Is Allah Really Watching Us All the Time?
Answered by Ustadha Shazia Ahmad
Question
From childhood, we learn that Allah is watching us and I believe when I pray, all prayers are fulfilled. Somehow this is really making me uncomfortable that when we eat, sleep, and take showers, Allah is watching us. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I am really worried, is Allah always watching us?
Answer
Thank you for your question. May Allah reward you for your modesty as this is a beautiful trait. Use the fact that Allah sees all as a reason to flee to Him and turn to Him in your entirety.
It says in the Reliance of the Traveller, quoting Imam al-Ghazali:
His Knowledge
He knows all things knowable, encompassing all that takes place from the depths of the earth to the highest heaven. He knows without an atom’s weight in the earth or heavens escaping His knowledge. He knows the creeping of a black ant across a great stone on a lightless night, and the motion in the air of a particle of dust on a windy day. He knows the concealed and the yet more hidden, the buried recesses of hearts, the movement of thought, and the opacities of the inmost soul; with pre-eternal, beginningless knowledge that He has always possessed from the limitless reaches of past eternity, not with awareness originating within Him through being imparted or conveyed.
His Hearing and Sight
He Most High is all-Hearing and all-Seeing. He hears and sees, no sound however slight eluding His hearing, and no sight however minute escaping His vision. Distance does not obscure His hearing nor darkness hinder His vision. He sees without pupil or eyelids, and hears without ear canal or ears, just as He knows without a heart, seizes without limb, and creates without implement. His attributes no more resemble the attributes of His creatures than His entity resembles the entity of His creatures.
May Allah give you the best of this world and the next.
[Ustadha] Shazia Ahmad
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Ustadha Shazia Ahmad lived in Damascus, Syria, for two years, where she studied aqidah, fiqh, tajweed, tafsir, and Arabic. She then attended the University of Texas at Austin and completed her Master’s in Arabic. Afterward, she moved to Amman, Jordan, where she studied fiqh, Arabic, and other sciences. She later moved back to Mississauga, Canada, where she lives with her family.
