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SAYINGS OF FOUR CALIPHS

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Friday, November 23, 2012

ARTICLE ON ALLAH

 

ARTICLE ON ALLAH

 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allah

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This article is about the Arabic word "Allah". For the Islamic view of God, see God in Islam.
For other uses, see Allah (disambiguation).
Allah
Allāh - (الله)
Islamic God
◈ ◈
Allah (English pronunciation: /ˈælə/ or /ˈɑːlə/; Arabic: الله‎ Allāh, IPA: [ʔɑlˈlɑː] ( listen), [ʔalˤˈlˤɑː]) is a word for God. In Arabic, the word means simply "the God."[1][2][3] It is used mainly by Muslims,[4] Arab Christians, and often, albeit not exclusively, by Bahá'ís, Arabic-speakers, Indonesian, Malaysian and Maltese Christians, Mizrahi Jews and Sikhs.[5][6][7]

Contents

Etymology


The Arabic components that build-up the word "Allah":
1. alif
2. hamzat waṣl (همزة وصل)
3. lām
4. lām
5. shadda (شدة)
6. dagger alif (ألف خنجرية)
7. hāʾ
The term Allāh is derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- "the" and ʾilāh "deity, god" to al-lāh meaning "the [sole] deity, God" (ὁ θεὸς μόνος, ho theos monos).[8] Cognates of the name "Allāh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic.[9] Biblical Hebrew mostly uses the plural form (but functional singular) Elohim. The corresponding Aramaic form is ʼĔlāhā ܐܠܗܐ in Biblical Aramaic and ʼAlâhâ ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ in Syriac as used by the Assyrian Church, both meaning simply "God".[10] In the Sikh scriptures, Guru Granth Sahib, the term Allah (Punjabi: ਅਲਹੁ) is used 37 times.[11]
The name was previously used by pagan Meccans as a reference to a creator deity, possibly the supreme deity in pre-Islamic Arabia.[12][13] The concepts associated with the term Allah (as a deity) differ among religious traditions. In pre-Islamic Arabia amongst pagan Arabs, Allah was not considered the sole divinity, having associates and companions, sons and daughters–a concept that was deleted under the process of Islamization. In Islam, the name Allah is the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name, and all other divine names are believed to refer back to Allah.[14] Allah is unique, the only Deity, creator of the universe and omnipotent.[5][6] Arab Christians today use terms such as Allāh al-ʾAb (الله الأب, "God the Father") to distinguish their usage from Muslim usage.[15] There are both similarities and differences between the concept of God as portrayed in the Qur'an and the Hebrew Bible.[16] It has also been applied to certain living human beings as personifications of the term and concept.[17][18]
Unicode has a codepoint reserved for Allāh, ﷲ = U+FDF2.[19] Many Arabic type fonts feature special ligatures for Allah.[20]

Usage in Arabic

Pre-Islamic Arabia

In pre-Islamic Arabia, Allah was used by Meccans as a reference to the creator-god, possibly the supreme deity.[21] Allah was not considered the sole divinity; however, Allah was considered the creator of the world and the giver of rain. The notion of the term may have been vague in the Meccan religion.[8] Allah was associated with companions, whom pre-Islamic Arabs considered as subordinate deities. Meccans held that a kind of kinship existed between Allah and the jinn.[22] Allah was thought to have had sons[23] and that the local deities of al-ʿUzzā, Manāt and al-Lāt were His daughters.[24] The Meccans possibly associated angels with Allah.[25][26] Allah was invoked in times of distress.[26][27] Muhammad's father's name was ʿAbd-Allāh meaning "the slave of Allāh".[26]

Islam

Main article: God in Islam
See also: Names of God in the Qur'an

Medallion showing 'Allah' in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey.
According to Islamic belief, Allah is the proper name of God,[28] and humble submission to His Will, Divine Ordinances and Commandments is the pivot of the Muslim faith.[5] "He is the only God, creator of the universe, and the judge of humankind."[5][6] "He is unique (wāḥid) and inherently one (ʾaḥad), all-merciful and omnipotent."[5] The Qur'an declares "the reality of Allah, His inaccessible mystery, His various names, and His actions on behalf of His creatures."[5]

