This weekend, our masjid was open as part of Doors Open Toronto. Alhamdulillah, over the course of the weekend, we welcomed over 700 visitors, who took tours of the mosque and learned about Islam and Muslims.
As part of the tour, we had a calligraphy display, which included selected verses from the Qur'an and some hadith.
At one point, I started speaking to a woman who was studying the calligraphy intently. She paused at this piece, saying she wasn't sure if she really understood what it meant.
I told her that a person's experience of God is based on way that they think of Him. If they think God is kind and merciful, they will see His kindness and mercy everywhere. If they think God is uncaring or vengeful, that's also what they will see.
My favourite example is one that I heard from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. It's the example of the atheist.
I used to work in a lab, where we would study chemical, biological and physical processes in the field of nanotechnology.
In the field of science it's not uncommon to find a lot of atheists.
I and my atheist colleagues would read the same papers, look at the same experiments and phenomena and come to completely opposite conclusions. While the complexity and perfect balance that we observed everywhere we looked would reinforce my belief in God's existence, the exact same observations would reinforce my colleagues' belief in God's non-existence.
They didn't believe He existed so, as He stated in the hadith qudsi, no matter where they looked, they would never find Him.
As part of the tour, we had a calligraphy display, which included selected verses from the Qur'an and some hadith.
At one point, I started speaking to a woman who was studying the calligraphy intently. She paused at this piece, saying she wasn't sure if she really understood what it meant.
I told her that a person's experience of God is based on way that they think of Him. If they think God is kind and merciful, they will see His kindness and mercy everywhere. If they think God is uncaring or vengeful, that's also what they will see.
My favourite example is one that I heard from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. It's the example of the atheist.
I used to work in a lab, where we would study chemical, biological and physical processes in the field of nanotechnology.
In the field of science it's not uncommon to find a lot of atheists.
I and my atheist colleagues would read the same papers, look at the same experiments and phenomena and come to completely opposite conclusions. While the complexity and perfect balance that we observed everywhere we looked would reinforce my belief in God's existence, the exact same observations would reinforce my colleagues' belief in God's non-existence.
They didn't believe He existed so, as He stated in the hadith qudsi, no matter where they looked, they would never find Him.
