Meaning of Allaho Akbar

The Meaning of Allaho Akbar

[English translation of a talk delivered by Shaikhul Islam Molana Mohammad Ishaq Madani, RA, entitled: ‘Allah ki Sifaat – Kun Fayakoon’. Video published on YouTube by Brother Kashif].

I would like to say a few things today about why Allah’s Messenger peace be upon him told us to say Allahu Akbar (Allah is the greatest). These are not small words.

In the last sermon, you heard that I talked about Allah Almighty’s existence. People ask questions like what He is and where He is and since when He is. These things are beyond human comprehension.

There is no end to reaching a conclusion about them. Allah the Almighty is much greater than this. You can never understand Him using your human senses.

You can never understand the reality of Allah through human understanding.

Sheikh Saadi said a racehorse is not for every course. There are courses where it cannot win. You cannot win the course of discovering Allah fully. Even prophets and saints tried but failed. This is a lost cause.

If we try to know someone and understand him using our human faculties, then that someone cannot be God.

Allah the Almighty is beyond our knowledge and imagination.

There are seven main attributes to identify Allah. These attributes are also in us in small measure.
Allah has infinite attributes. These are beyond our comprehension.

Allah the Almighty created man in such a way, that we can only recognise Allah the Almighty through what we know, but not through what we do not know.

Even what we know is limited. and what we know about Allah is also our limited knowledge.

Allah the Almighty is alive. Because Allah the Almighty created us alive, we can understand that Allah the Almighty is ever living.

Allah the Almighty gave man the knowledge of everything. That is the reason why we understand that Allah the Almighty is all-knowing.

But Allah the Almighty is much more than what we think about Him being everlasting and all-knowing.

Allah the Almighty listens to those who call Him. We know this because Allah has given us the ability to hear.

Allah sees everything. We know this because Allah has given us eyes to see.

Sometimes man is misled by thinking that since he shares some qualities with Allah, he is like Him.

Shaitan has mislead people, who claimed they were God. They met a disgraceful end for being arrogant and insolent.

That is why it is important to understand the meaning of Allaho Akbar. God is the greatest.

Pir Mehr Ali Shah tried to explain this in a poem. ‘Where is my place, and where is Allah’s place? Can I ever Glorify the Almighty and do justice to it? No, I can never do that.’

‘It is not possible. He is Allah and I am human There is no comparison.’

Allah the Almighty says, “Verily there was a time when man was a thing not worth mentioning” (Surah 76: Verse 1)

This is our life. You were not here before. You will not be here forever. So, what folly makes you proud and arrogant?

Our life is borrowed life for a limited time. Only Allah is permanent and always living. No one has given life to Him. He is always alive.

Everything has an end except Him. Everyone else is going to perish except Him.

The arrogance that comes from this feeling of being alive in this world is negated by Allaho Akbar. It is a reminded that only Allah is the greatest.

There is no comparison between us being alive and Allah being alive. Mawlana Ahmad Raza Khan, may Allah have mercy on him, was blessed by Allah with great knowledge. He said that Allah taught our beloved Prophet, peace be upon him, great knowledge and wisdom.

The Prophet, may Allah have mercy on him, had more knowledge than anyone else. Mawlana compared the knowledge of the Prophet with the knowledge of Allah.

He said something no one said so beautifully before. This is a matter of monotheism. Where is Allah’s knowledge and where is the Prophet’s knowledge? Do you want to make a comparison?

He said, take a drop of water. Divide it into ten thousand parts if it is possible. Take the ten thousandth part of that drop of water. The Prophet’s knowledge is like the ten thousandth part of the drop of water compared to Allah’s knowledge which is like 10 crore oceans.

And yet, he said, this is only to understand the ratios. Otherwise, this comparison is also not a fair comparison because there is no limit to Allah’s knowledge. But compared to that, there is a limit to the Prophet’s knowledge.

Because Allah Almighty is alone, and His unity is unique. No Prophet or Saint can compare with Allah’s qualities. Allah is sublime. This is the simple explanation of Allaho Akbar.

What is your hearing? It is dependent on distance. You cannot hear if the distance is far. You cannot hear if there are too many voices, But Allah is all-hearing.

Even when the whole world is talking simultaneously, irrespective of distance or language or the speaker, Allah is hearing everyone.

Allaho Akbar means all His qualities are His own. All His attributes are His own. These are infinite. These are not given to Him by anyone. But the attributes of man are not his own.