Allah script outside Eski Cami (The Old Mosque) in Edirne, Turkey.
In Islamic tradition, there are 99 Names of God (al-ʾasmāʾ al-ḥusnā lit. meaning: "The best names") each of which evoke a distinct characteristic of Allah.[6][29] All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and all-comprehensive divine name.[14] Among the 99 names of God, the most famous and most frequent of these names are "the Merciful" (ar-raḥmān) and "the Compassionate" (al-raḥīm).[6][29]
Most Muslims use the untranslated Arabic phrase ʾinšāʾ Allāh (meaning "God willing") after references to future events.[30] Muslim discursive piety encourages beginning things with the invocation of bismi-llāh (meaning "In the name of God").[31]
There are certain phrases in praise of God that are favored by Muslims, including "Subhan-Allah" (Holiness be to God), "Alhamdulillah" (Praise be to God), lā ʾilāha ʾilla-llāh (There is no deity but God) and "Allāhu Akbar" (God is great) as a devotional exercise of remembering God (zikr).[32] In a Sufi practice known as zikr Allah (lit. remembrance of God), the Sufi repeats and contemplates on the name Allah or other divine names while controlling his or her breath.[33]
Some scholars[who?] have suggested that Muhammad used the term Allah in addressing both pagan Arabs and Jews or Christians in order to establish a common ground for the understanding of the name for God, a claim Gerhard Böwering says is doubtful.[28] According to Böwering, in contrast with pre-Islamic Arabian polytheism, God in Islam does not have associates and companions nor is there any kinship between God and jinn.[28] Pre-Islamic pagan Arabs believed in a blind, powerful, inexorable and insensible fate over which man had no control. This was replaced with the Islamic notion of a powerful but provident and merciful God.[34]
According to Francis Edwards Peters, "The Qur'an insists, Muslims believe, and historians affirm that Muhammad and his followers worship the same God as the Jews (29:46). The Koran's Allah is the same Creator God who covenanted with Abraham". Peters states that the Qur'an portrays Allah as both more powerful and more remote than Yahweh, and as a universal deity, unlike Yahweh who closely follows Israelites.[16]

Christianity

The Aramaic word for "God" in the language of Assyrian Christians is ʼĔlāhā, or Alaha. Arabic-speakers of all Abrahamic faiths, including Christians and Jews, use the word "Allah" to mean "God".[7] The Christian Arabs of today have no other word for 'God' than 'Allah'.[15] (Even the Arabic-descended Maltese language of Malta, whose population is almost entirely Roman Catholic, uses Alla for 'God'.) Arab Christians for example use terms Allāh al-ʾab (الله الأب) meaning God the Father, Allāh al-ibn (الله الابن) mean God the Son, and Allāh ar-rūḥ al-quds (الله الروح القدس) meaning God the Holy Spirit. (See God in Christianity for the Christian concept of God.)
Arab Christians have used two forms of invocations that were affixed to the beginning of their written works. They adopted the Muslim bismi-llah, and also created their own Trinitized bismi-llah as early as the eight century CE.[35] The Muslim bismi-llah reads: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." The Trinitized bismi-llah reads: "In the name of Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God." The Syriac, Latin and Greek invocations do not have the words "One God" at the end. This addition was made to emphasize the monotheistic aspect of Trinitian belief and also to make it more palatable to Muslims.[35]
According to Marshall Hodgson, it seems that in the pre-Islamic times, some Arab Christians made pilgrimage to the Kaaba, a pagan temple at that time, honoring Allah there as God the Creator.[36]

Judaism

Main articles: Mizrahi Jews and Names of God in Judaism
As Hebrew and Arabic are closely related Semitic languages, it is commonly accepted that Allah (root, ʾilāh) and the Biblical Elohim are cognate derivations of same origin, as in Eloah a Hebrew word which is used (e.g. in the Book of Job) to mean "(the) God" and also "god or gods" as in the case of Elohim, ultimately deriving from the root El, "strong", possibly genericized from El (deity), as in the Ugaritic 'lhm "children of El" (the ancient Near Eastern creator god in pre-Abrahamic tradition).
In Jewish scripture Elohim is used as a descriptive title for the God of the scriptures whose name is YHWH, as well as for pagan gods.

