Dear Youth 02

Dear Youth...

We begin in the name of God, we praise God and we ask God to raise the rank of our Prophet Muhammad and protect his nation from that which he feared for it.

We hope that from last month’s lesson it is clear who the Muslim is and how a person becomes Muslim. As we said last month every Muslim says and believes that there is no Creator except God. And we made it clear that when we say the Arabic word Allah we are talking about God, the Creator, Who is not like His creation.

Last month we talked about Prophet Adam and this month in our next section we want to continue to talk about him. One of the reasons we want to talk about Prophet Adam a lot is because a lot of lies have been told about Prophet Adam. In this section we want to talk a lot about God and one of the reasons is because a lot of lies have been told about God. These lies don’t hurt God, but they are very harmful for the people who said them and the people who believe them.

One of the big lies told about God is the one that says that God is a man. We know about ourselves how weak and imperfect we are and yet still some ignorant people think that God is a man. One of the very ignorant people is a man who was named Michelangelo. In school, teachers might tell you that he was the greatest artist of all time, but in the opinion of a believer he is a very harmful man who continues to harm people today with what he did.

This man painted the inside of a very big church in Italy. One of his giant paintings there is called "The Creation of Adam". He painted an old man with grey hair with his hand stretched out. Next to the old man he painted a young man with his hand stretched out to the old man. Their fingers almost touch. If you look in some encyclopedias they say "Michelangelo showed God giving Adam the spark of life." To paint this is blasphemy. To write this is blasphemy. To believe this is blasphemy.

This is not the only painting he did of an old man whom he called God. Since he painted these some 500 years ago, they have become very famous. Nowadays reproductions of these paintings are in many books. What might a child think who sees these paintings? This is just one reason why it is so important for us to tell you the truth about God.

Whatever picture you see is not God. Whatever picture that might pop into your mind is not God. God, Who created humans, angels, and jinn is not like any of them. God is not like the soul, fire, air, or bodies. God is not light. He is not even a strong light. God created very strong lights which we cannot look at and God is not like them. Whatever a person imagines in his mind God is different than that thing he imagined. When we say "imagine" we do not mean the true things you believe in your mind, or the true things that you know with your mind. We mean that any image that comes to the mind is not God.

We know things about God, from our sound mind and what the Prophets told us, but we will not know everything about God, because there are things that only God knows about.

We are not like God at all. No person is like God. No creation is like God. Even the best of all the creations, Prophet Muhammad, is not like God at all. God is the Creator and we are created by Him. God gives us the orders and we must obey Him. No one orders God to do anything. God does whatever He wills. God does not have to do anything. No one has the right to order God to do anything.

He is the One the Muslim worships, the Creator Who is not like His creation. Next month, God-willing, we will warn you about some more lies that people are saying lately about God, our Creator.

The Creator is different

from the creation

A Prophet of Islam - Prophet Adam

Last month we started talking about the first Prophet, who was also the first human, Prophet Adam, peace be upon him. We emphasized that Prophet Adam was not like an ape and that humans do not come from apes. This is very important to know and believe. The person who believes that humans came from apes is not a Muslim. Anyone who believes this must stop believing it and believe and say the two professions of faith. Then that person would be Muslim.

Before we go on, can you answer these questions about last month’s lesson?

What was the first thing that God created?

What was the second thing that God created?

What were some other things that God created before He created Prophet Adam?

The answers are at the end of this article.

Now let us continue. Every person comes from Prophet Adam. Everyone. Good people, bad people, dark skinned people, light skinned people, intelligent people, and ignorant people all come from Prophet Adam.

Prophet Adam himself was a very honorable man. He was a Prophet, so that means that Allah endowed him with firm faith and belief all his life. He never blasphemed, but instead he worshipped Allah only. His first words were in praise of his Creator.

Allah gave Prophet Adam the knowledge of the names of everything. This means that Prophet Adam knew these names without a teacher telling him. Adam first lived in Paradise living a very happy life. As we said last month, Allah created a wife for Prophet Adam from Adam’s rib. We know from one of our great Muslim scholars, Ibn ^Abbas, that this was the shortest rib from Adam’s left side. In Arabic we call the wife of Adam Hawwa’, in English she is called Eve.

Both Adam and Hawwa’ were created as adults. They were tall and beautiful. They were much taller than people are today. Prophet Adam lived in Paradise for 130 years. In Paradise, Allah permitted Adam and Hawwa’ to eat from all the fruits except the fruit from one tree (it is not said that it was an apple tree). The Devil whispered to them to eat from the forbidden tree, and they did eat from that tree. Eating from that tree was a sin, but it was not a great sin.

You see, sins are of different types. The worst sin is blasphemy. Then there are sins that are great sins. Then there are sins that are small and mean. Then there are sins that are small and not mean. The sin of eating from this tree is small and not mean. Remember how last month we told you that Prophets would never sin, except for the fact they might commit a small sin without meanness? So remember that Adam was a Prophet and know that this sin was small and not mean.

Also Prophet Adam and Hawwa’ repented of this sin a short time after committing it. They said: "O Allah we did injustice to ourselves. So if You do not forgive us and have mercy on us we will be losers." Allah accepted their repentance. Their sin was erased. This is the mercy of God on the believers. That is, if the Muslim repents properly, God forgives him and that sin is erased.

Then Allah made Adam and his wife descend from Paradise to earth. The place that Prophet Adam descended to was a mountain on earth call Sarandib which is in Sri Lanka, (an island off the south coast of India). This place is the healthiest place on earth with good, clean air. It smells very good there because when Prophet Adam went there from Paradise he was wearing some of the leaves of Paradise. These leaves fell on the earth and plants grew up with the beautiful smell of these leaves. Lady Hawwa’ descended to the Arabian Peninsula and Prophet Adam and Lady Hawwa’ met in ^Arafat which is very close to Makkah. Living on earth they had many children and built homes and other things. Prophet Adam built the Ka^bah in Makkah and this was the first house of worship on earth.

Prophet Muhammad told us that Allah sent Angel Jibril to Adam and ordered him to build the Ka^bah. Adam built it and was then ordered to go around the Ka^bah; so he did. Prophet Adam was told: You are the first human being and this building is the first building built for the worship of Allah on earth.

God willing we will continue to tell you more about this great and honorable Prophet next month; so don’t miss it!

Answers to our questions

What was the first thing that God created?

The first thing that God created was water.

What was the second thing that God created?

The second thing that God created was the ceiling of Paradise (^Arsh).

What were some other things which God created before He created Prophet Adam?

Some of the things which God created before creating Prophet Adam were: angels, jinn, animals, plants, Paradise, Hellfire, the seven heavens, this earth and other earths.