Whether he is a prophet, saint or angel or an ordinary man, he does not own these qualities. These are God given.

In Surah Bani Israel Allah said clearly: ‘We have given you the Quran to remember in your hearts because of Our mercy from Us. And if we want to take it away, you will not find a single helper to intercede with Us ((17:86).

Scholars have said prophets were human. They could forget But Allah does not forget. Musa said to the Pharaoh: “Neither my God makes a mistake” “Nor he forgets”. (20:52).

There is none worthy of worship except Allah. We say we have qualities of God in us. We have nothing compared to our creator. Allah’s attributes are His own.

We say we have Allah’s attributes, but this is not true. His attributes are too vast and infinite.

I was part of a group that had gone for Umrah. On return via Madinah a young fellow in our group said a beautiful thing while we were having our heads shaved. I thought he said something that was the essence of Deen.

He said: ‘There is no pride in a borrowed life that cannot give the guarantee of its next breath’.

If the breathing stops, life ends. Our life is dependent on one single breath. Air goes in, comes out and we are alive. Air does not go in, and we die. This is how limited we are in our functions to see, hear, know, feel and speak.

Allah’s qualities are not dependent on anything. Allah is everlasting. Allah is all-knowing. It is impossible to know God from His qualities. Therefore, the Sufis could not reach God. Philosophers could not understand God.

They could not explain how Allah created the universe out of nothing. Man cannot explain the secret of ‘Let it be and there it was’.

We see things being made from matter. But, when there was no matter how Allah created clay, iron and other things? Allah is the creator of everything. Only He can crate out of nothing.

Allah created Adam but His ability to create out of nothing was not given to Adam. The prophets and saints were given miracles by Allah, but they could not create something out of nothing.

A companion of the Prophet was facing some hardship. His wife told him to go out and borrow money from neighbours so that they could have food. The man said I am already in debt. No one will give us any loan.

But when his wife insisted, he went out to a deserted place and put his forehead on the ground in prostration before Allah. He asked Allah for help as there was no one he could turn to for help.

After a long time had passed, he returned home empty handed. When he reached home, he saw that his wife was cooking food. He asked her where the food came from.

She said, go inside the house and see. When he went inside, he saw a small flourmill going round and round. Flour was coming out from one side, but he did not see any grain going in the mill.

He was curious. He lifted the top stone of the mill to check it. The flourmill stopped running. The flour also stopped coming out. When he mentioned this incident to the Prophet, he said: ‘It stopped because you wanted to discover the secret of Kun Fa Yakoon’.

Only Allah knows the secret of ‘Let it be, and it was’. Had the man not lifted the mill stone the flour would have kept coming to feed him for the rest of his life.

From time to time, people discover new things. They call these inventions. Claiming creation is kufr. Only Allah creates. Humans only discover. If you go deep, invention means something that never existed before.

What man invents is out of the existing matter; not something out of nothing. Allah has stored things in His divine wisdom and kept these hidden from man.

When the time comes, Allah inspires man to discover them and call these inventions This is discovery not creation Allah does it. Allah is the creator. People don’t know.

The ego is a strong denier of Allah. It prevents us from being grateful to Allah. We cannot understand the existence of Allah. As a matter of fact, we do not know our own existence.

We can understand our strengths and weaknesses, but we cannot understand our real self. However, hard we try, we will not know our nature. However hard we try to know Allah, we cannot make progress.
The physical features apart, we cannot reach the reality of our being, let alone the being of Allah. Pious people spend their lives seeking forgiveness from Allah and in His glorification, they say: ‘I am nothing. What am I? I am nobody’.

After every prayer they seek Allah’s forgiveness. When the obligatory Salah ends after Salam, worshippers say Astagferullah three times.

A non-believer came to Sheikh Abdul Haqq Muhaddis Dehlavi and said: ‘Why do your followers say Astagferullah after the end of each Salah. Have they not done a good deed by performing worship? The Sheikh said: ‘Astagferullah. You won’t understand this.’

Your priests have taught you to seek forgiveness after committing a sin. But we seek Allah’s forgiveness because we know we are humans. Our worship is not up to the standard of His greatness.

So, we seek His forgiveness and ask that He accepts our imperfect Slat. The lowest form of seeking forgiveness is after committing a sin. The highest form is doing good and asking Allah to accept it and forgive our shortcoming in it.