As a loanword

English and other European languages

This article is part of a series on:
Islam
Allah-eser-green.png
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The history of the word "Allāh" in English was probably influenced by the study of comparative religion in 19th century; for example, Thomas Carlyle (1840) sometimes used the term Allah but without any implication that Allah was anything different from God. However, in his biography of Muhammad (1934), Tor Andræ always used the term Allah, though he allows that this 'conception of God' seems to imply that it is different from that of the Jewish and Christian theologies.[37]
Languages which may not commonly use the term Allah to denote God may still contain popular expressions which use the word. For example, because of the centuries long Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula, the word ojalá in the Spanish language and oxalá in the Portuguese language exist today, borrowed from Arabic (Arabic: إن شاء الله). This word literally means "God willing" (in the sense of "I hope so").[38] The German poet Mahlmann used the form "Allah" as the title of a poem about the ultimate deity, though it is unclear how much Islamic thought he intended to convey.
Some Muslims leave the name "Allāh" untranslated in English.[39]

Malaysian and Indonesian language


The first dictionary of Dutch-Malay by A.C. Ruyl, Justus Heurnius, and Caspar Wiltens in 1650 recorded "Allah" as the translation of the Dutch word "Godt".
Christians in Indonesia and Malaysia also use Allah to refer to God in the Malaysian language and Indonesian language (both languages forms of the Malay language which is referred to as Bahasa Melayu).
Mainstream Bible translations in both languages use Allah as the translation of Hebrew Elohim (translated in English Bibles as "God").[40] This goes back to early translation work by Francis Xavier in the 16th century.[41][42] The first dictionary of Dutch-Malay by A.C. Ruyl, Justus Heurnius, and Caspar Wiltens in 1650 (revised edition from 1623 edition and 1631 Latin-edition) recorded "Allah" as the translation of the Dutch word "Godt".[43] Ruyl also translated Matthew in 1612 to Malay language (first Bible translation to non-European language, only a year after King James Version was published[44][45]), which was printed in the Netherlands in 1629. Then he translated Mark which was published in 1638.[46][47]
The government of Malaysia in 2007 outlawed usage of the term Allah in any other but Muslim contexts, but the High Court in 2009 revoked the law, ruling that it was unconstitutional. While Allah had been used for the Christian God in Malay for more than four centuries, the contemporary controversy was triggered by usage of Allah by the Roman Catholic newspaper The Herald. The government has in turn appealed the court ruling, and the High Court has suspended implementation of its verdict until the appeal is heard.

In other scripts and languages


Name of Allāh after the 17th century Ottoman calligrapher Hâfız Osman
Allāh in other languages with Arabic script is spelled in the same way. This includes Urdu, Persian/Dari, Uyghur among others.

Typography

The word Allāh is always written without an ʾalif to spell the ā vowel. This is because the spelling was settled before Arabic spelling started habitually using ʾalif to spell ā. However, in vocalized spelling, a small diacritic ʾalif is added on top of the šaddah to indicate the pronunciation.
One exception may be in the pre-Islamic Zabad inscription,[48] where it ends with an ambiguous sign that may be a lone-standing h with a lengthened start, or may be a non-standard conjoined l-h:-
  • الاه : This reading would be Allāh spelled phonetically with ʾalif for the ā.
  • الإله : This reading would be Al-ʾilāh = "the god" (an older form, without contraction), by older spelling practice without ʾalif for ā.

Unicode

Unicode has a codepoint reserved for Allāh, ﷲ‎ = U+FDF2. This character according to the official Unicode specification is a ligature of alif-lām-lām-shadda-(superscript alif)-hā (اللّٰه U+0627 U+0644 U+0644 U+0651 U+0670 U+0647).

An example of Allāh written in simple Arabic calligraphy.
There is, however some confusion arising from the fact that Arabic typography usually features a llāh glyph without the preceding ʾalif, which only occurs phrase-initially (or with hamzatu l-waṣl ٱ in Qur'anic orthography). Consequently, the majority of Arabic Unicode fonts do not conform with the specification and have a glyph without the alif at this position (e.g. those provided by Linotype, the great majority of those licensed to or developed by Microsoft, those of Arabeyes.org, SIL's Lateef and the fonts of CRULP developed in Pakistan), while others have the prescribed form with alif (e.g. SIL's Scheherazade, Adobe Arabic distributed with the Middle-Eastern version of the Adobe Reader 7, Arial Unicode MS, and Arabic Typesetting, distributed with VOLT and with Microsoft Office Proofing Tools 2003).
The calligraphic variant of the word used as the Coat of arms of Iran is encoded in Unicode, in the Miscellaneous Symbols range, at codepoint U+262B (☫).

