Who is Your Lord? - Dr. Bilal Philips

hamdulillah was salatu was-salam Rasul Allah all praise due to a line he lost peace and blessings beyond the last Messenger of Allah who is your Lord in Arabic man Arabic is the question the first question which will be asked of the soul after death it addresses the trials of the grave the beginning of the trials of the grave Prophet Muhammad sallallahu wasallam used to teach his companions a dois the way he used to teach a surah from the Quran that dois which was to be said that the end of Salah began allahumma inni I also become in a diable over o Allah I seek refuge in you from the trials of the grave it refers to a part of Muslim belief in the last day of the six pillars of Islam Allah requires of us that we believe in the last day the last day includes the science which lead up to it the period of death and the period between death and resurrection which is referred to as the Barossa the barzakh the interval and the resurrection the judgement and then the distribution of people between heaven and hell so Monroe book who is your Lord represents the first of the abodes of the year after the first stage that we go through in a hadith which is considered motiroti meaning that it has been narrated by so many companions of the prophet sallahu wa salaam on all of the different levels of its narration that it would be impossible for them to have agreed upon a lie this is the highest level of certainty of the hadith narrations in it Prophet Muhammad SAW solemn as described by al bara even ahzab under Sydney Malik Abu Huraira and a number of other companions that after the person has been placed in the grave the soul is brought back to that person and they hear the footsteps of those who had accompanied the kafon the janazah to the point of burial after they begin to walk away and this is a part of the trial what is to come at this point two angels jet black with blue eyes will sit that person up and ask them three questions manner a book Medina oh man maybe you who is your Lord but was your religion and who was your prophet knowing who our Lord is is essential for us to have the correct faith of course as a Muslim somebody says who is your Lord with seeming ease we can say Allah Allah is our Lord but allah pointed out in the quran that it is not so simple as that he said in surah yousuf verse 104 oh my Amina octoroon billahi allow her whom mushrikuna most of those who believe in Allah are idolatrous most of those who claim to believe in God worship others besides God so that tells us that knowing who our Lord is is not quite as simple as that there are issues that we have to be clear about because of course if a person doesn't know who is Lord is then the likelihood of him worshiping who is Lord isn't is very big and that is why so much of the Quran is dedicated to informing us about Allah that we would know who he is so we could fulfill the very purpose of our creation now if we want to determine who knows who their Lord is or to what degree we know what who a Lord is we can look at these questions I'm going to mention a few questions and you can reflect on these and see where you stand with regards to them and these questions are common questions raised by those who deny the existence of God in one way shape or form the first of the questions commonly raised or stated by atheists this is the question to you now where do you stand with regards to this question do you agree with those who say that belief is a matter of blind faith first question do you agree with those who say that belief is a matter of blind faith second question and these have four sub questions are you stumped by any or all of the following sub questions one if everything has a Creator who created God two if God can do anything why can't he have a son three if God is all-powerful can he create a stone which is too heavy for him to lift four if God is all good and able to do all things then where did evil come from these questions what answers do we have for them third point if our answers for these questions were as follows if everything has a Creator who created God if our answer was he created himself then we don't know who our Lord is if for the second question if God can do anything why can't he have a son the quest the answer is he could but he chose not to then you don't know your Lord third if God is all-powerful can he create a stone too heavy for him to lift yes then you don't know your Lord for if God is all good and able to do all things then where did evil come from Satan or man-made evil if you said any of those or you thought any of those answers then you don't know who your Lord is a fourth big question which also points to a lack of knowledge of who God is do you accept that God created the world and left it to run by itself God created the world and left it to run by itself if that sounds reasonable to you then you definitely don't know who your God is and that is the general conception of most people who would call themselves or came from Christian tradition today most people looking at Christianity looking at the various other religions come to this conclusion believing that yes there must be a god but these religions are all man-made so therefore God obviously created the world and left it to run on its own everybody has to find their own way but one who holds that belief doesn't understand or know who God is so if we do want to know who God is then definitely we have to be able to get past these basic questions so let's go back to question number one do you agree with those who say that belief is a matter of blind faith no when one says yeah it's a matter of blind faith a matter of faith basically we have accepted the Atheist claim that their disbelief in God is logical and our belief in God is illogical it's just based on blind faith it is not provable there's their approach is logical based on the other questions that we