The Prophet Mohammad
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Wilson: How does Mohammad stand among the prophets?
Chirri: He stands in the record of the major prophets with clear distinctions: 1. He is a part of both world and religious histories. His message was an important factor in changing the history of the world, and no historian doubts his existence and his role in world events.2. He is the only prophet who witnessed with his eyes the growth of his religion until it was adopted by a whole nation during his lifetime.
3. He is the universal prophet who was sent, not to a particular nation, such as the Arabs or the Hebrews, but to all mankind. From the Qur'an:
4. His message clearly opposed all sorts of racial discrimination. Removal of all social barriers is an essential part of his message. White, black, red, and yellow are equal.
No race is superior to another race, and no nation is inferior to another nation. Man is to be praised or blamed only for what he does by his own choice. Being related to a particular nation or race is not our choice, nor is it of our own making. Our distinction can come only through our good deeds.
From the Holy Qur'an:
5. He founded and established, during his lifetime, B powerful state, based on high ideals. The Muslim state w4 born in an age in which the government was conceived ast ruling body, superior to the people and imposed on it subjects without their choice. The people themselves never conceived their equality to their rulers, nor believed their equality to one another . In the teaching of Islam, the oppo. site is true. The government is a fruit of people's belief it one set of guiding principles. It is the legitimate child o= their spontaneous cooperation for promotion of such prin. ciples. Thus, the promoters of such principles are related to each other and considered to be one brotherhood.
6. He defeated all his opponents, and no party was ablt to defeat him.
7. He is the prophet who declared the religious freedom when he was powerful enough to deprive many people of such a freedom. He and his followers were persecuted for thirteen years. He never spoke of religious freedom whet they were subject of persecution. When he defeated all Ii opponents and was able to penalize the oppressors, he announced the following declaration:
8. He is the only prophet who declared himself as tit Final Prophet whose death concludes the long history of prophethood. Prophethood was claimed by many individuals after Mohammad, but none of them was able to substantiate his claim. And now, after so many centuries
9. He is the only Prophet who introduced to the world a book; that does not contain any human word. The Qur'an is not a dialogue between God and man, as the rest of the holy books; it is only the words of God which He put in the mouth of Mohammad to be transmitted through him to mankind.
Wilson; It is puzzling that the prophets who preceded Mohammad such as Moses and Jesus had been empowered to perform remarkable and supernatural works, while Mohammad did not show, or rather did not rely on miraculous actions. He only relied, in proving his prophethood, on the Qur'an. Why didn't he perform miracles similar to those of Jesus and Moses?
Chirri; There are two reasons for the difference between the type of Mohammad's miracle and the types of miracles of those prophets who preceded him: 1. The miracles of Jesus and Moses, it is true, were very remarkable; but the fact remains that in spite of their remarkability, they did not induce the people of their times to believe in those prophets or to adhere to their teachings. History informs us that the Israelites did not follow the Prophet Moses after he showed them all his wonders. After they crossed the sea on their feet, they showed no true adherence to his teaching. After he went to the mountain to receive the commandments, he came back to find them straying from the Divine road. Jesus was followed by multitudes, but when the crisis came, he was deserted even by his own disciples.People, in general, never were induced by those wonders
Had the same kind of miracles been repeated at the time of Mohammad, it would not have produced better results than it did before. For this, the type of miracles had to be changed.
2. Suppose that those miracles of Moses and Jesus were very productive, causing their witnesses to believe in the truthfulness of their performers. The fact remains that they were not permanent but only temporary miracles. No action can be seen twice. No action would last long. Making a blind see his way or bringing a dead back to life is a remarkable action, but such an action disappears as soon as it is done. As soon as the action is finished, it becomes history. Those who did not see it have to rely on the testimony of those who had seen it.
A prophet that will be followed by another prophet may rely on a remarkable performance in convincing his contemporaries. He does not have to worry about the future generations who will not see his miracles, because he can rely on the prophet who will come after him at a different period. The subsequent prophet will perform his own miracles, and he will endorse the prophet who preceded him.
With Mohammad, the case is different. He was the Final of the prophets. He could not rely on any miraculous action, because no action can last long enough to be seen by other generations. Nor could he rely on the endorsement of a subsequent prophet, because he is the Final of the prophets. He had to rely on some miracle, but his miracle must be from a
In a time when there was neither camera nor film to make one action witnessable at various times, we cannot conceive any kind of lasting miracles except the type of speech. When a speech is superb and recorded in a book, its superiority can be witnessed and tested at any time by any generation. If it is unmatchable, it will stay so forever, and its superiority call be judged by all generations. This is the type of miracle which is fitting for a final prophet, and this was the reason why Mohammad was equipped with the Holy Qur'an as evidence of his truthfulness.
