Whom to worship?

Whom to Worship?

By: Mohammed Al-Mohammed

 After thanking Allah, SWT, and no matter how much we thank Him, we cannot repay Him a very little of what He has given us. I do bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and Mohammed is His messenger and slave. The hereafter is the mirror of this life; whatever you do today is reflected and seen tomorrow. So whosoever does good equal to the weight of an atom shall see it; and whosoever does evil equal to the weight of an atom shall see it.

This article is dramatized as “Whom to worship?” It is going to chronologically trace man’s wondering to whom he should adhere and worship. It starts with the beginning of creation, the story of the Prophet Abraham, the Pharaoh’s story and the French archeologist Morris Boukay, the story of our Prophet Mohammed (pbuh), the Golden Bough, a book by Frazer, some miracles of the Qur'an, mythology and monotheism, the oneness of God, and it winds up the second sermon by psychoanalyzing the mental makeup of Satan and his ways to approach and mislead man, and it tries to find some remedies.

Man is born to worship, if not God, he can choose any object in nature, be it a palm tree, an idol, the sun, a certain human being, fire, or something unknown. Through history, so many gods have been worshipped, all different. From the first day of creation until the last day, worship is going on unstoppably. It is as if people were created to worship, and not only to reproduce generations.

Religious beliefs are deeply embedded in human history and culture. Temples, churches, mosques and shrines serve as focal points for a community’s religious    practices. Pilgrims travel to remote places to worship at a common sacred place. To some, the journey itself is the goal, traveling through a sacred geography.

A story happened with me just last year. I went with my students in a trip to a river in the north of Aleppo,Syria. We took a mini-bus, and the driver happened to be from the same place. After we spent a very nice day, we were to go back to our homes. But the driver took us first to the shrine of the Prophet Hori. I remembered then that the name of the place was Prophet Hori, but I just took the name without any signification. He said, your journey would not be blessed had you not been to his shrine. ‘Ok’, I said let’s see. And there, I saw miracles, miracles and miracles of things that Allah Has no hands in. Some women were wrapping ribbons on branches of trees in hope that they get pregnant, or their husbands not remarry, or their husbands to love them. Some young students place a stone on a wall, if it stuck, then he/ she would pass his/ her exams, and so many superstitions. 

In all societies through history people have felt the need for religion. A religion is a set of beliefs that relies on spiritual faith in its followers. Most religions have a god or gods and provide answers to questions such as how the world was created and what happens after death. Religions often have special rituals that act as ways of communicating with the gods or making major events in a person’s life. Furthermore, religions usually involve an ethical code, a set of rules that believers try to live by.

Not far from reality, just twenty five years ago, I was about 5 or 6 years old. I still remember a day where it happened to be the eclipse of the moon. The time was sunset, and we were still playing football when the moon eclipsed. All children and some adults started drumming on tanks; when I asked ‘what for?’; they told me ‘the whale ate the moon, and we are drumming to let it out’.

Another story happened just before 60 years in one Arab country, I am not going to mention the name. Here I am talking about ‘how religion can be politicized to serve certain goals’. However, the colonizers, to keep colonizing a certain country, have to find the weakest points of this country. Via technology in general and by means of meteorology in particular, they created a god for so many people. They looked for a man to carry their scheme and gave him the power of prophesy. We know now, via meteorology, that tomorrow will be sunny, foggy, snowy, etc. This man started telling his people that tomorrow ‘do not go to work’, ‘it will rain’, ‘it will snow’, and so on so forth. For this gullible and ignorant people, this man became a god or at least an intermediary to be worshipped.

As a matter of fact, we started practicing the authentic teachings of Islam after the 1980s, and in specific after the Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979. I also tell you something interesting about my village. People of my village did not fast or pray until they became forties. I also remember when I started fasting the six days of Shawal, my mother and grandmother used to tell me: “why are you fasting the six?, only the old people do that”

Mythologies and religions, like Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Scandinavian, Ancient Middle Eastern Religions, Native American Religions— were all looking for the truth, the purpose of life, and the worship of the Biggest. British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer proposed a three-stage evolutionary scheme in The Golden Bough (3rd edition, 1912–1915). According to Frazer’s scheme, human beings first attributed natural phenomena to arbitrary supernatural forces (magic), later explaining them as the will of the gods (religion), and finally subjecting them to rational investigation (science).

