The Grand Imam: The people of Gaza who are patiently enduring hardship will be rewarded with the highest abodes in Paradise

 

The Grand Imam: Allah alone can bring benefit and harm, and no one has the power to benefit or harm anyone else

 

The Grand Imam said that the two Divine Names, Ad-Dar and An-Nafi, collocate, because this indicates that Allah is the One who brings both benefit and harm. It also implies monotheism, through the belief that Allah alone can bring benefit and harm. He pointed out that when a person attacks you, you are bound to defend yourself, or pursue physical means, as much as you can. However, you are also bound to believe that such potential harm is predestined by the Almighty and that the person attacking you is only a physical manifestation of predestination. 

 

In the twenty-fifth episode of the Ramadan program, Imam Al-Tayyeb Talk, His Eminence explained that benefits and harms occur through physical means or causes, and this issue was addressed by Imam Al-Ghazali who investigated the issue of whether physical causes lead to the effects by themselves or they are only manifestations of predestined fate. A relevant example is whether the fire burns by itself when touching other objects, like paper, or cotton, or the burning is predestined by the Lord when the fire contacts such objects. Let’s say that causality involves three elements; first: the cause or the reason; second: the burning or the ignition, both elements are tangible and thus taken for granted; and third: the correlation between the cause and the effect (causation). The question is whether such causation is necessary, meaning that the fire inevitably burns per se or due to the existence of a force beyond it. 

 

The Grand Imam explained that the Mutazilites maintain that Almighty Allah instilled in some objects the force to cause respective effects. However, Al-Ghazali warns against believing that fire is the natural cause of the burning of burnable paper or cotton.

In his counterargument to the claims of the philosophers, Al-Ghazali acknowledged that fire causes burning based on tangible evidence that cannot be doubted. Yet, where is the evidence that the fire per se (naturally) causes the burning of the cotton, for instance? The philosophers responded that whenever fire contacts cotton, the cotton burns. Al-Ghazali maintained that such a correlation is a coexistence of two phenomena, first the existence of the fire and second the burning. Regarding the type of relation between the two, he said – as an intellectual – he would say that when the two phenomena co-occur, an extraneous element causes the burning. Al-Ghazali added that if philosophers in this way seek to prove intrinsic will for the fire, though it is an inanimate object, then how could Prophet Ibrahim come out safe from the fire when Almighty Allah ordered it to be cool and safe for him? If the fire naturally causes the burning, why could it not burn Prophet Ibrahim? This means that we should believe in Allah as the only Omnipotent Being. Hence, we should not think that there is any being who has authority or power over this universe except what Allah has decreed for it.

 

 

His Eminence explained that a believer who is afflicted by a calamity or a disaster must remember that it is in accordance with the will of Allah, and that whatever calamities or trials befall them are all from Allah. Almighty Allah says, “Give good news to those who patiently endure– who say when struck by a disaster, ‘Surely to Allah we belong and to Him we will return’” (Qur’an, 2:156). This verse praises those who remember Allah when a disaster strikes them and know that a disaster is a trial from Allah and that they will return to Him. Hence, they will be rewarded for their endurance. His Eminence added that one of Almighty Allah’s Names is As-Sabur. So, those who experience patience know its great benefits quite well and realize that its good consequences dispel all the pains patiently endured.

He concluded that the people of Gaza who are patiently enduring hardship will be rewarded with the highest abodes in Paradise, God willing, because this is a promise from Allah, and Allah does not break His promise. He referred to Allah's Promise to those who offer their lives in sacrifice, those who are assassinated or killed while defending their land, or those who are driven out of their homes. He added that these things would not go unpunished; Almighty Allah says, “Never think that Allah is unaware of that which the wrongdoers do. He only gives them respite until a day on which eyes will stare in horror” (14:42). Allah is All-Just and He supports the oppressed, especially when they receive no help whatsoever (from other people).