IDEA 14
The Certainties of Neediness
When we refer to GOD as the Creator, we are describing His Eternal Capacity to create. He does not need to be constantly creating to be The Creator. Such a need would constitute a dependence, while AL-LĀH is transcendently and absolutely Independent. (IIQ, page 422)
If I were to present ‘Ideas Inspired by the Qur’an’ to some random adult here in Canada and ask him/her to read a few pages of it, he/she would very likely hand it back to me with a sneer or a sigh and say, ‘Thanks, but I don’t need this.’ He/she might add, ‘I’m doing fine without God,’ or something even ruder or more abrasive.
I would have more luck handing out flyers about a new political party, or food prices, or dangers to our water supply. To win his/her attention, I would have to address one of his/her vital needs.
Most people feel they do not need to know GOD or love GOD or even think of GOD. But they need food, water, air, and so on — the products of a healthy environment. But what does that environment need? A planet, with its land masses, oceans, and atmosphere, and a source of energy, the sun. And those need constant permutations of physical forces to function. And those, in turn, needed … a cosmic explosion? Something that happened 13.8 billion years ago? And that needed … ?
We are not wrong to concentrate on our daily, local needs, but our existential poverty actually draws on the entire universe, and then some. Everything in the universe has the same potentially infinite destitution. O mankind, you are in need of GOD, and GOD is Free of need, Deserving Praise. (Q35:15) When GOD says, ‘You need Me,’ He is not expressing a commensurate need for us (contrary to the degraded logic of Ibnul-‘Arabi and his followers) but rather a simple fact.
When someone says, ‘I don’t need God,’ he/she is telling us that an arbitrary line is being drawn between him/her and the rest of the universe, between his/her immediate concerns (which are valid) and a reality that is given us not to be comprehended but just acknowledged.
A simple nod in GOD’s direction would be a nice start. It would signal that yes, we are preoccupied, disinclined to think grand thoughts and engage in laborious acts of devotion, yet we do not deny that we came into this world as fuqara, as needy beings. We admit to having little time to recognize that overwhelming fact before we leave this place. And then? We return to One Who put us here to have us give that nod, that grateful smile, that humble word of thanks for everything.
‘What did you learn? Only that you were fine? That you never needed Me?’
Download the PDF version for free at Ideas Inspired by the Qur’ān – Mont Redmond complete version, or purchase a hard copy at Ideas Inspired by the Qur’an: Redmond, Mont: 9781738842506: Books – Amazon.ca.
