059 Our Relationship with GOD

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1 59 Our Relationship!

CULTURE OF ISLAM

059 Our Relationship

With GOD!

Imtiaz Muhsin

13-Jan-12

The main objective of these talks (and therefore the scripts of these talks), is to stimulate thinking.

Sensible, rational and logical thinking. So, my message, think, think & think!

Be sensible, be rational and be logical.


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Please Note

1. I have had the great privilege, (since Aug 2010), of presenting talks on the weekly Radio ProgramCulture of Islam [Every Friday 8 to 8.30 pm, Radio Sri Lanka - FM 97.4]

2. Since these are Radio Talks, I refer to, or address the audience as listeners3. I am well aware that the audience to these talks would consist of people belonging to a variety offaiths. So as to make people of all faiths feel included, I very often use words and names that are

common to all religions.

4. For these reasons, I use the name GOD, as well as Abraham, Moses, Jesus etc as well as thenames Allah, Ibrahim (Alaihis Salaam), Moosa (Alaihis Salaam), Easa (Alaihis Salaam) etc

5. Muslims by habit usually say Sallallahu Alaihiwasallam, when the name of Prophet Muhammadis mentioned, and Alaihis Salaam' when the name of a Prophet is mentioned. However, in these

series of talks I have reduced the use of these prayers & sayings to the bare minimum.

6. Muslims, also by habit, use a number of Arabic prayers or sayings, such as Alhamdulillah, InshaAllah and so on. Again, I have reduced the use of these prayers or sayings to the bare minimum.

7. Sometimes I have to write Arabic words in the English script.I have devised my own way of writing Arabic in English, as follows;th s DHL H Gh

TH Ss DHZ h GH

SW

Information on these talks along with all download links can be found on my on my Blog(http://imtiazm.wordpress.com/)

The dates or the schedules of these talks can be viewed on the Facebook Page(http://www.facebook.com/ImtiazMuhsin786)

The Scripts of these talks can be downloaded from www.ScribD.com(www.ScribD.com Author Imtiaz Muhsin)

The audio files of these talks can be downloaded from YouTube(YouTube Channel Imtiaz Muhsin)

The YouTube Link to this talk is atAll Praise and Thanks

is due to Allah and Allah aloneAlhamdulillah!

P.S. The Picture on the Cover is of the Beach Mosque at Kalmunaikudi

in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka


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059 Our Relationship With GOD!

Dear Friends,

I greet you all with Assalamu Alaikumwhich, I am sure you would recognize as the greeting of

a Muslim, and means Peace be upon you! or Peace unto You!

Alhamdulillah, last week, the topic I spoke on was titled Nature or God? and I had this

interestingI would like to call it an interesting learning experience - of preparing and

presenting arguments, - or again, I would prefer to call it a logical and rational discourse - that

everything, simply everything, happens through the Will of God and that, THAT God is Allah.

What I did, by the grace of God, was to logically bring in to the talk, the qualities or attributes that

anyone would expect of a God or ofThe God I thereafter pointed out, how in the Holy Quran,

Allah Taaalah explains these many divine attributes of His and then also describes how He

weaves the effects or the workings of each and every one of these attributes in to the workings of

the Universe, including or with special emphasis on the workings of man and his psyche.

I am sure all of you would have been amazed to hear the 100 attributes of God or of Allah that are

mentioned in the Holy Quran, and I hope that at least some of you listeners would have been

curious enough as to want to obtain a copy of the Holy Quran and go through these Aayath or

what we refer to as the Signs of Allah in the Holy Quranthe Arabic word Aayath means Signs

Now returning to todays talk.

Alhamdulillah, the title of this particular series of talks on the weekly Radio Program Culture of

Islam is Knowing Allah or Knowing God.

I prefer to refer to Allah as Allah Taaalah which means Allah the most exalted, and this is the

sixth talk in this series.

Now the title of todays talk is Our Relationship!

