Evolutionary origin of religions

The evolutionary origin of religions theorizes about the emergence of religious behavior during the course of human evolution.

Nonhuman religious behavior

Humanity’s closest living relatives are common chimpanzees and bonobos. These primates share a common ancestor with humans who lived between four and six million years ago. It is for this reason that chimpanzees and bonobos are viewed as the best available surrogate for this common ancestor. Barbara King argues that while non-human primates are not religious, they do exhibit some traits that would have been necessary for the evolution of religion. These traits include high intelligence, a capacity for symbolic communication, a sense of social norms, realization of "self" and a concept of continuity. There is inconclusive evidence that Homo neanderthalensis may have buried their dead which is evidence of the use of ritual. The use of burial rituals is evidence of religious activity, but there is no other evidence that religion existed in human culture before humans reached behavioral modernity.

Elephants are the only other species known to have any recognizable ritual surrounding death.
Marc Bekoff, Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, argues that many species grieve death and loss.

Setting the stage for human religion
Increased brain size

In this set of theories, the religious mind is one consequence of a brain that is large enough to formulate religious and philosophical ideas. During human evolution, the hominid brain tripled in size, peaking 500,000 years ago. Much of the brain's expansion took place in the neocortex. This part of the brain is involved in processing higher order cognitive functions that are connected with human religiosity. The neocortex is associated with self consciousness, language and emotion[citation needed]. According to Dunbar's theory, the relative neocortex size of any species correlates with the level of social complexity of the particular species. The neocortex size correlates with a number of social variables that include social group size and complexity of mating behaviors. In chimpanzees the neocortex occupies 50% of the brain, whereas in modern humans it occupies 80% of the brain.

Robin Dunbar argues that the critical event in the evolution of the neocortex took place at the speciation of archaic homo sapiens about 500,000 years ago. His study indicates that only after the speciation event is the neocortex large enough to process complex social phenomena such as language and religion. The study is based on a regression analysis of neocortex size plotted against a number of social behaviors of living and extinct hominids.
Stephen Jay Gould suggests that religion may have grown out of evolutionary changes which favored larger brains as a means of cementing group coherence among savannah hunters, after that larger brain enabled reflection on the inevitability of personal mortality.

Tool use

Lewis Wolpert argues that causal beliefs that emerged from tool use played a major role in the evolution of belief. The manufacture of complex tools requires creating a mental image of an object that does not exist naturally before actually making the artifact. Furthermore, one must understand how the tool would be used, which requires an understanding of causality. Accordingly, the level of sophistication of stone tools is a useful indicator of causal beliefs. Wolpert contends use of tools composed of more than one component, such as hand axes, represents an ability to understand cause and effect. However, recent studies of other primates indicate that causality may not be a uniquely human trait. For example, chimpanzees have escaped from pens that were closed with multiple latches, that were previously thought could only have been figured out by humans who understood causality. (Chimpanzees are also known to mourn the dead, and notice things that have only aesthetic value, like sunsets, both of which may be considered to be components of religion or spirituality.) The difference between the comprehension of causality by humans and chimpanzees is one of degree. The degree of comprehension in an animal depends upon the size of the prefrontal cortex: the greater the size of the prefrontal cortex the deeper the comprehension.

Development of language

Religion requires a system of symbolic communication, such as language, to be transmitted from one individual to another. Philip Lieberman states "human religious thought and moral sense clearly rest on a cognitive-linguistic base". From this premise science writer Nicholas Wade states:

    "Like most behaviors that are found in societies throughout the world, religion must have been present in the ancestral human population before the dispersal from Africa 50,000 years ago. Although religious rituals usually involve dance and music, they are also very verbal, since the sacred truths have to be stated. If so, religion, at least in its modern form, cannot pre-date the emergence of language. It has been argued earlier that language attained its modern state shortly before the exodus from Africa. If religion had to await the evolution of modern, articulate language, then it too would have emerged shortly before 50,000 years ago."
Another view distinguishes individual religious belief from collective religious belief. While the former does not require prior development of language, the latter does. The individual human brain has to explain a phenomenon in order to comprehend and relate to it. This activity predates by far the emergence of language and may have caused it. The theory is, belief in the supernatural emerges from hypotheses arbitrarily assumed by individuals to explain natural phenomena that cannot be explained otherwise. The resulting need to share individual hypotheses with others leads eventually to collective religious belief. A socially accepted hypothesis becomes dogmatic backed by social sanction.
 
Morality and group living

Dr. Frans de Waal and Barbara King both view human morality as having grown out of primate sociality. Though morality awareness may be a unique human trait, many social animals, such as primates, dolphins and whales, have been known to exhibit pre-moral sentiments. According to Michael Shermer, the following characteristics are shared by humans and other social animals, particularly the great apes:

    "attachment and bonding, cooperation and mutual aid, sympathy and empathy, direct and indirect reciprocity, altruism and reciprocal altruism, conflict resolution and peacemaking, deception and deception detection, community concern and caring about what others think about you, and awareness of and response to the social rules of the group".
De Waal contends that all social animals have had to restrain or alter their behavior for group living to be worthwhile. Pre-moral sentiments evolved in primate societies as a method of restraining individual selfishness and building more cooperative groups. For any social species, the benefits of being part of an altruistic group should outweigh the benefits of individualism. For example, lack of group cohesion could make individuals more vulnerable to attack from outsiders. Being part of a group may also improve the chances of finding food. This is evident among animals that hunt in packs to take down large or dangerous prey.

