"I Cannot Envisage A Frightening God"
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
11 May 2024
"People are also free to leave their
religion, and many do, but there is really no escape from their reckoning with
Allah on the Day of Judgment. "
"Hell is inevitable for the rebellious
rejecters of Allah's Deen."
When Allah
is projected as Rahim in the Quran, the love in whose heart transcends those of mothers, according to a Hadees in Saheeh Bukhari, does it stand to reason that the same compassionate Allah will
roast you in hellfire if you decide to defy it?
This is
vindictive and typical of humans who're innately vengeful and congenitally
retaliatory. Isn't it blasphemous even to think of this villainous and venomous
facet of Allah? Semitic religions, esp. Islam, have stretched their respective
gods to paradoxical extremes; capable of extreme love and also capable of
extreme and earth-shattering wrath. This is human imposition.
Sigmund
Freud believed that Fear and Sex are the two primordial instincts in all
humans. Humans have always been guided by these two basic instincts which went
into the concoction of all faiths and gods.
All
religions condemn sex and instil fear into the hearts of their followers. When
Allah is Nirguna (beyond attributes) and
Niraakaar (formless), how can it be angry with those who deny and
defy it?
Rumi said
in one of last couplets written in Tazaki, "Jasid Figyar Esta Bin Za'
Def Kada Nif Ena Mehaf" (I cannot envisage a frightening god however
hard you may try to convince). In fact, it's an attempt to convince the
gullible that god will throw them into hellfire. It may be your imagination.
God, if at all it does exist, is not as sadistic as humans are and because
humans are sadistic, they project god as a sadistic being.
All said
and done, let me quote my favourite Ayan Hirsi Ali, "Who doesn't exist,
can be projected in myriad ways." Since god doesn't exist, you can call
him the most compassionate and also full of ire. "Jiski Zaat Se Main
Inkaar Karta Raha/ Woh Raheem Ho Ya Beraham Mujhe Kya" (Whose existence
I always denied/ Whether he is merciful or ruthless why should I care?).
Lastly,
it's really a matter of pity that humans, right from the beginning, have wasted
so much time and energy on deciding and decoding the attributes of something or
someone that still remains and will continue to remain in the domain of wild
imaginations and speculations.
----
A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul
is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He
has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several
languages including Persian.
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/envisage-frightening-god/d/132297