Obviously I am referring to the relationship between God and Man or Allah Taaalah and Man.

Actually the title The Relationship between Allah Taaalah and Mankind would be most

appropriate. Anyway let us keep it at Our Relationship!

This week too, I would like to follow the style that I used last week, and again through the use of

logic and reasoning, try to work out what we as humans would expect from God, and in turn what

God would expect from us, and then see how the Holy Quran describes these interactions or thisrelationship.

Are our expectations reasonable? Are these expectations (both waysbetween Man & God as

well as between God & Man) described or addressed in the Holy Quran and do these match or

are there some mismatches or considering another extreme, is it a total mismatch?

Dont you think that this would indeed be an interesting exercise?

So now, let us think! What would God expect from us and also think out what would we or

Mankind, expect from God?

First let us begin with the individual Man.


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Everyone of us have had many experiences that we just cannot explain. There have been times we

have escaped deathliterally by a whisker We have escaped many misfortunes even to think

about them makes us sweatwe just cannot explain how we escaped, how the menacing factors

came together and then just in time!

What happened? We concoct explanations, but deep inside we know that what we experienced,

and experienced first hand is what we would call the hand of God!

Similarly we cannot explain some misfortunes that have struck usaccording to all calculations,

plans and ingredients, every factor was in our favorbut then the whole thing crashed how?

The experts, the pundits would give us explanations, how the crash was really staring at our

face all the time and we did not heed their warnings.

But then, deep inside we know that this was from Godand we are perturbed.

Was it a punishment?

Was it a wake-up call? That God was signaling to me that I should amend my ways?

Or was it that God was saving me from a big disaster which I just could not perceivea sort of a

smaller loss to avert a bigger loss?

In many of these cases, the bigger worry we have, its housed deep in our hearts, is not the effects

of the crash, but WHY God did this to us. It is a hurt that we cannot share with others. Those are

the answers we would like to seek, we want to seek.

Similarly there are quite a few land mark events, we could even call them epic events in our lives

how we took that course, how we got through that exam, how we collected the capital, how we

met that character - almost tailor made to help us in that precipitous situation. The timings, theevents, the unexpected, the weather so many factors could suddenly transform a situ that then

converts to become a windfall for us.

Many successful Professionals would say that unexpectedly meeting someone, a sudden

unexplainable thoughtwe call it a thought from nowhere, getting some appointment or some

assignment in what we once described as that god forsakenplace became the event that most

unexpectedly brought us good fortune, it changed our livesthere are too many of such factors,

events and landmarks in our lives that we can only explain as a God send We just cannot

otherwise explain it.

This is not just for you and for me, but it is so for every human being. Not just every human being

but even races of human beings. Right through history the history of mankind, Man and peoples

have realized this.

And in all of us, as well as in all of them, we share this deep longing to get to know more about

God.

But then how do we do it?

There is so much of Mumbo Jumbo surrounding this search that we actually think that we are

going to go away from what we are seeking, rather than progress towards our goal. This is thepath that we apparently see shown to us by religious leaders. What they see, we just cannot see.


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What they describe as the wayour logic tells usno, that cannot be the way. We want to

find out, but their journey does not appear to be one of discovery. So then what do we do?

Let us see how people right through history even from prehistoric times have tried to understand

God and their attempts to please Him.

Imagine thousands of years ago, man living in a jungle, or desert or river side habitats. Their fears

would have been wild animals, floods as well as famines and also those men who they identify as

their enemy.

They would have observed, over the years, that though they sowed and cultivated their fields, they

were heavily dependent on the weather patterns, and weather was just not in their control.

Sometimes the weather (mainly the rains) favored them sometimes the weather did not favor

them.

They feared wild animals and they took their precautions. But then unexpectedly, animals would

attack them as well as destroy their crops.

They wanted to live in peace. But their neighbors were war mongering and sometimes disastrousclashes took place.

