Knowing God 2 – Nothing Like Him

Mankind is mainly divided into two groups: One who believe in God and those who do not believe in God, there are few who are undecided. Every group has multiple explanations and arguments about the existence of God or non-existence of God, yet most of the people irrespective of the fact that to which group they belong are keen to explore and find more details about God.

As for those who believe in God we find a vast variety of worshippers, some people are worshipping an invisible god, some are worshipping stones, trees, rivers, sun, moon, stars, animals and many are revering living mortal humans and consider them as gods, while some are worshipping a deity through the medium on an idol. There are some who worship fire as god.

Some people are worshipping God as one, while others are worshiping one god in three “persons;” others worship multiple incarnations of a one god. Some are worshipping multiple “gods” and “goddesses.” Some insist that just being a good human is essential and sufficient for them like, there is no need for God, just like Buddhists.

There are a few who do not follow any religion, but rather believe in some superpower, and they have different notions about these powers or entities. They also often say it is sufficient to be a “good” person.

With the explosion of science and technology a new class has emerged they don’t believe in the existence of God, they ask for the proof of God. They say man thinks of God because of superstitions or out of weakness of mankind against forces of nature.

So ultimately we have multiple points of views, multiple descriptions and images of God. All these together create a very complex and confusing scenario and question arises how to know – Is there a God? And if there is a God – how to recognize the real God?

To find answers about God

To find the answer about God we cannot resort to just assumptions, conjuncture or some mythical tales. We must refer to some authentic source – and the most authentic source is the Quran. Quran is the revelation from God Himself, it is unaltered, and free of human interventions.  So here we will see what Quran says about God.  One may also refer to other religious books to find out what they say about God and compare it with the Quran, one will quickly realize the truth.

What Quran says about God

Quran says God has been there since  . He is Creator and Sustainer of everything in the universe, He is in full control of affairs of this universe. He is our Creator and Creator everything in this universe. He gave us life and He created death and we will return to Him after death. In multiple verses of the Quran it is said, that He gave us this life to test us, to see who believes in Him and do good deeds in this life.

There is a lot to know about God, and there are multiple ways of knowing God, but today we will discuss some basic facts about knowing God from the Quran.

1-Every human is born with inbuilt intuition about God

Every human has an innate urge to connect with God. He has quest for meaning and purpose; that is why we find every human has an inner “calling.” This calling leads him to search of God. At the same time, our hearts have the capacity to differentiate between right and wrong. If something is wrong our hearts will tell us this is not right. So, it is important to be aware of our inner calling, though lot of people ignore this inner call for various reason.

This fact has been mentioned in the verse no 30:30 and verse is like this, “[Adhere to] the fiṭrah (Natural intuition) of Allah upon which He has created [all] people.”

2- There is nothing like unto Him

There is nothing in this world which we humans have ever seen or imagined, therefore we should not try to visualize God as per our assumptions or whims or our experiences, rather seek the guidance or right knowledge about God. God is similar to nothing and nothing is comparable to Him in this world. God is beyond all forms of our limited perceptions and expressions. This fact is mention in verse no 42:11

“[He is] Creator of the heavens and the earth. He has made for you from yourselves, mates, and among the cattle, mates; He multiplies you thereby. There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing.”

3-If you forget God He will make you forget yourself 59-19

One more interesting fact is this, knowing our own self is a big step towards knowing God and if we become indifferent about God, He will make us to forget how important our status as a human is, we will lose the sight of our purpose and we will just be busy with fulfilling our physical needs.

So, what is knowing our own self? It is paying attention to our own self-our souls – not just our bodies. We have our souls and our conscious – we must pay attention to it and think over it, listen to our inner calls. We must realize importance of being a human, to know our place and our responsibilities in relations to every living and non-living creations in this universe. Mankind is the apex of God’s creation and we must ponder over this and feel this. This comes with some efforts, we need to spare some time and do some reflections – get rid of love of wealth and material world, as well as pride and ego. It is easy to know God when our heart is clean. This fact has been mentioned in verse no 59:19

“And be not like those who forgot Allah, so He made them forget themselves….”.

We need to ask ourselves hard questions like who we are, from where are, from where we came and where we are going? Why I am here? We must pay attention to our inner calls – inner urging -inner queries – do not ignore them in rush of worldly activities.

Conclusion.

Knowing God can make us full of tranquility, the more we know Him the more we can be filled with the contentment. We can know God and we can have more peace in life, as everything that happens around us; will make sense to us and this is the proof of God.