Belief in a Living God

The Islamic teachings inform us that God is a living God, who continues to provide mankind for all its needs. The Divine attribute of Rabb means Lord, Creator and Sustainer. In this one attribute, Allah has informed us that not only is He our Lord, the Lord of all the Worlds, but He created everything. Not only that, but that He will continue to sustain His creation. He will continue to provide food, drink, oxygen, in fact everything that we need to exist. Furthermore, the Holy Qur’an states that there are hidden treasures. Before mankind was created, Allah created these hidden treasures, where they laid in wait until mankind needed them, i.e. when we needed fuel, man discovered coal, oil, gas and then when we needed further energy, mankind discovered the splitting of the atom. All these energies were created before mankind, but laid in wait. In future, when we are in need of a more powerful energy, we will discover another of these hidden treasures.

As God provides mankind for our physical needs, so God also provides for our spiritual needs. The Holy Qur’an explains the need to believe in God and draws attention to the proofs of His existence. God has always sent down His word by means of revelation in times of darkness and has always manifested His power through extraordinary Signs and thus gives irrefutable proof of His existence. If God were to cease to manifest His attributes through the Prophets and their followers, mankind would become prey to doubt and uncertainty and the firm faith in the existence of God would disappear. It is therefore extremely important that God should continue to send down His Divine revelation to mankind. Through seeing the blessed signs of God, that will help us to become convinced that God exists. However to have total conviction, you need to experience God yourself! All of God’s attributes are eternal. As God spoke to mankind before, so He will continue to speak to mankind.

Sadly, there are many people, including Muslims, who now believe that God cannot speak to us anymore. For Muslims, this is mainly due to many of them believing that revelation can only mean the Divine Law, that being, that God only spoke to Law Giving Prophets to reveal the Divine Law. Now that the Holy Qur’an is complete, and there will be no more Law Giving Books, therefore, there is no need for God to reveal any more Divine Laws, and so, God will no longer speak to mankind!

Naturally, it is correct to say that the Divine Law is now complete, therefore, there is no need now to send Law Giving revelations, but it is wrong to say that the only time God speaks to man is when He is revealing His Law! Any person who treads along the straight path and seeks the truth can become the recipient of Divine revelation. There is no higher stage of the understanding of the Divine in this world, than that a person should converse with his Glorious Lord. Revelation is sent by Allah, the most Gracious, ever Merciful, so that man can escape from error caused by his own limited knowledge, to help him to be free from every mistake, and to know the truth of every matter. Through revelation man can emerge out of the darkness of ignorance and error and be delivered from the calamities of doubt and suspicion.

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