“They ask thee concerning the Spirit. Say: ‘The Spirit is by command of my Lord. Of knowledge it is only a little that is communicated to you.’” (Qur’an 17:85)
“We have shown you the dust and concealed the wind.” (Rumi)
There are countless veils between us and God, but no veils between Him and us. The veils we experience between us and God are often created from misperceptions formed during our childhood that result in a distorted vision of reality. When something happens to us, good or bad, as human being we are inclined to frame that experience with an interpretation. How we interpret events in our life will in turn affect how we see our reality. Since our interpretations come from us and are totally subjective, if they were changed, it would change how we saw the world and God. Our experience of the world has little to do with what happens to us and everything to do with how we subconsciously or consciously choose to interpret our experiences.
Therefore, our interpretations and beliefs associated with them become a barrier to fully witnessing God. Nothing, however, is veiled from God’s perception. God has no blind spots or boundaries. We are not veiled due to God’s distance from us, but veiled due to His proximity. Just as the life that gives us breath is so close to us that we cannot see it or touch it, the Qur’an declares that despite the transcendence of His essence, God is closer to us than our “jugular vein” (50:16).
God’s love is intimately woven within every beat of our hearts. In fact, the Arabic word for God, Allah, begins with an “Ahh” sound, which, in theories of sacred sound, is the sound of manifestation, the sound we allegedly make when our hearts open. Symbolically, this sound represents the human being bursting forth from the nothingness of silence into manifested existence through God’s speech.
The word “Allah” can be seen as the same singular God that is referred to in the Torah in Hebrew as Elohim, or spoken by Jesus in Aramaic as the strikingly similar “Allaha.” Allah is neither female nor male, for He is beyond anything in creation and transcends all the limits that the human mind can create. Since in Arabic there is not a gender-neutral pronoun such as “it,” Allah uses huwa or “He” in reference to Himself because in Arabic the male gender form is inclusive of the female, not exclusive.
This blog is an excerpt from A. Helwa’s recently published best-selling book, “Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam.” Her book is available on Amazon.com
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About A. Helwa
A. Helwa believes that every single person on Earth is deeply loved by the Divine. She is a writer who has inspired hundreds of thousands of readers through her passionate, poetic, and love-based approach to spirituality. Her popular blog @quranquotesdaily, was established while obtaining her Masters in Divinity, as a means of helping others overcome personal and spiritual struggles on their journey of experiencing divine love.
With over 15 years of experience writing and speaking on Islam and spiritual development, A. Helwa draws from her personal experiences and traditional sources to help her readers access ‘Divine love in everyday life.’