Islam for Muslims
- THE FAITH OF MUSLIMS
- GOOD DEEDS IN PERSONAL LIFE
- GOOD DEEDS IN SOCIAL LIFE
God as the All-Powerful
Introduction: God is the Omnipotent, the All-powerful and “Exalted in Might” (30:27). He has everything within capacity and there is nothing beyond His power. However gigantic a task may be, He can do it very easily and instantly. Whenever he wishes a thing to do, He simply orders it to “Be and it turns into being”, “like the twinkling of an eye." (36:82; 54:50). In this manner, He created everything of the Universe--ranging from the smallest virus to the largest galaxies. He not only created everything, He also can cause everything to happen. Nothing happens without His consent and whatever He plans to make happen, He is found to be the “strongest One to enforce His will” and none can reverse His “irresistible” command (11:66; 6:61).
1. Governor of the Universe: God is not only the Creator but also the “Owner” of everything of the Universe (10:55). He is the “Lord of this Universe”, the “Lord of the Afterlife” as well as the “Lord of all Mankind”: Muslims or Non-Muslims (1:2; 1:4; 114:1). He can “govern all affairs” with remarkable ease and skill (13:2). Surprisingly, He can manage countless affairs all at the same time and without any imperfections. As the Lord of “the Supreme Throne” of the Universe, He holds the “keys of the (seven) heavens and earth” and made them subject to “His command” (23:86; 39:63; 30:25). He directs the stars and planets along pre-determined orbit and makes the sun and the moon rise according to His plan. He “makes the night enter into the day and makes the day enter into the night” and causes “the sun to rise from the East” while no one can cause it to “rise from the West” (3:27; 2:258). He supports the heavens and the earth and if they “cease (to function) and if they fail”, there is no one else to sustain them thereafter (35:41). He secures our earth from destructive collision with any deviated asteroid or planets. If He were to “make the night ever-lasting over you until the Day of Judgment”, none other than God can bring back the light (28:71).
2. Powerful over Everything: Architect of Human Wellbeing: God is the original source of powers for everyone as He claims “There is no power except with God” (18:39). He has “power over everything (and everyone)” (2:20). He “gives (you) life and takes it” and He can take away your power of “hearing and seeing” at will (10:56; 2:20). Your human power not only comes from but is also regulated by Him as He can curtail your strength through illness or old age and can totally take that away by giving you death. In other instance, if and when God chooses to do something by human hands (curing a disease by doctor and his medicine), the success of such human medium seems charming. But when He decides differently, the best of doctors and the most potent medicines cannot stop the death consequence from your disease. However, the same disease is easily curable at other times with the Blessing of God.
To Him goes the credit of auto-healing of your sickness made possible by your developed immune system and when He does that, there is no negative side-effects typical of doctor’s medicine. Without Blessings from God, the front line health professionals like doctors, nurses etc. could have more sicknesses than the rest of the society but available statistics barely lead to such conclusion with decisiveness. In another example, the same agent named sunshine can both help you with vitamin D as well as harm you with skin cancer (melanoma) depending on God’s will. The farmers having excessive exposure to sunshine are supposed to have high skin cancer rate but that does not always happen, thanks to His Mercy. Thus God has the ultimate power in shaping your wellness regardless of environmental impacts.
Defusing Human Plots: As your human power is derived from God in limited measure, you can never be successful with any evil design to “harm” Him or “disable”His plan (3:176; 46:32). For example, the powerful Egyptian ruler Pharaoh was so arrogant of his power that he told his minister-"Oh Haman! build for me a lofty place that I may mount up to the God of Moses" (28:38). God, however, was more powerful to kill him by “drowning” in the Red Sea (2:50), saying "Ah, now! But a little ago, you were in rebellion"(10:91). Similarly, God destroyed the elephant-mounted troops of Abraha, a ruler of Yemen (then under administrative control of present day Ethiopia), foiling his attempt of raiding the holy Kaaba shortly before the birth of the Prophet. God engaged small birds ‘Ababil’ to strike them with stones until they were crushed "like an empty field of stalks and straw"(105:5).
