TRUE OBJECT OF VENERATION
From Creation to the Creator
TO believe in God is to see the invisible force behind visible objects. It is to see through superficial irrelevancies to the ultimate reality that lies hidden in all things. It is to acknowledge that all things come from God. It is to see God as the Supreme Being.
A true believer is never enamoured of the external splendour of worldly things. He is not awed by material grandeur, for he knows that it, like himself, is the creation of God. He does not look to other human beings for the fulfillment of his needs, for he knows that they are helpless before their Maker. So absorbed does he become in God’s glory that he never loses the smallest opportunity to sing hymns to His greatness.
Man has an innate need to have someone or something to look up to and depend upon in life. This is a strong and instinctive urge. But if, in order to satisfy it, man chooses as the object of his veneration some thing or person other than the Almighty, then he is worshipping something which is false. He thus debases himself in the process. In ancient times, the awe inspired by natural phenomena, such as the sun and the moon permeated every aspect of human life.
In more recent times, however, man has become more materialistic
and has chosen to worship wealth and the greatness of other human
beings. But whether man worships some aspect of nature, or the purely
material in life, he is going sadly astray, for the only Being deserving
of his obeisance is God Almighty. In one’s search for the truth one
must be prepared to pass by the whole of creation until one reaches
the Creator and Sustainer Himself. The phenomena of nature offer
a believer myriad ways to realize and acknowledge God. The Quran
mentions:
In the creation of the heavens and the Earth; in the alternation of night
and day; in the ships that sail the ocean bearing cargoes beneficial
to man; in the water which God sends down from the sky and with
which He revives the earth after its death, scattering over it all kinds
of animals; in the courses of the winds, and in the clouds pressed into
service between Earth and sky, there are indeed signs for people who
use their reason. (2: 164)