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Islam for Muslims

God As The Unique and Supreme being

3: GOD AS THE UNIQUE AND SUPREME BEING

Introduction: The Existence and Attributes of God had always been one of the greatest mysteries facing mankind. For the same reason, He has been a subject of boundless imaginations as well. This article therefore aims to bring all these wild imaginations down to factual ideas about Him, clearing confusions surrounding His Existence.  

1. Complete in Perfect Virtues: In this universe, you cannot see anyone who is complete and “perfect in knowledge and wisdom” and other attributes (2:32). An ideal human being like a prophet can master some of these attributes (ex: honesty, kindness, truthfulness etc.) in incomplete manner and as a variable grant from God.  When it comes to perfection, it is quite impossible for man to attain divine level of perfection in any of these virtues, much less in all of them. By contrast, God is the only possible and available example of completeness and perfection in all the Attributes.  Moreover, all His actions and attributes (ex: boastfulness, punitive for sins, discriminatory distribution of fortunes etc.) are above criticism from anyone.  Therefore, the fact that stands tall above everything is that “To Him belongs (all) Praises; to Him be praises at the first and at the last” (64:1; 28:70). "All the beautiful Names” belong to Him and “Glorious is the name of your Lord, the Lord of Majesty, the Lord of Honor” (7:180; 55:78).

Fountainhead of Virtues: Truly speaking, God is the Fountainhead of all Attributes that you can ever think of, although incompletely and imperfectly. Quantitatively, His Attributes are so numerous that cannot be delimited to any number. Awarding Him 99 nicknames based on His Attributes represents only some examples and not the completeness of His open-ended virtues. Qualitatively, His Attributes are so high in perfection that further higher up is never possible. Remarkably, the word “perfection” in absolute sense only applies to Him and the extreme virtues like “Absolute” “Supreme” and “Irresistible” etc. belongs only to Him (112:2; 2:32; 13:16).

2. The Sole Eternal Being: The Existence of God is full of Uniqueness, much beyond the reach of human ideas or imagination.  As one such uniqueness, He is the sole eternal being, as He said of Himself as being the "First and the Last", the “Explicit and Implicit”, the “Ever-living and Ever-lasting”, He always “lives and never dies”, “To Him belongs the End and the Beginning (of everything)” (57:3; 2:255; 25:58; 53:25).  This means He did always exist in the past (even predating the creation of the Universe) as He will always do in the future even beyond the Dooms Day. In other words, the “Face of your Lord will endure (forever)” while everyone (including even the Angel of Death) or everything (e.g. time, death etc.) created by Him will “cease to exist” (55:27/26). In fact, He designed everything to be temporary and the word ‘permanent’ labeled for a job, marker ink, hard metal, historical fame etc. is simply a misnomer. Probably there cannot be anything more perplexing than to think about how God manages to exist always without a beginning and an ending date on the time line.

3. Shapeless Entity: Of no less perplexing is the shape or size of God. In fact, He is not open to your naked eyes in any concrete shape. This gives an excuse to the materialists or atheists not to believe Him without seeing and inspires the idolaters to give concrete shape (as statues) to abstract gods for pleasing their eyes and mind.  The shapeless God, however, described Himself as the “Light of the Heavens and the Earth, which no vision can grasp” (24:35; 6:103).
  
  Even if you cannot vision Him, He can always vision you wherever you are. “His grasp is over all vision” (6:103). He is the “Lord of the East and the West and wherever you turn, there is the presence of (Omnipresent) God.  (He is) indeed closer to (you) than (your) jugular vein” (2:115; 50:16). Here on earth, God is invisible and He does not talk to anybody except by “inspiration, or from behind a veil (as in case of Moses) or by sending a Messenger to reveal” (42:51). However, He will be in plain sight of His favored people in the Paradise. He is a Sacred Existence above any sex difference. His name Allah, strictly speaking, cannot be translated into 'god' (with small letter ‘g’) that has the opposite gender namely goddess like in Hinduism. 

