Sermon 1

Praise of God and His Oneness

I praise God. Yet no speaker can articulate his praise, no reckoner can count his favors, and the most diligent cannot give him his due. Soaring thoughts cannot reach him and deep minds cannot fathom him. He cannot be described, for he is beyond the limits of demarcated boundaries, existing depictions, tallied times, and protracted lifespans.

His power created the universe and his mercy sent forth rain-bearing winds. Then, to curb its oscillation, he pegged the earth with massive rocks.

The first part of religion is knowledge of God. Knowledge of him is perfected by belief in him. Belief in him is perfected by the declaration of his oneness. Declaration of his oneness is perfected by sincere allegiance to him. Sincere allegiance to him is achieved by negating all attributes ascribed to him, by the testimony of every attribute that it is separate from the thing described, and by the testimony of each thing described that it is separate from the attribute.

To describe God is to ascribe associates to him. To ascribe associates to him is to ascribe duality to him. To ascribe duality to him is to divide him. To divide him is to undervalue him. To undervalue him is to depict him. To depict him is to circumscribe him. To circumscribe him is to quantify him.

To ask, "In what?" is to confine him. To ask, "On what?" is to make another space empty of him.

God is a being but not by coming into being. He is existent but not after non-existence. He is with all things but not by association. He is other than all things but not by detachment. He is an agent but not by movement or instrument. He was all-seeing when there was no creature to be seen. He existed in solitude when there was no friend in whose familiarity he could take comfort, or by whose absence he would be distraught.

The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth

God created the world and gave it a beginning. He did this without long mulling, prior experience, generated movement, or stirring aspiration. He made all things in their proper time and combined their parts. He accorded them a particular nature and gave them a specific form. He knew them before he gave them a beginning, cognizant of their limits and consequences, and aware of their connections and complexities.

Then he rent the ether, tore up the sky and air, and unleashed a torrent roiling with crashing waves. He placed the torrent on the back of a stormy wind, a raging tempest. He ordered the wind to hold the torrent in check, dispatched it to fetter the flood, and compelled it to restrict the advancing surf. Below, the air was vast and empty. The water gushed above.

Then, he created a barren wind, its control permanent, its current tempestuous, and its perfume wafting. He commanded it to whip up the rolling waters and bring forth mighty waves. The wind churned up the water like cream in a churning skin and tossed it about in the sky, flipping it end over end and mixing the still and the shifting, until it frothed and bubbled and threw up a mountain of foam.

Raising the frothy mixture in the expansive layers of air, in the vast ether, God molded seven skies—the lowest of them a frozen wave, and the loftiest a well-preserved canopy, an elevated firmament—with no pillar for support, and no nails or ropes to bind. Then he ornamented the sky with beautiful stars and bright lights. He set therein a radiant sun and a glowing moon, gliding in that spinning sphere, that moving sky, that flowing, studded expanse.

The Creation of the Angels

Then God rent the lofty skies and filled them with ranks of his angels: some continually prostrate, never bowing, others bow, never standing straight, yet others stand in rows, never quitting that position, and yet more chant litanies of his praise, never tiring.

Drowsy eyes do not impede them, nor wandering minds, exhausted bodies, or forgetfulness occasioned by lack of heed.

Among them, too, are angels God has entrusted with his revelation. Constituting God's tongues to his apostles, they come and go with his decrees and commands. Some are charged with protecting his servants, others are gatekeepers at the doors of his Garden.

Yet others have feet firmly fixed in the nethermost regions of the earth, while their necks extend beyond the highest heaven, their flanks stretch beyond the land mass, and their shoulders reach the posts of God's throne.

They lower their gaze before him and spread interlocked wings underneath, separated from those below by veils of might and cloaks of power. They do not attempt to picture their Lord through imagination, or apply to him the attributes of created beings, or demarcate him within a location, or depict him with comparisons.

The Creation of Adam

God gathered soil by sifting coarse earth and fine, sweet earth and salty. He rinsed it with water until it became pure and clean, and moistened and kneaded it until it was smooth and malleable. With this mixture, he molded a form with curves, joints, limbs, and nodes. He let it dry until it hardened, setting it aside for a fixed period of time, until it became firm.

Then he breathed into it of his spirit, and it stood before him as a human being. This being had faculties it could harness, a mind it could engage, limbs it could yoke to its service, parts it could use as instruments, and perception with which it could differentiate between right and wrong, tastes and smells, colors, and species.

Its clay was a blend of disparate entities, assembled forms, warring opposites, and dissimilar mixtures: hot and cold, wet and dry, painful and joyous.

