Sermon 1: The creation

Sermon 1

Praise is due to Allah whose worth cannot be described by speakers, whose bounties cannot be counted by those who calculate

and whose claim (to obedience) cannot be satisfied by those who attempt to do so, the One whom the height of intellectual courage cannot sufficiently appreciate and the depths of understanding cannot possibly reach;

He is the One for describing whom no limit has been laid down,

no ample praise exists, no time is ordained and no duration is fixed.

He brought forth creation through His Omnipotence, dispersed winds through His Compassion and firmed the shaking earth with rocks.

The foremost in religion is to acknowledge Him. The perfection of acknowledging Him is to testify to Him. The perfection of testifying to Him is to believe in His Oneness.

The perfection of believing in His Oneness is to regard Him to be the Absolutely Pure One. The perfection of His purity is to deny Him attributes

because every attribute is a proof that it is different from that to which it is attributed,

and everything to which something is attributed is different from the attribute.

Thus, whoever attaches attributes to Allah recognizes His like.

Whoever recognizes His like regards Him as being two.

Whoever regards Him as being two recognizes the existence of parts for Him,

and whoever recognizes parts for Him mistakes Him,

and whoever mistakes Him points at Him,

and whoever points at Him attributes limitations to Him,

and whoever attributes limitations to Him numbers Him.

Whoever asks, ‘In what is He?’ holds that He is contained,

and whoever asks, ‘On what is He?’ holds that He is not on something else.

He is a Being but not through the phenomenon of coming into being. He exists but not out of non-existence.

He is with everything but not in physical nearness.

He is different from everything but not in physical separation.

He is the One and only, such that there is none with whom He may keep company or whom He may miss in his absence.

He acts but without connotation of movements and parts. He sees even when there is none to be looked at from among His creation.

Creation of the universe

He initiated creation and commenced it originally, without undergoing contemplation, without making use of any experiment,

without inventing any movement and without experiencing any mental aspiration.

He allotted all things their terms, put together their variations, gave them their properties and determined their features.

He knew them before creating them, fully realizing their limits and confines and appreciated their propensities and intricacies.

When the Almighty created the openings of the atmosphere, expanse of firmament and strata of winds,

He allowed water, the waves of which were stormy and the surges of which leaped one over the other to flow onto it. He loaded dashing winds and breaking typhoons,

ordered them to shed it back (as rain), gave the wind control over the vigor of the rain and acquainted it with its limitations.

The wind blew under it while water flowed furiously above it.

Then, the Almighty created forth wind and made its movement sterile, perpetuated its status, intensified its motion and spread it far and wide.

Then He ordered the wind to raise deep waters and to intensify the waves of the oceans. So the wind churned the water like the churning of curd and pushed it fiercely into the firmament,

throwing its front status on the rear while the stationary status flowed

till its level was raised and the surface was full of foam. Then the Almighty raised the foam to the open wind and vast firmament and made therefrom the seven skies.

He made the lower one as a stationary surge and the upper one as a protective ceiling and high edifice without any pole to support it or nail to hold it together.

Then He decorated them with stars and the light of meteors and hung in it the shining sun and effulgent moon under the revolving sky, moving the ceiling and rotating the firmament.

Creation of Angels

Then He created the openings between the high skies and filled them with all classes of His angels.

Some of them are in prostration and do not rise. Others are in kneeling positions and do not stand up. Some of them are in array and do not leave their status. Others are extolling Allah and do not get tired.

The sleep of the eye or the slip of wit or languor of the body or effect of forgetfulness does not affect them.

Among them are those who work as trusted bearers of His message, who serve, speaking as tongues of His prophets,

and there are those who carry His orders and commands.

Among them are protectors of His creatures and guards of the gates of the Gardens of Paradise.

Among them are those whose steps are fixed on earth but their necks protrude into the skies. Their limbs are out on all sides,

their shoulders are in accord with the columns of the Divine Throne, their eyes are cast down before it, they have spread their wings down under it

and they have rendered between themselves and all else curtains of honor and screens of power.

They do not think of their Creator through images, do not impute created attributes to Him, do not confine Him within abodes and do not point at Him through illustrations.

Creation of Adam

Allah collected clay from hard, soft, sweet and sour earth, which He moistened with water till it became pure.

He kneaded it with moisture till it became gluey. From it He carved an image with curves, joints, limbs and parts.

He solidified it till it dried up for a fixed time and a known duration.

Then He blew into it out of His Spirit whereupon it took the pattern of a human being

with a mind that governed him, intelligence which he made use of, limbs that served him, organs that changed his status,

sagacity that differentiates between truth and falsehood, tastes and smells, colors and species.

He was a mixture of clays of different colors, cohesive materials, divergent contradictories and differing properties like heat, cold, softness and hardness.

Then Allah asked the angels to fulfill His promise with them and to accomplish the pledge of His injunction by acknowledging Him by prostrating to Him and submitting to His honored status.

