1.
ILAH
2.1. Dictionary Meanings : The
root of this word consists of the three letters, alif, lam,
and ha and the connotations of various derivations, as one
finds in lexicons are as follows:
Became confused or
perplexed. Achieved peace and mental calm by seeking refuge
with someone or establishing relations with him. Became
frightened of some impending mishap or disaster, and
someone gave him the necessary shelter. Turned to another
eagerly, due to the intensity of his
feelings for him. The lost offspring of the she-camel rushed
to snuggle up to its mother on finding it. Became hidden,
or concealed. Also, got elevated. Adored, offered worship to. If we reflect
upon these original meanings, we can
gain the necessary idea of how the verb came to mean the
act of worship and the noun to denote the object of worship.
There are four considerations to bear in mind in this connection:
Foremost among the
factors which engender a sentimentof some degree of adoration for some one is a
person’s own state of being in distress or need. He cannot even conceive of
worshiping someone unless he has reason to believe that someone to be in a
position to remove his distress, to fulfil his needs, to give him shelter and
protect him in time of danger, and soothe his troubled heart. It goes without
saying that the above belief is accompanied by a belief also in the superiority
of the other in status, power, and strength. It is also a matter of fact that
where any of the needs of a human being are met under the ordinary process of
give and take, which takes place perceptibly before one’s own eyes, it leads to
no sense of reverence, much less of adoration, for the other. For example, if I
should be in need of money and, having applied for, and been given a job, am
paid for it, since the whole transaction would take place within the full ken
of my senses, and I would be fully aware of the circumstances or the reason for
giving me the money, I would experience not the slightest desire to offer my
employer any adoration. That sentiment arises only when there is some element
of mystery surrounding the personality, the power, or the ability of the other
to fulfil peoples’ needs or to influence events. That is why the word chosen to
denote an object of worship includes in its meanings the senses of mystery,
perplexity, and superiority in status, etc. Lastly, it is only natural
that if one believes
another to be in a position to fulfill one’s needs, to provide shelter and
protection, to soothe a disturbed heart and fill it with peace and calm, one
turns eagerly to that person as a matter of course. We may therefore safely
conclude from the above that the connotation of the word ilah includes the
capacities to fulfil the needs of others, to give them shelter and protection,
to relieve their minds of distress and agitation, superiority, and the requisite
authority and power to do all these, to be mysterious in some way or hidden
from men’s eyes, and the turning of men eagerly to him.
2.2. The Pre-Islamic Concept
Having discussed the
various literal senses of the word, let us now see what the pre-Islamic
concepts of ilah were, and which of these the Qur’an strove to reject: And they
have taken for their ilahs others than Allah, that they may according to their
reckoning be a source of strength to them (or that coming under their
protection may confer security). (Quran 19:81)
And they have taken
others than Allah as their ilahs hoping that they might be helped when needed. (Quran36:74)
From these two verses
we learn that the Arabs of the Jahiliyyah (the pre-Islamic period of Ignorance)
believed that those whom they regarded as ilahs were their patrons, would come
to their rescue in time of danger or difficulty, and that by placing themselves
under their protection they rendered themselves safe from fear, molestation or
harm. And when the Decree of your Lord had gone forth (and the time came for
its execution), the ilahs they used to invoke instead of Allah proved of no
avail to them and contributed only to their doom. (Quran 11:101)
And those whom the people
call to instead of Allah have not created aught, but are themselves creatures.
Dead they are, and not alive, and they know not when they would be raised from
their state, the real ilah is the One and Only Ilah.(Quran 18:20-21)
Invoke not; or pray to,
any ilah along with Allah. There is no ilah but He. [It should be borne in mind
that the word Ilah is used in the Qur’an in two different senses, namely, the
object or being, etc., to whom worship is actually being given, irrespective of
whether rightly or wrongly, and the Being who is really worthy of worship. In
this verse, the word is used in the first sense on the first occasion and in the
other sense on the second. -.Maududi] (Quran
28:88)
....And those who, instead of praying to Allah, pray to His supposed associates do but follow suppositions and idle
guesses. (Quran 10:66)
These verses point to
three aspects. The first is that the Arabs used to address their prayers to
those whom they regarded as their ilahs and invoke them in times of distress or
for fulfillment of any of their needs.
The second is that the illahs include not only
Jinns, angels, and gods, but dead humans too, as one can see from the second of
the above verses.
The third is that they
believed that these ilahs could hear their prayers and could come to their
rescue. It seems desirable to clear up one point, at this stage, about the
nature of the prayer made to the ilah or ilahs and the help or succor sought of
them. If I feel thirsty, and call to my servant to give me some water, or am
unwell and call for a doctor for treatment, my summons to them does not
constitute du’a, that is, it has no similarity to a prayer sent up to a deity,
nor does this make either the servant or the doctor into an ilah. Both these
are common, in everyday happenings, with nothing of the supernatural about
them. However, if I should, while feeling thirsty or unwell, call to some saint
or god instead of the servant or a doctor, that obviously would amount to
treating the saint or god as an ilah and to my addressing a du’a to him.