The Angels' Prostration and Iblīs's Refusal

Then God commanded his angels to fulfill the trust with which he had charged them and discharge the covenant he had enjoined—to prostrate humbly, deferentially, before Adam, in recognition of the honor he had received from God.

God said, «Prostrate before Adam, and they all prostrated except Iblīs» (Qur'an 2:34) and Iblīs's tribe. Pride held them back and wretchedness took over when they boasted of their creation from fire and scorned the creation of clay.

God gave Iblīs a respite so that he could earn yet more of God's wrath, to complete the trial and fulfill the pledge. He said, «You have been placed among those who have been granted respite until the day of destiny.» (Qur'an 15:37–38)

As for Adam, God gave him a home, with a good life therein and a safe dwelling. He warned him of Iblīs and of Iblīs's enmity. Iblīs misled Adam, for he was jealous of Adam's heavenly abode and pious companions.

Adam was deceived—he exchanged certainty for doubt and resolve for weakness, his bliss was replaced by fear, his deception was followed by regret.

Afterward, God accepted his plea for forgiveness, spoke words of mercy, and promised him a return to paradise, but he nevertheless cast Adam into the abode of tribulation, where his descendants would multiply for generations.

The Prophets Sent to Humanity

From Adam's descendants, God selected prophets, exacting a pledge from them to convey his revelation, and entrusting them with delivering his message.

As time passed, most people altered God's covenant, denied what they owed him, and ascribed partners to him. The devils had driven them away from their earlier recognition of him, stopping them from his worship altogether.

God dispatched messengers and a succession of prophets to restore people to their original pledge. He directed his prophets to:

• Remind people of the divine favors they had forgotten
• Establish the truth by conveying his message
• Revive their numbed intellects

He instructed his prophets to show people the signs of his power: the sky raised above, and the earth spread below, livelihoods that sustained life, and lifespans that ended in death, suffering that made people age, and relentless calamities.

Never in all this time did God allow his creation to be left without a prophet, a revealed scripture, a sure proof, or a clear path. The scanty number who answered did not stop God's messengers, nor the multitudes of their repudiators.

Each messenger had his successor named for him, each successor was identified by his predecessor. In this manner, generations went by, and ages passed. Fathers died, and sons took their place.

The Prophet Muhammad

So it was, until God sent Muḥammad to fulfill his promise and complete the line of prophecy. All earlier prophets had been made to affirm Muḥammad, whose qualities had been made known to them, with a binding oath. His birth, when it came, brought auspicious blessings.

At that time, the earth's inhabitants were divided into numerous faiths with different notions and divergent views. One group likened God to his creatures, another rejected his name, and a third looked to a separate deity.

Through Muḥammad, God saved the people from their errant ways. Because of his eminence, he delivered them from ignorance.

Then God summoned Muḥammad to meet with him and desired for him the blessings to be enjoyed at his side. Raising him from the vileness of this worldly abode and lifting him from this place of tribulation, God brought him into his presence, honored and esteemed.

The Prophet's Legacy

For you, he left you what earlier prophets left their communities—they did not abandon their followers without guidance, without a clear path or a signpost. Muḥammad, too, left you your Lord's Book, and he fully elucidated its contents:

• The licit versus the illicit
• Recommended virtues versus required mandates
• Abrogating verses versus abrogated ones
• Licenses versus decrees
• Specifics versus generalities
• Lessons versus parables
• Free verses versus restricted ones
• Clear verses versus ambiguous ones

He explained the Book's subtleties and clarified what was obscure, including:

• Things whose knowledge is required for all God's servants, versus others, ignorance of which is excused
• Things whose mandate is established in the Book while their abrogation is shown in the Sunnah, versus others whose practice is commanded in the Sunnah while vacating them is permitted in the Book
• Things that were compulsory in their time, versus others whose directive subsequently ceased

He differentiated among the Book's prohibitions of grave sins which incur the punishment of the Fire, versus smaller transgressions which hold the prospect of God's forgiveness; of acts acceptable in minimal form, versus those that earn maximum reward.

The Obligation of Pilgrimage

God imposed on you the pilgrimage to his sacred House, which he has made a destination for humankind, flocking to it like thirsty animals to a watering hole, birds to their nests. God has made it a sign of their humble submission to his greatness and their obedience to his glory.

From among his creation, God selected those who would heed his call, verify his message, and stand where his prophets stood. They resembled the angels who circle his throne, vying with one another in the marketplace of his worship, racing to reach the promise of his forgiveness.

God made the pilgrimage obligatory, imposed it as a duty, and made it incumbent on you, saying:

«Pilgrimage to the House is a duty owed to God by all who can make their way there. As for those who refuse—God has no need of any being in all the worlds.» (Qur'an 3:97)