mentioned however the truth is that belief in God is logical and this belief in God is illogical it's the complete opposite and we should have no doubts in our hearts that this is true if we know our Lord then we have no doubt about this we can start by saying if atheism was really logical then the fathers of logic should have been atheists logic is traced back to the Greeks and the leading philosophers amongst the Greeks Plato and Aristotle both of them believed in God and they argued for the necessity of belief in God logically because as philosophers logic was held on the highest position highest status to be able to logically present things so Plato's argument was the argument from design that design indicates a designer that is logical that's what we see around us all the time when we walk on the beach and we see a footprint in the sand we don't stop and reflect how amazing it was that the sea washed ashore sunk into the sand and made a footprint for the atheists that's what they say it's possible the sea could sink in the sand and create what would appear to us to be a footprint but that is not logical yes it could it is not impossible but the greatest likelihood is that when we see that footprint we know that somebody another human being stepped there that's what we conclude Sir Isaac Newton on one occasion had a an instrument which was a a means of demonstrating the movement of the planets around the Sun he had the Sun in the middle the different planets and when you turn this crank then the planets moved around the Sun you know at different paces etc one of his atheist friends stopped by to visit him and he asked him you know when he saw it he was really amazed this is a wonderful gadget he said to him who made it so I try the butan responded to him saying nobody I just accidentally fell into that shape the man looked at him and said don't be silly don't be silly you know who made it he said is what I said any more silly than what you say about the real world of the planets going around you said it's all by accident isn't that even more foolish as you wouldn't accept it on that small scale which is so obvious how are you going to accept it on that huge scale so the concept that design indicates a designer this is a natural concept human beings function according to it all the time but atheists say no design doesn't necessarily indicate a designer so if you take a bucket of paint and you throw it on the wall it might splatter on the wall and it might look like a hand or a foot or a head you know it can take forms which look similar to just like sometimes you look up at the clouds in the sky and sometimes the cloud seems to take the shape of a head or a hand or a foot so they say so we say to them well if we put in all of the colors in a bucket then we throw that bucket of colours against the wall do you think it is possible that we could come out with a Mona Lisa do you say yeah yes it's possible common sense for people who live in the real world common sense tells us no no way no matter how many times you throw this bucket of colours against the wall you are not going to come out with a Mona Lisa it's not going to ever happen the first time you throw it will be no different from the billionth time that you throw it but according to them no if you keep throwing keep mixing and throwing the mixing and throw one time it can happen but as I said common sense says no the example they'd like to give for this is that if you put a hundred monkeys in a cage and you give them all typewriters and pieces of paper and I let them beat away at the keys with their heads and their feet and elbows and jump up and down one of them will type out for you the whole 'quran giving them of course Arabic typewriters not English ones right they will type out for you the whole Quran from Fatiha to nos from beginning to end or the Bible from Genesis to revelations one of them will given an unlimited amount of time if they just keep at it one of them is going to do it and they'll even put some numbers to it they'll tell you it is the chance of it occurring is one - the - trillion but still one but common sense logic and reason tells us no it's not going to happen so that's why we say they are the ones who are illogical they are calling on something which the human mind does not accept it goes against all reason all human experience it goes against it but that's what they hold on to Aristotle on the other hand his argument was that the infinite regression of the cause-and-effect chain cannot possibly be meaning that question if everything has a creator then who created God meaning you go back this was created by that one and that was created by the other one that was created by the other one keep going back and back to infinity or this God created and then another God created that God and another God created that garden back to infinity he said no that cannot be there has to be a beginning point because saying that there is no beginning point in other words is back to infinity mean there is no beginning point is the same as saying it never started reality is that we are here now our existence is proof that there had to be a beginning point and for that beginning point to take place then the one that precipitated caused that beginning to take place had to himself or itself be without creation otherwise it just falls back in that chain there had to be one who was uncreated to start the process going otherwise no beginning so that was Aristotle's argument the Quran uses both arguments the most common argument of course is the the argument from design of a lion Luna in an umbilical for holy God will you not reflect on how the camels were created and the whole of creation around us just reflecting on how its each the each element of creation the complexity that is found there when scientists go and look on the most microscopic level what do they find as they take things apart and