There is a question that almost every human being encounters at some point in life: Why is there something rather than nothing?

You may already believe in God. You may be an atheist. You may consider yourself agnostic. Or perhaps you grew up with a religion but have never really stopped to examine its most fundamental claims for yourself.

Whatever your position may be, let us begin without asking you to accept any religious belief. For a moment, simply look at the reality around you.

You are here. The Earth is here. The Sun is here. Beyond it are countless stars, galaxies and structures extending across an almost unimaginable scale. Space exists. Time exists. Matter and energy exist. The physical world follows remarkably consistent patterns that we describe through what we call the laws of nature. And within this vast reality exists something even more remarkable: conscious human beings who can look at the universe and ask why it exists at all.

The more deeply we investigate reality, the more enormous and mysterious it appears. We may describe this immense reality poetically as an “infinity of infinities”—countless structures within structures, scales within scales, and possibilities within possibilities.

But sooner or later, a simple question comes back to us:

**Where did all of this come from?**

And behind that question lies an even deeper one:

**If the things we observe depend upon other things, can the ultimate explanation of reality itself be dependent upon something else?**

This is where the journey toward the idea of the Creator begins.

1. Start with the simplest question: Where did you come from?

Let us begin with something very close to every one of us: our own existence.

You did not create yourself. Before you were born, you did not choose your parents, design your genetic makeup, construct the Earth on which you would live, or establish the physical laws that would govern your existence. You simply entered a reality that was already there.

Your parents were here before you. Their parents were here before them. Generation after generation, human beings have appeared within a world that they did not create and upon which their existence depends.

The same pattern extends beyond human life. Physical systems depend upon other physical conditions. Living organisms depend upon an extraordinary network of biological processes. The Earth exists within a larger cosmic environment, and that environment itself forms part of an immense physical order.

When we begin tracing these relationships backward, we encounter a fundamental question: can everything ultimately be dependent while nothing is independent?

Suppose every explanation requires another explanation, and every condition depends upon another condition. If we keep moving backward, what ultimately accounts for the existence of the entire chain?

This does not, by itself, prove a particular religious conclusion. But it takes us to a foundational question about existence itself: Is there an ultimate reality that does not depend upon anything outside itself?

That question is not exclusively religious. It is one of the deepest questions human beings have ever asked.

2. Could everything have simply appeared from nothing?

Before we go further, we need to be careful with one word: nothing.

In everyday language, we sometimes call an empty room “nothing.” We may call empty space “nothing.” In physics, we may even speak about a vacuum or an extremely empty physical state. But none of these is absolute nothingness.

If we mean *nothing* in the strictest possible sense, then there is no matter, no energy, no space, no time, no physical law, no particle, no mechanism and no existing reality whatsoever.

And that brings us back to the question: if absolutely nothing existed, what would there be to produce something?

The Qur’an presents this question with remarkable directness. It does not begin by giving the reader a philosophical formula. Instead, it asks the human being to examine the possibilities.

أَمۡ خُلِقُواْ مِنۡ غَيۡرِ شَيۡءٍ أَمۡ هُمُ ٱلۡخَٰلِقُونَ – الطور [35]

**“Or were they created from nothing? Or are they (their own) creators?”**

— *The Holy Qur’an, 52:35 — Irfan-ul-Quran*

أَمۡ خَلَقُواْ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضَۚ بَل لَّا يُوقِنُونَ – الطور [36]

**“Did they create the heavens and the earth? Instead, they are not certain (about anything).”**

— *The Holy Qur’an, 52:36 — Irfan-ul-Quran*

Notice the nature of these questions. Were human beings created from nothing? Did they create themselves? Did they create the heavens and the Earth? The Qur’an is not asking the reader to abandon reason. It is doing almost the opposite: it is asking the reader to think carefully about the assumptions behind existence.

If we did not create ourselves, and if we did not create the reality in which we exist, then where should we look for its ultimate explanation?

3. Something cannot explain itself simply by being itself

Imagine that you are walking through a desert and suddenly discover a beautifully constructed mechanical watch lying on the ground. You would naturally wonder where it came from. You might examine its components, its mechanism and the relationships between those components. You would not normally conclude that the watch designed and assembled itself simply because you could not immediately see its maker.

