Where does Allah come from?

Question

Everything was created by Allah but then where did Allah come from?

Is it haram to ask such a question?

Answer 1

You say that this is a question that comes up often. Perhaps from others? Or even from your own curious mind. Well than, let's answer this with logic that the mind can understand rather than quotes that your mind isn't accepting because it isn't piecing them together.

God created everything, including human beings. Because you were in fact created at one specific second, at a specific minute, of a specific day, than you know absolutely nothing that came before that second you were created. So, your mind has a conception of the world around you: "Everything has a beginning, like I have a beginning." And, that is a state of mind that every creature in this world has. Because they were created they have difficulty imagining a creature that doesn't have a "beginning".

In fact, we define our world by time, start, and finish, beginning, and end. But, understand that God, because he is the creator of everything, also created time. The very nature we have to begin, or to end, only exists because God created the concept. Before God created it, the concept of "beginning" never existed. The idea of a "beginning to everything" is something that only exists in your mind because you were created with a beginning! But, that doesn't mean that that is the truth of God, because before he created time beginnings and endings did not exist.

So then, you probably would, after taking that idea in, wonder to yourself "Than how does he exist if not within time?". Simply, he would have to exist in a place, and in a way, where time is not a factor. Someplace out of our "universe" in a way. Because, our universe HAS a beginning, he created it, therefor he cannot be living in it because he would have to be living in his own way before he created this universe.

Another possible question you might ask yourself is "Than, what is the 'present' time to God." And, to that I say, remember: he does not experience time like you do. Time is something he created for you. You experience past, present, future. He does not. He is outside of time as you know it because he created time. Now, realize, that doesn't mean that he can't see YOUR present. He can see what's happening everywhere, all the time, so he can happily look down upon you in your time-based life and see what you're doing in the present with a smile. But, just because he can look upon your present does not mean that he is limited to time the way that you know it, and feel it. He is something different from you, in a place different than where you live, and simply does not abide by the same rules that he has birthed you into. The rules for time, beginnings, and ends, is your gift. A special universe that he created for you.

Answer 2

وفي رواية في الصحيحين عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه : قَالَ: قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ - صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ -: «يَأْتِي الشَّيْطَانُ أَحَدَكُمْ، فَيَقُولُ: مَنْ خَلَقَ كَذَا؟ حَتَّى يَقُولَ: مَنْ خَلَقَ رَبَّكَ؟ فَإِذَا بَلَغَهُ، فَلْيَسْتَعِذْ بِاللَّهِ، وَلْيَنْتَهِ» ".

Translation: It was narrated in the two Sahihs (Al-Bukhari and Muslim) from Abi-Horayrah that he said: The Messenger of Allah (sallAllahu'alyhi wsallam) said: "A-Shaytan (Devil) may come to somebody of you, so he says: "Who created that?" until he says: "Who created your God?"so when they reach that (point of thinking), then they must ask Allah for refuge, and they must end up (that thinking)"

We learn from this Hadith that we shouldn't wonder about that, because Allah is the Creator, nobody created Him.

And Allah knows best.

Answer 3

According to the most developed arguments of Islamic philosophy:

• Premise 1: Allah is the most perfect and highest existence imaginable.
• Premise 2: Therefore nothing better, superior or higher than Him in any respect can actually exist.
• Conclusion: Therefore the existence of a higher being than Allah that created Him is an impossibility.

This also implies that Allah is completely independent, needless and self-sovereign in every respect. This is alluded to in the second verse of Surat al-Ikhlas:

Allah is samad (112:2)

Samad means something that has no need and dependency while needed by and depended upon by everything else.

Answer 4

You first say: every thing was created by Allah.

This would include the phenomena of both time and causation.

The initial creative act of Allah is the very first cause, as far as our reality is concerned (at least for the faithful, others posit a gigantic energy explosion that came out of nowhere).

To ask for a cause 'beyond' or 'behind' causation itself means one crosses the boundary of 'ordinary causation' into a trans-metaphysical realm. It is hard to discern whether logic and language are still applicable here, or whether the very language act of 'asking a question' already positions the agent within causation.

This makes this fine question exceedingly hard to answer. However, certain mystics have been granted a glimpse of what lies beyond.

Their often poetic words are attempts to clothe this 'beyond' in language.

Answer 5

I do not know if it is haram or not. But I do know that the question is a logical fallacy. There are other variations of it but the core problem are that the question itself make an assumption that can not be proven.

