Understanding Salat — Page 54
Understanding S al A t 54 eyesight, we live in a world of reflections. We are surrounded by light and can never see it; we spend our lives observing its reflections. Similarly, the reality is that we cannot see the Being of Allah. Hadrat Abū Dharr ra , narrated, “I asked the Messenger of Allah sas : “Did you see your Lord?” He said: “(He is) Light; how could I see Him?” ( S a hīh Muslim, Book 1, Chapter 78) It is only the reflection of the Light of Allah that we see; we live in a world of reflections. Each name of Allah is a sign for a different beauty of the Being of Allah. An Ism is ‘The name of a thing; a sign conveying knowledge of a thing;’ ( Dictionary of the Holy Quran, pp. 413) The names of Allah are signs that convey knowledge of the Being of Allah. They are the only way we have of knowing His reality. For exam- ple, it is through the attribute of The Merciful that we inter- act with Allah Almighty. That interaction is an object that His light reflects off of. If it weren’t for that interaction, we would never know that the Being of Allah was present. The Being of Allah surrounds us, but we can never see Him. ‘Eyes cannot reach Him but He reaches the eyes. And He is the Imperceptible, the All-Aware’ (6:104). The names of Allah are a source of blessings for us because they are how His Beauty reaches our eyes.