Introduction
Islam and Creation
The beliefs about creation and how everything around us (including ourselves) came into existence are central to Islam. The most important of these beliefs is of course that there is One and Only One Creator - Allah. Indeed without believing in Allah a person would have little incentive to follow the commandments sent down by Allah and to be a Muslim in the first place. For this reason it is important to understand what Islam teaches about creation and our Creator.
If a person is able to accept that they were created with wisdom and an intelligent design (opposed to just by random forces), then they have by implication come to realise that there is a Creator. It is only sensible then that a person should endeavour to find out who their creator is, the reason why they were created and ultimately, to set out trying to achieve the purpose of their creation.
Who is the Creator?
Muslims believe that Allah is the Creator and that He was not created. This is common sense, since Allah could never be created Himself otherwise He would be the creation, not the Creator. Allah says in the Qur'an:
"Say (O Muhammad (PBUH)): He is Allah, the One. Allah-us-samad (The Self-sufficient master, Whom all creatures need, He neither eats nor drinks). He begets none, nor was He begotten. And there is none equal nor comparable to Him."
(Quran 112:1-4)
Allah was the First and He is the Last - that is, nothing existed before Him and nothing can ever exist after Him since He is the one who sustains everything, living and otherwise. Because Allah existed when there was nothing but Him, it was He Who created time, space, stars and planets, air and everything else.
It may be hard for a person to imagine what it was like when there was nothing except for Allah and indeed it is largely beyond our comprehension because of the limited understanding that Allah has bestowed upon us. Just as it is difficult for a child to understand advanced concepts, so too there are some things that may be hard for us to imagine - such as how Allah could have always existed without having being created, since our limited knowledge does not allow us to fully understand something outside our view of time and space.
For those people who do not believe that there is a Creator, they will often ask the question "Then, who created Allah?". Allah has already answered this question in the verses of the Qur'an just mentioned, and in effect this question does not make sense. Even if we go back to the time before planets, stars, and moons existed, the current scientific theories teach that there was nothing but hydrogen gas. However, a hydrogen atom may be the simplest of the atoms, but atoms themselves are very, very complex and so the atheist must also answer how was the atom was created in such perfect detail by mere co-incidence (let alone everything else in the universe).
What does 'Creation' cover in this section?
This section of the website provides information about the creation of the heavens and the earth, about the first of mankind and how subsequent generations of humans came about, and about the prophets and messengers of Allah.
Use the menu on the right to skip to certain parts, or use the prompts at the bottom of each page to move backward and forward. The journey starts with the purpose of creation ........
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