Why and How to Establish a Strong Relationship with Allah

Man is not born in isolation, for living he has to have relationship with other around him. Thus we understand that relationship is the way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected. We have our parents, the two most near and dear one who brought us into this world, raise and rear us and make us stand independently on our feet. Due to them, we also have the loving relation of brothers and sisters, uncles and cousins.

Moving out of our closely bonded relation of family, we make friends, acquaintances or people we mere know them as they come by in our lives. In nutshell we cannot live an ideal life without being connected or related to others. For a life living all by itself may turn one into a lunatic or no man.

Now if our relation with human beings is important, do we need to have a relation with Allah, God to some? There is a Deity which has created this fathomless universe with so many blessings so that we humans and animals could live with ease and happiness. A deficiency of any of these blessings could turn our lives into nightmares. If Allah has created everything for us, then we are obliged to connect to Him and establish a relationship that of a Deity or Lord and of a servant.

"Indeed, your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and earth in six days and then established Himself above the Throne. He covers the night with the day, [another night] chasing it rapidly; and [He created] the sun, the moon, and the stars, subjected by His command. Unquestionably, His is the creation and the command; blessed is Allah, Lord of the worlds." [Surah Al A'raf 7:54]

There is no denying that "Allah is the only true Provider. It is He who has bestowed on man such faculties and capabilities as seeing, hearing, thinking and articulating-attributes which man cannot live without, but which he cannot create for himself. It is He who has made available the resources of the external world which man may discover, exploit and develop but, again, cannot create."

As a thank you it becomes our foremost duty to obey and prostate to Him for He has created us for nothing else but to worship Him:

"And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me." [Surah Adh Dhariyat 51:56]

In fact the world "Islam" means total submission to Allah. And this forms the basis of our relationship with Allah. As His subjects we have to submit faithfully and fully to His will and seek guidance as brought by His Prophets. But this submission must be total and all-embracing. A Muslim submits his entire ‘person’ to his Creator as his only Lord and Master. No part of his life can be exempt from the need of divine guidance or from the writ of divine sovereignty.

One could go on and on to describe reasons to establish a connection to one's only Creator, a connection without which we can neither be a good servant nor in a position to seek His forgiveness and bounties. I came across a beautiful lecture which just in few minutes says it all as to why and how we need to connect to Allah and establish and strengthened our relation with Him for we need Him to live happily in this world, and the hereafter.

Please watch the explanation of establishing a strong relationship with Allah in a video below by Professor Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, a Pakistani Muslim theologian, Quran scholar, Islamic modernist, exegete and educationist, on the subject. The video is in Urdu, but has English subtitles for those who cannot understand Urdu:i:

Shouldn't we say it is time to reconnect to Allah, if we haven't done it already?

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How Islam Differs from Other Religions - Part II

This is the second post on the subject of how Islam differs from other religions and faith. In fact this post was to be more specific on many issues, but while searching for queries that non Muslims have and their view point about Islam, I came across some concerns which I thought I must talk out first before proceeding on certain specifics. 

This concern is about outright negation of religion of Islam. A comment caught my eye which said that this man made religion, pointing towards the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is nothing but based on illogical framework, which could only a many could write. Well this is something which I took seriously as we as Muslims believe in all holy scriptures before the Holy Quran and respect all prophets and messengers of Allah sent before the last of the prophets Muhammad (peace be upon him).

And this notion is not new as prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had confronted with the same opposition at the time of his revealing the word of Allah as revealed unto him more than 1400 years ago. And this sometimes dejected the prophet of Allah. and it were these times, when Allah revealed His assurance and condolence to his prophet:

[But] those who have disbelieved say, "You are not a messenger."  Say, "Sufficient is Allah as Witness between me and you, and [the witness of] whoever has knowledge of the Scripture - (Qur'an Surah Ar Ra'ad 13:43)  

"O People of the Scripture, there has come to you Our Messenger to make clear to you [the religion] after a period [of suspension] of messengers, lest you say, "There came not to us any bringer of good tidings or a warner." But there has come to you a bringer of good tidings and a warner. And Allah is over all things competent." (Qur'an Surah Al Madinah 5:19)

And now note this:

"And [mention] when Jesus, the son of Mary, said, "O children of Israel, indeed I am the messenger of Allah to you confirming what came before me of the Torah and bringing good tidings of a messenger to come after me, whose name is Ahmad." But when he came to them with clear evidences, they said, "This is obvious magic." (Qur'an, Surah As-Saf 61:6)

Those who label Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) to have written Qur'an himself, it may be added that that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was totally illiterate and expecting someone who did not know how to read and write coming up with such soul searching verses as contained in the Holy Qur'an is simply unbelievable. There had to be some divine power which was author of such scripture, the same way the earlier scriptures were revealed by Allah on earlier messengers.