Similarly, the Prophet Abraham (peace be upon him) first looked at the stars, and saw a big planet, saying, ‘oh this is my god’; but when disappeared, he said no, ‘I don’t like things that disappear’; and when he saw the moon, he said ‘that is my god’; but this also disappeared; and when morning came, he saw the sun, he said ‘this one should be god, that is the biggest’, and when all disappeared, he said, ‘Unless my Lord guides me, I shall surely be among the people who went astray’.

Psychologically speaking, does our prophet Abraham lack faith in God to wonder whom to worship? Or is it a kind of drawing out his people to tell them that they are wrong in their worship of stars? In fact, the second one is the truth behind this scenario or dramatization of characterization, whereby Abraham tried to tell his people, implicitly speaking, that what they worship is nonsense.

Mythologically speaking, Greeks worshipped Zeus along with his offspring deities. There had been a god for every aspect in nature—Poseidon, god of the sea; Athena (born of her father’s skull) goddess of wisdom and warfare. And there had always been conflicts among these deities. They usually struggled with human beings.

Let’s see what Allah has said about these peoples: “Say (O Mohammed pbuh): “O people of the scriptures (Jews and Christians)! Exceed not the limits in your religion (by believing in something) other than the truth, and do not follow the vain desires of a people who went astray before and who misled many, and strayed themselves from the Right Path.” These people are the Greeks and the Romans who made partners to God.

Many arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed and rejected by philosophers, theologians, and other thinkers. In philosophical terminology, such arguments concern schools of thought on the epistemology of the ontology of God. Conclusions reached include: "God exists and this can be proven"; "God exists, but this cannot be proven or disproven" (theism in both cases); "God does not exist" (strong atheism); "God almost certainly does not exist" (de facto atheism); and "no one knows whether God exists" (agnosticism). There are numerous variations on these positions.

         Let’s now have a look at the principle of Christianity. The basic principle of Christianity (Trinity), the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, is found in one verse in the Bible that is substantiated (proves that God is three); 66 books in protestant version, 73 in the catholic version.

The concept of the Trinitarian doctrine, in Christianity, some Christians claim, is like an egg; that is to say, the egg has three parts: the shell, the white and the yolk. It is a beautiful symbol. In fact, there is no verse in the bible substantiating this. If the Father has to leave, the Holy Ghost and the Son shall leave too. They are all equal and coexist at the same time. If you take the white from the egg, the egg is not complete. When the father sent the son and the son was supposed to be crucified and died on the cross. This means that also the father and the Holy Ghost died too. If not, so they are not equal and do not coexist. Nevertheless, the Christian ministers say “we have just to believe in it”.

In the Qur'an, Allah tells about the non-believers: “And similarly, We sent not a warner before you (O Mohammed pbuh) to any town (people) but the luxurious ones among them said: “we found our fathers following a certain way and religion, and we will indeed follow their footsteps”. Alzokhrof 23

It is thought that one of the reasons that people of Makkah do not believe in the Prophethood of Mohammed (pbuh) is explained in this verse, and the second one is the economic factor, because had they followed Islam, all their idols would have been destroyed, which were the main income for them. 

One of the Muslim scholars was teaching his students. And one day he tried to test their faith and belief. He gave each one of them a chicken so that they can slaughter it without making anyone see them. They all went back, slaughtered their chickens except one. He came late to have the chicken still in his hands. The sheikh asked him, why didn’t you slaughter it?’ He said, ‘you told me to slaughter it in a place nobody can see me, and wherever I went, God was watching me’.

Back to Frazer and the scientific observation of knowing God. Not only do Muslim scholars nowadays go back to the Qur'an to study it, but also non-Muslims do so; and every day, they discover a new proof of its authentication—the burning of skin, the separation of the salt sea and the sweet sea, the creation of the embryo, etc.

Now, I want to take you on a journey to France, to 1980s. At that time France asked the government ofEgypt to invite the mummification of pharaoh for some anthropological and archeological studies. In France the analysis started, and the scientist happened to be Dr. Morris Boukay.

Via technology, he discovered the reason for Pharaoh’s death, and wanted to announce this scientific discovery, that Pharaoh’s death was due to drowning, due to the remains of salt in the corpse. And his body was taken off from the water immediately after drowning and mummified.  While he was trying to announce this, one fellow told him, ‘be patient’.  ‘Why?’, he added, ‘Muslims know this before 14 hundred years. He said ‘impossible’; this mummy was only discovered in 1898. He knows that in the Bible it is mentioned that the Prophet Moses was chased by Pharaoh, and the later drowned without any more details.

