abdulhafid
20th August 2006, 12:45 AM
Assalam,
I am involved in a project connected with giving daw'ah to non-muslims. I have posted in another thread about it (Shifr Labs).
Prompted by one of the responses to the project I would like to ask for some brotherly advice.
The 'bot' got asked a question "Where is God?". For reasons of my own I think it was asked by a Salafi brother. Whatever the reasoninng, it is a fantastic question and no doubt many non-muslims will ask this question at some stage.
What would be in your opinion the best answer for non-Muslim? Before you rush off to type up the answer please let me set the scene.
You are no doubt aware that among Muslims this is something of a controversial question. The usual starting point is the hadith about the slave girl and the Prophet (pbuh) and the usual ending point is calling each other a 'heretic' and telling each other to seek knowledge. The crux lies in the interpretation of the slave girl's answer and assessment of the related evidence.
It is important at this stage to appreciate that for non-muslim the answer to the question "Where is God?" cannot lie in the slave girl hadith for the simple reason that the following question then would be "What does that mean?" and we find ourselves at the same controversial ground.
The answer I was thinking of was along the following lines:
"Humans cannot see God. Our understanding of existence derives from our perception of the Universe which is limited and created by God. The question "Where is God?" cannot therefore be answered within the conventional understanding of the physical existence."
[By way of background, I am not a specialist on this particular issue. I am very comfortable with the aqeeda position as stated in Aqeeda at-Tahawiya and I hold to the view there there is more than one opinion on this whole issue]
I am involved in a project connected with giving daw'ah to non-muslims. I have posted in another thread about it (Shifr Labs).
Prompted by one of the responses to the project I would like to ask for some brotherly advice.
The 'bot' got asked a question "Where is God?". For reasons of my own I think it was asked by a Salafi brother. Whatever the reasoninng, it is a fantastic question and no doubt many non-muslims will ask this question at some stage.
What would be in your opinion the best answer for non-Muslim? Before you rush off to type up the answer please let me set the scene.
You are no doubt aware that among Muslims this is something of a controversial question. The usual starting point is the hadith about the slave girl and the Prophet (pbuh) and the usual ending point is calling each other a 'heretic' and telling each other to seek knowledge. The crux lies in the interpretation of the slave girl's answer and assessment of the related evidence.
It is important at this stage to appreciate that for non-muslim the answer to the question "Where is God?" cannot lie in the slave girl hadith for the simple reason that the following question then would be "What does that mean?" and we find ourselves at the same controversial ground.
The answer I was thinking of was along the following lines:
"Humans cannot see God. Our understanding of existence derives from our perception of the Universe which is limited and created by God. The question "Where is God?" cannot therefore be answered within the conventional understanding of the physical existence."
[By way of background, I am not a specialist on this particular issue. I am very comfortable with the aqeeda position as stated in Aqeeda at-Tahawiya and I hold to the view there there is more than one opinion on this whole issue]