Of course, the universe is not a watch, and the analogy has clear limitations. The universe is not an object sitting inside some larger room. The purpose of the analogy is simply to illustrate a more general question: when something exists in a particular way, what explains its existence?

Human beings have learned an extraordinary amount about how the physical world operates. We can study the formation of stars and galaxies, the behaviour of matter and energy, biological processes, planetary systems and countless other phenomena. Science has been enormously successful in explaining the *how* of physical processes.

But there is another kind of question. Even if we develop an increasingly complete description of how the universe developed, we can still ask:

**Why is there a physical reality in the first place?**

That is not an attack on science. It is simply a recognition that explaining how something behaves is not necessarily identical to explaining why there is something there to behave in the first place. A scientific explanation of a process can therefore coexist with a philosophical question about the ultimate basis of existence.

4. Then perhaps the Universe itself is eternal?

At this point, someone might reasonably say: “Perhaps there is no need for a Creator. Perhaps the Universe—or whatever ultimate physical reality exists—has simply always existed.”

That possibility deserves to be considered seriously.

But saying that something is eternal does not automatically explain why it exists. If the reality we call the universe is dependent upon conditions, composed of things, changing in its states, or governed by relationships that themselves require explanation, simply extending its existence indefinitely does not necessarily resolve the deeper question.

The issue is therefore not merely whether something has existed for a very long time—or even whether it has existed eternally. The deeper issue is whether the ultimate reality is dependent or independent.

Philosophers have used terms such as necessary reality to discuss the possibility of an ultimate reality whose existence does not depend upon something outside itself. This is a philosophical concept, not a scientific measurement or a physical object discovered through an experiment.

Islam gives the ultimate Creator a name: Allah.

But what does Islam mean by Allah? Not a human being. Not an extraordinarily powerful creature. Not an advanced life-form somewhere within the universe. And not the universe itself.

Allah is the Creator of the universe and everything that belongs to creation.

This distinction is essential. If the supposed Creator were merely another entity within creation, then that entity would itself belong to the reality whose ultimate explanation we are trying to understand. The Islamic concept of Allah is fundamentally different: the Creator is not simply another part of creation.

5. The Creator cannot simply be another part of creation

This brings us to one of the most important distinctions in the entire discussion.

If the Creator were simply another object within the created universe, we could naturally ask what caused that object to exist. If it depended upon something else, we would then ask about that something else, and the same question would continue.

The Islamic concept of Allah does not place Him inside this chain of created dependencies.

The Qur’an states:

ٱللَّهُ خَٰلِقُ كُلِّ شَيۡءٖۖ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيۡءٖ وَكِيلٞ – الزمر [62]

**“Allah is the Creator of everything. And He is the Guardian over everything.”**

— *The Holy Qur’an, 39:62 — Irfan-ul-Quran*

The statement is remarkably comprehensive. Allah is not described as one creator among many, nor as one powerful entity competing with other entities. He is described as the Creator of everything.

An authentic narration recorded in *Sahih al-Bukhari* conveys this distinction through the words of Prophet Muhammad صَلَّى ٱللّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِهِ وَسَلَّمَ:

**“There was Allah and nothing else before Him…”**

— *Sahih al-Bukhari 7418*

The complete narration continues with a description concerning the Throne and the creation of the heavens and the Earth. It should therefore be understood as a statement about Allah and creation, not presented as though it were a modern scientific account of cosmology.

The essential distinction is simple but profound:

Allah is the Creator. Everything else is creation.

And this brings us naturally to the next question—the question many people ask immediately:

**If Allah is the Creator, then who created the Creator?**

6. Then who created the Creator?

This is probably the most common objection to the idea of God: “If everything needs a creator, then who created God?”

At first, the question sounds decisive. But it contains an assumption that needs to be examined carefully.

The Islamic argument is not that everything whatsoever must have a creator. If that were the argument, then God would indeed require another creator, and that creator would require another, creating an endless chain without ever reaching an ultimate explanation.

The more precise argument is that everything that begins to exist, or everything that is dependent upon something else for its existence, requires an explanation. If Allah were merely another created and dependent entity, then the question would continue: who created Him?