We are not fit to worship Allah in a way that He requires of us. That is why we seek His forgiveness and ask that He accepts out prayer. One is Istighfar al Haqq. To do good and then say My Lord, I am not worthy of Your glorification.

Our Lord, we put all our effort, but your high status is beyond our imagination and our ordinary self is so low before You. So, forgive our shortcomings, Our Lord, we admit our weakness.

And those who like Allah, they don’t like pride. Anyone who is arrogant and proud of his worship Allah does not accept it.

Imam Jafaar Sadiq narrated an incident. Two people entered a mosque. One was Siddiq, the leader of the saints of his time. He was proud of his status and arrogant in his prayer. The other was an ordinary man ashamed of his sins.

When they both came out of the mosque, the one who was Siddiq was written by the angels as a sinner, but the one who thought of himself as a sinner was written by angels as Siddiq because of his humility.

Since birth till death, man can never thank Allah enough, even for a single blessing. What do you have from your own that you can give Allah in return for His blessings?

You need to say: My Lord, my life is yours. The truth is that we have been unjust to ourselves. We have been negligent in being grateful to Allah.

In Surah Al-Baqarah, Allah says: when you return from the plain of Arafat to Mina, ask for forgiveness from Allah. (2:198). Imagine returning from a holy place where Allah has promised forgiveness, and you are still being commanded by Allah to seek His forgiveness. The reason is because due to our human nature, we can never worship Allah in the true manner that is required of Allah’s majesty. Man is not without shortcomings.

Mevlana Rum has given a beautiful example of man’s shortcoming in his Masnawi. There was a drought in a place. The harvest had failed. There was hardship.

A poor man had no food in his house. His wife started going to the jungle to pick leaves to eat. One day she told her husband, take a gift and go to the king. He may give you some food in return.

He asked what I should take as gift. She said: ‘Take a little water from our yard in a pitcher and go to Baghdad. This is the state of our worship. It is like the pitcher of the poor man being taken to the king as gift.

When the poor man reached the palace of the king, he told the guards: ‘I have brought a gift for the king’. They told him: ‘the king is not in the palace’. ‘He is taking a walk by the river.’

The man had never seen a river in his life. When he reached there, he saw that the king’s bodyguards in uniform and a big river with flowing water The poor man was embarrassed.

He was ashamed that his gift is only a handful of stale water from his dirty yard which is not fit for the king. He thought the king is not in need of his gift. He has a river and boats. What is the value of my gift in front of this abundance.

As the man was thinking, he was spotted by the king. The king called out to him and asked: ‘Tell me why you are here.’ The man told him the whole story with great humility and said: ‘I am sorry for coming here.’ The king said: ‘Your love is accepted’.

The king told his advisers to give the man some diamonds and pearls in return for accepting his small gift. This is the example of our worship to our Lord. We take a small pitcher of muddy water to our Lord who owns rivers and oceans. May Allah forgive us.

A prayer has been taught to us to recite. ‘O Allah, this prayer which I have offered, neither you need it, nor you are looking for it. I offer it to you out of love and respect. I admit before you that it is not perfect, and it is not complete. My Lord do not hold me to account for my shortcomings. Accept it with your mercy do not turn your face away from it. I have prayed for you. Forgive me, my Lord.’

This is His mercy and kindness Otherwise, there is no goodness or perfection in a person. Allah knows what is inside our hearts. He gives reward for even the smallest of things. This is His great mercy and grace.

One should accept his weakness. Many people say they did not offer Salat for many years. I was busy. My circumstances were difficult. They should seek Allah’s grace and forgiveness for their negligence.

In the Torah it is mentioned about Prophet Ayub and his wife. He was ill for 18 years and wasn’t cured. Everyone left. Only his wife remained by his side and helped him.

One day when she had had enough of Ayub’s illness, she told him to stop worshipping Allah. She said: ‘What’s the point of worshipping God who does deliver you from your misery? ‘

Ayub told his wife: ‘Throughout my life I have received my Lord’s blessings and favours. No one could rival my position, my possessions and my family.’

‘If my Lord has put me in some test after rewarding me so much, should I abandon my Lord and be ungrateful to Him?’

‘You have given me an ill advice knowing well that I am a prophet of Allah. If my Lord cures me, I will admonish you for saying what you said and flog you 100 lashes.’

