Guidance

If God is so different from us, how can we know what God is like?

How can we understand God's reasons for making the world?

Isn't it a bit like an ant trying to understand a human?

It is indeed. The difference is that we can only imagine what it is like to be an ant.

We didn't make the ants.

We don't know how ants think about the world.

But God made us, and gave us our understanding,

so God can let us know what we need to understand

We must have a reason for our lives.

If there is no reason for living, why do we try so hard to keep ourselves alive?

Like a zebra running from a lion,

or a mouse chased by a cat,

we are afraid of dying but we don't know why.

Do you think that God makes us with a reason but doesn't bother to tell us what it is?

Do you think that God makes us with understanding but doesn't help us to understand our lives?

Of course not

One of the ways that we understand things is by talking about them using words

and because God can do everything it is no problem for God to explain things to mankind using words.

So, since Adam and Eve, God has chosen certain special people to be Messengers,

carrying God's Message to the people of the world.

1400 years ago, God chose a very special man for a very special Message.

The Message contained all the important things we need to know about God and the purpose of our lives.

The man's name was Muhammad the Messenger,

and the language he spoke was Arabic.

The words that God told him to speak to humankind came to Muhammad a little bit at a time.

It took many years for his Message to be complete, and soon after it was finished, he died.

The Message given to Muhammad is known by the Arabic name Al-Qur'an which means "The Reading".

It is Muhammad's reading of his Message from God to humankind.

It is sometimes called Qur'an Karim the Generous Qur'an,

and sometimes Qur'an Majid the Mighty Qur'an.

It is the most wonderful book in the whole world.

It helps us to understand Allah and the reason we are here.

In fact, the Qur'an is so special it has its own IZWAYS place The Eternity Well

because the best guide to understanding the Qur'an is the Qur'an itself.

The first word of the Qur'an that Muhammad heard was "Read".

When he said "I cannot read", he was told "Read, in the Name of your Lord,

[Hu] makes everything from nothing,

[Hu] made humankind from a blood clot.

Read, and your Liege is most Generous,

[Hu] taught by the Pen, taught humankind what they know not."

What sort of Book do you think Muhammad was asked to read?

What sort of Pen do you think God would use?

A few days later, Muhammad again heard the words of God, and they also spoke of the Pen.

"By the Pen, and what it writes", they said.

Qur'an tells us how God speaks to humankind through the world around us, as it changes in time.

And the worlds about us say what God wants them to.

In the Qur'an we learn of how to understand God's wishes for humankind

by looking for God's Signs in the worlds about us,

and also in ourselves.

In the Qur'an, God speaks of those worlds changing in time,

as the Pen writing on the Tablet.

God's Pen writes the Book of our lives.