Glorifying the Lord

Glorifying the Lord

1994 4-5 April-May 11-12 Glorifying the Lord (341) Glorification of God is the explosion of God realization taking place in the mind of a believing soul. This is a rich and amazing experience.

After mentioning cattle and the sacrificial animals, the Qur’an says that God made these animals subservient to man so that you may glorify God for having given you guidance’ (22:37).

Why is that man is well served by camels and oxen, but he has been unable to press bears and wolves into service? It is because God has chosen to make the former instinctively subservient to man and not the latter. If this had not been so, cattle would have proved as intractable as bears and wolves.

The fact that certain animals are easily tamed and domesticated is one of the great blessings that God has bestowed on mankind. A part of man’s faith is to recognize and feel thankful for such blessings – some of the wonders of God’s creation. When a servant of God sacrifices an animal in the name of God, this act is an outward manifestation of his inward state. He is saying, by his act, ‘Lord, if you had not created those beasts as they are, we should not have had them to serve us.’

This applies not only to animals, but to many other natural resources of the world. Everything bestowed upon man is a gift from God, but, if man is able to make use of them, it is only because God has made them the willing tools of man. Whenever man’s eye lights upon anything which is of great service to him, it should cause him to remember God’s munificence; being in this way, he glorifies God within his own mind. This is what the Qur’an exhorts us to do when it says: ‘Glorify your Lord, (74:3) and: ‘Proclaim His greatness’ (17:11).

Glorification of God is the explosion of God-realization taking place in the mind of a believing soul. This is a rich and amazing experience, but it can be expressed in the simplest of words: ‘God is great!’