Basic · Knowing Allah · Faith & Theology · Ages 5–99
Allah the Creator: Who Is Allah?
Allah created everything out of nothing and keeps it in being at every moment. Looking closely at what He made, and thinking about it, leads to knowing Him.
What you will learn
- Explain that Allah created everything that exists out of nothing and keeps it in existence at every moment.
- Explain how looking carefully at what Allah made, and thinking about it, leads a person to know Him, as Allah's book teaches.
Look up at the sky. Look at a tree. Now look at your own hands. No person made them. So who did? Let's find out together.
Did any person make the sky?
Answer: No, no person made it
Look at the tip of your finger. Its pattern of tiny lines belongs to you alone: no other person has it. Now think of a small seed. It can grow into a tree taller than a house. No seed makes itself grow, and no person can make a living seed. So where do they come from? Let's find out.
Can a seed turn itself into a tree?
Answer: No, it cannot do that by itself
Sooner or later, most people wonder why there is anything at all, rather than nothing. Asking that is not a sign of weak faith. Thinking hard about where everything comes from is where knowing Allah begins. Science explains how things work. This question asks something else: why anything exists in the first place.
Is it a sign of weak faith to ask why anything exists at all?
Answer: No, asking it can be where knowing Allah begins
Work, study and screens can fill whole weeks. We can go days without noticing anything we did not make: the sky above the street, the breath we take without trying. Yet these come from somewhere just as surely as a rare eclipse does, and no person made them. So what do they tell us about their source?
Does something have to be rare or unusual to tell us anything about Allah?
Answer: No, everyday things can say as much as rare ones
For years, your mornings have been full of duties. Then comes a quiet moment: light on the wall, a bird at the window. No person made either of them, and you have seen both thousands of times. What has changed is not the light but how closely you are looking. So what can the familiar still show you?
After decades of the same mornings, what is most likely to make someone notice the world again?
Answer: A new way of looking at what was always there
You have watched many seasons turn, and seen bare branches grow green again, year after year. Long experience can make the world feel ordinary. Or it can make a person a better reader of it. So where does all of it come from, and what does it say about the One who keeps it going?
When you have seen something many times, does it say less to you, or more?
Answer: Either, depending on how I look at it
People always need something to make things from. A baker needs flour. A builder needs bricks. Allah is not like that. Allah made everything from nothing.
Can a baker make bread without any flour?
Answer: No, a baker needs flour
Allah made the sky, the sea, the trees and the animals. He made you, too. Allah made the world from nothing. Allah is the Creator. Allah is One.
What did Allah make the world from?
Answer: From nothing at all
There was nothing there to start with. Even the clay for bricks was made by Allah.
A person can build a chair, but only from wood that is already there. Allah is not like that. Allah made everything from nothing: the sky, the oceans, every animal, and you.
To build a chair, what has to be there first?
Answer: Wood or some other material
Making something from nothing is called creating. That is why one of Allah's names is al-Khaliq, which means the Creator. Allah is One, and only He creates from nothing.
What is the difference between creating and building?
Answer: Building uses materials, but creating starts from nothing
People can only reshape things that are already there. Allah brings things into being when there was nothing to start with.
Builders rearrange materials that already exist. Allah brings things into existence from nothing at all. Even time and space are part of what Allah created. That is why He is called al-Khaliq, the Creator. Allah is One, and no one but Him creates from nothing.
A carpenter makes a table from wood. Is Allah's creating like that, only on a far greater scale?
Answer: No, Allah brings even the wood itself into being
Allah does not create something once and then step away. He keeps everything in existence at every moment. Nothing in the universe made itself, and nothing keeps itself going without Allah.
What keeps the universe in existence right now?
Answer: Allah, at every single moment
If Allah stopped keeping it for a moment, nothing would remain. The laws of nature only describe how created things behave.