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UI-1.1-G02 – The Creator and His Creation — Creator ≠ Creation.

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But that is not what Islam means by Allah.

The Creator, by definition, is not a created and dependent being. Allah is understood as the One whose existence does not originate from something outside Himself. He does not receive existence from another source, because then He would not be the ultimate Creator.

Think of it this way. If every link in a chain were hanging from another link, but there were no point at which the chain was ultimately supported, the question of what holds the chain would never be resolved. An endless postponement of the explanation does not necessarily provide an explanation.

The point, therefore, is not that we have discovered a physical object called a “necessary being.” Rather, philosophical reasoning leads us to ask whether dependent reality can ultimately exist without something that is not itself dependent.

Islam identifies that ultimate reality as Allah.

And once we reach this point, another question naturally follows: If there is a Creator, why should there be only one?

7. Why one Creator?

Why one Creator? Why could there not be two, or many, ultimate creators?

At first glance, the idea may not seem impossible. Perhaps there could be several enormously powerful beings governing different aspects of reality. But that is not quite the same as saying that there are several independent, ultimate gods, each possessing absolute authority over everything.

Suppose there were two beings, both absolutely independent and both possessing unlimited authority over the entire universe. What would happen if their wills differed? If one could override the other, then the other would not actually possess absolute sovereignty. If neither could override the other, then neither would have unlimited authority. And if their wills could never differ, the claim that there are two independent ultimate authorities would still require an explanation.

The Qur’an presents the matter with remarkable conciseness:

لَوۡ كَانَ فِيهِمَآ ءَالِهَةٌ إِلَّا ٱللَّهُ لَفَسَدَتَاۚ فَسُبۡحَٰنَ ٱللَّهِ رَبِّ ٱلۡعَرۡشِ عَمَّا يَصِفُونَ – الأنبياء [22]

**“Had there been gods in them (i.e. the heavens and the earth) other than Allah, they would surely have collapsed.”**

— *The Holy Qur’an, 21:22 — Irfan-ul-Quran*

The point is not that there cannot be many powerful beings or created entities. The Qur’anic argument concerns something much more fundamental: ultimate divine authority cannot be divided among independent gods while remaining ultimate.

Islam therefore does not present Allah as one powerful deity competing with other deities. It presents Him as the One Creator, Lord and Sovereign of all existence.

This brings us to an even more personal question: But what exactly is Allah?

8. But what exactly is Allah?

This may be one of the hardest questions for the human mind because everything we normally encounter is something we can compare with something else.

We know human beings, animals, mountains, planets and stars. We can imagine something larger or smaller, stronger or weaker, older or younger. Even when we imagine an extraordinarily powerful being, our imagination tends to construct that being using characteristics borrowed from the world we already know.

Islam asks us to move beyond that limitation.

Allah is not another creature whose characteristics can simply be enlarged without limit. He is not a superhuman being, not an enormously powerful physical entity, and not another object somewhere within the universe.

The Qur’an provides one of the clearest descriptions of Allah in Surah al-Ikhlas:

قُلۡ هُوَ ٱللَّهُ أَحَدٌ ١ ٱللَّهُ ٱلصَّمَدُ ٢ لَمۡ يَلِدۡ وَلَمۡ يُولَدۡ ٣ وَلَمۡ يَكُن لَّهُۥ كُفُوًا أَحَدُۢ ٤ – الإخلاص [1-4]

**“Say: ‘He is Allah, the Unique One. Allah is Self-Sufficient and the Most Superior Sustainer upon whom all depend. He neither begets nor was He begotten (i.e. He is neither a father nor a son). And none is equal (or comparable) to Him. ”**

— *The Holy Qur’an, 112:1-4 — Irfan-ul-Quran*

These few verses establish something profound. Allah is One. He is not dependent upon creation, while creation depends upon Him. He was not born, because He is not a created being. He does not have offspring. And there is nothing comparable to Him.

That last principle is especially important. Human beings can imagine many things, but whatever we imagine is ultimately constructed from concepts drawn from our experience of creation. Allah is not simply a larger, stronger or more sophisticated version of something that already exists.