All social animals have hierarchical societies in which each member knows its own place. Social order is maintained by certain rules of expected behavior and dominant group members enforce order through punishment. However, higher order primates also have a sense of reciprocity and fairness. Chimpanzees remember who did them favors and who did them wrong. For example, chimpanzees are more likely to share food with individuals who have previously groomed them.

Chimpanzees live in fission-fusion groups that average 50 individuals. It is likely that early ancestors of humans lived in groups of similar size. Based on the size of extant hunter-gatherer societies, recent Paleolithic hominids lived in bands of a few hundred individuals. As community size increased over the course of human evolution, greater enforcement to achieve group cohesion would have been required. Morality may have evolved in these bands of 100 to 200 people as a means of social control, conflict resolution and group solidarity. According to Dr. de Waal, human morality has two extra levels of sophistication that are not found in primate societies. Humans enforce their society’s moral codes much more rigorously with rewards, punishments and reputation building. Humans also apply a degree of judgment and reason not otherwise seen in the animal kingdom.

Psychologist Matt J. Rossano argues that religion emerged after morality and built upon morality by expanding the social scrutiny of individual behavior to include supernatural agents. By including ever-watchful ancestors, spirits and gods in the social realm, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups. The adaptive value of religion would have enhanced group survival. Rossano is referring here to collective religious belief and the social sanction that institutionalized morality. Individual religious belief is initially epistemological, not ethical, in nature.
 
Evolutionary psychology of religion

There is general agreement among cognitive scientists that religion is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved early in human history. However, there is disagreement on the exact mechanisms that drove the evolution of the religious mind. The two main schools of thought hold that either religion evolved due to natural selection and has selective advantage, or that religion is an evolutionary byproduct of other mental adaptations. Stephen Jay Gould, for example, believed that religion was an exaptation or a spandrel, in other words that religion evolved as byproduct of psychological mechanisms that evolved for other reasons.

Such mechanisms may include the ability to infer the presence of organisms that might do harm (agent detection), the ability to come up with causal narratives for natural events (etiology), and the ability to recognize that other people have minds of their own with their own beliefs, desires and intentions (theory of mind). These three adaptations (among others) allow human beings to imagine purposeful agents behind many observations that could not readily be explained otherwise, e.g. thunder, lightning, movement of planets, complexity of life, etc. The emergence of collective religious belief identified the agents as deities that standardized the explanation.

Some scholars have suggested that religion is genetically "hardwired" into the human condition. One controversial hypothesis, the God gene hypothesis, states that some variants of a specific gene, the VMAT2 gene, predispose to spirituality.

Another view is based on the concept of the triune brain: the reptilian brain, the limbic system, and the neocortex, proposed by Paul D. MacLean. Collective religious belief draws upon the emotions of love, fear, and gregariousness and is deeply embedded in the limbic system through sociobiological conditioning and social sanction. Individual religious belief utilizes reason based in the neocortex and often varies from collective religion. The limbic system is much older in evolutionary terms than the neocortex and is, therefore, stronger than it much in the same way as the reptilian is stronger than both the limbic system and the neocortex. Reason is pre-empted by emotional drives. The religious feeling in a congregation is emotionally different from individual spirituality even though the congregation is composed of individuals. Belonging to a collective religion is culturally more important than individual spirituality though the two often go hand in hand. This is one of the reasons why religious debates are likely to be inconclusive.
Yet another view is that the behaviour of people who participate in a religion makes them feel better and this improves their fitness, so that there is a genetic selection in favor of people who are willing to believe in religion. Specifically, rituals, beliefs, and the social contact typical of religious groups may serve to calm the mind (for example by reducing ambiguity and the uncertainty due to complexity) and allow it to function better when under stress. This would allow religion to be used as a powerful survival mechanism, particularly in facilitating the evolution of hierarchies of warriors, which if true, may be why many modern religions tend to promote fertility and kinship.

Still another view is that human reilgion was a product of an increase in dopaminergic functions in the human brain and a general intellectual expansion beginning around 80 kya.  Dopamine promotes an emphasis on distant space and time, which is critical for the establishment of religious experience. While the earliest shamanic cave paintings date back around 40 kya, the use of ochre for rock art predates this and there is clear evidence for abstract thinking along the coast of South Africa by 80 kya.

Prehistoric evidence of religion

When humans first became religious remains unknown, but there is credible evidence of religious behavior from the Middle Paleolithic era (300–500 thousand years ago) and possibly earlier.
Paleolithic burials

The earliest evidence of religious thought is based on the ritual treatment of the dead. Most animals display only a casual interest in the dead of their own species. Ritual burial thus represents a significant change in human behavior. Ritual burials represent an awareness of life and death and a possible belief in the afterlife. Philip Lieberman states "burials with grave goods clearly signify religious practices and concern for the dead that transcends daily life."

