THE DESIRE FOR A DEITY
Andriyan Nikolayev (1929-2004) was a Russian cosmonaut. In 1962, he travelled into space for the first time. After his return from this trip, in August 1962, he participated in a press conference in Moscow. Narrating his experiences in space, he said he wanted to kiss it when he landed on Earth.
For a creature like man, many things and conditions that are conducive to human life have been made possible on Earth without any effort on man’s part. As far as we know, such things and conditions are nonexistent anywhere else in the vast universe. When the above-mentioned Russian astronaut went from Earth into space, he found that there, for man, was only amazement and bewilderment. Nothing there can give him peace and fulfil his needs.
After experiencing this, when he landed on Earth, he realized the value of the Earth. Just as when experiencing intense thirst, a person recognizes the importance of water. He felt the Earth, along with all the conditions so favourable to man that it contains, to be so wonderful that he wanted to offer it his intense love.
This thing is called ‘making a deity’ in Islamic Shariah. Man does not see God with his eyes, so he makes a creature, thing, or being his deity. A true believer of God passes by the external and arrives at the inner reality, who realizes that all that is visible is a gift from Someone, that some Supreme Being has created all that is on Earth. Seeing the creatures, he finds their Creator and makes Him his all. He offers all his best feelings for God.
The same inner state that the Russian astronaut experienced on returning to Earth, a person should experience this with greater intensity when he discovers God. A true devotee of God is one who, on seeing the sun, finds in its light the light of God, who begins to witness God’s limitlessness in the vastness of the sky, who discerns God’s fragrance in the perfume of flowers, who sees God’s blessings in the flow of water. The difference between a true devotee of God and somebody else is that the latter’s vision is entangled in the created world while the former, passing by the created realm, reaches the Creator. A non-devotee, fascinated by the beauty of created beings, gets immersed in them alone. On the other hand, the devotee sees the Creator’s wonders in the beauty of created things and prostrates before the Creator—God.
