Allah is the Living One
Another important point which we can find in the Holy Qur’an is that Allah is ‘the Living One’. This clearly shows that Allah has His own personal life which indicates existence of Allah as an individual. Individual existence of Allah leaves no room for doubt as to whether He is a person. Unlike ours, Allah’s life is eternal, self-sufficient, complete and perfect. It has nothing to do with the pitiable life of mundane living entities. The life of Allah is the origin of universal life. Material life is a dim, perverted reflection of the spiritual life. After creating the first form of a human being, Allah animated it with His own spirit. Thus life comes from life. We have our personal lives because Allah has His personal life. But the perfect life of Allah as well as His spiritual personality, is beyond comprehension and perception of the mundane mind and senses.
So in the sura “Al-Baqarah”, or “The Cow”, the Holy Qur’an states,
Allahu la ilaha illa hu / alhayyu lquyyum: “Allah! There is no God but He, the Living, the Eternal.” (2.255)
Ustad Abdullah Yusuf Ali in his commentary (9, p. 114) on this verse writes:
“The attributes of Allah are different from anything we know in our present world; He lives, but His life is self-subsisting and eternal; it does not depend upon other beings and is not limited to time and space.”
Furthermore in the sura “Al-Mu-min”, or “The Believer” it stats:
Huwe lhay: “He is the Living One.” (40.65)
“The real, self-subsisting Life is only in Allah.” (9, p. 1444)
From these ayats we can clearly see that Allah is Lhay, or the Living One, One who is alive, not a dead or an inert abstract reality. “Life” indicates personality. If we say, Allah is the Living One this means Allah is a Person. Because “life” is a symptom of individual existence. Of course, the life of Allah is endless, has no beginning and no end. That is why the Holy Qur’an proclaims, Allah is alhayyu lquyyum, or the Alive, the Eternal. Allah is the Living One, the Alive Person whose life is eternal. He is the supreme Living Being among unlimited living beings and He is the original Eternal among unlimited eternal souls. We cannot trace the beginning of Allah’s life. He is never born and never dies. Allah is the Eternal Alive Supreme Person.