The Qur’an therefore does not invite us to create a mental picture of Allah. Instead, it teaches us who He is through His names, attributes and revelation, while firmly establishing that nothing is comparable to Him.

9. What does “infinity” have to do with all this?

Earlier, we described the vastness of reality poetically as an “infinity of infinities.” The expression helps us appreciate how small our individual perspective is compared with the immense scale of creation.

We can think about billions of stars, enormous galaxies, microscopic structures, distances beyond our imagination and layers of physical reality that science continues to explore. The scale can seem almost infinite from the perspective of the human mind.

But there is an important distinction we must make.

Allah is not simply the biggest thing in an infinitely large universe.

He is not “infinity plus one.” He is not a mathematical number greater than every other number. He is not located at some unimaginably distant point at the end of an infinite cosmic road.

The Creator cannot be reduced to a quantity within creation.

The Qur’an says:

هُوَ ٱلۡأَوَّلُ وَٱلۡأٓخِرُ وَٱلظَّٰهِرُ وَٱلۡبَاطِنُۖ وَهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَيۡءٍ عَلِيمٌ – الحديد [3]

**“He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden. And He is All-Knowing of everything.”**

— *The Holy Qur’an, 57:3 — Irfan-ul-Quran*

And Prophet Muhammad صَلَّى ٱللّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِهِ وَسَلَّمَ taught in an authentic supplication:

**“O Allah, You are the First and nothing has come before You; You are the Last and nothing comes after You…”**

— *Sahih Muslim 2713a*

These statements shift the question completely. We are not searching through the universe for the largest object and calling that God. We are asking about the One upon whom the entire created order ultimately depends.

The distinction is between the immense scale of creation and the reality of its Creator.

10. The Creator is not dependent upon His creation

Now consider our own condition.

Every human being is dependent. We need food and water. We need air. We need sleep. We depend upon the physical environment around us and upon countless biological processes operating continuously within our bodies. Even the most powerful human being remains profoundly dependent.

The same principle extends throughout creation. Nothing we know exists in complete independence.

Islam presents Allah in precisely the opposite terms: creation depends upon Him, while He does not depend upon creation.

One of the most important names of Allah in Surah al-Ikhlas is As-Samad—the One upon whom all depend.

This also helps us understand an important point about worship.

The Qur’an says:

وَمَا خَلَقۡتُ ٱلۡجِنَّ وَٱلۡإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعۡبُدُونِ ٥٦ مَآ أُرِيدُ مِنۡهُم مِّن رِّزۡقٖ وَمَآ أُرِيدُ أَن يُطۡعِمُونِ – الذاريات [56، 57]

**“I did not create the jinn and humans but to worship Me. I desire no provision from them, nor do I want that they should feed Me.”**

— *The Holy Qur’an, 51:56–57 — Irfan-ul-Quran*

This is a beautiful distinction. Allah does not need our worship. We need Him. Our worship does not add anything to Allah’s greatness, nor does Allah depend upon human beings to sustain His existence. Rather, worship places the human being in the correct relationship with his Creator: the dependent recognizing the One upon whom he depends.

11. Then why can’t we see the Creator?

At this point, a sincere person may reasonably ask: “If Allah exists, why can’t I see Him?”

It is a fair question. Human beings naturally trust their senses, especially sight. We see the physical world around us, interact with it, measure it and investigate it. So it is understandable that someone might wonder why the Creator should not be visible in the same way.

But perhaps we first need to ask whether everything that is real must necessarily be visible to the human eye.

We cannot see a thought sitting on a table. We cannot see consciousness as a physical object. We cannot see yesterday or tomorrow. We cannot see mathematical truths. There are many realities that we know or reason about without treating ordinary visual observation as the only possible means of knowing them.

More importantly, Islam does not present Allah as an ordinary physical object hidden somewhere inside the universe. If Allah is the Creator of space, matter and the physical order itself, then expecting Him to be simply another physical object within that order would misunderstand the very distinction we have been exploring.