To ask if Allah have came from somewhere would be a different question. That would be an open question to which the reply can be "no Allah do not have an origin". But "Where do Allah come from?" are not an open question. It implies that "Allah do not have an origin" are not an valid reply. This kind of question are also called an leading question, because it leads you into thinking that Allah must have an origin.

Let me take another example. "Why did you steal my Apple?". Do this person ask you if you stole the apple in question? No this person are telling you that you stole the apple and demands to know why. Its therefore a leading question. When you reply to this question you must reply to it as if you are accused of being a thief. On the other end we have the question "Did you steal my Apple?". This are a very different question that do not imply that you are a thief, it only implies that you MAY be a thief.

Therefore I will argue as if the discussed question are a statement that Allah must have a origin, because it is such a statement. And I will prove it wrong by showing that things can exist without a origin or a creator, which by logic makes the question invalid. If anything can exist without an origin, so can Allah.

The problem here are causality. The law of causality states that everything have a cause and its the base for a line of reasoning that's called determinism. In this line of reasoning it is assumed that the universe follow this strict rule that everything must have a cause, and follow strict rules. You can observe determinism to a level when you for example play billiard and see the balls bounce in a very predictable pattern. If you measure the direction and speed of the balls you can build a computer simulation that are very accurate.

Now the error in the question "Who created Allah?" is that it assumes determinism are universal and can never be broken. The question itself implies that everything, including Allah, must have a creator. This implication however are false, and can be proven false by logic. It can even be proven false by experimentation.

The logical prof are that if everything need to have a cause this creates an eternal chain of cause and reaction. If Allah must have a creator then that creator must have a creator and so on. But something that are infinite cannot have a creator so this whole chain of event cannot exist in a strictly causal model. If causality where universal nothing can exist because something would have to start everything up, and therefore a casual reality would contain nothing. If nothing can exist without a cause nothing can exist. But something do exist therefore causality cannot be universal.

The reasoning above do not even prove that Allah do exist, but it proves that Allah can exist and that the question we are discussing do not in any way disprove the existence of Allah.

Also there are experimental evidence. There are a number of experiments where causality are broken. For example particles can just pop out of existence and turn up elsewhere, apparently without causality. More intriguing particles can pup into existence out of nothing, also providing evidence against a strictly deterministic/casual universe.

Now of course nothing of this proves that Allah exist. However it proves that Allah can exist. Therefor it invalidates "Where do Allah come from?" as a cause to doubt Allah.

The real problem here are that in everyday physics determinism are very important. If we engage in sports, engineering or drive a car we should follow the deterministic model. But if we apply this model to Allah/God/The Universe or if we apply it to our own mind then we are in error. In our own mind we do know that the quantum physical interaction of particles play an important role, and that interaction are not fully deterministic. This can be observed.

We can not observe currently observe the creation of the universe or Allah, but to assume that these must be fully deterministic wold not make any sense at all. This because we already know about things that can be proven to break determinism, such as our own brains which we can observe.

Also there are plenty of other evidence against determinism, such as most research related to quantum physics.

Answer 6

• Bismillah -

In answer to the original first query, "Allah created everything; where did Allah come from?", the short answer is that the question presupposes Allah is a part of creation, when Allah most definitely is not (when we go by the Qur’an).

For evidence of this latter point, look at Surat al-Ikhlas, the last line. This says God is incomparable with everything else in the universe. Now the entire universe is his creation; therefore God is not his creation.

To show God is not someone else's creation requires a different argument. We can also appeal here to al-Ikhlas. In the third line it says God begets none, nor was begotten; in other words, Allah is nobody's child, nor does he have children, unlike created beings. In the second line we are told God is eternal. So if God exists eternally, and is not a product of anyone else, and is one, we have there is just one God and this God is not someone else's creation (i.e. no other agent generates God but God). To show nothing else generates God but God, we note that God is the origin of all things distinct from God; so that there is nothing distinct from God except what God wills into creation; and we already have that God is not created by any other agent; so God is the sole cause of his existence.

So, in short, Allah is distinct from creation, and so is uncreated. He doesn't come from anything.

Answer 7

Such questions come up in our mind, which are totally vague and would move us away from the right path.