So Allah said: “Prostrate to Adam, so they prostrated except Iblis (Satan)” (Qur’an, 2: 34; 7: 11; 17: 61; 18: 50; 20: 116).

Self-importance withheld him (Satan) and vice overcame him. So he took pride in his own creation of fire and held the creation of clay with contempt.

So Allah granted him a respite in order to let him fully deserve His wrath, to complete (man’s) test and to fulfill the promise (He had made to Satan).

Thus, He said: “Verily you have been allowed time till the known Day” (Qur’an, 15: 38, 38: 81).

Thereafter, Allah placed Adam in a place where He made his life and stay safe, and He cautioned him about Iblis and his enmity.

Then his enemy (Iblis) envied Adam’s abiding in Paradise and his connections with the virtuous.

So he changed his conviction into wavering and determination into weakness. He thus turned his happiness into fear and prestige into shame.

Then Allah offered Adam the chance to repent, taught him words of His Mercy, promised him a return to His Paradise then sent him down to the place of trial and the procreation of his offspring.

Allah chooses His prophets

From Adam’s offspring, Allah chose prophets and took their pledge for His revelation and for carrying out His message as their trust.

Throughout the course of time, many people perverted Allah’s trust with them, ignored His status and accepted associates along with Him.

Satan turned them away from knowing Allah and kept them away from worshipping Him.

Then Allah sent His Messengers and a series of prophets to people to get them to fulfill the pledges of His creation, to recall His bounties to them, to exhort them by preaching, to unveil before them the hidden virtues of wisdom and to show them the signs of His Omnipotence.

Of these signs He demonstrated the sky which is raised over them, the earth that is placed beneath them, a means of livelihood to sustain, death that makes them no more, ailments that turn them old and incidents that successively betake them.

Allah never allowed His creation to remain without a prophet deputed by Him, or a book sent down from Him or a binding argument or a standing plea.

These Messengers were such that they did not feel few because of their number being small or the the number of those who belied them being big.

Among them was either a predecessor who would name the one to succeed him or a follower who was introduced by the predecessor.

In this way, ages passed by and times rolled on.

Fathers passed away while sons took their places

Prophethood of Muhammed

Till Allah deputed Muhammed as His Prophet, in fulfillment of His promise and in completion of His Prophethood.

Muhammed’s pledge had been taken from the prophets, his traits of character were well reputed and his birth was honorable.

The people of the earth at this time were divided into different parties, their aims were separate and ways diverse.

They either loved Allah and His creation or twisted His Names or turned to those other than Him.

(Through Muhammed,) Allah guided them out of wrongdoing and with his efforts took them out of ignorance.

Then Allah chose Muhammed to meet Him, preferred him for His own nearness,

regarded him as being too dignified to remain in this world and decided to remove him from this place of trial.

So He drew him towards Himself with honor. May Allah shower His blessing on him and on his Progeny.

The Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah

But the Prophet left among you the same that other prophets left among their people,

as prophets do not leave their people intentionally (in the dark) without a clear path and a standing ensign.

He left the Book (Qur’an) of your Creator clarifying what He permits and what He prohibits, what is obligatory and what is discretionary, the repealing injunctions and the repealed ones, the permissible matters and the compulsory ones, what is particular and what is general, lessons and illustrations, long and short ones, clear and obscure ones, detailing its (Qur’an’s) abbreviations and clarifying its obscurities.

In it, there are some verses knowing which is obligatory and others people’s ignorance of which is permissible.

It also contains what appears to be obligatory according to the Book but its repeal is signified by the Prophet’s deed (Sunnah) or that which appears compulsory according to the Prophet’s deed but the Book permits one not to follow it. Or there are those verses which are obligatory in a given time but not so after that time period. Its prohibitions also differ.

Some are major ones for which there exists the peril of the fire (Hell) and others are minor for which there are prospects of forgiveness.

There are also those of which a small portion is also acceptable (to Allah) but they are capable of being expanded.

In this same sermon, he spoke thus about the Hajj:

Allah has made the pilgrimage (hajj) obligatory on you to His sacred House which is the turning point for the people who go to it as beasts or pigeons go towards spring waters.

Allah, the most Glorified One, made it a sign of their supplication before His Greatness and their acknowledgment of His Dignity. He selected from among His creation those who, on listening to His call, responded to it and testified to His word.

They stood in the status of His prophets and resembled His angels who surround the Divine Throne

securing all the benefits of performing His worship and hastening towards His promised forgiveness.

Allah, the most Glorified One, made it (His sacred House) a symbol for Islam and an object of respect for those who turn to it.

He made pilgrimage to it obligatory and laid down its claim for which He held you responsible to fulfill.

Thus, Allah, the most Glorified One, said:

The pilgrimage to the House is made incumbent on mankind (purely) for Allah, on those who can afford the journey thither. And whoever denies it, then verily Allah is sufficiently Independent of the Worlds (Qur’an, 3: 96-97).