Sunday, October 21, 2012

The Benefits of 'La ilaha Illa Allah'


لا اله إلا الله are the words of oath which will differentiate good and bad. It means there is ‘no God except Allah SWT. It is an exclusion statement of the existence of other gods that can be submitted except Allah SWT.

It is a definite message carried out by all prophets of Allah SWT across the time and place, since the Prophet of Adam as to Muhammad PBUH (Peace be upon him). The main purpose of the message is to self-introducing of human being as created creatures and at the same time to acknowledge the Almighty Creator of all creatures. This oath will establish the recognition of boundaries between the right of creatures toward creatures and the right of creatures toward the Creator.

Al-Imam Fakhruddin Al-Razi in his book Aja’ib Al-Quran (عجائب القرءان) stated that the words لا اله إلا الله give a lot of benefits to the human kind such as:-

These words are the best ‘zikr’ in which the enemy of Allah and the people of God will spell it despite of hardship or suffer.

As an instance, at the time that Firaun was about to sink down and drowning in the deep sea, he spelt out “I believe that there is no god except in whom the children of Israel believe” امنت أنه لا إله إلا الذي امنت به بنو إسرائيل (Surah Yunus : 90). This submission was done at the time that there is no other hope available for him. But Allah knows best, that this submission is due to his fear towards the disaster provided by Allah SWT in front of him not the fear towards the disaster Provider.

Al-Imam Fakhruddin Al-Razi suggested that: there is no god who can change fire as a good place for resting as in a story of Prophet Ibrahim AS and who can make water as a big disaster for firaun except Allah SWT.

On the other hand, the Prophet Yunus as while in the stomach of whale, Allah SWT mentioned in the Al-Quran “And he called out within the darknesses, “There is no diety except You; exalted are you. Indeed, I have been of the wrongdoers.”

فنادي في الظلمات أن لا إله إلا أنت سبحانك إني كنت من الظالمين (Al-Anbiya’: 87)

O Allah, there is no god except you who is taking care a man inside the stomach of whale. This oath is a manifestation of true love and total submission of the Prophet Yunus AS toward Allah SWT who is not bonded into any other related element as a condition for his submission.

The above stories shown that there is no preliminary reasons and conditions should be attached in order to give a full submission and total surrender to Allah SWT, the one and only. The reasons and conditions may divert the true submission towards other related things which it is supposed to be pure and holistic in nature.

The above stories gave a few benefits:-

  1. The Prophet Yunus AS shown us an example of a truly submission to Allah SWT in which the total submission had being given solely to Allah SWT long time ago prior to the tragedy happened. The pray that he made while inside the stomach of whale is a proof of the truly submission that the only source of power that he had is only Allah SWT. Meanwhile, Firaun did the same was due to his frightening experience not because of the feeling having a God, the Creator and the Almighty.
  2. The Prophet Yunus AS spelt the oath with a vivid and precise condition not like Firaun which was still put the element of ambiguity, confuse and doubt.
  3. Firaun provided an oath by replicating the believe of Bani Israil but the Prophet Yunus AS made an oath based on strong facts and clear confidence.



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