Yet again comes the concept of crucification of Prophet Eesa (Jesus, may peace be upon him). I have already written a separate post on the issue. But a few words here again. While followers of Bible believe that the Christ was actually crucified and was then lifted up by the God on the third day, we as Muslims believe that it was not Prophet Eesa who was crucified but someone who resembled him as clearly narrated in the Qur'an:

"That they said [in boast], 'We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah'; but they killed him not,  nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who  differ therein are full of doubts, with no [certain] knowledge, but only  conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not." (Surah An Nisah 4:157)

On this negation, I have read many comments by the followers of the Bible who say that if we accept what Islam says about non-crucification of Christ, the whole central idea of Christianity would collapse.

And this is exactly the case. Every holy scripture has been an update on the previous scriptures and Allah has revealed his commandments slowly and gradually. What is contained in Bible about crucification is what people of the time "WITNESSED." They had no idea how Allah safeguarded his prophet from undergoing the agony of crucifixion and thus had someone else looking like Christ been crucified while Christ was taken up alive up in the heavens. For Allah, who has created this universe, the magnitude of which is far beyond our knowledge, replacing Prophet Eesa with someone who looked exactly like him that even his mother and friends could not feel the difference is something very easy and simple. Allah simply commands:

To be ("kun!" !كن), and it is (fa ya kūn فيكون)

"(Allah,) The Originator of the heavens and the earth. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it, "Be," and it is." (Qur'an, Surah Al Baqara 2:117) 

Does after reading the verse above from Holy Qur'an there remains a doubt in the endless powers of the Allah Almighty the creator of this universe to do things much beyond our comprehension?

And it is this truth contained in the Holy Qur'an by virtue of which millions of followers of other faiths and religions have embraced Islam for they have found the enlightened path shown to them through commandments of Allah as contained in the Holy Qur'an revealed unto Prophet Muhammad.

Thus there is no harm in changing one's faith when one comes across the truth or an update on what we already know through the older scriptures - just like we have updates of our softwares everyday.

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How Islam Differs from Other Religions - Part I

Studying religions is always interesting for it is through studying the differences between religions, one can make a decision to stick to one's own beliefs and religion or make up one's mind to convert to a religion which overrides others in its essences and practicality.

My great grandfather was an ordinary man, yet he had a mind with full of question. Born Muslim, he thought he needed to know why should he continue to follow his faith which he has been practicing since his birth or what his family members believed in. So one day, in his prime youth, he left his house to  live with Hindu sadhus, Christians, Zoroastrians and even Jews. He spent good about five years of his life in search of truth while men of his youth were marrying and raising children. He traveled thousands of miles interacting with people of other religions to find answers. 

And then one day, when his family had lost all hopes of his return, he came back in a miserable condition due to excessive traveling but with an enlightened mind - he had the right answers to what he has been looking for - Islam was the religion which not only is a religion but a complete way of life. And then he preached the practical Islam to people of his village and those who came to him for seeking answers he once himself had.

All religions teach men to be clean, free of bigotry, hatred and enmity. No religion supports adultry, lies and talking ill of others in their absence. All religions talk of some divine power 'up there' but are not sure of its true definition. Even in Christianity, there is a confusion as to what God is - is it one entitiy or a combination of trinity.

Unlike all religions, Islam gives practical answers to every query one may have provided one is prepared to receive answers tangent to one's belief. The Holy Quran, the last of the Holy Scriptures after Pslams, Torah and Bible, gives out the code of conduct for the entire wordly life and of life hereafter to its followers. Unlike many other religions where the religious men detach themselves from the socitiey and enshrine them in places of worship, Islam is for ordinary peopel - living and raisning familes, working to earn bread and butter for self and family and at the same time praying and preaching.

In Islam, all men are equal and all fundamental rights of individual as well as of society have been clearly spelt out and no one is allowed to temper these. There is an ongoing wave in the Western societies, where there is a rise in rate of non Muslims converting to Islam, to cope up with a concept of secular Islam. That is to say being a Muslim, one looks like a non Muslim in how he lives and how he unfolds his Islamic aspirations. That is to say the West's concept of a secular Islam.