They did everything they could to keep themselves, their families, their domestic animals and

their crops in good health, but then sometimes, beyond their control - sicknesses and disease

ravaged them, those that they loved, their cattle and even their crops.

They had this feeling that there was this Power, this God that was giving them the conditions of

good and bad or evil, and they had this deep feeling that they must appease this God or make

some sacrifices that would please this God so that he would give them all that they desired, or at

least make conditions favorable to them.

Thus we see, in every ancient culture, rain dances, harvesting dance, ritual offerings of wealth of

cattle even of children. The logic behind these rituals just does not appeal to us.

But it appealed to those who had to face the hardships or the gains.

They were the ones on the frontlines.

Now in our case too, we have this deep feeling that many of the powers in this world are

controlled by God and we want the help or the assistance of God. That is why we want to know

Him.

So to understand God or how our relationship should be with God let us take this process of

reasoning this process of applying logic a little further.

We realize it is God who sets conditions. It is God who grants all favors and it is God who can

change conditions. We are in need. Our needs are enormous, but then we describe them as simple.

Now, what would we want?

Good parents. Good home. Good car. Good friends. Good schooling. Good grades at exams.

Good professional course. Good qualifications. Good wife. Good health. Good children. Good

great earnings. Good house (we mean grand house) Good position (we mean Power) Good

vocation (we mean high paying profession) Good friends (we mean sporting men and beautifulwomen) and so on.


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Now taking our reasoning and logic further, does all this good that we ask for, really mean

good?

As an example a young teenager is asking his father for a new Sports Car, or a powerful Motor

Bikewould a sensible father give this to his son? Would this be good?

So then is it possible that many of the things we desire, though we call it good, would God want

to grant it to us for our good?

So now we begin to realize another concept in this relationship with GodWe seek from God,

God grants, but more importantly God guides.

Is it not logical that this God who we are absolutely certain is very wise wise beyond words

would grant us good, but would not grant us everything that we think is good. In fact what I

would expect God to do is to guide me towards good.

Our concept of good is beauty, wealth, power, popularity etc

Gods concept of good is that which would make us do good deeds in other words that which

would keep us away from immorality, shame and iniquity.

So let us again, go a little further in logically reasoning out what this good actually is.

Is it not reasonable to think that just like granting us with good would not God first try to

cleanse us from evil? I would like to word it as cleanse us from immorality, shame and iniquity.

Does that also not come under the description of granting good?

Now, what is the evil we are involved in and how could this be cleansed from our lives?

Evil is too heavy a word.Let us use the words immorality, shame and iniquity.

Now it is up to us, to be very honest with ourselves and inspect our lifestyles and try to recognize

the immorality, the shame and iniquity that has become part and parcel of our lives and lifestyles.

Believe me, this process of identifying and eliminating these factors can be very very difficult,

mentally shaking. But then if we apply ourselves with sincerity, then this process becomes the

most satisfying program we could ever undertake.

It needs an enormous amount of courage. It needs an enormous amount of clear thinking. It needs

an enormous amount of dedication and patience. It needs an enormous amount of confidence that

God is with us and He would never let us down!

To assist all of you, let me point out some of these evils that we are dealing with in every facet of

our lives. It is difficult for me to tell you that you are practicing these evils, so when listening to

this brief description, I would request all my listeners to think that I am describing my deeds, my

evils. When I say we, I mean I that would make it more palatable!

The manner in which we do business - many of us call it a Rat Race

Our idea of business is not to serve but we think of ways and means of extracting money. We

clothe these dealings in nobility and professionalism. There are many ruses we use. We teach

students professional courses. What we are actually imparting to them are the cunning skills

needed to extract money from people through means of iniquity and shameful practices. Almostevery one of our advertisements that we post in our Daily Papers, on Posters, Flyers, and on the


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Media is grossly dishonest. We shamelessly flout that our products would solve all your

problems, is made to fit your purseour message is that we care about youwhilst the actual

message is we want your money, we want your unstinting patronage.