3. Power Exercised through Agents: (a) Natural: God is the “strongest in might and in punishment” (4:84). He exercises His overwhelming power over wicked people by “sending calamities” (6:65) like earthquake, volcano, storm, flood, plague etc. which are much beyond human control. God warns that He can send you back to “ocean second time” and “can drown you by storm for ingratitude” (17:69). For Pharaoh, His chosen punishments included excessive “deaths, locusts, lice, frogs and blood” (7:133). According to Jewish and Muslim traditions, the powerful, rebellious king Nimrod of Babylon (ancient Iraq) was killed from biting of his brain by a mosquito sent by God.
(b) Human: Aside from natural agents, God also can punish you by the “hands” of your fellow human beings (9:14). He can punish you for your grave sins, by “sending calamities” like “party strife” and give you a taste of “mutual revenge” through nuclear war, inter-racial riot or tyrant ruler’s oppression etc. (6:65). Likewise, God is also mighty enough to “defend you from (harmful) people” or accidents etc. (5:67).
(c) Animal: In the animal world, there are countless lower members who are able to harm you with God’s permission. Snakes, tigers, bears and many other animals derive powers from God to do harms to people. It is remarkable that smaller entities appear to be more deadly. For example, small pox and Spanish flu caused by microscopic viruses and Bubonic Plague by smallest bacteria became three among largest killer diseases in human history. Virus and bacterium combined, being two tiniest microbes, owe power to the Almighty for causing so many epidemics and pandemics that are believed to have taken more lives than all the historical wars combined. By contrast, different varieties of the same bacteria, under divine order, can help you through digestion, decomposing dead organisms, enriching soil and so on. In another example, botheration from pests like mosquitoes, bedbugs, rats, ants, cockroaches, etc. sometimes defies your exterminators while at other times they are peaceful under God’s command, sending your exterminators to unemployment.
(4) Regulator of Our Good or Bad: God exercises the final authority for conferring any “loss” or “benefit” on you, causing your “laughter and tears” (48:11; 53:43). This means you cannot “remove” any harms coming from God and you cannot keep back any “benefits” designed by Him (10:107). For example, if miners or earthquake victims are trapped underground, human rescue team cannot even come close to success in rescue “without God’s help” (8:10). Thus God is enough as a “Protector” and “Helper” (4:45).
As one real example, God engineered a pious project under which a baby Musa was “picked up” from river and raised as an “adopted son” by the wife of his would-be bitterest enemy named Pharaoh (28:8/9). Without knowing that the baby belonged to a community against which he ordered infanticide of all male children, Pharaoh not only allowed such adoption, but also helped him grow up for “many years” with “ cast (garment) of love over you (Moses) from Me (God)” (26:18; 20:39) only to become his later-time gravest enemy.
God can impact your wellbeing by influencing your decision in a positive or negative way, in line with His liking. In other words, you cannot wish anything “except as God wishes” (81:29). As a Master of Mind, He can “inspire” on your mind or heart a variety of feelings like “love”, “fear”, bravery etc. (7:117: 20:39; 106:4) which accordingly give good or bad shape to your decision and control quality of your action with significant impacts on your welfare level. For example, He can inspire you to postpone at the last moment your pre-decided trip by a train which meets an accident moments after its start and thus your safety from the accident was planned by God.
God has all His creations in the Universe well within His “governance”; He “protects (all) but is not protected” by any (23:88). As a resident of the earth, you have “no place of safety” and “no way of escape” and you cannot “pass beyond (His) zones of the heavens and the earth” and “wherever you turn, there is the presence of God” (75:11; 42:35; 55:33; 2:115). Thus God has the power of shaping the quality of your destiny (good or bad) which, however, should not anyway inspire your inaction or lethargy.
Conclusion: It is therefore clear that God enjoys unlimited powers over everything or everyone. This justifies that all His creations remain humble and loyal to Him.