‏islam for Beginners | Part One | 5- A Preface to the characteristics of God in Islam

  We have previously talked about the characteristics of the prophets whom God made as the mediator of his communication to us. We have listed their characteristics that they should be characterized by, and we have clarified the things that are not permissible for them to be characterized by. 

    We return now to talk about the Divine Essence. After we have clarified the harmony between the mind and the existence of God, today we put before you, my dear reader, things that we cannot neglect while we are at the beginning of our journey to know God Almighty through our series: “Islam for Beginners.” 

    Everything related to God is unseen, we did not see God, but we are in front of a mind that is in a harmony with the existence of a maker of this universe, this maker as we presented before, he is not part of this universe, otherwise he would also need a maker to make Him, because if he is part of the universe, then there is no doubt that He is matter or energy, and we have agreed that the simplest laws of matter are causal ormanufacturer. It is not possible to imagine an existent from matter, nor a maker, a creator, or a cause for His existence.

    If we know that the Creator of the universe is not amaterial from this universe - that is, he is not linked in his existence to the Big Bang, which is the most popular theory of our time as an explanation for the emergence of the universe that we know – so, everything we imagine with our minds about God is not a reality, but it's animagination produced by the human mind based on the concreteknowledge that comprises the universe around it, and this meaning is expressed by the well-known saying among Muslims: “Everything that comes to your mind, God is different from that,” because God Almighty said: “There is nothing like Him and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.”

    Humans and their thoughts - including fantasies - are all products of the Creator, Glory be to Him, and it is not befitting to God what is befitting of humans.

    So if you hear God saying in the Qur’an about himself:"It is He who prays for you and His angels to bring you out of darkness into light, and He was merciful to the believers," then know that the word "merciful" in the right of God is completely different from the word "merciful" in the right of man.

    Our mercy stems from the tenderness of the created human heart, while God’s mercy stems from His divine perfection..Our mercy may lead us to injustice and denial of the truth out of sympathy with someone, while God’s mercy doesn't include neither injustice nor shortcoming.

Our mercy is created; it became present after it was non-existent. While mercy, which is a characteristic of God, is eternal and has no beginning to its existence and is not created, just as the Essence of God is neither created nor there is a beginning for it, because the existence of the primacy of God’s essence means that God’s existence was preceded by non-existence, then suddenly the existence of God began, meaning that this Creator needed For something that causes Him to get out fromthe nothingness into the existence, and whoever does not possess the existence of himself, he will not possess the existence of another, just as whoever needs something else in his existence is deficient, these things can't be from the characteristics of God Almighty in any case.

    Therefore, we cannot compare our selves with the Essences of God nor our characteristics with the characteristics of God. We have knowledge and God is described by knowledge too, but His knowledge is different from our Knowledge. Our knowledge comes, for example, from studying, learning and experience so we call it "gained knowledge", that means what we gained after it wasn't exist before. It is preceded by ignorance before it, while the knowledge of God Almighty is eternal, not acquired and was not preceded by ignorance.

    When we read the Almighty’s saying: "God’s hand is above their hands," or the Almighty’s saying: "And He is the Most High, the Great," or the Almighty’s saying: "And let it be done over my eyes," we see here words that in our world are just organs - organs and tools - but in the right of God they are not. How do we understand it, dear reader?

    We say: We believe in God and in what God described Himself with, but we honor God from resembling His creation, God mentioned the eyes, we believe in it as it came, but we honor God from reassembling the human.We believe in God and in what came about God according to God's intent, and we honor God from the apparent meanings that come to our mind.

    The meaning that comes to us when we hear the word “eye” is that the seeing, created, human eye, this meaning is impossible for God.

    Imam al-Tahawi, may God have mercy on him, says: "Whoever describes God in one of the meanings of human beings has committed disbelief, so whoever sees this is considered, and from the likeness of the words of the infidels, he is rebuked, and He is known that He does not resemble humans in His characteristics."

    That is why Muslims used to deal with divine characteristics with the principle of "approval and pass,” so we approve and believe in what God described Himself with, but we pass it on without imagining anything around it with our limited human imaginations.

    For more benefit, I place before you this clear text from the interpretation of Imam Ibn Katheer, may God have mercy on him, and he says about such acharacteristics: “And as for the Almighty’s saying: “Then He established Himself upon the Throne,” people have many sayings in this state, it's not their place to explain here, but he foolws in this state the doctrine of the righteous predecessors: Malik, Al-Awza’i, Al-Thawri, Al-Layth bin Saad, Al-Shafi’i, Ahmed bin Hanbal, Ishaq bin Rahwayh and others from the ancient and modern Muslim imams, that is to pass it as it came without conditioning, analogy, or interruption, and what comes to the minds of the is exile from God, God is not like to anything of His creation...So whoever affirms to God Almighty what the clear verses and authentic narrations have been mentioned in, in a manner that befits the majesty of God Almighty, and denies the shortcomings of God Almighty, has taken the path of guidance.”

    We have here a beautiful phrase that we learned while we were in school in the preparatory stage - and I still memorize it while writing these words - this phrase says: “God Almighty, in general, must have every perfection that befits God’s Holy Essence, and the perfections of God Almighty are infinite, not counted, nor encompassed by our knowledge.”

    Then if we want to talk about the characteristics of God in detail - as it will come - after we have talked about the divine existence, we will talk about the characteristics of oneness, oldness, survival, contradictory to imagination, knowledge, hearing, sight, ability, will, speech and life.

    These mentioned characteristics which we will talk about in detail, and that does not mean that God is not described by other characteristics,we have previously said that every perfection must be characterized by God, but we will talk in detail only on these characteristics, God willing.

    Perhaps in the next article we will start talking about the oneness of God Almighty.