SELF-AWARENESS

Think about yourself; your history and what you are doing presently. Project yourself into future and imagine what you could become – this is self-awareness – a special endowment.

Every human being enters into this world without knowing anything about himself. Learning begins in this world.

As a child, every human being develops the concept of self. The learning (upon which this concept is based) is not done attentively.

At adulthood, a person begins for the first time to discover himself. This is the time that we talk of actual self-awareness.

At this stage, a person who does not know what he does and why he is doing it is but a fool. An adult is expected to be in charge of himself.

As an adult, a person is blessed with the rational sense (al-Aql) by which he discerns Truth from Falsehood. He is also blessed with accumulation of facts which he gathered throughout the period of childhood and he is still gathering.

Am adult is expected to use his Aql to extract meanings out of the facts. This is how an adult becomes wise and grows in the world of awareness.

“He it is Who created you from dust, then from a drop (of seed) then from a clot, then brought you forth as a child, then (ordained) that you attain full strength and afterward that you become old men though some among you die before; and that ye reach an appointed term, that haply you may use your Aql.”

Self-awareness therefore, is the first and the central pillar that an adult has to erect in his life. There is no how an adult can learn wisdom without self-awareness. How can a person know God and yet he is not aware of himself? What will that God be? Whosoever knows himself indeed has known his Lord.



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

Every human being (by nature) is created to believe in a god. There is no creature of love and memory that does not build his life into a hierarchy of beliefs and values. God is the name given to anything that has the highest value in a person’s life.

A person can not do but to learn. As he is learning, he can not do but to attach values to things in exclusion of others. The things he value are not without basis. The basis (whatever it is) is the one referred to as god. Therefore, every human being compulsorily has at least a god.

Al-Islam does not preach that there is god because there is no need for that. What al-Islam preaches is monotheism - that there is just a God instead of gods; otherwise, that there is just a nature.

The god of a person determines the shape of his life. The adoration shown to the god (which is also a natural process) is known as worship. Every human being worships at least a god.

Monotheism is to understand and be convinced that there is just a single Lord behind all the creatures and activities in life. There is just a NATURE/LAW/MEANING in life. We acknowledge this pretty well in science though we pretend to be ignorant sometimes. Learning, without this acknowledgement, would not have been a possibility.

The universal law of existence must be complete enough to take care of the hierarchy of creation if not; there will be the need for a parallel law.

When there is a parallel law to the first law, there will be two independent lines of existence. That might have been an indication that there are two sources of existence or two 'gods.'  There is no evidence for this.

The wise God would not have reason to create two parallel laws. In that case, all the laws are based on a single mother law of existence.

Because of the orderliness in existence, it has become unavoidable to run into the organisational structures and the complexities as we find them today.

Instead of the billions of organised cells in the body, God could have made the body just a single entity that do not need the integration of components. That would have called for a parallel law in existence.

Since there must be no parallel law, here we are with all the structures and the complexities as found today.

There is truth and there is conduct that is in conformity with the Universal law – such is the right conduct. Indecency is injustice or a deviation from the truth.


A Monotheist does not give regard, love or obey anything that is not in line with the Truth.

A Monotheist understands that God (the only Lord) is absolutely Aware, Wise, Just and Powerful. A Monotheist therefore go after God as the absolute TRUTH and does not give regard to anything that stands on his way (be it his lower desires or other creatures).

A Monotheist only knows and gives allegiance to God as against the selfish and rebellious governments in the world today. Whosoever does not judge by what God has revealed (and he is aware) is indeed a rebel.

The Sunnis and Shias announce loudly in their Call to Prayer daily that they do not recognize any authority but God and also say in their prayers 5 times a day that they worship and seek help from God alone whereas they continue in their practical life to be part and parcel of nationalist governments. What a joke!

Shariati laments:
We see that the teaching of monotheism ends in the schools of the traditional centers of learning and, if, after this, any mention is made of it, it is discussed only in the groups of Divine sages and spiritual Gnostics and that, in the form of words, philosophical and subjective conversations removed from life and alien to the people; the emphasis is more upon proving the existence of God and not monotheism. In practical terms, “Monotheism means nothing. It is a subject which has been solved,” and solved at the command of the enemy, or, at least, to his benefit! Hajj by Ali Shariati p. 4


COMMUNICATION WITH THE LORD

A Monotheist knows and understands that the Wise Lord can not leave him without guidance - so, he seeks for His guidance.

It is in this search of a Monotheist that he comes across or hears of people who claim to have brought or are preaching the messages of God. Those people are known generally as the prophets of God. A prophet is a person appointed by God to promulgate His messages to the servants.

The duty of the prophets (being human beings themselves) is to advice their people against superstitions and unscientific approach to life and invite them to the use of their INTERNAL GUIDE (AL-AQL) that is embedded in every adult among them.

A prophet does not come with any new reality rather he explains the existing reality which everyone can verify and confirm by his brain.