Allah Allah
The name of God, the Creator of everything
The Arabic name of God. People all over the world, whatever language they speak, use it to call on the One who created everything.
al-Khaliq al-Khaliq
The Creator
One of Allah's names: the One who brings things into existence from nothing. People make things from what already exists; only Allah creates.
Al-Khaliq is the One who…
Answer: makes things from nothing
This name means the One who makes things from nothing. People can only make things from what is already there. And He never leaves what He made.
Allah Allah
The name of God, the Creator of everything
The Arabic name of God. People all over the world, whatever language they speak, use it to call on the One who created everything.
al-Khaliq al-Khaliq
The Creator
One of Allah's names: the One who brings things into existence from nothing. People make things from what already exists; only Allah creates.
A painter is often called creative. In what sense does the name al-Khaliq belong to Allah alone?
Answer: Allah gives things their very existence, from nothing
A painter arranges paint that already exists. Al-Khaliq brings into being what was not there at all, the paint and the painter included.
Who makes what? Match the pairs.
- Allah — makes everything from nothing
- A baker — makes bread from flour
- A builder — builds a house from bricks
Sort each one into the right group.
- No person made it: The sun, The ocean, A bird
- People built it: A chair, A phone
Which statement describes what it means for Allah to create?
Answer: Allah brings things into being out of nothing at all
Building needs material that already exists. Creating is giving existence itself, and nothing existed alongside Allah for Him to work with.
Allah did not make the world and then leave it. Allah takes care of everything, every day. He cares for the sun, the rain, and you.
When does Allah take care of the world?
Answer: Every day, all the time
Even while you are asleep, Allah is taking care of you.
Allah did not make the world once and then leave it. At every moment, Allah keeps the sun shining, your heart beating and the whole world existing.
What keeps the world going right now?
Answer: Allah, at every single moment of every day
Nothing can keep itself going, not even for one second. Even your next heartbeat depends on Allah.
True or false?
- Allah made the trees. — True
- People made the sun. — False
- Allah takes care of the world every day. — True
True or false?
- Allah made everything from nothing. — True
- People can make something from nothing if they try hard enough. — False
- Once Allah made the world, it could keep going on its own. — False
ٱللَّهُ خَٰلِقُ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ وَكِيلٌ
Allah is the Creator of every thing and He has charge over every thing.
Az-Zumar · 62 · M. H. Shakir (Tanzil)
What did Allah make?
Answer: Everything
These words tell us that Allah made everything. And Allah takes care of everything, too.
ٱللَّهُ خَٰلِقُ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ وَكِيلٌ
Allah is the Creator of every thing and He has charge over every thing.
Az-Zumar · 62 · M. H. Shakir (Tanzil)
According to these words, what is Allah the Creator of?
Answer: All things
These words say that Allah is the Creator of every thing, with nothing left out. They also say He has charge over every thing: everything is in His care, and He looks after it.
ٱللَّهُ خَٰلِقُ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ وَكِيلٌ
Allah is creator of all things, and He watches over all things.
Az-Zumar · 62 · Ali Quli Qara'i (Tanzil)
The verse calls Allah the creator of all things, then says He watches over all things. What does that second part add?
Answer: Allah still looks after everything He has created
To watch over all things is to keep caring for them. Creating was not the end of Allah's care, and nothing Allah has made is ever left to itself.
Imam Ali, peace be upon him, was a great teacher. He asked people to watch ants. Who made them so well? Allah's book also asks us to look and think.
Nahj al-Balagha, sermon 185, the passage on the ant.
What can a tiny ant help you know?
Answer: That Allah made it with great care
Even the smallest creature was made with care. Nothing makes itself, so that care comes from Allah.
Imam Ali, peace be upon him, a great teacher of Islam, said: "Will you not look at the small things Allah has created: how firmly He made them, how perfectly He put them together, how He opened hearing and sight for them, and shaped their bones and skin!" Allah's book also asks us to look and think.
Nahj al-Balagha, sermon 185.
What does Imam Ali ask people to notice in small creatures?