But here Islam differs from other regions. Since Allah, the One and the Almighty, has elaborated the concept of Islam in very clear and easy to understand terms, anyone who digresses from these teachings no more remain a practicing Muslim, for unless a man believes and practices what is been given to him from Allah, life cannot be lived as a true Muslim.

There are many who coerce Muslims to drink and eat pork for everyone else does, despite the fact that all Godly religions prohibit these. Now if some Muslim does it, he is deemed to have disobeyed his creator, Allah the Almighty.  Likewise adultery and sex outside marital bonds has become a norm all over the word. Even is some countries man and woman live with the marital bond and have children and then decide to marry or walk their separate ways. This is in fact collapse of the moral fiber of the society and an easy way to escape the responsibility of raising and owning a family and having legitimate children.

Thus Islam lays down responsibilities and guardianship over everyone so that everyone is respected, honoured and accounted for:

“Everyone of you is a guardian, and responsible for what is in his custody.  The ruler is a guardian of his subjects and responsible for them; a husband is a guardian of his family and is responsible for it; a lady is a guardian of her husband’s house and is responsible for it, and a servant is a guardian of his master’s property and is responsible for it.”

This is just the introduction - we will continue to talk about the subject in our coming posts.

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Why People of Other Religions Become Muslims

Generally talking, non-Muslims around the world have very vague and misinformation about Islam. Whenever the word Islam or Muslim is sounded or heard, eyebrows are raised in skepticism with a negative mindset. But despite this, we note that the rate of people of other religions converting to Islam is rising and even in countries like America and United Kingdom where hate game or the Islamophobia is at its best, other religion people are happily converting to Islam and clinging to it despite a negative mindset about Muslims and Islam.

Question thus arises what is so special about the religion of Islam that attracts non Muslims to leave their ancestral religion and convert to Islam? This is exactly the same stage of someone's life as was some 1400 years ago when Allah chose Muhammad (may peace be upon him) to be His messenger and to unfold a new code and way of life that would enlighten them and their future generations and put them on the righteous path - the path Allah had chosen to change their destiny forever.

I have read many accounts of non Muslims as to why and how they converted to Islam and some of the major reasons I found were:

• The Oneness of Allah: In Christianity, the concept of Trinity and revering Prophet Isa (may peace be upon him) or Jesus as so called negates oneness of Allah. We know there is no god but Allah and none can be equated with Him. Muslims believe absolute oneness of Allah and always pray and seek help from Him alone. We in Islam believe that Isa (may peace be upon him) is a prophet of Allah and revere him for that, but not as God or equal to God. The Chapter ‘Al Ahad’ describes in detail the ultimate understanding of the concept of monotheism (we will deliberate on this in our subsequent posts).
• The Concept of Original Sin: This concept of original sin of the newly borns is rather vague and thus the concept of Baptism to rid the newly borns of the sins they are born with. In Islam, Allah says in Quran, "Undoubtedly We have made man in the fairest stature." He has created man in fairest form and stature. Thus his being born with sins cannot be justified.
• The Search for Ultimate Truth: People around the word are always seeking and searching the truth. And this is when they turn to Islam for the answers of many unanswered questions. And when truth is found, there is no turning back as there are very rare cases where converted Muslims reverted to their original religions.
• Acceptance of all Prophets: While other holy religions, like Judaism and Christianity, only revere their prophets, Moses and Issac (may peace be upon them), Muslims accept all prophets and messengers sent by Allah before the prophet and messenger Muhammad (may peace be upon him) and take the Holy Books of Psalms, Torah and Bible as books of God. However, these books have been altered so much that these no more remain the original text which was Godly sent. On the other hand, Quran, the fourth and last Holy Book by Allah, remains unpolluted and despite a passage of more than 1400 years time period, not a full stop or comma has been changed.

These are some major reasons why non Muslims seek refuge in the folds of Islam as it provides them answers to their hitherto fore unanswered questions and provide guidance as to how to live a balanced life as enunciated in the Deen (way of life) of Islam.

To read personal accounts those who have reverted to Islam, please visit our page: Embracing Islam: Revert Experiences. You may also visit our reference page: Scholars' Viewpoint on Important Issues related to Islam to knw more Islam as eminent scholars answer some of the most asked question about Islam

You may also refer to our Reference Pages for knowing more about Islam and Quran.

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Please share this page to your friends and family members through Facebook, WhatsApp or any means on Social Media so that they can also be benefited by it and better understand Islam and the Holy Qur'an - Insha Allah (Allah Willing) you shall be blessed with the best of both worlds.

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