See also

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Portal icon Religion portal

Notes

  1. ^ "God". Islam: Empire of Faith. PBS. Retrieved 18 December 2010.
  2. ^ "Islam and Christianity", Encyclopedia of Christianity (2001): Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews also refer to God as Allāh.
  3. ^ L. Gardet. "Allah". Encyclopaedia of Islam Online.
  4. ^ Merriam-Webster. "Allah". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 25 February 2012.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "Allah." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica
  6. ^ a b c d e Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, Allah
  7. ^ a b Columbia Encyclopedia, Allah
  8. ^ a b L. Gardet, Allah, Encyclopaedia of Islam
  9. ^ Columbia Encyclopaedia says: Derived from an old Semitic root referring to the Divine and used in the Canaanite El, the Mesopotamian ilu, and the biblical Elohim and Eloah, the word Allah is used by all Arabic-speaking Muslims, Christians, Jews, and other monotheists.
  10. ^ The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon – Entry for ʼlh
  11. ^ Guru Granth Sahib website (Search: ਅਲਹ|ਅਲਾਹ)
  12. ^ L. Gardet, "Allah", Encyclopedia of Islam
  13. ^ Smith, Peter (2000). "prayer". A concise encyclopedia of the Bahá'í Faith. Oxford: Oneworld Publications. pp. 274–275. ISBN 978-1-85168-184-6.
  14. ^ a b Murata, Sachiko (1992). The Tao of Islam : a sourcebook on gender relationships in Islamic thought. SUNY. ISBN 978-0-7914-0914-5.
  15. ^ a b Lewis, Bernard; Holt, P. M.; Holt, Peter R.; Lambton, Ann Katherine Swynford (1977). The Cambridge history of Islam. Cambridge, Eng: University Press. p. 32. ISBN 978-0-521-29135-4.
  16. ^ a b F.E. Peters, Islam, p.4, Princeton University Press, 2003
  17. ^ Nation of Islam – personification of Allah as Detroit peddler W D Fard
  18. ^ "A history of Clarence 13X and the Five Percenters", referring to Clarence Smith as Allah
  19. ^ Unicode Standard 5.0, p.479,492
  20. ^
  21. ^ See Qur'an 13:16 ; 29:61–63; 31:25; 39:38)
  22. ^ See Qur'an 37:158)
  23. ^ See Qur'an (6:100)
  24. ^ See Qur'an (53:19–22 ; 16:57 ; 37:149)
  25. ^ See Qur'an (53:26–27)
  26. ^ a b c Gerhard Böwering, God and his Attributes, Encyclopedia of the Qur'an
  27. ^ See Qur'an 6:109; 10:22; 16:38; 29:65)
  28. ^ a b c Böwering, Gerhard, God and His Attributes, Encyclopaedia of the Qurʼān, Brill, 2007.
  29. ^ a b Bentley, David (September 1999). The 99 Beautiful Names for God for All the People of the Book. William Carey Library. ISBN 978-0-87808-299-5.
  30. ^ Gary S. Gregg, The Middle East: A Cultural Psychology, Oxford University Press, p.30
  31. ^ Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Islamic Society in Practice, University Press of Florida, p. 24
  32. ^ M. Mukarram Ahmed, Muzaffar Husain Syed, Encyclopaedia of Islam,Anmol Publications PVT. LTD, p. 144
  33. ^ Carl W. Ernst, Bruce B. Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order in South Asia and Beyond, Macmillan, p. 29
  34. ^ Allah, Encyclopædia Britannica
  35. ^ a b Thomas E. Burman, Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, Brill, 1994, p. 103
  36. ^ Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, University of Chicago Press, p. 156
  37. ^ William Montgomery Watt, Islam and Christianity today: A Contribution to Dialogue, Routledge, 1983, p.45
  38. ^ Islam in Luce López Baralt, Spanish Literature: From the Middle Ages to the Present, Brill, 1992, p.25
  39. ^ F. E. Peters, The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition, Princeton University Press, p.12
  40. ^ Example: Usage of the word "Allah" from Matthew 22:32 in Indonesian bible versions (parallel view) as old as 1733
  41. ^ The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society Sneddon, James M.; University of New South Wales Press; 2004
  42. ^ The History of Christianity in India from the Commencement of the Christian Era: Hough, James; Adamant Media Corporation; 2001
  43. ^ Justus Heurnius, Albert Ruyl, Caspar Wiltens. "Vocabularium ofte Woordenboeck nae ordre van den alphabeth, in 't Duytsch en Maleys". 1650:65
  44. ^ Barton, John (2002–12). The Biblical World, Oxford, UK: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-27574-3.
  45. ^ North, Eric McCoy; Eugene Albert Nida ((2nd Edition) 1972). The Book of a Thousand Tongues, London: United Bible Societies.
  46. ^ (Indonesian) Biography of Ruyl
  47. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica: Albert Cornelius Ruyl
  48. ^ "Zebed Inscription: A Pre-Islamic Trilingual Inscription In Greek, Syriac & Arabic From 512 CE". Islamic Awareness. 17 March 2005.