Addressing a prayer to a saint confined to his grave hundreds or even thousands
of miles away [In point of principle, it makes no difference if the distance
were of a few feet only, the significant point being the act of addressing a
prayer to someone who is dead and is believed to possess, even in, or perhaps
because of that state, some extraordinary powers not only of hearing the prayer
but also of granting it if he so chooses. It is also believed that the saint
may, if he cannot himself grant the prayer, pass it up to God with a recommendation.
.Maududi] clearly indicates that I believe him–though dead–to be possessed of
the power to listen to a prayer at such a distance or to otherwise being aware of
things so far off or, if one may use the appropriate Arabic words, to be both same
and baseer [Literally, these words, which are actually two of Allah’s personal
attributes, mean, the All-Hearing the A11-Seeing, respectively. God’s knowledge
transcends everything, and He is aware of everything that is happening anywhere.
This is not the case with His creatures, whose capacities in these respects are
severely limited. To believe someone other than God to have power to physically
hear prayer offered out of his hearing or to see things happening out of his
sight amounts to attributing to him powers which are God’s only, and which He
has never given to any of His creatures. Maududi.]. My action would clearly imply
belief in their exercising such a way over the realm of creation as to be able
to have water reach me or to make me recover from my illness. In the case of a
god, my prayer would mean that I believe him to possess power over water and
over health and sickness, and to therefore arrange, by supernatural means, to
fulfill my needs. Thus, the basis on which a prayer is addressed to someone
includes necessarily a concept of his being possessed of some supernatural
authority and power.
And, verily, We did destroy
the places of which you see ruins about you, and We showed them Our signs in diverse
ways that they might turn (away from their wrong ways to Us). So why did not
those whom they had made their ilahs, and presumed to have access to Us, help
them in their hour of doom? Far from helping, they abandoned them and made
themselves scarce, exposing the hollowness of their falsehoods and
fabrications. [The reference here obviously is not to mythological or inanimate
gods, but to priests and others who exacted peoples’ worship and thus set
themselves up as Ilahs in opposition to the True Ilah. A. A. Maududi] (Quran 46:27, 28)
2.3. The Criterion for
Godhood
There is a clear
logical inter-connection between all the different concepts of ilah set out
above. Whosoever regards any other person or being to be his helper or patron
in the supernatural sense, or capable of solving his problems or fulfilling his
needs, of hearing and granting his prayers, or of doing him harm or good, does
so only because he believes the Person or being to enjoy some measure of authority
in the management of the universe. Similarly, if a person’s avoidance of
certain actions or performance of others is governed by the hope or fear that they
would win him the pleasure or displeasure of some other person or being, he
does so obviously because of belief that that person or being possesses some
kind of supernatural authority in shaping the affairs of men. As for him who
believes in God and yet turns to others for the fulfillment of his needs, he
too can do so only because he believes them to have some share in God’s
authority. And, lastly, no different is the case of the person who accords the status
of law to the commandments of someone other than God, and binds himself to obey
the injunctions or prohibitions of that someone, for he in effect thereby
accords him supreme authority. We can therefore safely conclude that the
essence of godhood is authority, whether it is conceived as sovereignty of a
supernatural kind over the whole universe, or on the basis that man is bound by
God’s law
in his worldly life and
that all of His injunctions are to be complied with because they emanate from
Him.
2.4. The Qur’anic Approach
It is this very concept
of authority on the basis of which the Qur’an expends the whole force of its
argument in rejecting the claims to godhood of all others than God, and affirming
it to vest exclusively in Him. It categorically asserts that there is only One
Being in the heavens and the earth Who possesses and exercises all the powers
and all the authority. All Creation is His, and subservient to Him, all grace
and blessings flow from Him alone, His alone is
the Word, and in Him
alone vest all power and authority. Everything that exists, whether animate or
inanimate, is bound by the laws made by Him and is, to that extent, subservient
and submissive to Him, willingly or unwillingly. No one besides Him is
possessed of any such authority, nor does anyone else dispose of the affairs of
the universe. No one else knows the secrets of the Creation or its organization
or the manner of its proper management. Nor, lastly, does anyone have the least
share in His Sovereignty and Authority. Therefore, the only reality is that
there is no
ilah but He and, this
being so, anything that men do on the supposition of anyone else being an ilah
in any sense whatsoever is by its very nature utterly wrong, whether it be the
act of praying to someone, seeking refuge with him,
turning to him with
hope or fear, seeking his intercession with God, or treating him as the final
authority. All such relationships which people establish with others ought to exist
solely and exclusively with Allah Almighty, because
He alone is the
Sovereign of the Universe.
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