Considering that the Prophet’s father’s name was Abdullah, may I ask if God’s name, Allah, was known before Islam?
Yes, God’s name, Allah, was known for a long time in Arabia. We find it in Arabic poetry dating back many centuries prior to the advent of Islam. It is perhaps the name used by the Prophets Ibrahim and Ismail. To the Arabs who lived shortly before Islam, it signified the overall God who controlled the universe. However, they thought their idols to be His partners who would listen to their appeals and bring them closer to God.
I attended the lecture in which the lecturer said that according to the Qur'an all human beings are born Muslims. How does the Qur’an prove it to us Muslims and to non-Muslims?
Islam does not say that every child is born a Muslim in the sense that if he or she are left to themselves, without any outside influence, until they attain the age of puberty, they will automatically follow the religion of Islam. They will automatically offer their prayers in the Islamic way and fast in Ramadhan and so on. Islam makes no such claim, as some people mistakenly imagine. What happens is that people listen to scholars saying that every child is born with the Islamic nature instilled in him and they imagine that the child is a Muslim in the full sense of the word. There is an error in this concept, which needs to be corrected.
Let us first of all listen to the Prophet’s statement, which deals with this particular issue. He is quoted to have said: “Every newborn is given the Islamic nature, but his parents cause him to become a Jew or a Christian or a Magian.” This is highly significant, but in order to understand it, we have to be clear about the meaning of the “Islamic nature” to which the Prophet, peace be upon him, refers. I admit that my translation is inadequate. It does not give the full meaning of the expression the Prophet, peace be upon him, uses. The problem is that I do not know how else it can be translated. To be clear about its meaning, we have to take the term ‘Islamic” in its broadest sense. Islam means submission to God, and Muslim is a person who willingly surrenders himself to God in every respect. He admits no claim on his money, effort, time and indeed his whole life as taking priority over what God wants of him. In this sense, all prophets since Adam preached the religion of Islam, which means submission to God. Indeed, God tells us in the Qur’an that He has given us a faith, which does not impose on us any undue encumbrance. It is “The faith of your father, Ibrahim. It is he who has named you Muslims.” (22: 78) Speaking of Ibrahim, God says: “His Lord said to Him, “submit!” He said, “I submit myself to the Lord of all worlds.” (2: 131)
In order to make it easier for man to follow the right path and abide by divine guidance God has instilled in His nature the desire to know the right faith and to have a correct concept of His Lord. A child who grows up without receiving any religious education and whose parents try to keep him away from religious influences, as some people in the West do, will still find in himself a desire to know the right faith. That is inherent in his nature because God has placed it there when He created man. Moreover, man does not find it at all difficult to submit himself to his Lord, once he has the correct concept of God, the Supreme Being, the Creator of all worlds. Indeed, when he submits himself to Him, he feels peace and happiness within himself. He also experiences a feeling of peace with the universe around him. He does not rebel, saying that he wants to be independent or he wants to provide his individual character. He realizes that there is nothing to stop him from doing that when he submits to God. Nor does man find any problem in meeting the demands of his faith, which is based on the personal submission to God.
To help man in his search for his Lord and to follow a faith, which achieves harmony between his nature and the world around him, God sent prophets and messengers, preaching the message of submission to God alone, i.e. the message of Islam in its broad sense, and the pure concepts of the Oneness of God, glorified be He. Since the very first of human existence, this message has been given to man and the first prophet to carry it was Adam, the first human being. In this particular point, the Islamic view is totally opposite to the theory of a gradual development of man’s beliefs from the worship of idols and natural forces to a dual concept of god, before the Unitarian concept was developed. Indeed, Islam makes it clear that man was given the Unitarian faith right from the first day, but distortions were introduced in it time after time. The mission of prophets and messengers was always to correct the deviation and bring people back to God, so that they acknowledge His Oneness and submitted to Him alone. Most of these prophets were sent to their own nations and peoples. Some had a message to preach within a certain area; others were confined to a particular city or township. They all fulfilled their task, exerting maximum effort to make people realize that they would lead a much happier life, a life of internal and external peace if they accepted the divine faith. Some, like Moosa, Dawood and Younus received good response and Dawood was able to establish a kingdom, which he and his son Sulaiman ruled in accordance with the law of the Torah. Others like Hood, Saleh and Nooh had to contend with determined opposition. Nooh in particular continued to preach his message when he lived among them for.950 years, as the Qur’an specifically mentions, but only very few people accepted his faith.
It was God’s will that man should continue to have the divine message available to him in clear, undistorted terms. So whenever man is fed up with the misery and the havoc caused by following vain desires, deviant theories and ill-formed concepts, he will be able to return to God by following His message. Therefore, He sent Prophet Muhammad, as the final messenger and gave him the Qur’an containing the divine message and guaranteed that the Qur’an would remain intact, free from any distortion, till the end of time. The name He has chosen for His message was Islam, which is derived from the essence of divine faith, preached by all prophets, namely, surrender or submission to God alone.
It is in this sense that the Prophet, peace be upon him, mentions that every child is born with the Islamic nature instilled in him. In other words, every child has the natural inclination to submit to God. Outside influences, however, may distort his view and cause him not to see the truth of the divine faith. One of the most important outside influences, is the upbringing of every child. Family and social factors are largely responsible for the development of a child’s approach to life as he grows up. When a person grows up in a society, which has no knowledge of the faith of Islam, it is most unlikely that he will discover Islam and submit to it by himself, unless he is helped by certain circumstances. It is to this that the Prophet, peace be upon him, refers in the second part of the same Hadith when he says: “It is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Magian.” That is because they teach their children this or that religion and, by doing so, they greatly increase the chances of their children growing in these faith. Nevertheless, when a person learns about the faith of the Oneness of God and studies its concepts, and considers its principles and values objectively, he is bound to conclude that the religion of Islam is the most logical, simple and straightforward religion. If he chooses to be consistent and to conduct his life on the basis of the faith, which he knows to be correct one, he will follow Islam. If he decides not to do so, it will be only because he prefers some other methods, interests, relationships or certain practices to regulating his life on the basis of Islamic terminology. He then follows his vain desires. ~
May I ask why there continues to be in our world three religions that profess to believe in the One Divine Being, i.e. God? With our new means of communications, it makes sense that all three should be one and single faith. Had earlier centuries had our means of communications; perhaps there would not have been a development of three different religions. Please comment.
We may agree with our reader if we consider that religion is a human development that results from the overall conditions of human society. But religion is not so. It is a message given by God to a person whom He selects and honors with the task of conveying it intact to his community in the first place, or to mankind generally, as in the case of Islam. God certainly knows best to which community He should address His message, and through which person in that community. Over the centuries He has sent warners, prophets and messengers to all communities. All these have advocated that worship should be addressed to no one other than God. Some of His messengers faced greater tasks and more determined opposition than others did. These were endowed with greater capabilities and more determined resolve. He has described in such terms 5 of His messengers, namely, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad [peace be on them all]. The messages of the last three initiated the three great religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
God has undertaken upon Himself the task of maintaining the Islamic message intact for all time. He says in the Qur'an
“It is We who have bestowed this Reminder [i.e. the Qur’an,] from on high, and it is We who shall truly guard it [from all corruption]” (15: 9)
He has not done so with any of the earlier messages He had given to earlier prophets. Hence, these were subject to modification or distortion. For example, the concept of trinity in Christianity was introduced long after the end of Christian revelations vouchsafed to Jesus Christ.