|
Wa `alaykum as-salamu wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Dear questioner, we would like to thank you for the great confidence you place in us, and we implore Allah Almighty to help us serve His cause and render our work for His Sake.
It can not be denied that reason and logic have an important role to play in ascertaining truth, but they are not enough to realize, on their own, the whole truth. There are still issues that fall beyond the scope of reason and logic, and to deal with them one needs to refer to the most reliable source of knowledge, namely, Allah's revelation. Applying this principle to your question about the special status of Ramadan and Makkah, we find in the Qur'an that Ramadan was the month that witnessed the revelation of the Qur'an and the Holy Mosque in Makkah was the first and the most ancient house of worship dedicated to the worship of Allah. These facts shed some light on why both Rmadan and Makkah were of this special rank.
In his response to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
Reason and logic alone would not lead us to the whole truth, for as there are matters that are discernible through reason and observation, there are also things that are beyond reason and empirical knowledge. The only reliable source of knowledge for them is Allah’s own revelation. Matters such as the nature of Allah, His will, His Laws, mysteries of the soul, the nature of Life after death, the nature of heaven and hell, precisely fall under the purview of revelation. Reason has no choice, therefore, but to submit to the verdict of revelation on such matters. To think that logic and reason can determine the nature of Allah is to carve Allah in our own image.
Now coming to the issues you have raised, the answer for them, based on revelation, is as follows: All of Allah’s creation is a perfect manifestation of His wisdom and knowledge, and all of earth is pure and fit for worship as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “The whole earth is a mosque…” Yet, Allah, in His infinite Mercy has chosen certain persons, certain places, certain days, and certain months over others for reasons which we cannot fully comprehend in their entirety because Allah is free to choose and act; He is not bound by our own logic or reason. These choices, however, are not irrational. Rather, they are fully rational not in the sense that they conform to each and every individual’s reasoning, rather in the sense that they are in full conformity with the collective reason. The reason for this distinction is that individuals too often may become prisoners of their own souls, desires, or petty likes and dislikes.
As we know from the revelation to Muhammad, Allah has chosen the month of Ramadan over other months. We are told He has done so for the fact that it was the month that ushered in the revelation of the Qur’an, Allah’s choicest gift to humanity. Thus He chose the same month for observance of fasting in commemoration of this event. Fasting itself is intended as training in self-mastery and self-discipline. Likewise, He has chosen the Ka`bah over all other shrines for the annual pilgrimage, the reason given being that it is the first and therefore the most ancient house of worship dedicated to the worship of Allah. We are told that it was Adam, the father of humanity, who built the Ka`bah, and hence by calling humanity to turn towards the Ka`bah we are called to our Adamic roots. This choice is therefore in perfect harmony with Islam’s universal message of brotherhood of all of humanity. Islam, therefore, through its teachings heralds a new era in universalism in religion, transcending ethnic, parochial, and national considerations.
Excerpted, with slight modifications, from: www.muslims.ca
|
 |