The manner in which we take advantage of the weak, even if they be our employees and those

under our care.

The manner in which we fleece the weak, the poor, the sick, the underprivileged - even if they are

seeking our services, our assistance to improve their lot, maybe even to get out of life threatening

situations.

The manner in which we flaunt wealth, power, health and ambitionimmoral, shameless,

iniquitous.

So now is it not within reason to think that if we want good, if we are seeking good from God

the real good, the real goods, then we have to go through a process of cleansing or purification.

We have to, step by step, seek, recognize, identify, eliminate, rehabilitate or sacrifice anything

and everything in our lives that shows even a modicum of immorality, shame or iniquitywe

need lots of soul searching, lots of meditation, lots of deep, deep thinking! Believe me it is just not

easy.

It needs a huge amount of courage and a huge amount of belief and trust in this God from whom

we are now seeking guidance towards good.

We are seeking guidance towards good without actually knowing the meaning or the truth of

this good or even where it is. We need guidance. So when God guides He gives us what He

KNOWS is good for us, and many times it may not agree with our desires. We may find it even

impossible to think that this condition, this guidance is good for us. So it necessarily means that

our relationship with God must include the vital ingredient which we call Submission

Submission to what?

Submission to the Will of God.

To accept happily, whatever condition he brings about in our lives. To be confident that he is

guiding us and also to be confident that this is the path to good, and thus the journey as well as the

destination has to be good. This is the real good that we should be seeking from God.

Now many of us may claim that we are submitting to the Will of God. We say we accept

everything around ustherefore we submit. This is not correct. Let us reason this out, and being a

Muslim I would like to reason it out as a Muslim should.

The path to Submission to the Will of God has to go through 5 stages, what are they?

1. We must first read the Signs of Godwe read the Holy Quranthe Quran contains the

Aayaath of Allah or the Signs of God

2. We must contemplate on these Signsat the beginning many of the Aayath or Signs may not

make meaninga few wouldthen start contemplating on those few. Contemplate till new

meanings begin to emergethen you begin to realize what is called the truth.

3. Then when these Aayaths or these Signs begin to give us deeper meanings or new meanings we

come to the stage which we call knowledge

4. At the next stage we have to convert this knowledge to conviction. We ask ourselves the

question, We have the knowledge, but do we truly believe? Has this knowledge brought changes

in my life through conviction?

5. And then and only then, do we get to the stage of submissionwhere we completely submit tothe will of Godthat is putting ourselves directly on the path of His direct guidance and help.


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So in short, the 5 stages, what are they?

Readcontemplateknowledgeconvictionsubmission

I Repeat

Readcontemplateknowledgeconvictionsubmission

We have to work on all 5 stages.

Let me attempt to further explain the meaning of this phrase Submit to the Will of God, along

with a description ofour idea of submission.

What is required is, that we Submit to the Will of God

But what we say is God must submit to OUR Will

That is the HUGE HUGE differenceall our prayers, all our supplications to God is that He

should grant us our desires. That God must submit to our demands to our beseeching, to our

WILL.

But then surely we can reason out that our good lies in being guided by God and for this guidance

the best gift that we can expect from God is when we decide to submit to His Will.

So now we have reasoned out logically, or reached a stage where we can say;

We want God to grant us good and ONLY good We want to find out our relationship with God We also realize that eliminating evil from our lives or life styles would also be equal to receiving

good

To identify and to eliminate evil we need guidance from God So guidance is an important or maybe the defining ingredient of good We find this word evil too heavy, so to make it easier, rather than searching for evil in our lives

we search for those traits or deeds that can be described as immoral, shameful and iniquitous -

and there are many. To recognize, identify and eliminate these immoral, shameful and iniquitous traits is no easy task;

we need devotion (lots of it), patience and dedication.