look inside take things apart and look inside keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller what do they find they find order order all the way if they go to the macroscopic go the other way out towards the Sun the planets the universe what do they find order everywhere order design order it is not the process of the product of chaos so the claim that everything was a product of accident the Big Bang boom and here we are this is like saying somebody drops an atomic bomb on a junkyard you know junkyard where they have all the bits and pieces of cars you can go down and get use pieces junkyard full of bits and pieces you dropped an atomic bomb in the junkyard and out rolls a rolls-royce engine humming door open you just have to get in and drive away this is what they say reality is that these bombs create chaos they break things apart they don't create things so the logic that this world and its contents were created by God is so strong it is so obvious that the vast majority of human beings believe in God that's reality wherever you go in the world when whenever you go back in history you find people's believing in God those who don't believe in God they are a very small number they are exceptional and even in the countries where we know that atheism for example became the order of the day like Russia Russia where atheism was taught it became the state religion denial of God's existence was a requirement for you to be promoted to have any position of note yet once the Soviet Union fell apart recent surveys of Europe with regards to the percentages in different countries that believe in God put Russia right up at the top some 80 percent of Russians believe in God's existence what happened they had been indoctrinated from the time of you know Lenin Stalin all those years a century yet as soon as the state apparatus was dismantled the people reverted naturally back to belief in God I remember speaking to a Chinese who had converted to Islam from communism and I asked the person how when you would indoctrinated mouth' thought red book Cultural Revolution all this stuff how can you come to Islam what happened she said actually I always believed there was a god but I just kept it inside me just you want to get ahead you want to do anything get into university to study whatever you these things you just don't express so once there was relaxation then I could go and explore and find for myself what was in fact the religion of God that's the reality so the fact that the vast majority of human beings believe in God is itself evidence for the existence of God furthermore in 1997 in California University in California two researchers neither of whom were Muslims doing research on patients who had brain disorders whether it were included schizophrenics and others or people with epilepsy and other other brain disorders they were probing different parts of the brain trying to assess where this was coming from how they could possibly control it what they found was that at the front part of the brain when they probed this area people who had it done had these massive religious experiences some a presence of God was this from the Muslim perspective this is what Allah tells us in surah AR off the seventh chapter of the Quran verse 172 or it states there that Allah created all of human beings all human beings at the time of the creation of Adam took from Adam all of his descendants and made them bear witness that he was their Lord and all human beings bore witness then they remained in that state in the battle sock until the time for their birth on earth the spirit was then put into human beings they grew up and then the environment around them would affect them as the prophet saww salamat said coulomb alluding you ladoo allen fitrah every newborn is born in a natural state of belief in God this is the natural way but it is the family the environment etc around him or her that turns them into a Christian a Jew a Zoroastrian or whatever going back to our other group of questions if everything has the Creator who created God we looked at that already in the answer given by Aristotle infinite regression going back without having a creator is not possible there has to be a creator who was himself uncreated the second question if God can do anything why can't he have a son that one can be included with the other question if God is all-powerful can he create the storm which is too heavy for him to lift these questions and ones like them we put under the general heading of the ludicrous the ludicrous questions ludicrous meaning that they are illogical and there are unreasonable questions from two perspectives or we could say really from one perspective explain it in two different ways basically to ask can God do anything which will make him no longer God that is a ludicrous question to ask can God do anything which is which will make him in doing it make him no longer God that is illogical and unreasonable so when we define God as one without beginning to then ask can God be born that is illogical if we define God as one without end then to ask can God die that is illogical so the issue of God doing ungodly things is not an issue of discussion it is outside the realm of reasonable and logical discussion so both of those questions we say are asking whether God will do ungodly things for God to have a son one of his descriptions is that he is one and only here o Israel the Lord your God is one God there's only one God so to say can God have a son meaning if he had a son what is that son gonna be another God maybe a little God but we have sons they're little humans cows have calves cats have kittens little versions so when God has a son we have a little version of God or is it a full-blown version like himself or if it's a full-blown version you have clearly two gods so for God to have a son is to no longer be true God who is only one so it is a nonsensical question it