Answering an idol worshipper friend

Asslaamualaikum (May peace be on you all),

The following text was written in response to a friend, who told me when we met that he doesn’t understand what I say. He was specially referring to “The Truth Beckons” (please see March 2009 posting). This is how it goes:

I often send you ladies and gentlemen with texts concerning all that is good and pure. I recently met a friend of mine who is also in my mailing list. He also gets such mails from me. He told me that you know Hasan, I don't understand what you keep sending. Hence, I show your mails the way to trash (the place where you divert unwanted mails). By the grace of Allah he is well educated like any one of you. I failed to grasp what he didn't understand. May be his blind faith was challenged by something which is so pure and true. May be, he is used to living in darkness. Hence, seeing the light all of a sudden he was taken aback and got afraid. God knows best. But I respect him and care for him. He is my friend. I do not mind his words as he know not.

I tell a plumber (who is 6th standard pass) or Rickshaw wala (who is hardly educated) that your God and my God and God of all is One, therefore we should worship Him alone. We should not set up partners unto Him. Setting partners unto God is most heinous indeed. Follow the last prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and what is revealed on him (Qur'aan). He did not bring any new religion or any new thing. On the contrary he confirmed what was revealed to the prophets (peace be upon them all) before him. He only set right the corrupted form of religion. He is the last in the chain of the prophets and therefore is called the Seal of the Prophethood. He came to liberate mankind from blind customs and traditions and invited them to submit their will to their Creator, their Master, so that they may prosper. All this is well understood by my plumber friend and Rickshaw wala. But my dear friend who is a well qualified in terms of earning money (actually, that's the definition of qualified people in our dictionary), has got certificates to show off, mashaAllah has been a teacher also, does not understand what I mean when I say God is One. He does not understand simple things, but amazingly, somehow understands complicated things.

It's really astonishing how people find it difficult to grasp simply things in life and follow blindly the complicated things. Just because we have seen our fore fathers doing it?

"When it is said to them: "Follow what Allah hath revealed:" They say: "Nay! we shall follow the ways of our fathers." What! even though their fathers were void of wisdom and guidance? The parable of those who reject Faith is as if one were to shout like a goat-herd, to things that listen to nothing but calls and cries: Deaf, dumb, and blind, they are void of wisdom." (Qur'aan, 2:170-171)

For example, I say to my dear friend that your Lord and Lord of all is One. Therefore worship Him alone. He finds it difficult to grasp! Whereas what he does? He worships gods (I do not know how many, but for sure they are many in numbers) and yet he tells me that they all are one (though he has not told me so, but that’s what it is said by those who worship many gods and goddesses). There are other set of people who say Trinity. They say God, the Holy Spirit and the only begotten son (read Jesus). They are three but one. Common please! You will drive people crazy. Knock your heart and search your soul and dare to ask yourself which one is more simple and true - One True God, which is all Powerful, the Creator of the heavens and earth and everything that is in between or many gods and goddesses made of clay, which neither can benefit nor harm anyone nor can create a fly? When Islam invites mankind to worship one True God, then it means One True God. Islam means nothing but peace. It also means submission to the Will of God.

My friend further told me that whatever messages you send what’s your in it? It looks like that you just simply copy and paste. I told him you are very true. There is nothing which is mine. What I send you or to others is only and purely from God. There is nothing I add or subtract from it. That's actually what happened to Holy Scriptures that were revealed to prophets (peace be upon them all) before Muhammad (peace be upon him). This is what Qur'aan has to say in this regard;

"Then woe to those who write the Book with their own hands, and then say:"This is from Allah," to traffic with it for miserable price!- Woe to them for what their hands do write, and for the gain they make thereby." (Qur'aan, 2:79)

I am not at all worthy and qualified enough to take this lofty message of God to mankind, but whatever little I know as a Muslim (i.e., one who submits his will to the Will of God), I have to spread this message far and wide to the best of my capability inshaAllah (God Willing). InshaAllah, there would be many fortunate souls who will accept it and there would also be unfortunate ones, who will reject it. If someone accepts it, it’s by Allah's Grace and if someone rejects it, I will think that there must have been some shortcoming from my side in delivering this Divine message. Even Muhammad's (peace be upon him) duty was only to take this message to mankind. He was not made responsible to guide someone to the True Path. The Guidance truly lies with Allah. He guides whom He wills, but there should be desire within ourselves to be guided on the Path that True and Straight.

