.” The name’s origin can be traced to the earliest Semitic writings in which the word for god was il or el, the latter being used in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). Allāh is the standard Arabic word for God and is used by Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews as well as by Muslims regardless of their native tongue.
Allah is the pivot of the Muslim faith. Islam’s holy scripture, the Quran, stresses above all Allah’s singularity and sole sovereignty, a doctrinal tenet indicated by the Arabic term tawḥīd (“oneness”). He never sleeps or tires and, while transcendent, can be found everywhere. He creates ex nihilo and is in no need of a consort, nor does he have offspring. Three themes preponderate in the Qurʾan: (1) Allah is the Creator, Judge, and Rewarder; (2) he is unique (waḥid) and inherently one (aḥad); and (3) he is omnipotent and all-merciful. Allah is the “Lord of the Worlds,” the Most High; “nothing is like unto him,” and this in itself is to the believer a request to adore Allah as the Protector and to glorify his powers of compassion and forgiveness.
Allah, says the Qurʾan, “loves those who do good,” and two passages in the Qurʾan express a mutual love between him and humanity. Although he is infinitely forgiving, according to the Qurʾan, there is one infraction that God will not forgive in the hereafter: the sin of associationism, or polytheism (shirk). The God of the Qurʾan proclaims himself to be the one and the same as the God who has communicated with humanity through his various emissaries who came to different communities, including Jewish and Christian ones.
Muslim scholars have collected, in the Qurʾān and in the Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), the 99 “most beautiful names” (al-asmaʾ al-ḥusnā) of Allah, which describe his attributes. These names have become objects of devoted recitation and meditation. Among the names of Allah are the One and Only, the Living One, the Subsisting (al-Hayy al-Qayyum), the Real Truth (al-Haqq), the Sublime (al-ʿAzim), the Wise (al-Hakim), the Omnipotent (al-ʿAziz), the Hearer (al-Sami), the Seer (al-Basir), the Omniscient (al-ʿAlim), the Witness (al-Shahīd), the Trustee (al-Wakīl), the Benefactor (al-Rahman), the Merciful (al-Rahim), the Utterly Compassionate (al-Raʾuf), and the Constant Forgiver (al-Ghafur, al-Ghaffār).
The profession of faith (shahadah) by which a person is introduced into the Muslim community consists of the affirmation that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger. For pious Muslims, every action is opened by an invocation of the divine name (basmalah). The formula inshaʾa Allah, “if Allah wills,” appears frequently in daily speech. This formula is the reminder of an ever-present divine intervention in the order of the world and the actions of human beings. Muslims believe that nothing happens and nothing is performed unless it is by the will or commandment of Allah, although humans are individually responsible for the moral choices they make at any given moment. As signified by the term Islam, the personal attitude of a Muslim believer, therefore, is a conscious submission to God. Such submission is not blind and passive but should be purposeful and based on the knowledge of God and his commandments through his revelations.
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