The earliest evidence for treatment of the dead comes from Atapuerca in Spain. At this location the bones of 30 individuals believed to be Homo heidelbergensis have been found in a pit. Neanderthals are also contenders for the first hominids to intentionally bury the dead. They may have placed corpses into shallow graves along with stone tools and animal bones. The presence of these grave goods may indicate an emotional connection with the deceased and possibly a belief in the afterlife. Neanderthal burial sites include Shanidar in Iraq and Krapina in Croatia and Kebara Cave in Israel.

The earliest known burial of modern humans is from a cave in Israel located at Qafzeh. Human remains have been dated to 100,000 years ago. Human skeletons were found stained with red ochre. A variety of grave goods were found at the burial site. The mandible of a wild boar was found placed in the arms of one of the skeletons. Philip Lieberman states:

    "Burial rituals incorporating grave goods may have been invented by the anatomically modern hominids who emigrated from Africa to the Middle East roughly 100,000 years ago".

Matt Rossano suggests that the period in between 80,000–60,000 years after humans retreated from the Levant to Africa was a crucial period in the evolution of religion. 

The use of symbolism

The use of symbolism in religion is a universal established phenomenon. Archeologist Steven Mithen contends that it is common for religious practices to involve the creation of images and symbols to represent supernatural beings and ideas. Because supernatural beings violate the principles of the natural world, there will always be difficulty in communicating and sharing supernatural concepts with others. This problem can be overcome by anchoring these supernatural beings in material form through representational art. When translated into material form, supernatural concepts become easier to communicate and understand. Due to the association of art and religion, evidence of symbolism in the fossil record is indicative of a mind capable of religious thoughts. Art and symbolism demonstrates a capacity for abstract thought and imagination necessary to construct religious ideas. Wentzel van Huyssteen states that the translation of the non-visible through symbolism enabled early human ancestors to hold beliefs in abstract terms.
Some of the earliest evidence of symbolic behavior is associated with Middle Stone Age sites in Africa. From at least 100,000 years ago, there is evidence of the use of pigments such as red ochre. Pigments are of little practical use to hunter gatherers, thus evidence of their use is interpreted as symbolic or for ritual purposes. Among extant hunter gatherer populations around the world, red ochre is still used extensively for ritual purposes. It has been argued that it is universal among human cultures for the color red to represent blood, sex, life and death.
The use of red ochre as a proxy for symbolism is often criticized as being too indirect. Some scientists, such as Richard Klein and Steven Mithen, only recognize unambiguous forms of art as representative of abstract ideas. Upper paleolithic cave art provides some of the most unambiguous evidence of religious thought from the paleolithic. Cave paintings at Chauvet depict creatures that are half human and half animal.
Origins of organized religion
See also: Neolithic religion
Social evolution of humans  Period years ago     Society type     Number of individuals
100,000–10,000     Bands     10s–100s
10,000–5,000     Tribes     100s–1,000s
5,000–3,000     Chiefdoms     1,000s–10,000s
3,000–1,000     States     10,000s–100,000s
1,000–present     Empires     100,000–1,000,000s

Organized religion traces its roots to the neolithic revolution that began 11,000 years ago in the Near East but may have occurred independently in several other locations around the world. The invention of agriculture transformed many human societies from a hunter gatherer lifestyle to a sedentary lifestyle. The consequences of the neolithic revolution included a population explosion and an acceleration in the pace of technological development. The transition from foraging bands to states and empires precipitated more specialized and developed forms of religion that reflected the new social and political environment. While bands and small tribes possess supernatural beliefs, these beliefs do not serve to justify a central authority, justify transfer of wealth or maintain peace between unrelated individuals. Organized religion emerged as a means of providing social and economic stability through the following ways:

    Justifying the central authority, which in turn possessed the right to collect taxes in return for providing social and security services to the state.
    Bands and tribes consist of small number of related individuals. However states and nations are composed of thousands of unrelated individuals. Jared Diamond argues that organized religion served to provide a bond between unrelated individuals who would otherwise be more prone to enmity. He argues that the leading cause of death among hunter gatherer societies is murder.
    Religions that revolved around moralizing gods may have facilitated the rise of large, cooperative groups of unrelated individuals.
The states born out of the Neolithic revolution, such as those of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, were theocracies with chiefs, kings and emperors playing dual roles of political and spiritual leaders. Anthropologists have found that virtually all state societies and chiefdoms from around the world have been found to justify political power through divine authority. This suggests that political authority co-opts collective religious belief to bolster itself.
 