It was narrated in the two Sahihs (Al-Bukhari and Muslim) from Abi-Horayrah that he said: The Messenger of Allah (sallAllahu'alyhi wsallam) said: "A-Shaytan (Devil) may come to somebody of you, so he says: "Who created that?" until he says: "Who created your God?"so when they reach that (point of thinking), then they must ask Allah for refuge, and they must end up (that thinking)"

A part of the qoute from my fellow answerer. I was about to say the same, so I caught his piece of qoute.

See, in Quran Allah says

Say, Allah is One.

Then continuedly he says:

He has no father and is father of no one.

Which in turn means, that his and our start and end is not alike. We were born and we will die one day. But Allah, he was never born, because to get birth there had to be something from where he had to start his life. And Allah never will die or come to an end.

He is apart from our universe, but is as much closer to us as our own soul. He is beyond our imaginations.

Such types of questions, come up to our minds when Shaitan finds nothing else to diverge our minds, he makes these questions in our minds and then we start thinking about these things. In turn they move us away from our main goal (the worship of one God; Allah).

These questions are haram and must not be ever thought about. Only Allah knows about these things, no human can judge or measure or understand how and where did Allah came from. Its him who can say:

Kun fa'ya kun. Translation: Be, and it was!

Only Allah can create things and remove them. He is the creator of this universe, he was there when nothing was present, he will be here when everything will reach its mere end.

Answer 8

Before getting to the real question "Where does Allah come from?", it should be understood what "Time" really is?

Time has no independent meaning, in fact, Time only exists when first of all, something exists, and secondly, that thing changes its state to a new state. So this change of state can be understood as passage of time. And if nothing in the universe changes its state, we can literally say Time has stopped.

So only those things that first of all exists, and secondly, changes, is experiencing time! Passage of time is an idea that we attribute to things that change, in reality, time has no independent meaning.

The second part of the argument that I find quite reasonable comes from Kalam Cosmological Argument and it goes like this:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The world has begun to exist
3. Therefore the world has a cause

Now you should note that, the first argument excludes anything that does not begin to exist. According to Qur'an God does not begin to exist, therefore it doesn't need a cause, it has been always there. In fact the history of God is infinite as opposed to the history of universe which is finite.

From the above it can be understood that something has always been there and that thing brought us into existence. If you don't accept this you should say we have came into existence from absolutely nothing which is not plausible as absolute nothing has no potentiality to bring us into existence. Or we are the cause for ourselves which is again illogical and against what science tells us.

At this point your question is almost answered but I understand it is hard to think about something with infinite history. Because looking at the universe and understanding the Causality everywhere in it. We can logically understand any existence based on Causality can't have infinite history and needs an absolute beginning, just think about it if our history was infinite we could never reach this moment as we can't travel infinity, but we travelled the history of ours to this moment isn't it!

To sum it up such a thing with infinite history must either not experience any change therefore not experience time, something abstract like an idea or concept, like numbers for example 2 that again does not have any potentiality to create us. Or if it is experiencing time and changes (Qur'an-22:47 also tells us God is experiencing time, as I said time has no independent meaning) it shouldn't be based on causality, it can be understood like an un-embodied conciousness or mind.

So this is how I usually think about God or Allah: An un-embodied magnificent conciousness that has always been there, with the attributes that Qur'an describes.

Answer 9

Bismillah

As this hadith below mentioned, asking this is considered Haram in Islam:

وفي رواية في الصحيحين عن أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه : قَالَ: قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ - صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ -: «يَأْتِي الشَّيْطَانُ أَحَدَكُمْ، فَيَقُولُ: مَنْ خَلَقَ كَذَا؟ حَتَّى يَقُولَ: مَنْ خَلَقَ رَبَّكَ؟ فَإِذَا بَلَغَهُ، فَلْيَسْتَعِذْ بِاللَّهِ، وَلْيَنْتَهِ» ".

It was narrated in the two Sahihs (Al-Bukhari and Muslim) from Abi-Horayrah that he said: The Messenger of Allah (sallAllahu'alyhi wsallam) said: "A-Shaytan (Devil) may come to somebody of you, so he says: "Who created that?" until he says: "Who created your God?"so when they reach that (point of thinking), then they must ask Allah for refuge, and they must end up (that thinking)"

Here's a scientifical point of view:

Allah is the one who created this world. He created the space, time, and other dimensions. He is the one who created the rules of existence. Therefore, he is not in our kind of dimensions. It would be impossible to imagine the realm Allah is. He was not created, he is the Creator. The law of causality do not apply to Him, since he was the one who created it himself. He did not have a cause, He is the one who causes.