It should very well be remembered that Allah does not guide haughty and rebellious people. Unless and until we humble ourselves before our Lord and stop thinking that we are more knowledgeable than God (May God forbid), we can never see the light of knowledge. Who are we by the way? What ground we hold when it comes to knowledge or anything else? To tell you honestly, we are naught. I repeat, we are naught. We know only that much what Allah has made us known.

If He were to take our eye sight, we could do nothing.
If He were to take the power to listen, we could do nothing.
If He were to take the power to smell, we could do nothing.
If He were to take our taste buds, we could do nothing.

What we think we are? A creation of God fashioned from a drop of sperm. A dirty drop, if it is to get on our clothes we wash them because it's dirty and impure. We should look at ourselves what we were and what we are. It is He who has fashioned us thus, so that per chance we may be thankful. Read thus;

"He creates man out of a [mere] drop of sperm: and lo! this same being shows himself endowed with the power to think and to argue!" (Qur'aan, 16:4)

"Proclaim! (or read!) in the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created- Created man, out of a (mere) clot of congealed blood: Proclaim! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful,- He Who taught (the use of) the pen,- Taught man that which he knew not. Nay, but man doth transgress all bounds, In that he looketh upon himself as self-sufficient. Verily, to thy Lord is the return (of all). Seest thou one who forbids- A votary when he (turns) to pray? Seest thou if he is on (the road of) Guidance?- Or enjoins Righteousness? Seest thou if he denies (Truth) and turns away?
Knoweth he not that Allah doth see? Let him beware! If he desist not, We will drag him by the forelock,- A lying, sinful forelock! Then, let him call (for help) to his council (of comrades): We will call on the angels of punishment (to deal with him)! Nay, heed him not: But bow down in adoration, and bring thyself the closer to Allah.!" (Qur'aan, 96:1-19)

"O MEN! If you are in doubt as to the [truth of] resurrection, [remember that,] verily, We have created [every one of] you out of dust, then out of a drop of sperm, then out of a germ-cell, then out of an embryonic lump complete [in itself] and yet incom­plete, so that We might make [your origin] clear unto you. And whatever We will [to be born] We cause to rest in the [mothers’] wombs for a term set [by Us], and then We bring you forth as infants and [allow you to live] so that [some of] you might attain to maturity: for among you are such as are caused to die [in childhood], just as many a one of you is reduced in old age to a most abject state, ceasing to know anything of what he once knew so well. And [if, O man, thou art still in doubt as to resur­rection, consider this:] thou canst see the earth dry and lifeless - and [suddenly,] when We send down waters upon it, it stirs and swells and puts forth every kind of lovely plant!" (Qur'aan, 22:5)

We think, the more a person have degrees and certificates the more knowledgeable he is. True, that could be the definition of knowledge in man made dictionaries but not in the dictionary of God. Real knowledge lies in knowing your Creator, your relationship with Him, your relationship with your fellow beings and last but not the least, why we are here? What's the purpose of life? This is what God has to say about the haughty and the rebellious;

"On the Day of Judgment wilt thou see those who told lies against Allah.- their faces will be turned black; Is there not in Hell an abode for the Haughty?" (Qur'aan, 39:60)

"If only they had believed in Allah, in the Messenger, and in what hath been revealed to him, never would they have taken them for friends and protectors, but most of them are rebellious wrong-doers." (Qur'aan, 5:81)

"As to those who are rebellious and wicked, their abode will be the Fire: every time they wish to get away therefrom, they will be forced thereinto, and it will be said to them: "Taste ye the Penalty of the Fire, the which ye were wont to reject as false." (Qur'aan, 32:20)

Now, having said all, I request you to kindly let me know if you detest such kind of mails from me. I am not going to force the Truth down your throat neither I have the permission from my Lord to do so. Man has been given free will to choose his way.

"Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things." (Qur'aan, 2:256)

Please do take care
Warm regards,

HAsan MUhammad ALi

P.S.: The text in green is a later addition.

Contact details:
hasan.hma@gmail.com, hma_hasan@yahoo.com
Cell: +91-9936139559 (Lucknow), +91-9958069541 (N.Delhi)