Invention of writing

Following the neolithic revolution, the pace of technological development (cultural evolution) intensified due to the invention of writing 5000 years ago. Symbols that became words later on made effective communication of ideas possible. Printing invented only over a thousand years ago increased the speed of communication exponentially and became the main spring of cultural evolution. Writing is thought to have been first invented in either Sumeria or Ancient Egypt and was initially used for accounting. Soon after, writing was used to record myth. The first religious texts mark the beginning of religious history. The Pyramid Texts from ancient Egypt are one of the oldest known religious texts in the world, dating to between 2400–2300 BCE. Writing played a major role in sustaining and spreading organized religion. In pre-literate societies, religious ideas were based on an oral tradition, the contents of which were articulated by shamans and remained limited to the collective memories of the society's inhabitants. With the advent of writing, information that was not easy to remember could easily be stored in sacred texts that were maintained by a select group (clergy). Humans could store and process large amounts of information with writing that otherwise would have been forgotten. Writing therefore enabled religions to develop coherent and comprehensive doctrinal systems that remained independent of time and place. Writing also brought a measure of objectivity to human knowledge. Formulation of thoughts in words and the requirement for validation made mutual exchange of ideas and the sifting of generally acceptable from not acceptable ideas possible. The generally acceptable ideas became objective knowledge reflecting the continuously evolving framework of human awareness of reality that Karl Popper calls 'verisimilitude' – a stage on the human journey to truth.

Muslim conquest of Persia

The Arab conquest of Persia, led to the end of the Sassanid Empire in 644, the fall of the Sassanid dynasty in 651 and the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Iran. Arabs first attacked the Sassanid territory in 633, when general Khalid ibn Walid invaded Mesopotamia (what is now Iraq), which was the political and economic center of the Sassanid state. Following the transfer of Khalid to the Roman front in the Levant, the Muslims eventually lost their holdings to Iranian counterattacks. The second invasion began in 636 under Saad ibn Abi Waqqas, when a key victory at the Battle of Qadisiyyah led to the permanent end of Sassanid control west of Iran. The Zagros mountains then became a natural barrier and border between the Rashidun Caliphate and the Sassanid Empire. Owing to continuous raids by Persians into the area, Caliph Umar ordered a full invasion of the Sassanid Iranian empire in 642, which was completed with the complete conquest of the Sassanids by mid 644. The quick conquest of Iran in a series of well coordinated multi-pronged attacks, directed by Caliph Umar from Medina several thousand miles from the battlefields in Iran, became his greatest triumph, contributing to his reputation as a great military and political strategist.
Iranian historians have sought to defend their forebears by using Arab sources to illustrate that "contrary to the claims of some historians, Iranians, in fact, fought long and hard against the invading Arabs." By 651, most of the urban centers in Iranian lands, with the notable exception of the Caspian provinces and Transoxiana, had come under the domination of the Arab armies. Many localities in Iran staged a defense against the invaders, but in the end none was able to repulse the invasion. Even after the Arabs had subdued the country, many cities rose in rebellion, killing the Arab governor or attacking their garrisons, but reinforcements from the caliphs succeeded in putting down all these rebellions and imposing the rule of Islam. The violent subjugation of Bukhara (q.v.) after many uprisings is a case in point. Conversion to Islam (q.v.) was, however, only gradual. In the process, many acts of violence took place, Zoroastrian scriptures were burnt and many mobads executed (for examples, see Balāḏori, Fotuḥ, p. 421; Biruni, Āṯār, p. 35).Once conquered politically, the Persians began to reassert themselves by maintaining Persian language and culture. Regardless, Islam was adopted by many, for political, socio-cultural or spiritual reasons, or simply by persuasion, and became the dominant religion

Historiography and recent scholarship

When Western academics first investigated the Muslim conquest of Persia, they only had to rely on the accounts of the Armenian Christian bishop Sebeos, and accounts in Arabic that were written some time after the events they describe. The most significant work was probably that of Arthur Christensen, and his L’Iran sous les Sassanides, published in Copenhagen and Paris in 1944.
However recent scholarship, both Iranian and Western,[citation needed] has begun to question the traditional narrative. Parvaneh Pourshariati, in her Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran, published in 2008, provides both a detailed overview of the problematic nature of trying to establish exactly what happened, and a great deal of original research that questions fundamental facts of the traditional narrative, including the timeline and specific dates.

Pourshariati's central thesis is that contrary to what was commonly assumed, the Sassanian Empire was highly decentralized, and was in fact a "confederation" with the Parthians, who themselves retained a high level of independence. Despite their recent victories over the Byzantine Empire, making the Byzantines a client-state of the Sassanians, the Parthians unexpectedly withdrew from the confederation, and the Sassanians were thus ill-prepared and ill-equipped to mount an effective and cohesive defense against the Muslim armies. Moreover, the powerful northern and eastern Parthian families, the kust-i khwarasan and kust-i adurbadagan, withdrew to their respective strongholds and made peace with the Arabs, refusing to fight alongside the Sassanians.

Another important theme of Pourshariati's study is a re-evaluation of the traditional timeline. Pourshariati argues that the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia "took place, not, as has been conventionally believed, in the years 632–634, after the accession of the last Sasanian king Yazdgird III (632–651) to power, but in the period from 628 to 632." An important consequence of this change in timeline means that the Arab conquest started precisely when the Sassanians and Parthians were engaged in internecine warfare over who was to succeed the Sassanian throne.

