Re: My secret belief
InshaAllah I will post this response in two parts:
Part 1:
Claim 1: As “Hazrat Suleman in holy quran (prophet/king solomon in bible ) was given extra ordinary power and control over various creature, he could talk and understand birds and animals and he had control over winds and stuff.” Hence, “I deduce that he was a superman.”
A The conclusion is sound in this claim, but the presumption made implicitly in the term “superman” is not. It is true that Solomon (AS) would have been perceived as ‘super’ human, but whether he was or not is another issue. This presumption is based on the idea of the miracles being attributed to God or to him in person. It also has a bearing on what the term signifies. Superman is a concept void of God and assumes that certain people are super through their own natural devices, thus bringing a mockery to the idea of ‘miracle’ in Islamic contexts.
Claim 2: He came from some other planet , like krypton and because he was not a native of this planet he had so many super powers and control over the creatures of this planet.
A There is no basis for this assertion. It is plausible that should such a ‘super’ being exist then there is no need for him to come from another planet. Other fictional characters could ‘prove’ this, such as Dr. Do Little who spoke with animals was from Earth, also The Flash was also from Earth and so on. There is no reason that mandates the assumption that such beings need to be by necessity from another planet. Also ‘superman’ never has control over the creatures of Earth and he was hurt by kryptonite.
Claim 3: I believe time travel and inter planetory journeys took place very frequently in the past and it is mentioned in holy quran in number of places.
A Actually these are not so great things, but what happened in Islamic traditions are much more grand. Time travel is happening all the time, albeit on very insignificant levels. Whenever any body moves it does so affecting the time-space continuum. The ‘miracles’ of the Qur’an are far more advanced than simple time travel theory. The term ‘time travel’ has been acquired through similar pop-sci-fi and utilised in modern science theory, but it has rules and those rules would apply. Even the idea of warp which is ‘faster than light’ travel has rules. Even the concept of wormhole travel has certain postulates that need to be present in order for fulfilment. There is no evidence of devices used or such rules being obeyed in order to render the result of time loss or gain. For sure what happens in sci-fi stories there is an inherent impervious power given to the entity TIME, but in the Qur’an it itself is a slave to the Will of God. There was no ‘time-travel’ with the people of the cave. Rather there was a breach in the rules of time, only God can do that! Rather what happened was time being ordered to continue as the people in the cave were maintained, sustained without their knowledge. They perceived intense ‘time’ loss, but in reality Allah (SWT) sustained them in suspended animation, total stasis until a time He chose. They had no knowledge of this! Nor is there any mention of other ‘creatures’ subservient to God who did this. The claim inherent in the story is that only Allah (SWT) can do such things. As for inter-planetary travel. This too is a babyish concept of the ‘Arsh and the domain of God. For sure that what we can see to the limits of our ability is only the lowest heaven. Space and all that is in it - the physical universe is only a drop. Remember that earth and heavens and all in between is like a ring thrown in a desert to the Kursi and the Kursi is a similar measure many times smaller than the ‘Arsh. The stories of distant travel in the Qur’an and hadith actually go beyond planetary systems and first level of heaven. Something that we cannot possibly have the capability of developing as a people, rather these are gifts for the elect few.
Claim 4: The reference of a holy man Khizar in sura kahaf and the journey with Hazrat Musa. I think this holy man ( who is refered in some other tales ) and reported to have met some important personalities in history. It seems that Hazrat Khizar is an inter-galactic frequent traveler. Time , apparently is pretty much in his control. All the powers and control are bestowed by Allah Almightly, obviously.
A This assimilation to the character of Dr Who, of Khidzr (AS) as you have postulated is again out of place. It would by necessity mandate the existence of a tardis. (Tardis – device for inter-galactic and time travel) As nothing can be ratified to the existence of such created devices then it cannot be that such a notion can be true. Rather if it possible to do such things in the first place, there is an underlying tone in the stories of Khidzr (AS) who does things himself out of trust in God rather than ‘super’ ability. Those things he does himself are what any human being can do, which is swim, kill, build walls, etc. Apart from living a very long time there is no evidence of travel, no device to travel in, no suggestion that he knows his own fate or indeed when he will die, no suggestion that he controls time, though it could be possible that Allah (SWT) has given him this gift, but then supporting this theory needs evidence of which there is none. It is perfectly okay for me to believe that God enables this ‘miraculous’ breach of natural order by His Will and there is nothing we nor Khidzr (AS) can do about it.
Claim 5: This is not Fiction. This is my belief
A A belief being so does not rule out the condition of it to be fiction or fact. Rather you are asserting that since you believe such things to be true, they are not fictitious to you but you believe them to be true. Should this be the case then will you adopt the oath in the Qur’an that necessitates that you bring your family and yourself and bring down the curses of God upon you and them should this be a lie? Do you really believe enough that you are willing to do this?
Claim 6: Hazrat Suleman had extra-ordinary powers , which no other prophet posseessed Should this be a fairy tale or there is an explanation for it. My explaination makes perfect sense.