Answer: How carefully they were made
Such careful making does not happen by itself. It points to the One who made them.
Again and again, Allah's book points people to the sky, the earth, the rain and living things, and asks them to think. It does not ask for faith without thought. Looking at what Allah made, and reasoning about it, is how people come to know Him.
Why does Allah's book keep pointing to the sky, the earth and living things?
Answer: So that people think about them and come to know their Maker
Nature is a sign, not the destination, and a sign is there to be read. The sky is not Allah; it points to Him. No eye can see Allah, in this world or the next; hearts know Allah through the truths of faith.
Imam al-Rida, peace be upon him, was one of the great teachers of Islam. Someone once asked him how we can know that the world came into being. He answered: "You were not, and then you were; and you know that you did not bring yourself into being, nor did one like you bring you into being."
Uyun Akhbar al-Rida, volume 1, chapter 11, hadith 32; also in al-Tawhid by al-Saduq, chapter 42, hadith 3.
Follow the Imam's reasoning. You did not make yourself, and no one like you made you. What follows?
Answer: A Maker unlike you brought you into being
Anything that begins has to come from somewhere. Its source cannot be just one more thing that began, like you.
True or false?
- Only people who have studied science can come to know Allah through what He made. — False
- Looking carefully at what Allah made, and thinking about it, can lead a person to know Him. — True
- Once science explains how something works, it no longer points to Allah. — False
- Even something as small as a seed can lead a person to think about its Maker. — True
Who made the sun, and who made the lamp?
Answer: Allah made the sun, and people made the lamp
People make a lamp from glass and metal. No person can make the sun. Allah made it.
Suppose you build a sandcastle at the beach. How is what you did different from what Allah does?
Answer: I shaped sand that was already there, but Allah created the world from nothing.
Building means shaping what is already there. Allah created the world from nothing, even the sand and the sea.
In biology, you learn step by step how a seed grows into a tree. A thought comes to you: if science explains this, where does Allah come in? Which answer is right?
Answer: Science shows how the seed grows, and Allah is why it exists and keeps existing.
Science answers how things happen, while Allah is why anything exists at all. Faith does not live in the gaps that science has not filled yet.
Which statements fit the idea of Allah as Creator? Select all that apply.
Answer: Allah created everything, including time and space. / Everything exists at each moment only because Allah keeps it in existence. / Nothing in the universe made itself.
Creating means giving existence itself, not reshaping something already there, and Allah's keeping never stops. Nothing made itself, and nothing runs without Him for a moment.
Fill in the gaps.
Builders rearrange things that ___. ___ is one of Allah's names: He brings things into existence from ___, and they depend on Him ___.
- already exist
- Creator
- nothing
- at every moment
- Builder
- metal
- never existed
- only at the start
After the rain, you see a rainbow and stop to look. What can it help you know?
Answer: That Allah made it, and Allah is great
No person paints a rainbow, and it cannot make itself. Looking at it helps us know the One who made it.
On the way home, the sky turns orange and pink, and you stop to look. Which thought is right?
Answer: This beauty points me to Allah, the One who made it.
Even an everyday sunset is worth reading. Allah makes each one, every single evening.
You read that the human eye adjusts to light, from bright midday sun to faint starlight. Which conclusion is right?
Answer: Such careful making points beyond itself, to the One who made it.
Science tells us how the eye works. That the eye exists at all, and keeps on working, is what points to its Maker.
On a road you have walked for years, you stop at a tree you have passed many times. Today it is in blossom. Which thought about ordinary things like this is right?
Answer: Stopping to think about them can lead me to know Allah better.
The ordinary is made and kept by Allah at every moment, so it is always there to be read, whenever you stop to look.
Over a long life, you have seen spring return many times. This year, the blossoms come back once more. What is the truest way to see them?
Answer: As signs of their Maker, signs that long experience helps me read
Each spring is made and kept anew. A long life has simply seen more of the signs, and learned how to read them.