Sassanid Empire Before the Conquest

Since the 1st century BC, the border between the Roman (later Byzantine) and Parthian (later Sassanid) empires had been the Euphrates river. The border was constantly contested. Most battles, and thus most fortifications, were concentrated in the hilly regions of the north, as the vast Arabian or Syrian Desert (Roman Arabia) separated the rival empires in the south. The only dangers expected from the south were occasional raids by nomadic Arab tribesmen. Both empires therefore allied themselves with small, semi-independent Arab principalities, which served as buffer states and protected Byzantium and Persia from Bedouin attacks. The Byzantine clients were the Ghassanids; the Persian clients were the Lakhmids. The Ghassanids and Lakhmids feuded constantly—which kept them occupied, but that did not greatly affect the Byzantines or the Persians. In the 6th and 7th centuries, various factors destroyed the balance of power that had held for so many centuries.

The Forgiveness of Sins

“O My slaves who have transgressed against themselves (by committing evil deeds and sins)!  Despair not of the Mercy of God: verily, God forgives all sins. Truly He is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Quran 39:53)

God did not create humankind for any purpose other than to worship Him.  However being human makes us frail and forgetful while at the same time our humanity often causes us to become full of our own importance; proud and arrogant.  Arrogance in turn often causes us to commit sins, and our forgetfulness often causes us to make mistakes that can easily lead to sinful behaviour.  God knows us well, He is our Creator.  He has not abandoned us to our own imperfect nature; He has provided us with innumerable opportunities to turn to Him for forgiveness.  In fact God loves that we feel remorse, and turn to Him seeking His forgiveness and comfort. Prophet Muhammad said to his companions, and to all those who follow them in righteousness,  “If you did not commit sins, God would sweep you out of existence and replace you with other people  who would commit sins, and  ask for God's forgiveness, and He would forgive them.”   This is not an encouragement to sin, but demonstrates the infinite Mercy of God.

The door to forgiveness is always open

God, in his infinite wisdom has made seeking forgiveness easy. If we were not able to seek and obtain God’s forgiveness we would indeed be miserable people sunk in despair and self-loathing. It is for this reason that there are no transgressions too big or sins too small that God will not forgive. All sins are forgivable and the door to forgiveness is wide open almost until the Day of Judgement is upon us.

“And turn in repentance and in obedience with true Faith to your Lord and submit to Him, before the torment comes upon you, then you will not be helped.” (Quran 39:54)

When God sees the sincere repentance from one of the believers – a person who truly turns God with both fear and hope – He not only forgives the sin, but He replaces the sins with rewardable good deeds. This is from God’s infinite mercy.

“Except those who repent and believe and do righteous deeds; for those, God will change their sins into good deeds, and God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Quran 25:70)

God also forgives us our sins through the difficulties that we face in our lives. When we are stricken with illness or suffering from unfavourable circumstances, we will earn forgiveness if we bear our difficulties patiently, all the time seeking a reward from God.

Major and minor sins

Disobeying God is always a serious matter; however the scholars of Islam have divided sins into major and minor categories.  Major sins are those sins that entail Allah's curse or threat of punishment of Hell, which includes the sin of worshipping something other than God, which is the most grievous act a human being can commit. Other major sins include murder, sorcery and adultery.  Minor sins are defined as acts that are displeasing to God but have no defined punishment mentioned in either the Quran or the authentic traditions.  However they are not to be taken lightly because minor sins can easily lead on to major sins and God warned us to take minor sins seriously when He said, “…you counted it a little thing, while with God it was very great.” (Quran24:15)  Prophet Muhammad advised us that, “Righteousness is in good character and morality, and wrongdoing is that which wavers in your soul, and which you dislike people finding out about.”  Stacey had left the footnote of this blank. It is Saheeh Muslim.

Obtaining God’s forgiveness is easy

As mentioned before, sincere repentance is able to wipe out a person’s sins, forever and completely. It involves showing genuine remorse, praying for God's mercy and forgiveness, and avoiding that sin in the future. In addition to this God has also given us other ways in which to wipe the slate clean so that a person may begin again in the eyes of God, as if he or she was a new born baby.

These acts include a nonbeliever embracing Islam, and a person performing an accepted pilgrimage to the House of God in Mecca, Saudi Arabia (Hajj).

“Say to those who have disbelieved [that] if they cease, what has previously occurred will be forgiven for them…” (Quran 8:38)

Prophet Muhammad said, “Do you not know that accepting Islam destroys all sins which come before it?”

“Whoever performs Hajj for God's pleasure and does not have sexual relations with his wife, and does not do evil or sins then he will return (after Hajj free from all sins) as if he were born anew”.

As for minor sins, God mercy is so complete that he forgives us our sins even as we perform obligatory acts.  From the traditions of Prophet Muhammad we find several sayings that attest to this fact.

“He who performs ablution well, his sins will come out from his body, even from under his nails”.

“When the time for a prescribed prayer comes, if any believer performs ablution well and offers his prayer with humility and bowing, it will be an expiation for his past sins, so long as he has not committed a major sin; and this applies for all times”.

“… if he performs ablution completely and then goes to the mosque with the sole intention of performing the prayer, and nothing urges him to proceed to the mosque except the prayer, then, on every step which he takes towards the mosque, he will be raised one degree or one of his sins will be forgiven…”

“Whoever fasted the month of Ramadan out of sincere Faith (i.e. belief) hoping for a reward from God, then all his past sins will be forgiven”.

