Not God but Allah

Once, many years ago, BBC interviewed a leading Muslim scholar/authority. He started off by saying, "I do not believe in God. I know this may shock you - that a Muslim can say he does not believe in God. But I repeat, I do not believe in God. I believe only in Allah." He went on to argue that to a Muslim Allah means much more than what God would mean to a non-Muslim. I think this is the basic conviction a Muslim has about Islam - that no one but a Muslim can ever understand what it is to be religious. It is not for nothing that the leading Islamic theologist today, Dr. Zakir Naik, says that Islam is "confirmed" like 2 + 2 = 4, whereas other religions are not confirmed! However, there is an irony here. One would have supposed that with such a "confirmed" religion Muslims in general would have been a very contended lot being blissful in their world of Allah. But far from it. They are an agitated lot. The world still remains unconquered. And worse, violence is proving less and less an option. The only consolation is "Islam is the world's fastest growing religion". Let's hope it does not hit any road breakers.

Are we God?

Many religions posit that God created the universe and then claim to have exclusive revelations as to what He expects of us. However, it seems to me that the creator-created dichotomy is artificial and even if we posit that God created it all, it is obvious that the one thing He could not have created would be life, for the simple reason that God is always alive - a dead God is no God. Creation could have started only with life. If there was no life, there would have been no creation. If life ends, then it ought to have had a beginning. So if there was a time when there was no life, life would never have come about. Thus, we can safely say that life is eternal, without beginning and end. And since we have life in us, we can logically say that we have the eternal within us. Hence, when we die, life within us does not die. It will be interesting to note that there are religions which posit that we are not the body that dies, but we are the very life that does not die. As there cannot be two eternals, eternal life is eternal God.Therefore, at least according to certain religions, we are God.