This question is one of the Waswaas - insinuating thoughts, and it came from no one's mind but Shaytan himself. When this question appears in mind, say this dua:

Amantu billahi wa rasulihi - I believe in Allah and His messenger.

And of course, istighfar. I hope this humble answer helps.

Wallahu a'lam - And Allah knows best.

Answer 10

In addition to what عمروخضير has written,

God is ever-lasting [2:255] , No one is the originator of Allah [112:3].

Also, Allah says in 17:36:

And do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge. Indeed, the hearing, the sight and the heart - about all those [one] will be questioned.

Answer 11

If we try to conceive the concept of God by thinking scientifically or want to justify his existence by scientific observations, we are bound to fail!! I believe that the existence of God can be justified or proven using philosophical arguments. Noted that many mathematical theorems are answered by philosophical arguments which shows that philosophical arguments are logical enough to rely on. The answer to the question "how the world was created and how it is being managed" can be explained by science and there is no need for a God to exist (physics formulas can explain every detail of existence). Although there are open questions such as questions related to the first created cell or DNA or...., we should not use the notion of God for explaining the world. This approach is called God-of-gapps! What if in future some scientists can explain or answer to such questions. However, answer to the question "why this world was created and what is the final goal(s) of the world and human" is not what the science can answer! I am not sure about others, but I believe I have "value". I am different from a stone. I am valuable... These arguments let me think that my existence has not been random, how some atheists think of. By randomly creating something, we cannot give "value" to it. This rather simple idea gives me the motivation to believe that there must be someone there planning and managing...

No one can prove or disprove the existence of God scientifically and by observation. Atheist only can say that there is no need for a god to explain how the world came to existence or to explain such scientific questions. Therefore, logically, God may or may not exist. However, philosophical arguments, one of which mentioned above, convince me about the existence of God. When existence of God is accepted, reading Quran we can see (at least) God's finger prints in it. The so-called Quran’s miracles (which are dissimilar to other prophets' miracles but conceptually and literately deeper) can not only confirm the existence of God, but give humans rough ideas what the God’s features are.

The answer to your second question is obvious. Never feel guilty to ask questions. Asking questions is our primary right and God also has persuaded us in Quran to ask questions.

Answer 12

Let me proceed, first of all, by assuming that Allah means God.

The question is similar to "who created God?"

This question assumes that God is a created being.

That is not the kind of God the monotheistic scriptures (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) refer to. The kind of God that the scriptures refer to is "ever-present, self-existing, self-sufficient, all-knowing, all-powerful Being" who in fact created everything we see/feel/experience.

I am not saying that the God of the three religions are one and the same. This warrants further comparative study of the respective scriptures in much more detail.

So, given the above facts, the question does not make sense in itself.

Answer 13

Allah is not confined within space or time, nor is he imaginable or susceptible to human logics.

"Times do not keep company with Him, and implements do not help Him. His Being precedes times. His Existence precedes non-existence and His eternity precedes beginning. By His creating the senses it is known that He has no senses. By the contraries in various matters it is known that He has no contrary, and by the similarity between things it is known that there is nothing similar to Him."

"cannot be said that He came into being after He had not been in existence because in that case the attributes of the created things would be assigned to Him and there would remain no difference between them and Him, and He would have no distinction over them. Thus, the Creator and the created would become equal and the initiator and the initiated would be on the same level. He created (the whole of) creation without any example made by someone else, and He did not secure the assistance of any one out of His creation for creating it."

"Surely, after the extinction of the world, Allah the Glorified will remain alone with nothing else beside Him. He will be, after its extinction, as He was before its production: without time or place or moment or period. At this moment, period and time will not exist, and years and hours will disappear. There will be nothing except Allah, the One, the All-powerful. To Him is the return of all matters. Its initial creation was not in its power; and the prevention of its extinction was (also) not in its power. If it had the power to prevent it, it would have existed for ever."

Sermon 186, Nahj ul Balagha

Answer 14

'Allah was not created and always existed.'

But how does someone as great and powerful as the almighty Allah just appear like that. Surely there's got to be someone or something to have gave Allah his power to create angels, galaxies, creatures (humans) with their own intellect. But then that raises the questions of "Who created the universe?" and even then we can ask, "Who created the God who created the God who created the universe?" and even then we can ask, "Who created the God who..."

So it's either follow God as he just appeared from somewhere and put your time effort and soul into Islam. Or don't follow him and hope hell dosent exist and not burn for eternity.

Risky.