Encounters with the Quran
...sation between God and Abraham the reader sees a Lord that is compassionate, because “for the sake of ten I [God] shall not destroy it [The city of Sodom and Gomorrah].” (Genesis 18:32) Thus Genesis depicts the same type of compassionate God as the Qur’an; it just does it through different means. The next message that “al-fatiha” shares with the book of Genesis is that God is the creator of earth. This is demonstrated in through the line “lord sustainer of the worlds.” Not only did God create the earth, he continues to sustain it and at anytime God could stop caring for the earth and humanity would no longer exist. The belief of the creator deity is expressed in Genesis as well. There are two stories in Genesis of God’s creation of earth. In the first story, God commands things to be done and they happen. One such example is “‘let there be light,’ and there was light.” (Genesis 1:6) In the second story from Genesis, God is more of a “sculpter” of earth. “The Lord God formed a human being [Adam] from the dust of the ground and breathed life into his nostrils.” (Genesis 2:7) God then creates everything else on the earth for Adam to have control over. God shows his caring nature by making sure that Adam has everything that he needs: food, a place to live, and a woman. Both of these stories from Genesis depict God as the all mighty creator of earth; an idea identical to that of the Qur’an. The major theme of “al-fatiha” is the idea of praising God for all the things he has done. This theme of faithfulness and worship is expressed twice in the first sura. The first is when the Qur’an says “Praise be to God,” the second is “To you [God] we turn to worship.” In Islam and in the Qur’an, God is worshiped because every human will be judged one day. God himself is the “master of the day of reckoning,” and he will decide who is worthy of his refuge from sin. For the worship of God to be mentioned twice in such an important sura and to be one of the five pillars of faith it must be an essential belief. Praise and the worship of God are equally important in the book of Genesis. One such example is the sacrificial offering of Isaac, Abraham’s only child, to God. God, in a test of Abraham’s faithfulness, asked Abraham to “offer him [Isaac] as a sacrifice on one of the heights which I shall show you.” (Genesis 22:2) Abraham followed the request of God and had his hand risen to strike his son when God gave him a lamb to sacrifice instead. Abraham’s willingness to offer Isaac as a sacrifice to God demonstrates his faithfulness in God’s will. The importance of worshiping and being faithful to God is revealed in the book of Genesis by stories such as this one, and in the text of the first sura. Since God created humans in his own image the Lord must have a path for them to follow. This righteous path is discussed in the final couple of lines in “al-fatiha.” “Guide us along the road straight the road of those to whom you are giving,” says the Qur’an. In othe...