References

External links

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STORIES OF PROPHETS/COMPANIONS

Stories of the Prophets & Stories of Companions & Wives of SAW


SOURCE: http://www.angelfire.com/on/ummiby1/

Assalamu alaikum warahmatulaahi wabarakaatuh.

Welcome, I hope you enjoy this page.
Please feel free to email me your comments and suggestions.If you wish to use these stories in your own website please add my link to yours as well as not changing anything on the stories as they are apart of Ibn Kathir's version and by changing it you are making it your own words when it is not. Again these are not my own actual words, nor my own stories, and none of these are out of my own research. They were taken from the Ibn Kathir's version and I got permission from the publishers back in early 1998 to publish it onto my website in order to get the message across. None of these are my own words so please do not ask me to do more research on this behalf. Till then take care. Please be patient as I'm adding more things as I go along.

MENU
1. Prophet Adam 2. Prophet Idris (Enoch)
3. Prophet Nuh (Noah) 4. Prophet Hud
5. Prophet Salih 6. Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham)
7. Prophet Ishmael 8. Prophet Jacob
9. Prophet Lut 10. Prophet Shuaib
11. Prophet Joseph (Yusuf) 12. Prophet Job (Ayoub)
13. Prophet Jonah (Yunus) 14. Prophet Musa (Moses) & Aaron (Harun)
15. Others1 16. Prophet Ezekiel (Hizqeel)
17. Prophet Elisha (Elyas) 18. Prophet Samuel
19. Prophet Dawud (David) 20. Prophet Solomon (Sulaiman)
21. Others2 22. Prophet Zakariyah & Yahya
23. Prophet Isa (Jesus) 24. Prophet Muhammad
25. Story of Dhul-Kifl 26. Story of Dwellers of Ar-Rass
27. Story of Yasin People
Introduction Wives of the Prophet (SAW) Khadijah bint Khuwaylid Sawda bint Zama
Aisha Siddiqa bint Abu Bakr Hafsa bint Umar Zaynab bint Khuzayma Umm Salama Hind bint Abi Umayya
Zaynab bint Jahsh Juwayriya bint al Harith
Umm Habiba Ramla bint Abi Sufyan Safiya bint Huyayy Maymuna bint al Harith Maria al Qibtiyya Conclusion
NEW!
Abbad Ibn Bishr Abdullah Ibn Abbas Abdullah ibn Hudhafah As-Sahmi Abdullah Ibn Jahsh Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud Abdullah Ibn Sallam
Abdullah ibn Umar Abdullah ibn Umm Maktum Abdur-Rahman ibn Awf Abu Ayyub Al-Ansari Abu Dharr Al-Ghifari Abu Musa AL-Ashari
Abu Hurayrah Abu Sufyan Ibn Al-Harith Abu Ubaydah Ibn Al-Jarrah Abu-d Dardaa Abu-l Aas ibn ar-Rabiah Adiyy Ibn Hatim
Aishah bint Abi Bakr Al-Baraa Ibn Malil Al-Ansari/a> Amr Ibn Al-Jamuh An-Nuayman Ibn Amr An-Numan Ibn Muqarrin At-Tufayl Ibn Amr Ad-Dawsi
Asmaa Bint Abu Bakr Barakah Fatimah Bint Muhammad Fayruz Ad-Daylami Habib Ibn Zayd Al-Ansari Hakim Ibn Hazm
Hudhayfah Ibn Al-Yaman Ikrimah Ibn Abi Jahl Jafar Ibn Abi Talib Julaybib Khabbab Ibn Al-Aratt Muadh Ibn Jabal
Muhammad Ibn Maslamah Musab Ibn Umayr Nuaym Ibn Masud Rabiah Ibn Kab Ramlah Bint Abi Sufyan Rumaysa Bint Milhan
Sad Ibn Abi Waqqas Said Ibn Aamir Al-Jumahi Said Ibn Zayd Salim Mawla Abi Hudhayfah Salman Al-FarsiSuhayb Ar-Rumi
Suhayl Ibn Amr Talhah ibn Ubaydullah Thabit Ibn Qays Thumamah Ibn Uthal Ubayy Ibn Kab Umayr Ibn Sad Al-Ansari
Umayr Ibn Wahb Umm Salamah Uqbah Ibn Amir Utbah Ibn Ghazwan Zayd Al-Khayr
 Just to let you know This book "Stories of the Prophets" is by Ibn Kathir, translated by: sheikh Muhammad Gemeiah, Office of the Grand Imam, Sheikh Al Azhar, Edited by: Aelfwine Acelas Mischler. You may obtain a copy at
Astrolabe Pictures
It is about 20 US dollars. You can also call your local islamic center or bookstore to ask if they have this copy.
Sound Vision
Sound Vision Canada It is available in Arabic and English and an excellent addition to add to your library collection.
