Surroundings

You know, when humans come into the world as babies it's a bit of a shock.

Suddenly they pop into the world that they find around them and have to try to find a way to make sense of it all.

And they find out that they can get to know the world using different parts of themselves.

They use their fingers to feel things,

their eyes to see things,

their ears to hear things,

their noses to smell things,

and especially in the early days their mouths to taste things.

And they quickly find out that in some ways the world seems the same as them,

and in some ways it seems quite different.

In some ways they are clearly a part of the world,

but in some ways it feels like they are separate.

And they can spend their whole lives thinking about the world in which they live,

trying to understand

what it is and where it came from and how it works.

And as they learn how the world works, they also learn how they can shape different parts of it in different ways,

and use it for different things,

to feed themselves shelter themselves and keep themselves safe.

And they learn about how people understood the world in different times and different places,

and how the way they understood things was handed down to them

for them to use as they build and grow their own understandings of the world.

And so, in this way muslims see the Face of God

in the world around them and in themselves.

They do what they are told in the Reading,

and they study the signs of God in the world that surrounds them

to try to understand why they are there.

And they learn how they are part of it,

how they are one with it,

living in the deen, following the muslim way of life.

Things that come to us from the past.

The world we live in and the people around us.

Looking at Earth, Energy, and Life, and trying to understand them.

Things we need and how to get them.

Things we have and what to do with them.