When Ayub was cured, he was sad about his promise to flog his wife. She had been loyal to him and yet he had decided to punish her for what she said to him.

Allah had mercy on Ayub. Allah asked Ayub to make a broom of 100 dry grass blades and hit his wife with it so that his promise could be fulfilled in such a way she was not hurt.

This is not a small thing. When man gets dejected, he starts talking kufr, even though Allah advises His slaves to be patient in adversity.

Allah is never unjust to His creation. Who can be kinder and more merciful than Allah.
Every test comes from Allah and if you fail it, you won’t be able to run away from its consequences. On the contrary your impatience will make you a denier of the Truth.

Instead of becoming kafir, the right thing is to accept the test and believe that what Allah has ordained is good for me.

Molana Ashraf Ali Thanvi has written about a Saint. A person stayed with this Saint for a few nights. He observed that the Saint got up in the night and prayed Tahajjud. But a voice said: ‘it was not accepted.’

This was repeated for many nights and after every Tahajjud a voice said the same thing. Before leaving the house, the guest asked the Saint about his night prayer and the voice. He said to the Saint: ‘Why do you continue to pray when you are told it is not accepted?’

The Saint cried and said: ‘One can detach himself from someone if he knows that there are others he can turn to for redress, but when there is no one else except Allah, you have to keep going to Him again and again until you are accepted.’

‘If I leave my Lord, where else can I go?’ When the saint said this, the voice returned and said: ‘There is nothing special in your worship of the night, but it is accepted because you are admitting that there is no one other than Me who can forgive you.’

If you are contented, then even if there is hardship, InshaAllah, Allah will put blessings in that hardship.

Caliph Omar Bin Khattab said: ‘I am never worried about my health when I get up in the morning because I know whatever my Lord has written for me is good for me.’

‘My Lord knows better whether my health or my illness is good for me. Omar also said: ‘I find three blessings in each difficulty. One is that the difficulty could be greater than what has befallen me. So, the Lord is to be thanked for it. I could never have changed it otherwise.

‘The second is that this is the difficulty of this world. Allah has saved my hereafter and saved my faith and me from the difficulty in the everlasting life.’

The third is that the difficulty is not forever, and it is Allah’s promise that if you are patient your reward is beyond your calculation.’ The awareness of these three things should always keep you happy.

Allah’s messenger, peace be upon him, came to teach this message that Allah is the greatest. He is unfathomable. It is not possible to understand Allah. Do not be proud of His blessings on you. If these are given by Allah these can also be taken away by Him.

In Surah Yaseen Allah says that when We give someone long life, we also return him in reverse. Like a child his legs become weak, unable to stand or walk. His eyes stop seeing clearly. His hearing gets impaired. He becomes like an infant who is carried by people in their hands.

You think you are strong and big, but you are nothing. Allah’s power is overwhelming and only He is sovereign.

It is because of Allaho Akbar that the messengers of Allah asked people to worship Him, and not them. In Surah Ale Imran Allah says: ‘No one whom Allah has given the Scripture and prophethood can say worship me and leave Allah.’ (3:79).

Out Prophet explained Allaho Akbar to us. There is no one more worthy than our Prophet, peace be upon him, and no one was more faithful to him than his companions.

Qais Bin Saeed said to the Prophet: ‘We came from Iran where we saw people prostrating before their lords. You are the messenger of Allah. No one is as honourable as you. It befits you if we prostrate before you out of respect.


Instead of being pleased with this, unlike today’s Peers who are happy to put forward their feet to be kissed by their followers, the Prophet said: ‘Astagferullah’. He said: ‘if it was allowed to prostrate before anyone other than Allah, I would have asked the women to prostrate before their husbands’.


He also said: ‘when I die and if you pass by my grave will you prostrate before it?’ The companions who had learnt Islam from the Prophet, said: ‘we won’t do this’.

The message was that if it is not permissible to prostrate before the grave of a dead person, how can it be permissible to prostrate before one who is alive.

The Prophet said: ‘Worship Allah. Only Allah is worthy of worship. You should love me because I am a messenger of Allah. You should respect me, obey me and even lay down your life for me, but you cannot worship me.’

There is an incident narrated in Hadith that a companion came to the Prophet in Madinah and said: ‘O Prophet, my camel has become wild. We have locked the camel inside a room. We cannot put the directional ring in his nose. We have tried but failed.