4. Sole Standard of Fair Judgment: God gave us the Book that spells out concrete rules for guiding human behavior.  In addition, He also empowers our soul with abstract provisions like good conscience, fair judgment power etc. He gave us “the Criterion” (2:53) or a standard by which you can judge if an action is good or bad so you can follow the good one. As a result, for example, your fair heart will tend to support a victim when you see him brutalized by an oppressor.
Another abstract support is “the Balance or Scale (of Justice)” (55:7) by which God enriches your soul to maintain fairness or impartiality while judging a human conduct. For instance, God provided for double penalty for sins committed in religiously conscious environment (like by the spouses of the Prophet) and half penalty for the underprivileged slaves for obvious reasons. In keeping with this spirit, your fair or balanced heart will dictate you to be lenient to your domestic servant for his/her any unintended mistakes.  Such divine standard is a gold standard not only for being ideal but also for being socially beneficial. By contrast, human judgment often tends to be flawed given the fact that different judges not only have different opinions on a given issue but the same judge sometimes gives different rulings at different times on the same issue.

    It must be noted that God is the final authority in deciding the standard of fair judgment given the fact that no one can be ultimately fairer than His judgment. God cannot be “questioned for His acts but they will be questioned (for theirs)” and the discretionary powers to “punish” or “forgive” anyone belong only to Him (21:23; 5:40). This means we should follow Him and He will not follow us. If you otherwise critically review or challenge the quality of any of His provisions, you will be simply doing an undesirable mistake.  For example, you cannot question God’s wisdom behind uneven distribution of wealth between the poor and the rich. Because God knows the answer full well that different jobs with different incomes can be mutually helpful e.g. the poor do the support services for the rich and the rich are tested for their generosity to the poor. Likewise, He knows better about the reason for sending only males as messengers and most of them in the Middle East. It will therefore be righteous for you to accept God’s ruling without any question, hesitation or precondition.

5. Above Human Weaknesses: God is above any weaknesses natural with humanity and He is “the High Above All” and “to God belong all Glory and Power” (20:114; 35:10). His supremacy over humanity may be crystal clear from the single example that “a thousand years of your count” is like only “one day” in the sight of God (22:47). He has freedom from human weakness in every aspect. For example, you ordinarily cannot survive longer than 1-2 weeks without sleep, but He is never “seized by sleep” (2:255). The proverb “Too err is human” does not apply to Him.  He “never errs, nor forgets” and is never “unmindful of all that you do” (20:52; 27:93).  By contrast, human beings are prone to forget before long and the patients of Alzheimer or dementia tend to forget almost everything.
 
He is also unique in being the only One who is Self-sufficient and “free from all wants” while “it is you (people) who have (always) need for God” (35:15). In the world you can see many billionaires who can purchase enormous quantity of comforts, thanks to the Mercy of God. However, you will often find them in terrible shortage in other areas like happiness or mental peace, physical wellbeing, family discipline etc. for why they look to God for help.    
Unlike human beings, He has always been perfect as a keeper of “His promise” and speaker of “true words” (3:9; 4:87). He is above human weaknesses like “hastiness” or “impatience”, or “weakness” (17:11; 70:19; 4:28). He differs from human personality in respect of firmness in decision as He never “turns back” from punishment once He decides for someone (13:11). Under His management of predestination, every important matter of human life has a pre-decided term which no one “can hasten or can delay” (23:43). In this way it can be proved that He is far above comparison with anyone and “none is like Him” and none is “worthy of (His) Name” (112:4; 19:65).

Conclusion: Given the uniqueness and supremacy stated above, God appears to be “above all comprehension” (6:103).  With limited human thinking power, you can never gain full understanding about Him. You will simply be perplexed or outwitted by thinking or inquiring more and more about His Existence.  Therefore it is advisable that you think about God’s Attributes in terms of appreciation instead of giving thought to His Existence with an investigative mind.