The Qur’an says:

لَّا تُدۡرِكُهُ ٱلۡأَبۡصَٰرُ وَهُوَ يُدۡرِكُ ٱلۡأَبۡصَٰرَۖ وَهُوَ ٱللَّطِيفُ ٱلۡخَبِيرُ – الأنعام [103]

**“Visions cannot comprehend Him, but He comprehends all visions. And He is the All-Subtle, the All-Aware.”**

— *The Holy Qur’an, 6:103 — Irfan-ul-Quran*

This does not mean that Allah is unreal or unknowable. It means that Allah cannot be comprehended by our physical sight in the way created things can be seen and comprehended. There is an important difference between saying, “I cannot see something,” and saying, “therefore it does not exist.” The second conclusion does not automatically follow from the first.

The Qur’an also establishes a fundamental principle:

لَيۡسَ كَمِثۡلِهِۦ شَيۡءٞۖ وَهُوَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلۡبَصِيرُ – الشورى [11]

**“Nothing is like Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.”**

— *The Holy Qur’an, 42:11 — Irfan-ul-Quran*

The human mind should therefore be cautious about trying to imagine Allah in the form of something familiar. We know the Creator through His signs, His revelation, His names and attributes, and through the reality of our own existence—not by turning Him into another physical object within creation.

12. Perhaps some of the most remarkable signs are not outside us—but within us

Look beyond the galaxies for a moment and look at yourself.

You do not merely exist. You are aware that you exist.

You experience beauty and pain, love and loss, hope and fear. You can recognize kindness and injustice. You can feel guilt after doing something you believe is wrong. You can sacrifice your own immediate interest for someone else. You can contemplate your own mortality and ask what, if anything, lies beyond this life.

Most remarkably, you can stand beneath the night sky and ask a question that has no immediate connection to finding food, escaping danger or reproducing:

**Why am I here?**

Consciousness remains one of the deepest questions human beings encounter. We can study the brain, its structure and its extraordinary biological activity, but the existence of subjective experience itself remains a profound philosophical question.

Islam does not ask us to ignore these questions. On the contrary, the Qur’an repeatedly directs human beings to look both outward at creation and inward at themselves.

The Qur’an says:

وَفِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ ءَايَٰتٞ لِّلۡمُوقِنِينَ ٢٠ وَفِيٓ أَنفُسِكُمۡۚ أَفَلَا تُبۡصِرُونَ – الذاريات [20، 21]

**“Upon the earth, there are signs for those with sure faith, and within yourselves (as well). Do you not then perceive?”**

— *The Holy Qur’an, 51:20–21 — Irfan-ul-Quran*

The point is not that every unanswered question about consciousness automatically proves the existence of God. That would go beyond what the evidence establishes. The deeper invitation is to pay attention. Look at the world. Look at yourself. Ask what kind of reality could give rise to a universe capable of producing conscious beings who can recognize truth, seek meaning and ask about their own Creator.

Perhaps the question is not merely whether the universe contains signs. Perhaps the more important question is whether we are willing to notice them.

13. What if I still don’t believe?

What if you have followed the reasoning this far and still remain unconvinced?

Then do not pretend.

A sincere question is better than an insincere declaration of faith. If you are not convinced, continue questioning. Genuine belief should not require a person to suppress honest doubts.

Ask yourself why anything exists at all. Ask whether absolute nothingness can really be the ultimate explanation for something. Ask whether dependent realities can ultimately explain themselves. Ask why the universe is intelligible enough for human beings to investigate it through mathematics and reason. Ask what consciousness is and why a physical universe contains beings capable of reflecting upon existence itself.

And then ask perhaps the most personal question of all:

**If there really is a Creator of everything—including me—what does that mean for my life?**

That question changes the nature of the journey.

Until this point, we have largely been asking a philosophical question: Does a Creator exist?

But if the answer is yes, another question immediately follows: Has that Creator told humanity what He wants from us?

Reason may lead us toward the existence of a Creator. But reason alone cannot tell us everything about what the Creator commands, what He loves, what He forbids, what happens after death, or what purpose He has given human life.

That question takes us beyond philosophy.

It takes us toward revelation.

14. And this is where Islam makes a remarkable claim

Islam does not stop with the statement that a Creator exists.