He was astonished; and after that he went directly to Egypt. There, he met a Muslim scientist whom he told about his discovery. This Egyptian brought him the Qur'an and read, “(This day shall we save thee in thy body, that you may be a sign to those who come after thee but verily, many among mankind are heedless of our signs)  Yunus-92. This was a great shock to him. His body was all trembling, and cried loudly saying, ‘I embraced Islam, I entered Islam’, I believe in this Qur'an’.

After that he went back to France to start his research and wrote The Qur'an, the Torah, the Gospel and Science, which has been translated into many languages. So many western critics and theologians tried, in vain, to refute Morris’s work. Not surprisingly, many of those critics tried to go deep in reading his book to find possible errors that can attack him by. But you know what happened with them, they, they, they embraced Islam. Allah says: ‘It is only those who have knowledge among His slaves that fear Allah’. That is to say, the more you excogitate, ponder, meditate, the creation of the worlds, heavens, creatures, the closer you come to the Creator.

It seems that no single creature can deny the existence of God. Even those who are said to be atheist, in time of crucial crisis, they return to God. Let’s read this verse and see what Pharaoh himself had to say, “and We took the children of Israel across the sea, and Pharaoh with his hosts followed them in oppression and enmity, till when drowning overtook him, he said: “I believe that none has the right to be worshipped but He (Allah) in Whom the children of Israel believe, and I am one of the Muslims” Yunus 90.

Now let’s have a quick look at other religions: Confucianism, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and there are so many minority ‘isms’.

          Here are some religions that are remnants or minimized by the advent of science and the cogency of Islam. According to demography, the Yezidi, a Middle Eastern religion, were about 80,000 in Turkey in 1970, declined to 377 people in 2007. In my country, Syria, many friends of mine who were Yezidi, now become Muslim.

          Shinto, the ancient religion of Japan, involves beliefs in nature spirits. It stopped to be the state religion of Japan in 1945.

          Jainism is an ancient Indian religion, founded in the 6th century. Followers of this religion believe that when people die they are reborn as another being.

          Zoroastrianism was founded in the 500s BC. Followers of this religion believe that life is a struggle between two forces: good, represented by the god Ahura Mazda, and evil, in the spirit Ahriman.

According to the statistics, and according to Encarta Encyclopedia, as of 2005, approximately 55% of the world's population identifies with one of the three Abrahamic religions (33% Christian, 21% Islam, 1% Judaism), 6% with Buddhism, 14% with Hinduism, 6% with traditional Chinese religion, 4% with various other religions, and less than 10% as non-religious. Most of these religious beliefs involve a god or gods.

 Alhamdolelah ala neamat el-Islam….Thank God for the bless of Islam

          When you look at the name of the individual or the name of the religion, every single one has its origin either in a place, like a town or a village, or some events that happened in history, or it is named after a person. The only religion in the world that the person would practice that religion is connected to the creator of heavens and earth is Islam. Islam means to submit yourself to the will of Allah. But the title Christian, the title Jew, the title Hindu, the title Buddhist is connected to some human being, that Allah Himself created that human being. Christians have this name because of Jesus Christ; Jews have this name because of Judah; and Buddhist because of Buddha and so on so forth. But Muslim and Islam have this name because of the one who submits his will to the Creator of Moses, Jesus and all creatures.

We do this submission because Allah says in the Qur'an, “And I created the jinns and mankind except for My worship”. That is to say, Allah did not create you to worship the ones Allah Had created, but to worship Him alone, the Creator of all creatures.

Let’s ask ourselves: Why are we created?

I was created to be a teacher, a scientist, etc. but the reason why I was created as such is to worship Allah. It will be unimaginable, and at the same time impossible for an employer to employ you and let you work in his business and run that business any way you want.

Allah, the Most High has explained to us in the Qur'an: “Whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted from him, and in the last day, he will be the loser”.  Every human being that Allah has created has a time span, and in this time span we have something to do, to do what? To worship Him.

If you are not connected, figuratively speaking, to the creator of the heavens and earth, and if you are not worshipping Him in the way He ordered you to worship Him, and worshipping Him alone, without going to some intermediary, if you are not worshipping Him in a manner that fits Him, then you have to have confusion in your life.

