Another meaning to Taqwa of Allah

Salamu Alaykum 


I think i have been given a ground breaking insight alhamdulillah. We were filling ourselves with fear fear fear fear fear of Allah in Islam that not surprisingly others started saying we are the religion of fear. This is because we accepted that the translation of taqwa of Allah is to fear Allah. I believe this is very wrong now alhamdulillah. Because Allah didn’t create us to have fear in our hearts. Instead it should be love. (Ref the verse, and those who believe are greater in love with Allah, و الذين امنوا اشد حبا لله). It’s not about surpassing ourselves in who has most fear of Allah. It’s competing with who has most love of Allah. We have gone upside down unfortunately us Muslims today. And as a result the religion we present looks a bit ugly. But that’s our fault and not Islam’s. 


So what is the correct understanding ? It means get to know Allah. Learn about him. Know him. Know more about him/It ( remember he has no gender).  How? Because Taqwa means to avoid something. To stay away from. Eg itaqu alnar in Arabic means to be aware of and avoid the hell fire. So taqwa of something is avoidance of it. Now the classical understanding for taqwa of Allah isn’t actually fear of Allah but it means to avoid  the things that lead to punishment from Allah eg backbiting, lying etc. But here I’m suggesting a different understanding To avoid something you need first to know it. Without knowing it you can’t avoid it. So here taqwa of Allah means to know Allah. So Allah swt I believe is using the first part of the meaning of the word. ie know him. This now makes a lot of sense because that’s why we have been created, to know Allah ( ibn abbas (ra) said worship of Allah means to know Allah and we have been created to worship Allah). So have taqwa means have knowledge of Allah. Get to know Allah. Try to know this entity that is not visible to anyone yet many believe it exists. The more we know it the closer we become to it and the higher our station is in its eyes. 


So Taqwa in Islam means knowing. Itaqi Allah means to know Allah. Learn about him. I think Muhamed Assad and others also define it as God Consciousness which is awareness of Allah. Rather than fear. Here I’m saying it’s to find out about Him swt. This inshallah will change how we see Allah. Not someone we are in fear of but someone whom we love and we want to know more about. Opens up new realms of knowledge i think alhamdulillah. 


What is Allah? Who is Allah? How is Allah?  All of these are important questions. We need to think about these questions and try to answer them so that we get closer to our Lord. So that we know Him better. This fear Business we need to boot it out inshallah except if we are contemplating doing sins then the fear should appear. And Allah knows best. 


New Note:

Having thought deeper i now see taqwa as to take caution of Allah rather than fear. Because Allah is powerful and fully observes all our actions. So we need to be always distant from sinful acts. So taking the caution maybe the best interpretation. As for getting to know him better, to be cautious of Allah we again need to understand what Allah is or how he is. So knowing Him is a requirement too. 

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