I cannot send you a free copy as I do not have copies available on me. You can easily access it on the websites I provided to get your own copy or even read it online here.
Introduction
The Creator=> It is only logical to believe that before anything was created there had to be a Creator. It is, also, only logical to believe that this Creator had to be an eternal being without beginning or end and that nothing could be like this Creator. It is this Unique Being Whom the Quran calls Allah the Lord, the Only Supreme Being worthy of worship.
Allah the Almighty stated this about Himself: He is Allah than Whom there is La ilaha illa Huwa (none who has the right to be worshipped but He), the ALl-Knower, of the unseen and the seen (open). He is the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. He is Allah than WHom there is La ilaha illa huwa (none who has the right to be worshipped but He), the King, the Holy, the One Free from all defects, the Giver of security, the Watcher over His creatures, the All Mighty, the Compeller, the Supreme. Glory be to Allah! (High is He) above all that they associate as partners with Him. He is Allah the Creator, the Inventor of all things, the Bestower of forms. To Him belongs the Best Names. All that is in the heavens and the earth glorify Him. And He is the All- Mighty and the All Wise. (Ch 59:22-24)
When Allah the Most High decided to create the earth, sun, planets, stars, and the galaxies--- those that are known and those that are unknown to us-- He commanded them: "Be!" and they were. Almighty Allah said: Verily, His Command, when He intends a thing, is only that He says to it, Be!" and it is! (Ch 36:82)
As for the method of creation, it is unknown to us except what Allah revealed, which is that He created the heavens and the earth and the spaces in between in six days.
Allah the Exalted declared: Allah it is He Who has created the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them in six Days. (Ch 32:4)
These six days are calculated as Allah the Almighty's days. This means they are not like our days on earth, as we count the day according to the earth's rotation once around its axis and the year according to its orbit around the sun. Perhaps these six days are thousands of years, or even millions of centuries, by our calculation nowadays, or perhaps they are more or less than that. They might be something totally different by Allah's reckoning.
Allah told us that He created the heavens, the earth, and everything that is between them in six days, the established Himself on the throne of the universe. Everything submitted to His will; everything was indebted to Him; everything prostrated and showed reverence to Almighty Allah. He controlled the working of everything and everything needed Him. He is the One Who needs nothing and no one, but everything was everyone needs Him. All was complete. Allah the Almighty's will had been accomplished. The universe was created and had prostrated to Him as a symbol of its needs and its desire for sustenance and in submission to His will.
The Symbol of Goodness
Among the best and the most vunerable of Allah's creatures are the angels. they are of various orders, each with its own noble mission accomplished with immaculate perfection. Among the angels are those whose mission is to communicate with human beings. One of these conveys Allah's messages to humanity through His prophets, and that is Gabriel (Jibreel), the chief of angels in the heavens and the symbol of goodness.
Allah the Almighty called him "the trustworthy": And truly, this (Quran) is a revelation from the Lord of the Alamin (mankind, jinn and all that exists), which the trustworthy Ruh (Gabriel) has brought down upon your heart (O Muhammad) that you may be one of the warners.

