So Said The Promised Messiah (as) — Page 146
Ilah means the Beloved who is worshipped. This is the fundamental point of Islam and it denotes complete and perfect love. It should be remembered well that if one believes in the Oneness of God but does not love Him, his belief is faulty and incomplete. (Malfoozat, Vol. III, p. 187) DEDICATE YOURSELVES What do we mean by saying that one should love God? It means that one should give preference to the Will of God over his parents, wife, children, one's own self, and, in short, everything. The Holy Quran says: fazkorullaha ka zikrikum abaa-a kum au ashaddo zikra i. e. , you should remember God as you remember your fathers rather more than that-and you should remember Him with great love and affection. Here, God has not taught us to call Him father lest like the Nasara {the Christians) people may be misled to believe Him as real father. And to say that the verse might mean the kind of love that is lesser than our love for our father is also not correct, for, the words have been added au ashaddo zikra i. e. , more than that (more than the love for the father) Had these words not been there in the verse, then, of course-, the objection could be tenable. Those who call God father, they have fallen so low that they have started calling a week human being as their God. There are certain words which become a trial for the people, and God wanted to try the Christians. That is why the prophets were given this name in their books. Since God is the Knower of all the things and fully aware of everything, He made the word Ab (father) widely used. It was sheer bad luck of the Christians that when it was used by the Messiah they mistook it-and took it in the literal form. The Messiah really wanted to tell the people that their Books called 146