Part-time God
In Islamic philosophies, there is a concept known as Istidraj. The notion tells us that a gift from God, like wealth and intelligence, can be given to a person not because he is loved by God, but because he is hated by Him.
Malaysian Muslims are taught about this in schools, and unwelcomely they are frequented with examples of Non-Muslims when they are blessed with wealth.
“How can Mark Zuckerberg be rich if he’s not a Muslim?”, some students would ask.
“Istidraj. He’s rich but it’s a sign of wrath from God.”, would be the typical response.
Putting aside whether religion should be institutionalised to this extent (let’s save that for another discussion), this kind of mentality is seriously disturbing not just psychologically, but spiritually as well.
The flaw here is not necessarily the concept per se, but the thought process of how people arrive to that concept — How would you know what God is thinking about a person?
This is when many Muslims (especially in Malaysia), like to play part-time Gods.
When there’s rain during an outdoor event that we organised, we say it’s a blessing from God. But when an event is organised by someone that we dislike, and it rains, we say it’s a sign of hatred from God.
Well, how would we know?
Abdul Rahman ibn ‘Awf was one of the companions (Sahabah) of Prophet Muhammad. He is known for being one of the richest businessmen in Mecca. When he died, he was worth around 3.1 billion dinars, which is US$527 billion dollars today. That’s roughly 5 times more than Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.
Other than being super rich, he is also known for being one of the Ten Promised Paradise. These are the 10 companions who were promised Heaven by the Prophet.
The thing is, he wasn’t born as a Muslim. He converted to Islam. Hypothetically, if we were to take one of the Malaysian Muslims to the time when Abdul Rahman hasn’t converted to Islam, most likely he’d say Abdul Rahman is rich because it’s a sign of wrath from God (using the logic of every non-Muslim who’s rich is a sign of wrath). Even though Abdul Rahman’s actually promised Heaven by God.
I’m not trying to base my argument solely on religious reasonings. I prefer logical reasoning over a religious one anyway, since it’s applicable to everyone. I’m just trying to ‘belt and suspenders’ this argument.
What I’m saying is — assuming you know what God is thinking, is wrong in both logical and religious reasonings.
When a person is rich, when it rains, when things go bad for the people you hate, you can never know why God decided for those things to happen.
Because you are not God.
Stop saying things on behalf of God. The big problem with playing God is you will ignore the causation of any given event.
- Tsunami in Indonesia? “That is because of the homosexuals in Indonesia”. Instead of studying the science behind it so we can predict tsunamis in the future.
- The person you hate scores the exam? “That’s because God hates him”. Instead of studying what he did right so that we can score in exams too.
It’s ironic how in Islam, there’s only one sin that’s considered as “unforgivable” — Shirk. It’s the sin of polytheism, which is to think there’s another God other than Allah.
It’s funny how many Muslims like to judge sinners when they see one. When they see a woman who does not dress modestly, they will judge them and say things like “God hates you”.
Little that he know, in that process, he said something to show that he knows what God is thinking. Little that he know, he’s playing a part-time God. Which is to say, there’s more than one God.
