Thoughts on Allah and His Prophet

“Say: I hold not for myself [the power of] benefit or harm, except what Allah has willed.” (7:188)

“Say: I possess not for myself any harm or benefit except what Allah should will.” (10:49)

And do not invoke besides Allah that which neither benefits you nor harms you, for if you did, then indeed you would be of the wrongdoers.'” (10:106)

If we put these quotes together, the first two being statements that Allah the Exalted told prophet Mohammad to say, and the last being an admonition to all people, we can see that prophet Mohammad (pbuh) himself should not be invoked besides Allah in any way. But what does this mean in practical application? Of course, we should not call upon prophet Mohammad when we are praying to Allah, nor should we think within ourselves that we need to invoke him to assure that our prayers will be answered by the All-Hearing, All-Knowing. But what are the limits or guidance on this from the Quran?

Ayat Al-Kursi Ring Composition: Deeper Insights

Ayatul Kursi Ring Composition

Although this important aya has been analyzed by the scholar Raymond K. Farrin in his paper “Surat Al-Baqarah – a Structural Analysis,” I used a different translation to keep the literal words “between their hands” because this Quranic image directly correlates with free will, which is at the heart or center of this aya and indeed of our relationship with Allah the Exalted. It is also translated “what is before them and what is behind them.”

If you’ve seen this post before, I’ve just made a major change in calculations, with apologies. Although the number of words in Ayat Al-Kursi is, as previously mentioned, 57 (3•19), which is exactly half of 114, the total number of suras in the Quran, and also 57 is the number of Surat Hadeed (“Iron”), an element whose production in stars is the point at which a star explodes into a supernova, but I’ve recalculated the letter count and found my original (in which the letter count too was a multiple of 19) was wrong, and so I’ve corrected it below.

Looking Deeper at Tawheed

Tawheed, the bedrock of Islam, is the immutable truth that Allah is ineffably One. It is not enough to say it is “monotheism” because Christians call themselves monotheists, but insofar as they worship Jesus the son of Mary as a god or “incarnation” or God the Almighty, All-Merciful, no, this is not monotheism and it is a violation of tawheed, sometimes translated “oneness.” The Quran is unequivocal and emphatic about this, quintessentially made clear in Surat Al-Ikhlass. In particular one needs to examine the word Al-Samad.