is a nonsensical question the other question which is one which usually messes up people where they are not aware of how God works when something happens in their lives which they cannot find an explanation for then their only conclusion is there can't be a God so many times you talk to atheists you ask how did you get here you know your parents were both practicing Christians or Muslims or whatever and you are now an atheist how did you get there the person will tell you something like I had this aunt who was a wonderful woman she was even nicer than my own parents and one day when she was taking me to the store a big car came and just ran over and killed her why she was a good person so many bad people around why didn't it hit them why her of course he doesn't have or she doesn't have an answer no way to explain why her and not anybody else so the only conclusion not understanding how God operates is to say there couldn't be a God and this one is similar to the concept we can say is that if God is all good and able to do all things where did evil come from the same question where did evil come from reality is that everything which takes place in the world is a part of God's creation it is by God's permission nothing takes place without his permission for it to take place what we do know is that from our personal experience there are many things which we might look at as being bad at one point in time and later on look at it as being good at another point in time it appeared back to us but later on we turned out to be something really good we can see it on the simple level of our children when you have to take your child to the dentist first time and you gear him up or her up to go see the dentist tell them how the dentist is the nice man is going to do nice things for you and even when you come into the dental office maybe the dentist will give the child a lollipop or something but once the kid is in the chair and business begins there is another situation happening here needles are going in the gum and the drill is going into kids screaming laughter you take that kid home you cannot convince the kid that the dentist was a good man you can't convince him or if you want to take them back to the dead this again Cobo you know you have to trick them you don't tell her I'm taking you there otherwise they go in the room and closing the door now coming out no way not going back to that man again he's a bad man that's how the child perceives it it can only see the harm the pain the suffering that it had it can't see as we do when we look ahead we say no this pain is to prevent a greater pain we can't see that those children can't see it and that is what is demonstrated in the story of al Qaeda al Qaeda and prophet Moses in the Quran al calf where al hither does certain acts which prophet Moses could not understand the long term or taught to know the long term consequences until al hither explained it to him he could only see al Qaeda taking the action breaking a hole in the book after these people had so kindly taken them across the river and see him grab an innocent child and take off its head first no apparent reason until al hither explained to him that the boat was saved by the whole put in it because there was a ruler coming down a tyrant king coming down the river and he was grabbing everybody's boat so when he came to the boat with the hole in it no need for that one so the man's boat was saved by the hole that was put in it and the boy whose life was taken parents were righteous that child was going to grow up and become such a fitness such a trial for the parents that would who drive them into a state of disbelief so to protect the parents from the evil of the child its life was taken and Allah replaced the child with another a girl and that girl treated the parents well and that's about the realities of life we say it as every cloud has a silver lining this is reality we see it now of course what happens with people is they say ok we can see that but where is the good in the tsunami and the tsunami took how many thousands of lives where is the good and not one tell us the good the fact that I cannot explain to you where the good is does it mean there is no good all it says is I don't know where but reality is that how God operates is that he does not permit anything to happen except that there is some good in it but it doesn't mean that the evil that is done by those who do it if it's done by people as opposed to quote-unquote nature it doesn't mean that those people are excused saying oh they're only doing God's will those who are murdering people stealing now we don't say they're doing God's will yes yes what they've done is in accordance with the will of God meaning God has permitted them to do it but that's not what God wants them to do because they will be punished for what they do so that's how god works in our day-to-day life we easily recognize the need for instructions we need the need for instructions is well known if a businessman set up a business hired people to work in his business brought them to the company and then didn't tell them what they're supposed to do in the company what do you think is gonna happen the company's gonna run well and be successful in know he has to tell him what to do he had a reason for which he hired them it has to be out and explained to them one who does something like that where he doesn't inform people we'd say is unwise children going to school if they're not informed as to what they're going to school for what they're supposed to do in school you think they're just going to march into school and march into the classrooms and sit down wait for the teacher no they're going to go to the playground swing on the swing slide on the slides have a good time then I kind of go into classrooms you must tell them so we recognize very easily that for anything to function properly it must be in accordance with