What is Allah waiting on to intervene?

THE CHRISTIANS say Jesus, the Messiah, sent by God, was crucified, ascended to Heaven, but will be coming back to redeem this world where bloodshed by violent means occurs daily. The Jews are still waiting for that messiah; they call him Moshiach. For, they say he is yet to come. Now, what do the Muslims have to say about the lack of intervention from Allah to stop the eternal bloodletting.

Founded by Muhammad, Islam is an Arab religion which means submission, and Allah is the Arab word for God. It is regarded as the “original religion of all mankind” who were created to serve Allah. According to Muslims, Allah created the world in six days and sent prophets such as Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, and Muhammad, who called people to worship only Him, rejecting idolatry and all other gods. According to the Islamic statement of witness, or shahada, “There is no god but Allah”.

Allah is also the master of the Day of Judgment, when the good, especially believers, will be sent to their heavenly reward, and the wicked, especially unbelievers, will be dispatched to hellfire. Muslims claim to reject physical descriptions of Allah, yet the Qur’an (Islam’s Holy Book) describes him as speaking, sitting on a throne, and having a face, eyes and hands.

In their prayers and on other occasions (including battles and street protests), Muslims declare that Allah is the greater than anything else. Allah created the order of the universe in great detail to allow man to grasp His greatness. He has power over all things, and encompasses all things in His knowledge. Every event that has taken place since the creation of time, until deep into eternity, was predetermined and ended in Allah’s sight.

Allah also possesses the power to create many other things beyond our limited imagination. He sends down to us only that which He wills, all within a measured predetermined time. Allah has created many worlds and beings which we cannot see. And, indeed, in a nature unknown to us, Allah will create Paradise and Hell. Because Allah’s power and might is infinite, anything can happen, and at any time, by His will.

Allah, then, is an all omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent being who has the ability to do whatever he wants, and when he wants to. Yet, his followers – Muslims – like many other religious peoples, have been going through years of woes and sorrows, trials and tribulations, death and destruction.

And, since October 7, Muslims in Palestine are being killed daily ever since Hamas, who are Muslims, attacked Israel and killed over 1,700 Israelis. The question then is, ‘Where is Allah, the divine, in all of this bloodshed? The Sunday Gleaner reached out to Sheik Musa Tijani of Central Masjid at 24 Camp Road in St Andrew for his perspective.

Like Christians, every Muslim believes that Jesus is coming back to Earth. And there are many signs that say that he is coming soon. “Everything turn upside down,” said Sheik Tijani, a clear sign that the end is near, but it is not now. Why not? Because, he said, all the things that must take place before his arrival are yet to come to pass. “We take all of what is happening now as a test from Almighty God,” he stated, but the ultimate test is yet to come, and so, the Messiah is not yet ready to come.

Importantly, in Islam, there is no ‘saviour’, so to speak. “No, we don’t believe in that!” Sheik Tijani exclaimed. “We believe in check and balance … We need to check ourselves,” he asserted, and then surmised that all that is happening might just be some form of purification for disobeying God, especially in secret. So, it is about obeying God, doing the right things, and preparing for his coming.

Repentance is integral to this preparedness, and those who have died innocently are not really dead but are gone to be with the Almighty God in Paradise. And that is the reason why Muslims are so silent, despite the mayhem and bloodletting, which is in fact a clear sign that the end is near. And the Messenger of Allah had already predicted what is happening. “It’s a wake-up call for Muslims to go back, young and old, scholar and ordinary, back to … checking and balancing of the things we do in life,” Sheik Tijani said.