VII. Allah and His Creation

VII. Allah and His Creation

Islam emphasizes that Allah and His creation are distinctly different entities. Allah is neither part of His creation nor does He intermix with it. His creation is neither equal to Him in His attributes nor a part of Him. Indeed, Allah is the Most High; He is above all His creation, above the heavens and above His Throne, as He 

informed us about Himself in the Qur‘an and in the previous scriptures. This might seem obvious, but people‘s worship of creation instead of the Creator is to a large degree based on ignorance or negligence of this fact. The wrong belief that the essence of Allah is everywhere in His creation or that He is a part of His creation, has

provided justification for the worship of Allah‘s creation. Philosophical idol worshippers justify their idolatry by saying that they do not actually worship the stone or metal image, but Allah who becomes concentrated in it during their rituals of worship. They claim that the stone idol is only a focal point for Allah‘s essence and is not Allah itself! Anyone who accepts the concept of Allah being present in any way within His creation will be obliged to accept this argument in justification of idolatry.

Setting aside motivations such as financial gains or fame, people‘s claims to divinity have largely manifested based on the mistaken belief that it is possible for Allah to be present in humans. Taking this belief one step further, they claim that Allah is more present in them than in others, and people should therefore submit to them and worship them as Allah‘s incarnate or as Allah concentrated within their person. Similarly, those who have asserted that others were gods have found fertile ground among those who accept the false belief of Allah‘s presence in human beings.

As far as the doctrine of incarnation held by late Christians is concerned, it was developed after Jesus' departure. It was incorporated into Christianity from

paganism. In the mythology that preceded Christianity, it can be seen how some heroes were considered to be gods.

The vast majority of Christians today pray to Jesus, claiming that he is God (Allah). The philosophers among 

them claim that they are not worshipping Jesus the man, but God (Allah) who was manifest in Jesus the man. This is also the rationale of pagans who bow down in worship to idols. As mentioned before, when a pagan philosopher

is asked why he worships an idol which was made by human hands, he replies that he is not really worshipping the idol. Furthermore, he may claim that the idol is only a

focal point for the presence of Allah, and thereby claim to be worshipping Allah who is manifest in the idol, and not the physical idol itself. There is little or no difference between that explanation and the answer given by Christians for worshipping Jesus. The origin of this

deviation lies in the false belief that Allah is present in His creation. Such a belief (erroneously) justifies the worship of Allah‘s creation

Islam has freed its followers from such superstitions by rejecting the doctrine of the incarnation. The Divinity of Jesus has been rejected in the noble Qur'an in many verses. Let us take two of them:

Surely, they have disbelieved who say: Allah is the Messiah [Jesus], the son of Maryam [Mary].(Qur‘an 5: 72)

Say: He is Allah the One (in His essence). Allah is the eternal absolute. He begets not, nor is He begotten. And there is none like unto Him. (Qur‘an 112: 1-4)

These two verses mean that neither Jesus nor any other prophet resembles Him in an attribute or in essence, and hence nothing can be an incarnation of Allah.

Consider the following. In the south-eastern region of the Amazon jungle in Brazil, South America, a primitive tribe erected a new hut to house their main idol Skwatoo, representing the

supreme God (Allah) of all creation. The following day a young man entered the hut to pay homage to his god. While he was prostrating to what he had been taught was his creator and sustainer, a mangy, old and flea-ridden dog slunk

into the hut. The young man looked up just in time to see the dog lift its hind leg and pass urine on the idol. Outraged, the young man chased the dog out of the temple, but when his rage died down, he realized that the idol could not be the 

Lord of the Universe. He came to the conclusion that God must be elsewhere. As strange as it may seem, the dog urinating on the idol was a sign from God for that young man that his idol did not deserve to be worshipped. This sign contained the divine message that what he was worshipping

was false. It liberated him from following his tradition unquestioningly, a tradition that proved to be erroneous. As a result, this man was given a choice: either to seek the true God or to continue in the error of his ways. This example illustrates

the fact that humans are capable at arriving at the truth on their own, regardless of society, etc

Clearly, if one is to follow this argument, it means that either God does not have the attributes he claims or that God is no different than his own creation. Both negate the idea of an All-Powerful God, so both must be false. Islam teaches that God is too great and perfect to lower Himself to a level of likeness to His creation or mixing with them

To conclude, all false religions have in common one basic concept with regard to God: that God and His creation are one. They either claim that all humans are God, or that specific people are God, or that nature is God, or that God is a figment of people‘s imagination, or that a person or being is a mediator between people and God (as mentioned in previous chapter). Thus, by equating the two, it may be said that false religions invite humans to worship the creation instead of worshipping the Creator