The superiority of the Qur'an is a fact and beyond any reasonable doubt. But I would like to know if the Qur'an has anything, besides its superiority and beautiful style, that supports its being a true revelation of God and that Mohammad is truly His prophet.
Man has advanced so far in science and technology to a stage undreamed of before. With all his advancements in knowledge, he is still unable to foresee the future. The most civilized nations wage wars against each other, and none of them is assured of victory. Should the knowledge of the future be available to them, they would have avoided destructive wars. A nation that foresees its defeat would refrain from entering any war that will be concluded by its defeat.
To recognize the human inability of foreseeing the future, we need only to remember our election campaigns. In spite of all the information which is obtained through our modern media and scientific methods, none of the candidates is sure of his victory or defeat until the votes are counted.
There is a great deal of information contained in the Holy Qur'an dealing with the future which could not be humanly predicted. Those predictions were fulfilled, and their fulfillment indicates that the Qur'an is a true Divine revelation and that Mohammad is a true messenger of God.
Some of those prophecies deal with the future of the Holy Qur'an itself. Of these prophecies are the following:
This verse informs us that the Qur'an shall not perish. It shall not disappear from this world, and it will last and continue forever .
This prediction was actually the opposite of what was
2. The following verse explains:
This verse informs the world that the Qur'an will not be interpolated by words that had been said before the time of its revelation nor by words that will be said after the time of its revelation. It will be pure and will continue so forever.
This, also, was a prediction contrary to what was humanly expected. A book, introduced under the circumstances which we advanced, could not be humanly expected to stay pure without any interpolation.
There was no printing-machine at the time of revelation, nor such a machine was invented until several centuries after Mohammad.
History shows us that no holy book had remained pure without interpolation. The holy books had undergone many changes in many centuries. The Qur'an was expected
The two prophecies had been entirely fulfilled. The fulfillment of the first is self-evident: The Holy Qur'an did not perish. It lived and remains a highly living book. Actually the life of the Qur'an is so rich that it may be the most recited book in the world. Every Muslim is expected to pray five times a day, and each prayer includes a recital from the Holy Qur'an. Hundreds of millions of Muslims perform their daily prayers, and hundreds of millions of times the Qur'an is daily recited.
The fulfillment of the second prophecy is quite obvious. The Holy Qur'an remained unchanged. No human word was inserted into it. Even the critics of Islam testify for the remarkable purity of the text of this great book. The words of the Qur'an which we read now are exactly the same words which were recited by the Prophet Mohammad himself, without subtraction or addition.
3. The Holy Qur'an contains many statements by which the opponents of Islam were invited to produce any Arabic discourse that would compare to the Qur'anic discourse. One of these statements is the following:
This statement not only challenges mankind to compose speeches and discourses comparable to the Qur'an, but also predicts clearly that any such attempt will fail, and the Holy Qur'an will remain superior to all other Arabic discourses.
This statement is very far reaching. It tells that the Holy Qur'an will not be equalled, neither at the present nor in the future. Such a statement is a prediction in a very
Let us assume that the inventor of that first aircraft had predicted that his plane will not be equalled in the future. Such a prediction would be very absurd and will be disproved within one decade because it is opposed to the natural course. Mohammad recited this statement which is contrary to the natural course. He uttered these words about fourteen centuries ago, but his statement is still standing, and the events of the world could not disprove it. On the contrary, the statement now appears to be more meaningful than ever before. The older the prophecy becomes, the more truthful it will appear.
There is another amazing point in this prophecy. It is conceivable to challenge a certain class of people in afield which is not accessible to everyone, such as a special scientific field. We may conceive a gifted scientist, discovering a scientific secret not accessible to any other expert in that field. If such a scientist claims a permanent superiority in his invention, he would be challenging just a limited number of scientists.
With the Qur'an the case is different: There is nothing special in it; its discourse is composed of words and sentences with orders known, not only to a limited number of experts, but to all Arabic-speaking people. There isn't any secret that is hidden from the rest of the people. All of
This would be more amazing when we remember that no scientific secret or discovery has remained unmatchable. The highest secret in this century was the secret of the atomic bomb. It was the most important discovery or invention in this century. In spite of its great importance, it could not be kept exclusive for the country which produced it. Other countries tried to produce the same and succeeded.
Why did the Holy Qur'an remain superior and beyond any other Arabic discourse? How did mankind refuse to accept the challenge?
Either the Qur'an is truly superior and beyond the reach of any talented individual or group in any generation (and this means that it is a miraculous book), or it is within the reach of the people, but God miraculously prevented mankind from producing a similar discourse. In either case, the prophecy has been fulfilled, and the Qur'an is still standing unequalled.