For the Muslim, the Muslim obeys the Creator in every single thing: we wear what He says we should wear; we eat what He says we should eat; we sleep with whom He says we should sleep with. They are all in the Muslim’s life.

Now that we have all agreed on the oneness of God, and that He created the jinns and mankind except for His worship, I have to pause for a while to pick up one creature of His, Satan in name, and start having him psychoanalyzed from the pre-destination point of view as well as from the scientific miraculous perspectives.

Just excogitate, consider carefully, the scenario of our creation: Allah, six days to create the world, creating jinns and mankind, creating angels, prophets….. the Judgment Day... and hell and paradise!!!

You know that Satan was ousted from Paradise due to his pride, due to his jealousy of Adam, when all angels prostrated to Adam except he. As a matter of crucial fact, man is created out of clay. But this clay would not have made man had Allah not blown in it from His soul. In other words, the ninety nine names of Allah are partially found in man. In man, there is knowledge, out of Allah’s All-Knowledgeable; in man, there is soul, out of Allah’s Soul, and so on so forth, until we end up with the last name. In fact, every human being has pride, and is feeling proud of himself, herself. Therefore, when man is using this pride against the Giver of pride, then he becomes Satanmate, so to speak. But when he uses this pride to be proud of the Giver of pride, then he is prophetmate. Satan’s ultimate goal is to make people go astray in the sense that they eventually become disbelievers or at least polytheists.

Now that we have illustrated the terminological controversy of pride, we can orient our pride to serve our brothers, to emulate our Prophet, to be proud of the Deen, Islam. One poetic Arabic line reads, “When the spikes are full, it kneels down in humbleness, but when it is erected, it is empty, and so is man”.  And this is why when man learns and becomes knowledgeable, he knows Allah better.

 Who is Satan?

For an atheist, he does not exist. In Christianity, Satan is the enemy of God, the lord of evil, and the tempter of human beings. He is sometimes identified with Lucifer, the leader of the fallen angels. For a Muslim, he does exist. Knowing him profoundly leads you to strong faith. When you know his tricks, scruples, psyche and the mechanism he works by, we can be on the safe side.

Satan, as mentioned in the Qur'an, tries to whisper to people and affect them. He has a certain voice, accent, tone, language— analogically the same characteristics that a person has. And this is true since Allah has created to each one of us his/ her own Satan. He comes to you camouflaged as, military speaking, a soldier camouflaging himself like the environment, and whispering in you what you like. Nevertheless, he makes you think that he does not exist. He uses piety to attack the pious, scholarly discipline to attack scholars, and ignorance to attack the ignorant.

The existence of Satan, according to my philosophy, is that when Satan is visiting you more than usual, it means your shares with Allah increase; but, when you have his whispers a little, it means your shares with Allah decrease, and Allah is All-Knowing. 

Superstitiously speaking, this story aims for a didactic purpose, it has been said that Satan was once asked: who are you most afraid of, the generous or the miser? He said, as for the miser, I don’t need to visit him or tempt him, he is already put in my small pocket; but the problem is with that generous man, who is doing bad deeds, but he is giving a lot of charity, and I am afraid that Allah will look at him and turn him to a believer.

Not only does Satan come to you in your consciousness, but also he visits you while asleep. He tries to complicate matters, to blur the distinction between right and wrong. Biblically speaking, in the last chapter of the Bible, Apocalypse or Revelation, John has seen a dream of a Christ-like figure telling him that he is equal to God and he descended his teachings to people. In fact, this chapter has become a subject to many writers, such as T. S Eliot, in his the Waste Land, which is a devastating description of the world.

The point to be stressed here is that when you see such nightmares, the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) instructs a person who comes to him asking about a bad nightmare, as not to reveal them.

Sometimes things mix into your mind, and you cannot distinguish which is which, or what is right and what is wrong. The remedy for this is so easy since we have diagnosed the problem.

First, you make your faith in Allah strong. Allah says, “Verily! He (Satan) has no power over those who believe and put their trust only in their Lord”. Second, obtain Islamic knowledge from the right sources, the Qur'an and Sunnah. Finally, take refuge in Allah. Allah says: “And if an evil whisper comes to you from Satan, then seek refuge with Allah.” This can be done by reciting the last two chapters of the Qur'an.