Can we see God? A question which sometimes our youth or even others would ask. There are two reasons for the question. First that there is an aya in the Quran that Allah describes on the day of Judgement (إِلَى رَبِّهَا نَاظِرَةٌ, وُجُوهٌ يَوْمَئِذ نَّاضِرَةٌ) on that day, some people are joyful, they are enjoying the bliss and some others are not. So this group of (وُجُوهٌ يَوْمَئِذ نَّاضِرَةٌ) it means that those faces or people with joyful faces, (إِلَى رَبِّهَا نَاظِرَةٌ) looking at their Lord. Some Muslim theologians not from the followers of Ahlulbayt (a.s.) said why not? On the day of judgement indeed in Sahih Bukhari there is more than one hadeeth that refers to the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) or one of the companions that as you see your hand you will see or look at your Lord on the day of Judgement. Some scholars claim that they saw God in their dreams! Which is ridiculous because they have not seen Him before so how can they say the one they saw in their dream is God? Anyway, it is ridiculous to say that a person can see God in their dreams.
The second reason is some people say that there is a big distance or gap between what you have been told and you see. So sometimes you listen to a lecture for example in chemistry or physics and the teacher or professor explains to you whatever is about that formula, but you only comprehended or memorized theoretically but when it is put in practice and you see that in the laboratory, it makes a big difference.
So this is the question, before we answer that I will mention two very nice stories.
One, somebody called Thi3lib from Yemen, Thi3lib Al Yamani came to Imam Ali (a.s.) and asked him: Oh commander of the faithful, did you see your Lord?(هل رأيت ربك؟) And the Imam replied: (افأعبد ما لا أرى؟ ) Do I worship whom I can't see? So he was surprised at how the Imam saw Allah. Then the Imam (a.s.) opened it up and said that these are not the eyes, the materialistic sight which can see, comprehend and look at God, but this is the inner sight.
God is at the same time that He is far away from our imagination He is so close to us. As He has put it in many ayat that we are so close to our servants. But this closeness or distance are not physical, they are logical in a sense that in the same way that Allah is not to be comprehended or in (compast ?) by our imagination and our abilities but He is in our hearts, in our faith. When we gain the certitude or yaqeen in a way that we believe Him as if we are seeing Him. Indeed there is a hadeeth that worship Allah as if you see Him because if you don't see Him, He sees you.
This refers to what we call nowadays CCTV cameras, that when you are confident that no one is watching you; you may feel free to do what you want. When a driver on the highway is confident there is no CCTV camera and no one is watching him, he will speed in his driving in a way that he usually won't. But the moment he sees the camera or he sees from a distance a police car coming he tries to control his speed. If anyone knows that there are cameras watching him or there is a recorder recording every word he is saying is recorded and documented, they will be more vigilant and more careful.
So this feeling of the presence of Allah, the omnipresence of Allah subhannahu wa taala, is a very important idea in building the Islamic personality and characteristics in a way that I feel the presence of Allah all the time. And that’s why it is as if I see Him watching me.
So the Imam (a.s.) went on to explain that it is not the physical sight that we look at Him, it is rather the inner sight. When your heart is clean and purification of the soul is there, indeed you will see with the light of Allah. And Allah is (اللَّهُ نُورُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ) the absolute light of the whole heavens and earth. So through and via that light you are able to see things, the realities.
The second story is about the Russian writer Tolstoy, wrote once a book called "I want to see God". And the story is this: One of the emperors of the time one day gathered all the ministers and said that, "I want to see God!" The ministers told him it's impossible. The emperor insisted he wants to see God and if he isn’t shown God, he will kill them all.
In brief the story goes that the prime minister asks for a few days to think about the request and all the ministers went to write their final wills because they knew that the emperor was serious and he will kill them if they don't show him God and they are not able to do so. And the prime minister went out of the city, as he was thinking of how to solve this problem he saw a gardener. A very illiterate gardener was there and when he saw the prime minister was so disturbed he asked, "What's wrong with you?" So the minister told him about the story. So the gardener said "I can show him God" The minister reminds him that he will be killed if he doesn't show God to the emperor. The gardener says "I'm confident and positive that I can show him God"
So the minister took the gardener with him back to the palace and told the emperor the answer is with me. And when all were there and you can imagine how everybody is holding their breaths. The emperor is sitting there but the gardener says he wants it to happen at 12 o'clock noon and outside in the courtyard not inside the palace. So they agree and while they are sitting the gardener says "Your highness this is the moment to see God. Open your eyes wide and look at the disc of the sun for five minutes. Immediately after five minutes you can see God" The emperor tried to argue about it but the gardener insisted he does as he says and he will definitely see God. Of course when it is 12 o'clock noon and the sun is shining ,it is difficult to open your eyes even for 2-3 seconds on the disc of the sun at that time so however he wanted to see it he couldn't see it even for 10 seconds. So he said "I can't look, I can't leave my eyes open when I'm looking and gazing at the sun. So the gardener says "If you are not able to see the sun which is one of the things created by God, how can you expect to see God?" And in this way he managed to save the lives of all the ministers and to give a good answer to the emperor.