It makes a much greater claim:

**The Creator has not abandoned His creation.**

According to Islam, Allah has communicated with humanity through revelation and has sent messengers to guide people toward truth. Throughout human history, prophets called their people to recognize and worship the One God, to live morally, to reject injustice and to remember that human life has a purpose beyond temporary worldly existence.

The Qur’an describes this history of guidance through many prophets. Among them are Adam, Noah, Ibrahim/Abraham (عليه السلام), Musa/Moses (عليه السلام), and Isa/Jesus (عليه السلام). Islam teaches that Prophet Muhammad ( صَلَّى ٱللّٰهُ عَلَيْهِ وَآلِهِ وَسَلَّمَ ) was the final messenger, and that the Qur’an is the final revealed Book.

The central message is remarkably simple: There is one Creator. There is no deity worthy of worship except Allah.

The object of worship is therefore not nature, the universe, human beings, wealth, power or desire. All of these belong to creation. Worship belongs to the Creator.

And this is where the discussion comes full circle.

We began by asking who created the universe. We gradually arrived at the concept of one independent Creator.

Islam then says: you were not created merely to discover that He exists. You were created to know Him, worship Him and live according to the guidance He has revealed.

That is a much larger claim than the philosophical argument with which we began. And it is a claim that can itself be investigated.

15. The final question is not “How big is God?”

We began our journey by looking at the immense scale of existence.

We imagined countless stars and galaxies, distances beyond our comprehension and structures extending across scales that the human mind can barely grasp. We used the phrase “an infinity of infinities” to express the overwhelming vastness of creation.

But perhaps the most important realization is that the Creator should not be confused with the vastness of His creation.

Allah is not simply the biggest object in the universe. He is not a mathematical infinity, nor a being located at some distant point beyond the stars. He is the Creator, while everything that we observe belongs to creation.

UI-1.1-G03 – How Humanity Receives Divine Guidance — Revelation → Prophets/Messengers → Final Revelation.

And once we understand that distinction, another realization follows.

Our inability to comprehend the full reality of Allah does not make the question meaningless. In fact, perhaps it should make us humble.

We can study galaxies, measure distances, investigate particles, formulate mathematical theories and explore the extraordinary order of the natural world. Human knowledge can continue expanding for generations.

But knowledge of creation is not the same thing as comprehending the Creator.

The Qur’an repeatedly invites us to observe the signs around us and within ourselves. It does not ask us to stop thinking. It asks us to think more deeply—and to recognize where our own knowledge reaches its limits.

At that boundary, the question becomes profoundly personal.

If there is a Creator who brought me into existence, why am I here? What does He want from me? What happens when this life ends? And how can I know what He has revealed?

These are no longer merely questions about cosmology or philosophy.

They are questions about my life.

A final invitation to the sincere seeker

You do not have to begin this journey by becoming religious. Begin with something much simpler:

Be intellectually honest.

Look at existence without assuming the answer in advance. Look at the universe. Look at yourself. Think about dependence and causation. Think about the extraordinary intelligibility of the world. Think about consciousness, morality and the human longing for meaning.

Then ask yourself honestly:

**Is it really reasonable to believe that everything ultimately explains itself?**

And if you find yourself increasingly convinced that there must be a Creator, do not stop there.

Ask the next question:

**If there really is a Creator, how can I know what He wants me to know?**

This is where revelation becomes essential.

If this journey has raised questions in your mind, perhaps the next step is not to stop at the idea of the Creator, but to listen to what the Creator has revealed.

We invite you to explore the Qur’an—the Last Revealed Book—with an open mind and a sincere desire to understand. Through the Qur’an, you can learn more about Allah, the Creator; His messengers; the message they delivered; and the guidance given to humanity for living a meaningful and purposeful life.

You do not have to accept everything before you begin reading.

Read. Reflect. Question. And allow the Qur’an to speak for itself.

Perhaps the journey that began with the question “Who created me?” can lead you to discover Who your Creator is, what He wants you to know, and why He sent His guidance to humanity.

The journey continues — in the Qur’an.

Primary Qur’anic Translation:

Irfan-ul-Quran — Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr. Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri [https://www.irfan-ul-quran.com/]

Author: Engr. Muhammad Akram Sadiq, Al-Khobar, KSA, October 6, 2026