1. Knowing GOD (4)

وَإِذْ أَخَذَ رَبُّكَ مِنْ بَنِي آدَمَ مِنْ ظُهُورِهِمْ ذُرِّيَّتَهُمْ وَأَشْهَدَهُمْ عَلَى أَنفُسِهِمْ أَلَسْتُ بِرَبِّكُمْ قَالُوا بَلَى شَهِدْنَا

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Notice that the question is not about who we are, but Who He is. It is this memory of a Supreme Good demanding our response – our responsibility, in fact – that informs all our ethical concerns and moral judgements. It also constitutes our original pure nature, or fitrah – an inner reference point that gives us an uncanny confidence in making decisions about right and wrong.

What most of us do not know is how this innate presence of GOD is connected to our daily lives, or how it translates into spiritual insight or acts of piety. What all of us do know is that there must be SOMETHING, SOMEWHERE, no matter what we call it. That is the echo of our nature in our minds – the echo of our affinity with AL-LAH. This affinity has been with humanity from the start, and its promise of ultimate discovery is eternal. The discovery may be a long process of steady growth, or a sudden reversal of perspective like the question in the Zen koan: ‘What did your face look like before your parents were born?’

The face is an interface – a medium by which inner realities are expressed and the observer ‘sees’ a personality. We can never penetrate to the depths of the Absolute as we are now, but we can interact with One Who embraces us, knows us, and made us precisely for this interaction.

So how do we experience this Personal-Suprapersonal Absolute we call AL-LAH or GOD?* And what descriptive language does He employ to clarify, enliven, and endear this experience to us?

*Many will object to my using “AL-LAH” and “GOD” interchangeably, or that I apply an English word to Someone who many believe has only one proper name in one language, namely the Arabic “AL-LAH”. Of course, Arabic is the only language of the Qur’an, and translations, including “GOD”, cannot do full justice to the original meaning in Arabic. But nothing in the Qur’an demands that we use a particular name for GOD when we name Him in some other language, as I do in this book. The important thing is what we mean, as long as the expression we use is appropriately respectful and accurate in whatever language we happen to be using. Demanding that we refer to GOD as “AL-LAH”, even in English, disregards the capabilities and native ingenuity of the English language, and runs the risk of alienating readers from what we mean by too narrow an insistence on what we say.            

On the other hand, we should recognize that “AL-LAH” – which could be more precisely rendered as “THE GOD” in English – is a name with a resonance of its own that translations cannot achieve. Even Arabic speakers who say “By AL-LAH!” too casually and frequently have forgotten that this Name was meant to produce a profound emotional sunburst of awe and sublime awareness when it is pronounced – not quite like saying “GOD!” “GOD!” “GOD!” again and again. Consider (Q8:2) describing the impact of “AL-LAH” upon the soul:

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