The Prophet said: ‘take me to the camel.’ The Prophet got the room opened where the camel was locked. As soon as the camel saw the Prophet it laid its neck before him as if it was prostrating before him.

The Prophet caressed the camel. There were tears in the eyes of the camel. The Prophet said to its owner: ‘You should treat your animals kindly. The camel is complaining that you make him work very hard, but you do not look after him and feed him’.

Then the Prophet put the ring in the nose of the camel, and it became normal again.

At that time people said to the Prophet: ‘O Prophet, an animal like this camel is prostrating before you. Why can’t we do that?’ The Prophet said: ‘Animals are different. Do not prostrate before me. Prostrate only before Allah.’

We see in our daily lives how people are filled with pride. They want to be praised. But look at the Prophet. He said: ‘Praise only Allah.’

The Prophet did not approve that his companions should stand when he entered a gathering. A man of the world would have said: ‘Stand up before my arrival and keep standing until I am seated’. In his gatherings, the Prophet did not have a high-chair or a special place for sitting, unlike the religious leaders of today.

A stranger who would come to meet the Prophet would ask who among you is the grandson of Abd Al Mutallib?’ The Prophet’s companions would point to the Prophet and say: ‘you have come to meet the messenger of Allah’. Allah says: ‘O Prophet, stand up and remember the greatness of your creator’. (74:2).

‘He who has made you the messenger is the only one who is great and worthy of prostration. No one else has this right’. Everything is an idol before Allah if it is worshipped. Allah has the kingdom. He is sovereign. He does what He wills.

The followers of Isa declared him son of God. In Surah Al-Maeda Allah said in His greatness that if Allah wills, he can kill Isa and his mother and everyone on earth. Is there anyone who can stop Allah from doing so? (5: 17 & 18).

There can be leaders and prophets among men, but you cannot elevate them to the level of Allah. Allah says: ‘I am Allah. All people are my slaves.’

That’s why our Kalema which is the declaration of faith and our Salat which is our prayer include this statement: I bear witness that there is no god, but Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad is his slave and messenger.

In the Kalema slave comes first and messenger comes after it. Muhammad, peace be upon him, is our Prophet and guide. We are not even close to the dust of his shoes.

In fact, the dust of his shoes is the lining of our eyes. But we cannot compare the Prophet with Allah.

Whenever there is mention of Prophet Muhammad in the Quran, Allah uses the word ‘slave’ for him. It says: ‘We revealed the Quran on our slave’. It does not say we revealed the Quran on our beloved or friend.

Slave is also used when Allah mentioned the Prophet’s celestial journey of Asra and Meraj in the Quran (17:1). Allah said: ‘If you have any doubt about what We have revealed to our slave then produce a single Surah like it.’ (2:23).

Allah says: ‘Muhammad is my slave.’ It is a great honour. There is no greater honour than being told by Allah Himself that my Prophet is His slave and messenger.

In Surah Najam Allah says: “The Quran is nothing but a revelation that is sent to him. It was taught to him by an angel with mighty powers and great strength, who stood on the highest horizon and then approached, coming down until he was two bows-lengths away or even closer, and he revealed to Allah’s slave what he revealed’. (53: 6 to 10).

Likewise, in Surah Anfaal, Allah says: ‘We sent our revelation on our slave.’ (8:41). The whole Quran is like this. Whenever there is mention of the Prophet’s high honour, Allah uses the words ‘My or Our slave’.

Out Prophet, peace be upon him, has instructed us but we have forgotten it that we should take heed and beware never to forget the greatness of Allah.

The Prophets have the highest rank in the category of humans. If place all humanity on one side of the scale and our Prophet on the other side of the scale, it cannot become equal to match the rank of the Prophet.

The honour Allah has bestowed on his Prophet no man can become a partner in it. All the goodness of the universe is in the Prophet’s personality. His perfection is not shared by anyone except in one or two things.
Allah says do not be like the Christians who took partners with Allah. The knowledge we have points to the fact that the prophet is human, yet he is the best of creations. The Prophet has the highest rank in humanity.

This is a brief talk about Allaho Akbar. The last frontier of describing the honour of the Prophet is silence because it is a task beyond our ability.

May Allah send His blessings on Prophet Muhammad, on his wives who are the mothers of the believers, on his progeny, and the members of the Prophet’s household, as He has sent His blessing on Ibrahim and the progeny of Ibrahim. Indeed, Allah is all praiseworthy and the greatest.

27 minutes.