Where Should We Get Our Knowledge About Allah?

Bismi Allah al-Rahman Al-Rahim. Al-hamdulil-Lahi Rabbi al-'Alamin. Wa as-salatu wa as-salamu 'ala Muhammad wa Ahla Baytih at-tayyibin, al-tahirin. Wa la'natu Allahi 'ala a'daaihim ajma'in.

I would like to speak about knowing Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala, how we can come to the recognition of Allah, and knowing who Allah is. There is a saying 'i'rafu Allah bi-Llah'- know Allah by Allah. This means that we know Allah by the way that He describes himself in the Holy Qur'an, and not by how we imagine Him to be, not how we come up with our own minds and how we just imagine Allah.

Imam Baqir 'alayhi as-salam, says: if you do not know the proper understanding of Allah, then you are not worshipping Allah, but rather worse being what your mind has imagined. And if you do not go through Ahl al-Bayt, then you will not have a proper understanding of Allah and you will be deviated like the other sects of Islam. This is in 'Aqa'id al-Haqqa-' by Ayatollah 'Ali Husayni as-Sadr, page 15, hadith number two.

So we see from this tradition, from Imam Baqir 'alayhi as-salam, that we must go through the proper channels to understand Allah, and this can only be done through those guides that Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala sent to us to show us the proper understanding. This is Prophet Muhammad and his household, 'alayhum as-salam, and this is contrary to what the philosophers state. The philosophers state to put religion aside, put Qur'an aside, put the narrations aside, and only use your intellect to come to the conclusions and of who Allah is and how Allah is, and all of these things dealing with Allah, but this is wrong.

You can use your intellect to come to the conclusion that there is a God, but after that there is...you cannot use your intellect to come up with how Allah is to [know] His attributes. And all of the things the knowledge about Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala. You need to go to the proper source and the one that Ahl al-Bayt 'alayhum as-salaam. The sayings that Ahl al-Bayt have given us about Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala, because Allah sent them to us to teach us about Him and about the religion.

So if you only needed your intellect to tell you all of this, then it would mean that you need something other than the Qur'an and you need something other than Islam to show you the the belief in Allah, but this is not the case. This accusation actually weakens the religion and makes it seem incapable of defending itself, or proving itself.

When we see that Allah, Subhana wa Ta'ala, addresses the atheists directly in the Qur'an, and so we do not need anything else other than this religion of Islam to prove Allah's existence, because Allah has perfected His religion. And we should try to rely on the narrations and the Ayat. The Ayat that Allah has given us in the Qur'an and the narrations of Ahl al-Bayt to be able to prove this, and guide us to the existence and how to describe Allah.

If we follow guidance other than this, then we are going to come to incorrect conclusions, and we are going to see how other sects of Islam have been deviated because they did not refer to Ahl al-Bayt 'alayhum as-salam, and they have taken some of these things literal, such as they believe that Allah has a hand, a physical hand. Na'udhu bi-Llah (far be it from Allah). Or that Allah has a foot, that they say that Allah sticks his leg in the hellfire until it becomes full. Na'udhu bi-Llah (far be it from Allah). Allah does not have physical body parts like His creation. This is against His essence. This is not how Allah is. Allah is exalted above His creation. He is not like His creation. There is nothing comparable to Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala.

So these people have come to the wrong conclusions. They have not come to Ahl al-Bayt, which when they say 'yadu Allah'- the hand of Allah, it means the power of Allah, it does not mean that Allah has an actual hand. This is wrong.

And some of these scholars from other sects, they say that all of these, all of these Ayah in the Qur'an are literal. So one day he was debating a scholar and the scholar said, okay, all of these Ayah are literal. And he said, yes, they all are. So he said, how about the case of the Ayat that said, those who are blind in this world will be blind in the hereafter? And that scholar who is debating from the Salafis or Wahhabis, he was blind, so he had nothing to say about this, you know, because he said everything was literal. So that means if he was blind in this world, he would be blind in the hereafter, as the Ayat said. But of course, he did not have anything to say about that.

So all of these Ayah are not literal. A lot of them have different meanings to them that we have to refer to the proper sources, like this one, that it says those who are blind in this world will be blind in the hereafter. It is the ones who are blind to the guidance, their heart is blind to guidance. And if they are blind in this world to the guidance, and they do not accept it, then they will be blind in the hereafter. They will not have their deeds forgiven. They will not go to Jannah. They will not be forgiven if they rejected it in this world when it came to them, and it was explained to them properly.

So this is just some small information about how to know Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala and what type of sources we need to go to.

Some people, they believe that we will see Allah on the Day of Judgement. And this is also incorrect because we see that Allah told that Nabi Musa 'alayhi as-salam, that he would never see Him, and the word used was 'lan'. It is a particle of negation, haraf un-nafi that signifies 'never!'. So it was addressing to the people of Musa that they would never see Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala, because they asked Musa if he would see Him, and he said no, that you will never be able to see Him.

And if you were able to see Allah, you would be limiting Him to be something that is perceived by a limited faculty of vision. And we cannot make Allah into an image that can be seen. And this is this is saying that Allah has a body. We cannot do this, because the mind can only imagine things that it has seen before, or a combination of things that it has seen, and these are all created things, and Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala is higher than anything that He created.

So we cannot put Allah into a body. Allah cannot be contained in anything. Allah is al-Muheet- 'He is surrounding encompassing things.' He is not inside of anything. We cannot limit Allah. All these things limit Allah. And this is against His absolute power. You know this is against His essence. All the attributes of His essence this is against it. So Allah is Higher than His creation.

And also Imam Ali 'alayhi as-salam, a person asked him if he worshipped the God that could be seen. And Imam 'Ali said, how could I worship a God that I cannot see? Eyes do not see Allah, but the heart sees Allah by the true Faith.

And may Allah grant us to know Allah better, and understand Allah better, and go to the proper channels of understanding Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala. Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa aali Muhammad, wa 'ajjil Farajahum wa l'an a'da'ahum.