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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What is the purpose of God?

Why would God create people only if they acknowledge her/his existence and follow her/his teachings? Is that self-serving - to create some creatures only to pass judgment on them if they don't put you first?

Why are most religions beneficial to males and place females in the role of being subservient to males? What is the purpose of this?

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Normally, when I meet an atheist, the first thing I like to do is to congratulate him and say, " My special congratulations to you", because most of the people who believe in God are doing blind belief - he is a Christian, because his father is a Christian; he is a Hindu, because his father is a Hindu; the majority of the people in the world are blindly following the religion of their fathers. An atheist, on the other hand, even though he may belong to a religious family, uses his intellect to deny the existence of God; what ever concept or qualities of God he may have learnt in his religion may not seem to be logical to him.

When a Muslim addresses this topic, we have to find our understanding from Divine Revelation and not human speculation. Because human speculation has no bounds; we can imagine all kinds of things and if any of you has studied philosophy of religion, you will know how many opinions there are about the creation of man and existence. Because of the variety of philosophies which are out there, no one can say this one is correct or that one is incorrect, because there is no guidance behind it. No Divine Revelation. It is only from Divine Revelation that we can determine the reality of our creation, because it is Allah who has created us and so He knows the purpose of our creation. We can hardly understand it ourselves, much less trying to understand the essence of things. So it is for Allah to inform us through the revelation in the Qur'an and the sunnah (the Prophetic traditions) which were brought to us by His Last Messenger and the Messengers before him.

Now if we are to look initially into revelation, to determine why was man created, there is a deeper question that we should be asking before that: "Why did God create?" This before we even get to man because man is not the greatest act of creation. Allah says:

"The creation of the Heavens and the Earth is indeed greater then the creation of mankind; yet, most of mankind know not."
[Al-Qur'an 40:57]
Man is not the greatest act of creation, this universe is far more complex and far more magnificent than man. So the issue of creation should then go to, "Why did God create?", as opposed to simply, "Why create man?"

Fundamentally, we can say that the creation is the natural consequence of the attribute of creator. Allah is the creator. That is one of his attributes. That is what he has informed us. That being his attribute, the creator, the natural consequence or the product of this attribute is his creation.

A painter, if we are to draw a similitude on a lower level, who tells you that he is a painter, if you ask him where are his paintings and he replies I don't have any. What kind of painter is this? The concept of a painter who doesn't paint, there is some thing not quite gelling together here, of course Allah is beyond this. But if we are to understand on the simplest level, the two go together. The perfection of a painter lies in his paintings. His quality and his ability to paint, is manifest in his paintings. And Allah, beyond all that, as creator, this quality of creation is manifest in the creation itself. Allah didn't create out of a need. No, the fact that he is the creator, is manifest in the creation.

Furthermore, consider the act of creation, this act, with regards to Allah is unique. Though we use the term i.e. So and so created a table etc, actually it is in a limited sense. Human beings don't really create, they manipulate, because they can only "create" what already exists. When we make a chair or a table, we didn't create the wood, we had to take it from a tree, we didn't create the metal, which makes the screws etc, we had to melt down rocks and take the metal out. So we are not creating from nothing. We are manipulating things which Allah has already created in to different shapes and forms which are useful to us. We call it "creation" but the real act of creation, is creation from nothing, and this is unique to Allah alone.

Therefore when we look for the purpose of worship, we have to look into man. Allah created us to worship him, because we need to worship him. It is something he has given us as a means of benefiting ourselves. We are the ones who benefit from it. Worship has been established, fundamentally for the growth, the spiritual growth of man. This growth takes place through the remembrance of Allah. When you look at all the different aspects of worship, you will see the core of it is focused on the remembrance of Allah.

"Establish the prayer for My remembrance."

Worship is there for us to remember Allah. And it is in the remembrance of Allah, that we achieve that consciousness. Because it is when we forget Allah, that Shaytan causes us to disobey Allah and fall into sin. So it is only in His remembrance that we can attain salvation. All of the various acts of worship from saying "Bismillah" when we eat is to help us remember Allah in order to grow spiritually.

Allah has said that he has created us to test us, to see which of us is best in deeds. He is not testing us to know, in the sense that he doesn't already know, but this world is a test for us in order again that we can grow spiritually.

We cannot develop this spiritual characteristic of generosity unless some of us have more then others and then we are required to give of the wealth we have. When we give, we grow. Similarly, if we were not in a position where others had more then us then we wouldn't have the ability to develop the higher spiritual quality of contentment, patience, satisfaction in what Allah has given us.

So it is all there in order to bring out the higher spiritual qualities, which enable us to attain the state, which makes us suitable and eligible to return to paradise. The paradise from which we were created, we were created in paradise and for paradise. Through our choices we have left, in this life, a field of testing, where we can grow to a state where we deserve paradise.
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