Whilst eliminating these traits, we would find ourselves in difficult situations. We may beeliminating many of those factors that we had taken for granted or are the mainstays of our life

styles, even what we would call our anchors

So now, let me logically list out some of the dilemmas that we would have to face;

On one front we would find that we are losing many things that we cherished how dowe cope?

On another front we would find that we are losing our wealth and our material resources how do we cope?

On another front we would find that we are losing our friends, those that have stoodwith us, those that shared in our immoral, shameful and iniquitous deeds how do we

cope?

On another front we would find that we are losing the love and respect of our family, ournear and dear how do we cope?

On another front we would see the disappointment of our near and dear how do wecope?

On another front, because we are weak, sometimes we could slip, we say we are doingsomething and then we weaken, things go horribly wrong we become the ridicule of

our friends our near and dear how do we cope?


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On another front well meaning relations and friends those whose destinies areintimately tied up with ours would advise us, many times tearfully how do we cope?

On another front there would be commitments that we have to face, there would bedebts that we have to service, suddenly our future and the future of our near and dear

looks frightening how do we cope?

What I am trying to point out to all you listeners is that this journey of getting to know God,

getting to know our relationship, getting to know how we should obtain the pleasure of God,establishing this wonderful relationship, this journey, of submitting to the will of God would

just not be easy. It is not for the faint hearted.

I would call it the most difficult challenge and task on earth.

We see the glory of those who have conquered Mt Everestwe know that the long and arduous

training and the climb would have been very very difficultwe glorify them because they did not

give up.

We see the glory of the Gold Medal winner of the Olympics Marathon - we know that the long

and arduous training and the race would have been very very difficultwe adore him because hedid not give up.

We see the glory of that professional who passed a very difficult exam - we know that the

application over many years and the process of what we call the burning of the midnight oil

would have been very very difficultwe look up to him because he did not give up.

Believe me, if we undertake that journey to eliminate immorality, shame and iniquity from our

lives along with the process of submitting our wills to Godlogically, we can reason out three

things;

1. The journey would be very difficult

2. God (whose presence we have reasoned out) would be with us, guiding us, strengthening us.3. The journey is bound to test our convictions test our submissiveness. I am sure that just like

those persons who climbed Mt Everest, or won Gold Medals at the Olympics Marathon or passed

the pinnacle of tests would have had an arduous task and strugglethis journey of submitting to

God would be equally or more arduous and testing. But then gradually, the satisfaction that we

would feel deep inside us would be better than that person when he was atop Mt Everest, or that

God Medal Winner when he crossed that finishing line, or that Professional when he read his

results sheetit would not just be a satisfaction, it would be a confident assurance, really a

conviction that God is with me, God is directly favoring meWOW!

And the funny part or the ironythose not on this path would just not realize, they would think

that we are deprived, we are living in abstinencethey cannot realize the truth because they have

not made any serious attempts to even to try to realize the truth!

Now through a process of reasoning we have visualized the relationship that we should have with

God.

We should submit to Him. He should grant us all our needs. He should grant us good. He should

guide us towards good.

In short We should submit to God. God should guide us correct? Right!


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Now, since I am a Muslim, I would like to share with you how Allah Taaala describes our

relationship.

The relationship between Man and Allah, and the relationship between Allah and Man.

Now, how do I do that?

Because there are so many Aayaths in the Holy Quran that describes this in fact it may not be

wrong if someone told me that every Aayath describes this relationship or that every Aayath is a

facet of this relationship.

I have selected an Aayath from the opening Chapter of the Holy Quranwhich is Called Surah

Faathiha (Surah means Chapter), and this is Aayath No 4

EEyaaka Naghbudhu wa EEyaka Nasthagheen

Which meansThee do we worship and thy aid do we seek

Thee and thy are not words that we are familiar with so let me describe this Aayath in easy

wordsIt is only YOU that we worship and it is only from YOU that we seek help

Now when we use the word worship it really meansdevoted service, loving service, satisfiedservicedoes it also not mean submission?