A prophet does not impose explanation or acceptance on anyone; everyone has the choice to disregard the prophets but then the consequence of the other side of the stick. Anyone who picks up a stick has consequently picked up the two sides of it.

A prophet is an extra favour from the Wise Lord to the servants.

When people accept a prophet and they become a community, the prophet becomes the leader of the community. Leadership is human control and coordination of activities of two or more people that are relating and their interaction needs coordination. Where there is no interaction, there is no leadership.

While every just person is a guide, not all just people are prophets.

A Monotheist, knowing the justice of God, understands pretty well that the Lord would not leave any community without at least a guide. There is no moment in life of which there is not at least a guide. It is left for whoever is thirsty to discover where the water is.

God sent his prophets with messages for humankind when they were living in villages and were quite far from each other. To believe in all the previous prophets is to believe in the justice of God and to understand that the line of message had remained the same throughout history.

It must be understood at this juncture that by prophets, I am only referring to the true prophets. They all preached the same message which is: no servitude to anyone but the TRUTH.

Now that the world is one, God sent Muhammad with a complete and protected message.

It is because the message is protected from adulteration unlike the previous books and it is because it is meant for all humankind that there is no need for any prophet again - Muhammad was the last prophet of God.

Al-Qur’an therefore, is the prophet of all human beings for all time.

A prophet was either sent in the past to bring the message of God or to clarify the message where it had been adulterated. There is no need now for a messenger or a prophet because al-Qur’an is enough. The holy prophet lived his life according to the Qur’an and warned that everything must be judged according to al-Qur’an alone.

There are permanent values and principles in life that are not subject to space and time. God enumerated them in Al-Qur’an. They are the bases of Jurisprudence.

There are issues that can only be determined or are conditioned by circumstances; God gives discretion to human beings in such issues though under the fundamental principles.



HEREAFTER

A Monotheist knows and understands that life without Hereafter is totally meaningless. A drama that does not end up in a complete cycle of desire and satisfaction is meaningless therefore the drama in life can not be terminated abruptly.

If everything in life is meaningful as we inherently believe, we must of necessity understand that life as a whole is meaningful. What meaning can we see in life if there is no continuation to Hereafter?

To regard anything as meaningful, it must make a complete cycle of desire - satisfaction. It must be a complete event.

Therefore, the fundamental beliefs after SELF-AWARENESS are:  MONOTHEISM; THE MESSAGE; HEREAFTER.

The belief in the message necessitates the belief in the Messengers (Angels and Men) and necessitates the belief in the Apostles generally because they all preached the same message.

Dear Idrissa,
You get the essence of the Sunni belief very wrongly.

When God creates man, He knows exactly how he will end up, because He is all knowing.-I hope you do not dipute that. He however gives man the criterion to Judge between good and evil, and choose for himself his fate-free will. But alas, man ends up exactly where God knew he was going to end up- by his own choice of course. Remember, when God was going to create man, He told the angels, I will create a vicegerent on earth, to which they replied that He was going to create one that will spread mishief. What was God's response? I know that which you do not know.

When man was created, where was he put? In Paradise. Even though God knew he was going to end up on earth, he put him in Paradise to ensure that man had a choice-free will. So, by man's action of disobedience, he confirmed God's design for him. But God did not in anyway influence the decisions man took. He made those deisons himself. So if God had in knowledge seen where a man will end up, he did not pre ordain that for him. He gave him choice but he played true to gallery.

I hope you are clear on that Idrissa.

ajia23:

Dear Idrissa,
You get the essence of the Sunni belief very wrongly.

When God creates man, He knows exactly how he will end up, because He is all knowing.-I hope you do not dipute that. He however gives man the criterion to Judge between good and evil, and choose for himself his fate-free will. But alas, man ends up exactly where God knew he was going to end up- by his own choice of course. Remember, when God was going to create man, He told the angels, I will create a vicegerent on earth, to which they replied that He was going to create one that will spread mishief. What was God's response? I know that which you do not know.

When man was created, where was he put? In Paradise. Even though God knew he was going to end up on earth, he put him in Paradise to ensure that man had a choice-free will. So, by man's action of disobedience, he confirmed God's design for him. But God did not in anyway influence the decisions man took. He made those deisons himself. So if God had in knowledge seen where a man will end up, he did not pre ordain that for him. He gave him choice but he played true to gallery.

I hope you are clear on that Idrissa.

Thanks ajia23.

There are those who have the notion that a person is either created to go to hell or to paradise - this notion contradicts the idea of free-will and also goes contratry to the attribute of justice. Knowledge, as you have observed, should be differentiated from coertion.

"But God did not in anyway influence the decisions man took. He made those deisons himself. So if God had in knowledge seen where a man will end up, he did not pre ordain that for him. He gave him choice but he played true to gallery."

This was what I said but I have now modified the post. "The Sunnis belief in ‘predestination of good and evil’ is totally irrational if the meaning negates free-will and negates the absolute justice of God. God could not have compelled a person to do a thing and then punish the person for it."

What is Aql?