Sins can also be forgiven by performing good deeds, again though we must strive to do these deeds completely for the sake of God not for some worldly reward.  “…Verily, the good deeds remove the evil deeds (small sins).  This is a reminder for the mindful (those who accept advice).” (Quran 11:114)

God has made it easy for us to seek and obtain His forgiveness however it does not come automatically; one must seek God’s forgiveness sincerely, knowing that it is only through God's supreme mercy that anyone will enter Paradise. Prophet Muhammad said, “Do good deeds properly, sincerely and moderately, and rejoice, for no one's good deeds will put him in Paradise.” His companions asked, “Not even you, O Messenger of God?” He replied, “Not even me, unless God bestows His pardon and mercy upon me.”

Where is God

---

Now and again human beings are prompted to ask themselves some of life’s truly profound questions.  In the quiet darkness of the night, when far off stars twinkle in the vast, majestic sky, or in the cold, hard, light of day when life rushes past like a speeding train, people of all colours, races and creeds wonder about the meaning of their existence.  Why are we here?  What does this all mean?  Is this all there is?

On magnificent days filled with sunshine and iridescent blue skies, people turn their faces towards the sun and contemplate its beauty.  In the deepest winter or the wildest storm, they ponder the strength inherent in the forces of nature.  Somewhere in the deep recesses of the mind, the concept of God arises.  The wonders of creation are a call to the heart and the soul.  The gentle touch of a snowflake, the smell of freshly cut lawn, the soft patter of raindrops and fierce wind of a hurricane are all reminders that this world is full of wonder.

When pain and sadness threaten to engulf us, human beings are again prompted to contemplate the meaning of life.  In the midst of suffering and grief, the concept of God arises.  Even those who would consider themselves far from religion or spiritual belief find themselves looking skywards and pleading for help.  When the heart constricts and fear swamps us, we turn helplessly towards some sort of higher power.  The concept of a God then becomes real and meaningful.

In the midst of pleading and bargaining, the sheer vastness of the universe is laid bare.  The reality of life is filled with awe and wonder.  It is a rollercoaster ride.  There are moments of great joy, and periods of immense sadness.  Life can be long and monotonous or it can be carefree.  As God arises and His majesty is clear, more questions begin to take shape.  One question that inevitably comes to mind is – where is God?

Around the world and down through the ages people have struggled to come to terms with the question of where God is.  The human inclination is to search for God.  The ancient Babylonians and Egyptians built lofty towers in their search for God.  The Persians looked for Him in fire.  Still other, such as the indigenous people of North America and the Celtic people looked for God in the glorious signs of nature around them.  Buddhists find God in themselves, and in the Hindu religion, God is believed to be in every place and in everything.

The quest for God can be confusing.  When posing the question where is God, the resulting answers can also be confusing.  God is everywhere.  God is in your heart.  God is where goodness and beauty exist.  What happens however, when your heart is empty and your surroundings are dismal, dirty, and ugly?  Does God cease to exist?  No! Of course not!  Amidst this confusion, the Islamic concept of God is a beacon of light for those stumbling in the darkness.

What Muslims believe about God is clear-cut and simple.  They do not believe that God is everywhere; they believe that God is above the heavens.  The human need to turn our faces towards the sky in times of trouble and strife is an inherent answer to the question, where is God?  God tells us in the Quran that He is the Most High (Quran 2:255) and that He is above all His Creation.

“He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in six Days and then rose over the Throne (in a manner that suits His Majesty).  He knows what goes into the earth and what comes forth from it, what descends from the heaven and what ascends thereto.  And He is with you (by His Knowledge) wheresoever you may be.  And God is the All-Seer of what you do.” (Quran 57:4)

Prophet Muhammad was known to point towards the sky when referring to God.  When making supplication to God he raised his hands towards the heavens.  During his Farewell sermon, Prophet Muhammad asked the people, “Have I not conveyed the message?” and they said, “Yes!”  He asked again, “Have I not conveyed the message?” and they said, “Yes!”  He asked a third time, “Have I not conveyed the message?” and they said “Yes!”  Each time, he said, “O God, bear witness!” - at the same time pointing up to the sky and then at the people.[1]

God is above the heavens, above His creation.  This however does not mean that He is contained by any sort of physical dimensions.  God is close, very close, to those who believe in Him and He answers their every call.  God knows all of our secrets, dreams, and wishes, nothing is hidden from Him.  God is with His creation by His knowledge and power.  God is the Creator and the Sustainer.  Nothing comes into existence except by His will.

When Muslims marvel at the wonders of the universe they are secure in the knowledge that God, the Most High, is above the heavens, and comforted by the fact that He is with them in all their affairs.  When a Muslim is struck by loss or grief, he does not question God’s wisdom, or ask the question, ‘where was God when I was sad, or grieving or suffering?’  Humankind was created to worship God, (Quran 56:51) and God said many times that trials and tribulations would be part of our life experience.

“And He it is Who has created the heavens and the earth in six Days ...that He might try you, which of you is the best in deeds.” (Quran 11:7)

In their darkest night, or their darkest hour humankind instinctively looks towards the sky.  When their hearts beat heavily and fear threatens to overwhelm them, people turn to God.  They raise their hands and beg for mercy, forgiveness, or kindness, and God responds;  For He is the Most Merciful, the Most Forgiving and the Most Kind.  God is distinct and separate from His creation, and there is nothing like Him.  He is All Hearing and All seeing.  (Quran 42:11)  Hence when we ask the question where is God, the answer is undoubtedly, He is above the heavens and above all His creation. We also say that He is not in need of any of His creation and all of creation needs Him..