So the relationship is that we worship Allah. It is only from Allah that we seek help.

In the very next Aayath in this Surah Faathiha, we put forward our biggest need;

IHdhinsSwiraaTHhal MusthaQeem

Guide us on the straight path

THAT is our biggest need.

So what is our relationship?

On our part We Worship Allah TaaalahOn Allahs part it is only He who could guide or misguide

So, we seek guidance only from Allah Taaalah.I sincerely pray and hope that all of you benefit from these talks as much as I have benefitted

from doing research from the Quran and then preparing and presenting these talks to you.

May Allah Taaalah guide us all and accept us all.

Jazza Kalla Khairan.

Assalamu Alaikum

Imtiaz Muhsin

Colombo Sri Lanka

[email protected] Tube Channel - HaneefanMusliman
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Some relevant Aayaths from the Quran:

Guidance is for those on the right path

Whom does Allah love?

Allah describes himself

(002:209)

(001:003)

(002:214)

(002:215)

(002:216)


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(003:20)


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Series 2

The Talks numbered 054 to 071 is under a series titled Knowing Allah Taaalah or Knowing

GOD

The details of the scripts of these 16 Episodes (Talks) are as follows;

Talk No Talk Number & TitleDate

BroadcastDetails of Picture on Cover

Episode 1 054 IlmKnowing AllahDec 9

th

2011

Wellawatte Jummah Mosque in

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Episode 2 055 Rationality - The Foundation of Islam Dec 16h

2011Parasangaswewa Mosque(a remote village)

in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

Episode 3 056 Is Man Special?Dec 23

t

2011

Mutwal Jummah Mosque in

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Episode 4 057 Ar Rahmaan - The BeneficentDec 30

th

2011

The Akbar Mosque in Slave Island,

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Episode 5 058 Nature or GOD?Jan 6

th

2012

Mosque in Matara, from the

Southern Province of Sri Lanka

Episode 6 059 Our Relationship with GOD!Jan 13

th

2012

Beach Mosque at Kalmunaikudi

in the Eastern Province, Sri Lanka

Episode 7Sub Series:

060 Is this what we are created for?

(Is this what we are created for? Part 1)

Jan 20th

2012

A Mosque in the Kurnegala District,

Sri Lanka

Episode 8

Sub Series:

061 What do we see on Earth


Jan 27th

2012

Maradana Jummah Mosque in

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Episode 9

Sub Series:

062 Who are WE? Where do we fit in?


Feb 3rd

2012

Colpetty Jummah Mosque, in

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Episode 10Sub Series:063 Our benefits on Earth


Feb 10th

2012

The Jummah Mosque atNatpidimunnai, in the Ampara

District, Sri Lanka

Episode 11

Sub Series:

066 What makes us 'Stand Out'?

What makes us 'Special'?


Feb 17th

2012

The Devatagaha Mosque in

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Episode 12

Sub Series:

067 Who is in charge?


Feb 24th

2012

A Mosque in a rural village in theAmpara District, in Sri Lanka

Episode 13

Sub Series:

068 What ALLAH Teaches Us,

About Himself


Mar 2nd

2012

The Jummah Mosque in Oluvil a

village in the Ampara District, Sri

Lanka

Episode 14

Sub Series:

069 Our Special Faculties

How they should be used,

How they should not be used!


Mar 9th

2012

The Dhanakawewa Jummah

Mosque in a remote village in the

Anuradhapura District in Sri Lanka

Episode 15Sub Series:

070 The TWO Paths

Mar 16th

2012

Mosque at Madhavakulam in the

Puttlam District, Sri Lanka

Episode 16

071 Is this what we are created for?

A review of Parts 1 to 8 from the Sub Series

Is this what we are created for?

Mar 23rd

2012

A Mosque by a river in the Eastern

Province, Sri Lanka

Documents

059 Our Relationship with GOD