Day 5
Allah Our Rabb and Rabb of the Universe
Welcome to day five of Be Quranic, where we extract practical lessons from short passages of the Quran to implement it into our daily lives so that we can be more Quranic. InshaAllah today we continue our study of the second ayah of Surah Al -Fatiha, Alhamdulillah, Heerab Bilalameen.
For the past two days we've covered Alhamdulillah and we've learned that Alhamdulillah is the key to our happiness in this world and hereafter because the essence of being happy, achieving a blissful life is about being grateful, it's about gratitude.
And the beauty of being a Muslim is that we know who to thank and how to thank. We know that all the blessings that we experience in life comes from Allah, our Lord, our God. And He teaches us exactly how to be grateful to Him.
The words to use Alhamdulillah or praise and or thanks is to Allah. Surah Al -Fatiha being the first Surah in the Quran, in this Surah Allah introduces us to Him. Who is this God of ours? Yes, at the opening in Basmalah we recited, Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim.
He is Al -Rahman, He is Al -Rahim. Now He's giving us another description, who is Allah in order for us to draw closer to Him, to get to know Him. And of all the many beautiful names of Allah and attributes of Allah, He chooses Rabb.
Rabb. What is Rabb? Rabb is commonly translated as Lord. But the word Lord doesn't necessarily carry the entire meaning of this deep word Rabb because one of the meanings of Rob is Al -Malik, the one that owns.
So God, Allah is explaining to us, introducing Himself to us that He owns. And he's not just the one that owns, because the word Rob also is the root word for terbiyah, which is nourishment, taking care, looking after something.
So Allah is the Rabb that owns and He also looks after it. So you may have owners who don't care about their belongings. You have someone who owns a car, trash the car around, and do not even care to send it for a service.
This is not our Lord, our Lord owns and looks after, nourishes. This is terbiyah. And he also, one of the meanings of Rabb is also qayyim. That means he sustains. He provides for the one that he owns.
So if you're looking about a Lord, you can have an even Lord, you can have a good Lord. because some Lord may own but not provide, may not care about you. But this is not Allah. Allah is the Rabb He owns and He cares, He nourishes and He sustains, He provides.
A Rabb also has full authority over whatever that He owns. So you may own a car for instance, but you're not the Rabb of the car. Why? Even if you have a Porsche, you can only drive 60 km per hour. If you are in Australia and most towns, 60 km on the freeway, 110 km at max, you can own the car because it's a Porsche.
It can go 300 km per hour. I'm going to go with it. No, you can't because you don't have full authority. Allah being the Rabb. Now He's explaining this relationship. He is our Rabb. He has absolute and complete authority over us.
So to summarize this entire relationship between us and Allah is a relationship between the Rabb which is Allah and us, the Abd, the slave, the servant. And we're going to explore the concept of Abd when we get to the ayah Ia Kanabudua Ia Kanastain.
But for now, we're just going to look at Rabb. Rabb is our Lord that owns, takes care of us, nourishes us, provides for us and has full authority over us. Now there's something interesting about the word Rabb.
In Arabic, a housewife is called Rabb Batul Bait. See, the status that Islam placed on a mother, the one that looks after and takes care of the house, she is not just a housewife, she is the Rabb of the house, Rabb Batul Bait.
You don't call the husband, you don't call the father Rabb Batul Bait. Rabb Batul Bait reserved only for the housewife. Why? Because in the household, the one that knows where everything is, is the mother.
If you ask the father, he may have a general idea where things are, but mum knows exactly. You move one spoon, and you place it in a different drawer. She knows that. Doesn't really matter. Major decisions, moving furniture in the house, that authority is the Rabbatulbayt, not the husband.
And when the children is in trouble, in pain, sick, unwell, the children runs towards the mother, the Rabbatulbayt, not the father, not the husband. So this is the relationship that you can imagine a little bit.
If you can understand this, then you can extend it and hyperbolicize it, the relationship with Allah. That He is the Lord. He owns us. He created us. He provides for us. He knows every single detail about us.
He is not just our Rab. He is the Rab of Al -Alamin. Al -Alamin translated into the many worlds, the many nations, the entire universe, and this beautiful phrase of Rabbul Alamin, you see that he is the Lord and the Creator and the Rabb, the Sustainer, the entire universe.
This universe is so huge that if we were to look into one direction, we know that the observable universe is 14 billion light years in every direction that we look. And we know that the universe is larger, space is larger than what is observable because space is expanding larger than the speed of light.
Who is the Lord of all this? It is Allah. There are more stars in space than there are grains of sand on earth. Imagine that. And who sustains all this? Every single grain of sand on earth or in any single planet around the universe and beyond our knowledge.
Who is the Rabb of this? It is Allah. Now imagine how lucky we are to be chosen in the of all this huge space. Allah chose to send His message to us. Allah chose for us to know Him. He is our Rabb. You've got this relationship with Him.
He is our Creator but He is a Creator that is compassionate and merciful. He provides for us. He nourishes us. He has complete authority over us. This is Rabb Al Alamin. This is who our Rabb is. This is the one that we are praising and the one that we are expressing our gratitude towards.
So what's our quest today? Our quest today is that whenever we pray, when we say Allahu Akbar, that God is great. Imagine the greatness of this Lord of ours, this Rabb of ours that He has created this universe, this space so huge.
And this is not just this universe that exists, not just the realm that exists. There's also the realm of the genies, the realm of the angels, things that are beyond what we know and can observe, beyond what is observable, he is still the Rob.
So when we say Allahu Akbar, we realise the insignificance of our existence, yet how honoured we are by Allah to be a Muslim, to be His servant.