Who said that seeing is the measure for reality? Because there are things we see but there is no reality behind it. On the other hand there are real facts but we can't see them. Here are a few examples of things which we see and we have no doubt about seeing them but there is no reality behind them.
First, we see a lifelike image reflected in a mirror that has no external existence of its own. When you stand in front of a mirror, you see an exact reflection of yourself, your body and your clothes. Is there any reality in there? Any change or any addiction in the glass that is somehow made into a mirror? Of course not but you see it and you have no doubt about it.
Second, that when standing on a train track we see the two parallel metal rails meeting each other in the distance. Whilst by definition when they are parallel they can't meet, so you may see that they are meeting but your sense here is giving you a false alarm, a false understanding.
Another example, that in hot climates people see mirage of water in the (arate?) distance and Allah describes this in a nice way for those who associate other than Allah with Allah and they think that anything besides Allah can have impact on your life He say that (كَسَرَابٍ بِقِيعَةٍ يَحْسَبُهُ الظَّمْآنُ مَاءً) When you are thirsty in the dessert and you are searching for water, in the horizon you see the mirage but when you go there you see there isn’t any water. So you see the mirage but there is no reality of water there.
Again the physics tells us that the universe has four dimensions yet we are only able to perceive three.
Another example, in winter if we touch a wooden door and a steel door we might imagine the latter to be colder than the former while they are actually the same precise temperature.
And the last example is that when we are sitting in the train and the train is moving very fast we see that the trees are moving but we are still whilst the reality is that we are sitting in the moving train and the trees are still and standing in their places.
So we conclude that who said that seeing something is the real measure for its reality? No we see things that have no real existence. On the other hand there are things which do exist but we can't see them. The simple example is pain, no one can deny there is pain but who can show us pain? No one can show us the pain that he is suffering and complaining about.
In the time of Haroon Al Rasheed there was a gentleman who was pretending to be crazy and in this way he saw a speaker in the mosque saying three things. One of them was how can we believe in what we can't see? Of course all the seculars, atheists, all the materialists say this. They say how can we believe in something we can't touch, we can't sense, we can't communicate in a physical way? And when the believers talk about angels, spirit, soul and the hereafter, they say "What? We only believe in what is proven to exist by our senses." They can't imagine and they don't agree with something which is not touchable.
The speaker was talking about something like that and Bahlool, the scholar to pretended to act crazy took a piece of clay and hit the speaker with that piece of clay. The speaker said, "Why do you do that?" Bahlool said "What did I do?" The speaker said "You hurt me and I feel the pain!" Bahlool said "Can you show me the pain? I can't believe in pain because I can't see it. You said that we can't believe in something we can't see."
So pain is something which we definitely feel there is pain but we can't see it.
Human beings are able to distinguish soundwaves between the frequencies 20-20,000 hertz while those above or below these frequencies are not heard by the naked ear. They do exist, some animals can pick up those voices and those sounds but we can't. So it means that they do exist but we can't see them. The same with some other wave length of light and there are many others like the radio waves. And we see that the whole world is full of examples of things. For example, the atoms, the electrons and protons, the quarks, they do exist but we can't see them unless we analyze them or the physicians tell us about them in physics and physical analysis about them.
So to conclude we see Allah subhanahu wa taala in the Quran describes Himself that to be manifest, omnipresent but not in a physical way so we can't see Him physically because He's not a body, He's not materialistic but we can see Him with the heart, with the inner sight and here is one very important thing, the purer your heart and soul is the more ability you have to look at the real world. Even those who try to control their ill desires, those who have spiritual practices they are able to read your mind. They can tell you the intentions of other people whom they met. In other words they have some sort of access to what is ((باطن rather than (ظاهر) and we know that the pair of divine attributes mentioned in the Quran is nbsp;هُوَ الْأَوَّلُ وَالْآخِرُ وَالظَّاهِرُ وَالْبَاطِنُ)) Allah is at the same time apparent and internal, so external and internal aspects are united in the existence of Allah subhanahu wa taala. Always we deal with these two aspects. We deal with the external appearance of something and we need to treat, deal and approach internal, and that internal is not physical, it is only possible to gain and obtain, to achieve this ability when we purify our souls this is (تزكية)
((وَنَفْسٍ وَمَا سَوَّاهَا*فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا*قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَنْ زَكَّاهَا those who purify their souls are achieving salvation and they are victorious. We ask Allah to enable us and give us the tawfeeq to purify our souls to be able to look at things as they are in reality and may Allah provide us with inner sight in addition to the physical sight.