Can We See God

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The human mind is a true marvel, but in certain areas it is limited.  God is different from anything the human mind can think of or imagine, so the mind will become confused if it tries to picture God.  Nevertheless, it is possible to understand the attributes of God that do not require one to make any mental pictures of Him.  For example, one of God’s names is al-Ghaffar, which means He forgives all sins.  Everyone can understand this easily because that is how the human mind can think of God.  Jewish and Christian teachings on God are confused partly because of incorrect understanding of this issue.  The Jewish Torah teaches God is like man,

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…so God made man in His own image.’” (Genesis 1:26-27)

Moreover, certain churches contain statues or images of an old white bearded man depicting God.  Some of these were produced by the likes of Michelangelo who depicted the Face and Hand of a god – a tough looking old man - in paintings.

Rendering images of God in Islam is an impossibility, and amounts to disbelief, as God tells us in the Quran that nothing resembles Him:

“There is nothing like Him, but He is All-Hearing, All-Seeing.” (Quran 42:11)

“There is nothing comparable to Him.” (Quran 112:4)

The Request of Moses to See God

Eyes can not bear the vision of God.  He tells us in the Quran:

“Vision cannot grasp Him, but His Grasp is over all vision.” (Quran 6:103)

Moses, to whom God spoke and gave great miracles, was chosen by God to be His Prophet.  It is said that he thought that, since God used to speak to him, he might be able to actually see God.  The story is in the Quran, where God tells us what happened:

“And when Moses arrived at Our appointed time and his Lord spoke to him, he said, ‘My Lord, show me (Yourself) that I may look at You.’  (God) said, ‘You will not see Me, but look at the mountain; if it should remain in place, then you will see Me.’  But when his Lord appeared to the mountain, He rendered it level, and Moses fell unconscious.  And when he awoke, he said, ‘Exalted are You!  I have repented to You, and I am the first of the believers.’” (Quran 7:143)

God made it clear that no-one, including the great prophet Moses, can bear the sight of the divine, for God is too great to be grasped by human eyes in this life.  According to the Quran, Moses realized his request was in error; therefore, he sought forgiveness from God for having asked.

Did Prophet Muhammad See God In This Life?

Prophet Muhammad traveled in a miraculous journey through the heavens and met God.  People thought that since Prophet Muhammad spoke to God in that journey, he probably saw God too.  One of the companions, Abu Dahrr, asked him about it.  The Prophet replied:

“There was only light, how could I see Him?” (Saheeh Muslim)

What was the light he saw?  The Prophet explained:

“Surely, God does not sleep nor is it befitting for Him to sleep.  He is the one who lowers the scales and raises them.  The deeds of the night go up to Him before the deeds of the day and those of the day before those of the night, and His veil is light.” (Saheeh Muslim)

Visions of God in Spiritual Experiences

Some people, including some who claim to be Muslims, report spiritual experiences where they claim to have seen God.  Common reported experiences also include seeing light, or a magnificent being seated on a throne.  In the case of Muslims, such an experience is usually accompanied by dropping basic Islamic practices like salah and fasting, under the mistaken opinion that such practices are only for common people who had not had their type of experience.

So what does Islam teach about this?  Islam teaches us that it is Satan who pretends to be God to deceive ignorant people who believe in such experiences and go astray.  One of the fundamental foundations of Islam is that the law revealed to Prophet Muhammad cannot be changed or canceled.  God neither makes lawful for some what He has made unlawful for others, nor does He communicate His Law through such experiences to people.  Rather, divine law is revealed through the proper channel of revelation to the prophets, a channel that was closed after the advent of the prophet Muhammad, the last of God’s prophets. 

Seeing God in Afterlife

In Islamic doctrine, God cannot be seen in this life, but the believers will see God in the next life; even then, God will not be grasped in totality.  This is stated clearly in the Quran and the Sunnah.  The Prophet said,

“The Day Of Resurrection is the first day any eye will look at God, the Mighty and Exalted.”

Describing the events of Resurrection Day, God states in the Quran:

“On that day some faces will be bright, looking at their Lord.” (Quran 75:22-23)

The Prophet was asked if we will see God on the Day of resurrection.  He replied, “Are you harmed by looking at the moon when it is full?”  ‘No,’ they replied.  Then he said, “Surely, you will see Him likewise.”  In another hadith the Prophet said, “Surely, each of you will see God on the day when you shall meet Him, and there will be no veil or translator between Him and you.”  Seeing God will be a favor that is additional to Paradise on the people who will dwell therein.  As a matter of fact, the joy of seeing God for a believer will be greater than the all the joys of Paradise combined together.  The unbelievers, on the other hand, will be deprived of seeing God, and this will be greater punishment for them than all the pain and suffering of Hell combined together.

