Life is about ongoing conversation – and interaction – with God Almighty. And it does not matter whether you are Muslim or non-Muslim, believer or nonbeliever.
The most formal and mostly one-way communication from God to his creation is Wahy. This is what people generally call “revelation.” But in reality it is God directly talking to his creation – which he does in many ways, and choosing and pressing into service modalities and instrumentalities he likes.
Of the highest form of this Wahy is the communication – messages – God sent to the men he chose as his trusted prophets and messengers. May God bless them all!
I am saying “chose,” using past tense, because the office of “Prophet” or “Messenger” was ended with the advent of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, in this world over 1400 years ago.
I also said “men” because God declares in the Qur’an that all prophets and messengers were men. End of story.
God’s communication to his creation – including human beings – takes several forms. One is direct interchange of “talk” between God and his creation.
When God Almighty spoke to Moses, it was direct communication between the two without any intermediaries of any kind.
Otherwise, people talk to God all the time. Using languages and methods and devices they know.
And God “talks” to them too. Note how I have put the word “talks” in quotes as it refers to God.
Because who can ever characterize God’s communication in any way other than what he himself has chosen to tell us – in the Qur’an and through his prophets and messengers, may God bless them, last of whom was Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.
The greatest contribution Islam made to human civilization was to tell human beings that they – each and every one of them, male as well as female – must try and learn to communicate with God directly and personally – and without intermediaries of any kind.
This was total and most sweeping revolution in the way humans were used to doing business with God.
Muslims communicate with God directly and in person – and following a most formal set of routines – during what is called the five daily “prayers” or Swalaat.
Starting from that most glorious and formal pinnacle of divinely sanctioned and tutored human discourse with God, in the form of Islamic “prayers” or Swalaah, Muslims, and all other people of all faiths or no faith, “talk” to God the way they see fit and as needs and circumstances – and trouble and emergencies – come calling, which they do all the time in this world with regard to all people.
And God "talks" to them all how and when he sees fit.
And the Qur'an is a continuous and unceasing flow of conversation stream from God directed at human beings -- and all the worlds. Whoever gets upstream with this nonstop flow of light and love, reaches God, where he will find God ready and waiting for him with a great welcome.
Some merely cry out to him in heart-rending screams as pain strikes them in a plethora of forms and situations. His guarantee to them all is: “I respond to you when you call me.”
And as for the cries of those in pain and in distress, Allah says, he hears them too, when no one else can or will.
And when it comes to those suffering from any kind of oppression, injustice and egregious wrongdoing on the part of their fellow-human beings, especially those in positions of power, wealth, authority and influence over them, then his doors are open all the time – and their cries reach him without hindrance.
What a God! Who would want a God besides him?
END
(Dr. Pasha)
