الحمد لله وحده و الصلاة و السلام على من لا نبي بعده

Theme:

Developing Islam in me

Topics:

1. Knowing my lord
2. I am a Muslim, so what is expected of me
3. Leadership in Islam and its progression

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Knowing my lord

• What is a Lord?

Somebody or something that man reveres, respects and honours due to his believe that that person or thing can benefit or harm him. Thus he obeys its commands, he follows its advice and instructions and abstains from what he or it prevents him. Thus he submits to it.

• The creation of man:

Before man was created jinn lived on the earth. They could transcend the heavens and could interact with the angles. One of them, known to us as Iblees, became impressed with the positive qualities of the angles as he was given access to them. He then joined the angles and submitted to Allah with them.

He climbed the ranks and progressed through various levels. His wish was to get to the highest level. Then Allah informed the angles, saying: “Verily I am going to place in the earth a representative of mine”.

When Iblees heard this he thought it could only refer to him and was sadly surprised when he came to know of the creation of man. Before Allah blew the soul in man He allowed the angles to inspect the body of man as the final creation Allah created. At that moment Ibleesa took an in-depth check and a detail inspection into the human body. He went inside of it and familiarized himself with each and every organ, making sure he understood the role of each of them.

Later Allah instructed the angles: “Prostrate to Aadam.” Then all the angles went into prostration in submission to the command of their Lord and Iblees stood out in defiance. Allah then questioned him, asking: “What prevented you from making prostration to that which I created with my own hands?” He responded arrogantly with a sense of pride: “You created me from fire and created him from clay.”

Then Allah expelled Iblees from His mercy. To which Iblees begged for respite and Allah conceded to that. In the presence of his Lord, Iblees then made his claim, saying: “I will sit in wait against them on your strait path. By your might, I will surly mislead them all.” [Pls Check S7: V11-18, S38: V71 -85, S4: V117 – 121]

• Iblees exposes himself:

The envy in the heart of Iblees turned to enmity and he has vowed to never leave the total human race as long as they submit to their Lord. His greatest desire is to allow us to take others as Lord besides Allah. He offers man all or any alternative, but to be obedient to his Lord. Allah warns us in the Holy Quran saying: “Verily Satan is your open enemy, so deal with him only as an enemy.” Here Allah strongly discourages us to ever compromise with Satan as he is not only cunning but none is as committed as him in achieving his goal. That is besides the fact that he is a perfectionist as well as a workaholic. Not for a split second does he take a break and never does he leave a millionth of a degree unattended. We pray and hope that we have been given insight and come to realize our own vulnerability. Thus we become committed and persistent on the strait path. [O Allah, accept all of us.]

• Our claim:

As Muslims, we claim that “Allah” is our Lord. Yes, Allah is the Lord of everything in the heavens and the earth. But have we, you and I accepted Him as our Lord?

As Lord he is the sole creator of everything in creation and the sole sustainer. Allah says to us in the Holy Quran in Sura Al fatigah that He is the “Lord of all creation.” This means that He is not only the creator but He is in charge and in control of everything. Yes everything from the smallest, the most insignificant to the biggest, the most magnificent, from the depth of the earth and the ocean to the furthest and most remote in the heavens, dealing with every known and unknown entity.

Allah says to us in His first revelation of the Holy Quran, Sura Alaq 96: V1 that He created everything that exist. Nothing was created before He created. But none has the ability to create besides Himself. Similarly none will be given the opportunity to create anything in the future. So each and every one of us have the same creator and we are all reliable and dependent on Him alone.

If we have accepted Him as our Lord then so have many others before us. Yes, we know that today, in the modern secular world almost everything is done to deny Him His right as Creator and Sustainer. It would rather be sensible for the modern professional world to accept that they have this great intellectual insight because their forefathers were apes or something like that. And that everything in this vast universe are so well structured and organised because it just all happened. The people of before would never deny Allah His rite. To them if every day could have 24 hours and every year could have 4 seasons then that would be enough proof that there must be a supreme being who is in charge and who takes care of nature. So if you can convince the human race that nature came about by accident then atheism would be the only sensible religion. But the main reason for all this confusion is to deny Allah the right to be Worshiped.

Lord identified as “Robb” refers to His Abilities, Strengths, Might, and Powers. Lord identified as “Ilah” refers to His rite to be Worshiped. We as Muslims identify that that one quality of His cannot be shared with anyone or anything in the universe and that He alone deserves it therefore the term “Ilah” which refers to the rite to be worshiped, should be unpacked.

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