Who is Allah

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Some of the biggest misconceptions that many non-Muslims have about Islam have to do with the word “Allah.”  For various reasons, many people have come to believe that Muslims worship a different God than Christians and Jews.  This is totally false, since “Allah” is simply the Arabic word for “God” - and there is only One God.  Let there be no doubt - Muslims worship the God of Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus - peace be upon them all.  However, it is certainly true that Jews, Christians and Muslims all have different concepts of Almighty God.  For example, Muslims - like Jews - reject the Christian beliefs of the Trinity and the Divine Incarnation.  This, however, does not mean that each of these three religions worships a different God - because, as we have already said, there is only One True God.  Judaism, Christianity and Islam all claim to be “Abrahamic Faiths”, and all of them are also classified as “monotheistic.”  However, Islam teaches that other religions have, in one way or another, distorted and nullified a pure and proper belief in Almighty God by neglecting His true teachings and mixing them with man-made ideas.

First of all, it is important to note that “Allah” is the same word that Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews use for God.  If you pick up an Arabic Bible, you will see the word “Allah” being used where “God” is used in English.  This is because “Allah” is a word in the Arabic language equivalent to the English word “God” with a capital “G”.  Additionally, the word “Allah” cannot be made plural, a fact which goes hand-in-hand with the Islamic concept of God.

It is interesting to note that the Aramaic word “El”, which is the word for God in the language that Jesus spoke, is certainly more similar in sound to the word “Allah” than the English word “God.”  This also holds true for the various Hebrew words for God, which are “El” and “Elah”, and the plural or glorified form “Elohim.”  The reason for these similarities is that Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic are all Semitic languages with common origins.  It should also be noted that in translating the Bible into English, the Hebrew word “El” is translated variously as “God”, “god” and “angel”!  This imprecise language allows different translators, based on their preconceived notions, to translate the word to fit their own views.  The Arabic word “Allah” presents no such difficulty or ambiguity, since it is only used for Almighty God alone.  Additionally, in English, the only difference between “god”, meaning a false god, and “God”, meaning the One True God, is the capital “G”.  Due to the above mentioned facts, a more accurate translation of the word “Allah” into English might be “The One -and-Only God” or “The One True God.”

More importantly, it should also be noted that the Arabic word “Allah” contains a deep religious message due to its root meaning and origin.  This is because it stems from the Arabic verb ta’allaha (or alaha), which means “to be worshipped.”  Thus in Arabic, the word “Allah” means “The One who deserves all worship.”  This, in a nutshell, is the Pure Monotheistic message of Islam.

Suffice it to say that just because someone claims to be a “monotheistic” Jew, Christian or Muslim, that does not keep them from falling into corrupt beliefs and idolatrous practices.  Many people, including some Muslims, claim belief in “One God” even though they’ve fallen into acts of idolatry.  Certainly, many Protestants accuse Roman Catholics of idolatrous practices in regards to the saints and the Virgin Mary.  Likewise, the Greek Orthodox Church is considered “idolatrous” by many other Christians because in much of their worship they use icons.  However, if you ask a Roman Catholic or a Greek Orthodox person if God is “One”, they will invariably answer: “Yes!.”  This claim, however, does not stop them from being “creature worshipping” idolaters.  The same goes for Hindus, who just consider their gods to be “manifestations” or “incarnations” of the One Supreme God.

Before concluding… there are some people out there, who are obviously not on the side of truth, that want to get people to believe that “Allah” is just some Arabian “god”, and that Islam is completely “other” - meaning that it has no common roots with the other Abrahamic religions (i.e. Christianity and Judaism).  To say that Muslims worship a different “God” because they say “Allah” is just as illogical as saying that French people worship another God because they use the word “Dieu”, that Spanish-speaking people worship a different God because they say “Dios” or that the Hebrews worshipped a different God because they sometimes call Him “Yahweh.”  Certainly, reasoning like this is quite ridiculous!  It should also be mentioned, that claiming that any one language uses the only the correct word for God is tantamount to denying the universality of God’s message to mankind, which was to all nations, tribes and people through various prophets who spoke different languages.

We would like to ask our readers about the motives of these people?  The reason is that the Ultimate Truth of Islam stands on solid ground and its unshakeable belief in the Unity of God is above reproach.  Due to this, Christians can’t criticize its doctrines directly, but instead fabricate things about Islam that aren’t true so that people lose the desire to learn more.  If Islam were presented in the proper way to the world, it surely might make many people reconsider and re-evaluate their own beliefs.  It is quite likely that when they find out that there is a universal religion in the world that teaches people to worship and love God, while also practicing Pure Monotheism, would at least feel that they should re-examine the basis for their own beliefs and doctrines.

Free Muslim Women

If the media and its ensuing stereotypes are to be believed then Islam does not have very much to offer women, except for a life of misery, oppression and slavery. However, if one bothers to look closely at Islam then it has an abundance to offer men and women alike.

There is little doubt that many Muslim women are subject to abuse and subjugation - without making sweeping generalizations, many women in some so called Muslim lands are denied the rights given to them by Islam - rights to which they are entitled as human beings and as women. However we must separate Muslims from Islam; we must separate theory from practice. In Islam this separation is possible - Islamic legislation has given women unprecedented status, even if Muslims did not always live up to these amazing standards.