بسم الله الرحمان الرحيم
اللهم صل على محمد و آل محمد
Part 1: All-Seeing
When you look out at the world, know that what you see is also seen by the All-Seeing. Anything you have ever seen, or any human being has seen in the history of planet Earth, is also seen by the All-Seeing. In reality, you and I can only see because the All-Seeing has given us access to a tiny drop from the shoreless ocean of the All-Seeing. The All-Seeing sees each subatomic particle, and so the CERN particle accelerator is simply the All-Seeing providing glimpses to particle physicists of what is already seen by the All-Seeing. The oldest and most distant galaxies are seen by the All-Seeing, and so the Hubble Space Telescope is simply the All-Seeing providing snippets to astrophysicists of what is already seen by the All-Seeing. Every single moment in every single place of this universe observed by you and I is already seen by the All-Seeing, so the All-Seeing is continuously sharing some of this experience with us. There are realms beyond our imagination that are also being seen, and one day some of that will be shared with us as well, just as “Allah brought you out of the wombs of your mothers while you knew nothing, and gave you hearing, sight, and intellect so perhaps you would be thankful.” (16.78, Khattab trans.) But you and I will never be able to see like the All-Seeing. Forever and ever, only the All-Seeing will know what it is like to be All-Seeing. We are simply capable of growing in our perception of what we see, as well as our recollection of what we have seen, by the generosity of the All-Seeing.
لا إله إلا الله
Part 2: All-Knowing
When you read these words, there is no sound that is audible to an outsider. Rather, you “hear” them inside you, in the realm of thought. A neuroscientist can see the neurons firing inside your head using brain imaging technology, but thought itself is not observable. Only you know it. But the All-Knowing also knows it. At this moment, the All-Knowing knows the thoughts of all 7,900,000,000 or so human beings on the planet simultaneously. The All-Knowing also knows all thoughts we have ever had or ever will have, including every thought of every human being who has passed before us. The All-Knowing knew the equation for Newton’s Law of Gravitation while Sir Isaac Newton was still in his mother’s arms. The All-Knowing knew everything about Homo Neanderthalensis before Charles Darwin was even born. Nothing has happened, is happening, or will happen that the All-Knowing does not already know. “The keys of the Unseen are in His possession. No one knows them but Him. He knows everything in the land and sea. No leaf falls without His knowing it…” (6.59, Bewley trans.) The All-Knowing knew that I was going to write this, and that you were going to read it, and whether or not you would like it, comment on it, or share it. The All-Knowing knows all of our greatest hopes and most terrible fears. So while we continuously grow in knowledge and experience as we age, we are simply uncovering a tiny bit of an endless expanse of knowledge that is only fully grasped by the All-Knowing. An eternity of learning and experience will never make us All-Knowing, for there is only one All-Knowing.
لا إله إلا الله
Part 3: All-Powerful
When we look at our bodies, we know that we did not bring them into being. I can see my hands type on the keyboard, I can look at my eyes in the mirror’s reflection, and I can know with absolute certainty that who I am was not my choice. We do not get to choose if we were born with male or female sex chromosomes. We did not get to choose who are parents are. We did not get to choose which country we were born in, and where we first went to school. The very foundation of our embodied being is an airtight proof of our origins in powerlessness. But the All-Powerful does get to choose. The All-Powerful chose our bodies, and where to place them in history. I could have been a Tamil woman born in the 18th century, but instead I am an American male born in the 20th century. And there is nothing I can do to change that fact. We obsess about our choices once we become independent, but those choices will come to an end when the All-Powerful brings about our end. “He it is Who gives life and causes to die. And when He decreed an affair, He only says to it: Be! Then, it is!” (40.68, Bakhtiar trans.) There is nothing we can do to stop the inevitable end. So we were born without power and will die without power, and have a brief taste of power in-between for a few decades. It is only because the All-Powerful shares an infinitesimally small manifestation of power with us that we have this experience. But once we do, we want it to remain and increase. But the only one who can grant us our hope is the All-Powerful. Just as we have gone from powerlessness to a taste of power, and will be returned to powerlessness, we can once again return to a state where our tiny powers bring us ever changing and increasingly beautiful possibilities, due to the generosity of the All-Powerful. We will never be all powerful, nor ever be able to fathom what it is like to be All-Powerful, but we are all children of the All-Powerful in whose power we live and die and are raised again.
لا إله إلا الله
Part 4: Life Itself
If you are reading this, you are alive. You are surrounded on all sides by life. You live and breath and move through life. This is only possible because Life Itself shares life with us. The whole universe is alive, constantly moving, changing, becoming. Once we were not here, but now we are. And because of that first move from nothingness to life, we know with certainty that it is possible a second time. “How can you disbelieve in God when you were dead [lifeless] and He gave you life? He will let you die once more, then bring you back to life again, whereupon you will be returned to Him.” (2.28, Wahiduddin Khan trans.) Life is not fragile – because it comes from Life Itself, it is rooted in eternity. It may take different forms in different realms, but only Life Itself can take it away. We are part of that process. Every single one of us was chosen to exist by Life Itself, each unlike anything else that ever was or will be. Every thing we have ever loved or desired or admired is part of life too. The seemingly infinite variety of forms of life can never be counted, because Life Itself is an endlessly overflowing source that always was and always will be.
لا إله إلا الله
Part 5: No beginning, no end
When we think of our lives, we think of our birth, which has already happened. We might think of our death, which has yet to come. Similarly, when we think of the planet Earth, we might try to conceptualize its beginnings in space 4 billion years ago, or its destruction in the future. We might ponder the universe itself, and the Big Bang 14 billion years ago, and its future collapse. But we cannot truly think of that which has no beginning and no end. Beyond the confines of time and space is the foundation of reality which is not limited by time and space. There is no “where” because it created all wheres. There is no “when” because it created all whens. It always was, always is, and always will be. Nothing that is within time and space can be without that which creates and sustains it from outside time and space. In all moments, in all realms, it is there. There is nothing similar to it, and nothing like it, and yet it is All-Seeing, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, and Life Itself.
لا إله إلا الله
A Mercy Case 