plans which are explained to those involved information has to be given otherwise we say that person is foolish we have a variety of different titles record and one of the basic characteristics of God is that he is all-wise al-hakim I camel hacky mean this is one of the basic characteristics we prize and respect wisdom surely God is more wise than we are this is common sense so one who knows God knows automatically that God revealed his will to human beings in this world the messages revelation happened it's real and he revealed it through messengers prophets who would carry those messages to human beings that is a necessity knowing God knowing who God is necessitates that conclusion one who doesn't know God who would assign to God idiocy yes they can say yes God created the world left it to run on his own but knowing God removes these doubts and takes us to the ultimate conclusion that God revealed his word sent messengers and we need to know what was his word we need to know who were his messengers and we need to find out the very purpose of our existence why are we here what were we created for and this is something each and every Muslim is supposed to know it is clearly explained in the Quran maybe if you ask a Christian and others why were you created they may have a difficulty finding an answer for it why because if you go through the Bible there's no answer you're not find anywhere in the Bible where it says human beings were created for this purpose specifically know people say well maybe it was for this maybe it was for that some of this and some of that mix it together come up with something but to say in the scripture in the Gita the vedas or the gospels or the old testament find a verse where it says God created human beings for this purpose you don't find it but in the Quran you find it and so each and every Muslim has that clarity available for himself and for herself now though the clarity is there that doesn't necessarily mean that all Muslims know what is the purpose in fact on one occasion in Doha Qatar when a brother from India most of them brought in a Hindu who he had been giving you know some explanations about Islam too and he wanted me to give him further clarity and explanation he brought him into the office we sat down and I asked the Hindu young man you know what is the purpose of your creation I said I don't know no idea so I said well see that's the difference between your religion and mine in mind it is absolutely clear every Muslim knows I turn to the brother right brother he was looking at me with his blank stare I said oh oh oh hmm well I won't get caught in that one again so actually the reason is there in the Quran you know it's in a chapter known as dari at the 59th chapter verse 56 Omaha lock - Gino an inter alia Boden I did not create the jinn and human beings except to worship me purpose of creation is to worship God worship God not meaning merely to raise up one's hands and to call on him in time of need but to live a life a complete life in accordance with the commandments of God this is worship submission to God in all aspects of life this is the totality of the message knowing who our Lord is gives us that or should give us that understanding of the religion that it is not a religion as is typically understood by about religions where you have such rituals done at a certain point in time you know this is when you are religious you do your religious thing then the rest of time you do your life thing no for Muslim religion covers all aspects of life from the time you wake up in the morning till the time you go to sleep at night it is the duty of every Muslim to know what God has commanded what instructions God has given for himself or herself for every minute of every day it doesn't mean we don't have the will and the ability to choose and decide to do things of course we do but when we choose an decide to do things we should do them in accordance with what God has taught us that is the totality of religion which is summed up in the verse in which God says to the Prophet to human beings holiness alati oh no suki or Mariah oh ma ma t lillahi rabbil aalameen say indeed my prayers my sacrifice is my living and my dying are for Allah the Lord of all the worlds this is what we've been instructed and this is the conclusion of knowing who is your Lord so chawla we will walk away from this session with some clarity if those questions that I raised earlier left doubts in your minds and I didn't ask people to put up their hands who understood and who didn't I didn't want to embarrass anybody I just went through it assuming everybody knew and this was only a reminder but those issues we should be clear about if we have read the Quran and we continue to read the Quran the clarity of this will be obvious to us if we read the Sunna the way of the Prophet what he said what he did the guidance he gave this will all be clear to us and this is what we need to have as a living system that we follow throughout our lives so that at the end of this life when the time comes in the grave and we are questioned my new book will be able to say or a B Allah my lord is Allah barukh illogical pastrami Raycom Bronto

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Keywords: allah, quran, islam, islamic, muslim, prophet, messenger, muhammad, mohamed, pbuh, saws, qur'an, sunnah, hadith, hijab, nasheed, jihad, sharia, fiqh, madhhab, sufi, salafi, shia, sunni, haram, halal, lecture, speech, speaker, shaykh, imam, god, ummah, ramadhan, hajj, salah, convert, revert, da'wah, debate, dajjal, niqab, akbar, heaven, hell, religion, religious, preacher, adhan, 'the, deen, show', tafseer, recitation, tawheed, swt, surah, spirituality, worship, pray, prayer, fatwa, soul, purification, salaf, shirk, sins, mosque, masjid, sufism, muslims, song, koran

Id: 0rxtDKO63Oo

Length: 53min 29sec (3209 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 28 2011