A This has been addressed though not from this angle above. Your assertion here is that something without explanation is fairy tale and additionally you state that for an explanation to be true it needs to make sense.
I actually contest this claim strongly. I can demonstrate that there are many fairytales that have reasonable postulates and explanations that make perfect sense, but are nonetheless fiction. Also there are some observable phenomena in the universe around us that do not make scientific sense, but are nonetheless factual and true. A blatant example of the latter is gravitation. To this day we have found nothing that connects the attraction of two bodies but we can observe that there is interaction between them. Many have argued the space-time fabric needs to be viewed as a homologous entity to understand gravity. These are only explanations but no proofs have been given to date. On the other hand you have limited the options. If things do no make scientific sense then it does not make them fairy tales. Rather they could be miracles as we are expected to believe in miracles as a reality that surpasses our senses, which occurred as matter of fact. If we do not believe that then we are not Muslim.
Claim 7: Holy quran tells us many stories where 'Some men' came to various prophet and foretold him about future event / catastrophies. They are generally considered as angels in the form of humans. But most of them were not 'angel'. They were people from other planets and galaxies. Some time they came for experiments and brought good news and other time they brought destruction.
A It is true that some angels are extra-terrestrial, which means that their normal place of living is not of this world, but Islam teaches us that many angels are bound to this world with us and likewise many Jinn. Some travel to and from some place in heaven and to Earth and then back again. In the case where the shape of men were assumed by angels in order to provide a message to man again this is totally part of the belief in angles that Muslims are required to hold. However, you lace this belief with an unqualified statement that most of the visitors from other worlds were not angels. This again is not true. All visitors from other worlds were and are angels, because man is Earth bound. To believe the contrary is to attribute lies to those beings that came for the benefit of mankind. That they 1) lied about who they were, i.e. they said angels, but were really just people pretending to be angels 2) brings a mockery to the orthodoxy of Islam for holding such beliefs, for no greater purpose than some other ‘impure’ entity who is touring the world to do some ‘experiments’. All of which is not substantiated and no reference can be found to the similar except in sci-fi literature.
Claim 8: You people must be thinking that i am insane. Quran has clearly told about the creatures present in the universe just like they are on earth. The earlier you realize, the better
No. It is just the limited ability of birdie brains out there to decipher the idea that Allah Almighty has not created the galaxies and billions of stars and solar system just for stupid mankind...
As they read the opening verse of holy quran as ' Alhamdullilah e Rab'il Aalameen ' but limit its meaning in their mind to 'Alhamudlillah e RAB'il Arz'
A Because there are worlds outside our own, there is nothing to mandate the fate of inter-domain interaction. It could be that the two or more worlds can simply exist in their own niches without ever having contact with one another. Unless you claim to be God or knowing of the ghaib that such matters are decreed we must take the default position that mankind is made to worship God and our interaction is for nothing but to live out our temporary lives on Earth in order to attain Jannah and the Beatific Vision. Also you view of Allah (SWT) is quite limited that you feel He cannot create the whole universe just to prove a point to us on this little rock. Had there been no other world (of life) outside our own it would take nothing away from the Majesty of The Majestic One. Rather it would act as proof that we are truly very insignificant. It would not be an arrogant approach to life rather it would be a humbling one. However, we are obliged by Islam to believe in extra-terrestrial life, but it does not oblige us to believe that we are in any way inferior to these other creatures, because we are Ashrafal-makhluqaat in that choice has been given to us and we have the best of the created bodies. Any more than this belief is to put words in the mouth of God – auzdubillah.
Claim 9: Who are we to challenge the abilitiy of God in making creature smarter than us, far more advanced and probably more obedient to Allah Almighty than we can ever be ?
A The Wisdom of Allah (SWT) is Great, that He has given us the ability to believe in our own manufactured ideas, without need for substantiation.
Muslims don’t challenge God, but rather we understand God by how He communicates to us. We should already believe that man is like animal in physical terms and like angel in spiritual terms. In that if we surpass the baggage of our animal natures we can ascend beyond angels in our worship of God, which is totally unbiased whereas in angels they have a bias to worship Him. It is clear that their worship is more perfect than ours, but it is also clear that our task for worship is harder than theirs.
What however, we should not do is bring God in to a personal belief in that we end up making His claims void. We can call Him All-Powerful, but we cannot say we have limited his power by saying He cannot become man. Rather we should say that He DOES not become man, because He sets His own conditions. God Who is Pure will not turn Himself into that what is impure. Likewise if we are termed best of creation we are not necessarily being arrogant to assume that there is nothing more intelligent than us in the universe, because it is based on some sort of reasonable basis from another area in the scriptures. However, if we find something to be more intelligent than us we can accept it, but we cannot compromise our belief that we are in the best of moulds and that its meaning could take another form, until then I am defaulting to the position that mankind is the most intelligent of God’s creations, in the complete sense of the definition.