The Symbol of Evil
Along with the angels, Allah has created the jinn. They are part of the Ghaib (the unseen) and have no visible or tangible bodies. this is the only similarity between them and the angels. The jinn and the angels are totally different even in the stuff they are made of, for Allah created the former from fire and the latter from light.
The angels are Allah's soldiers, who are created to worship Him and to realize His Commands in the universe. They are pure and absolutely good. As for the jinn, they are assigned a certain nature; some of them are good, while others are corrupt.
It was revealed in the Quran that a small group of jinn had listened to the Quran. Some of their words were revealed therein; There are among us some that are righteous, and some the contrary; we are groups each having a different way (religious sect etc). And of us some are Muslims (who have submitted to Allah after listening to this Quran) and of us some are Al Qaasitun (disbelievers, those who have deviated from the Right Path); and whosoever has embraced Islam (has become Muslim by submitting to Allah), then such have sought the right path." (Ch 72:11,14-15)
We know that the jinn procreate for Allah the Almighty asked: Will you then take him (Iblis) and his offspring as protectors and helpers? (ch 18:50)
One of the notorious names among the jinn is that of Iblis (Satan), who was standing with the angels when they received a command to prostrate to Adam. When Satan refused to prostrate, he became a symbol of evil in the universe.
Allah the Almighty revealed: And remember when We said to the angels: "Prostrate to Adam." so they prostrated except Iblis. He was one of the jinn, he disobeyed the Command of his Lord. (Ch 18:50)
Allah's Prophets
Allah's prophets are His messengers to humanity. Their essence is human, and they are the purest of human beings. Allah sent each prophet as a warner to his community, until the advent of the final prophet, Muhammad (pbuh), who came as a mercy to all of Allah's creatures. Allah the Almighty declared : We have sent you (O Muhammad) not but as a mercy for the Alamin (mankind, jinn and all that exists). (Ch 21:107)
Indeed, if it had not been for Muhammad (pbuh), we would not have known the true stories of the prophets as they took place. This is because their stories were distorted and corrupted before Muhammad's (pbuh) mission. The resulting versions did not respect the dignity and infallibility of the prophets. For example, the corrupt books of the Jews narrate a story of a prophet who drank alcohol and commited adultery with his own daughter; of a prophet who sent the commander of his army to war in order to ensare the commander;s wife; of a prophet who worshipped idols after marrying a pretty young idol worshipper, they said he prefered to please her by worshipping her idol than to please his Creator. All the time you read these books you feel that youa re confronting a false, confused, and misguided mentality which lies about Allah and His prophets.
If you leave the corrupt books of the Jews for those of the Christians, you will find a contrary attitude which is almost a reaction to the first. The Christians glorified their prophet Jesus (pbuh) to the degree that most of the sects call him the son of Allah. Allah is high above that!
The true image of the prophets was lost by either degrading or over glorifying them. Were it not for the Quran, we would not have known their true nature.
The prophets and messengers have different levels and degrees. Allah the Almighty stated: Those messengers! We preferred some to others; to some of them Allah spoke (directly); others he raised to degrees (of honor). (Ch 2:253)
Despite the difference in degrees of prophets in the sight of Allah the Exalted, the Muslims are commanded to respect them all and not to discriminate among them.
Allah the Exalted said: Each one of the believers believes in Allah, His Angels, His Books, and His Messengers. They say, "We make no distinction between one another of His Messengers." and they say, "We hear nd we obey." We seek Your forgiveness, our Lord and to You is the return of all." 

You may purchase a copy of The Stories of the Prophets by Ibn Kathir at Astrolabepictures It is about 20 U.S. dollars. Or if it makes it easier to obtain a copy from your local islamic bookstore or center, it is available in English and Arabic version. There might be an urdu version available now. JazakuAllahkhairun for your support and pass my webpages around. And sign my book please.
 Email: ummiby@yahoo.com.



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