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Genuine
Prophets Preach Only Islam
There is no nation
known to history like the people of Israel, which during a
period of less than four hundred years, was infested with
myriads of false prophets, not to mention the swarms of
sorcerers, soothsayers and all sorts of witchcrafts and
magicians. The false prophets were of two kinds: those who
professed the religion and the Torah (Law) of Yahweh and
pretended to prophesy in His Name, and those who under the
patronage of an idolater Israelite monarch prophesied in
the name of Baal or other deities of the neighboring
heathen peoples. Belonging to the former category there
were several impostors as contemporaries with the true
prophets like Mikha (Micah) and Jeremiah, and to the
latter there were those who gave much trouble to Elijah,
and caused the massacres of the true prophets and
believers during the reign of Ahab and his wife Jezebel.
Most dangerous of all to the cause of true faith and
religion were the pseudo-prophets, who conducted the
divine services in the temple as well as in the Misphas
and pretended to deliver the oracles of God to the people.
No prophet, perhaps, received at the hands of these
impostors more of persecution and hardships than the
Prophet Jeremiah.
While still a young man, Jeremiah began
his prophetic mission about the latter quarter of the
seventh century before the Christian era, when the Kingdom
of Judah was in great danger of invasion by the armies of
the Chaldeans. The Jews had entered into alliance with the
Pharaoh of Egypt, but as the latter had been badly
defeated by the troops of Nebuchadnezzar, Jerusalem's doom
was merely a question of time. In these critical days,
during which the fate of the remnant of the people of God
was to be decided, the Prophet Jeremiah was stoutly
advising the king and the leaders of the Jews to submit
and serve the King of Babylon, so that Jerusalem might be
saved from being burnt down to ashes and the people from
being deported into captivity. He poured out all his
eloquent and fiery discourses into the ears of the kings,
the priests, and the elders of the people, but all of no
avail. He delivered message after message from God, saying
that the only remedy for saving the country and the people
from the imminent destruction was to submit to the
Chaldeans; but there was no one to lend ear to his
warnings.
Nebuchadnezzar comes and takes the city,
carries away with him the king, the princes, and many
captives, as well as all the treasures of the temple,
including the gold and silver vessels. Another prince, and
a third one, is appointed by the Emperor of Babylon to
reign as his vassal in Jerusalem. This king, instead of
being wise and loyal to his master of Babylon, revolts
against him. Jeremiah incessantly admonishes the king to
remain loyal and to abandon the Egyptian policy. But the
false prophets continue to harangue in the temple, saying:
"Thus says the Lord of hosts, Behold, I have broken
the yoke of the King of Babylon, and in two years' time
all the Jewish captives and the vessels of the House of
God will be returned to Jerusalem." Jeremiah makes a
wooden yoke round his own neck and goes to the temple and
tells the people that God has been pleased to place in
this way the yoke of the monarch of Babylon upon the neck
of all the Jews. He is struck on the face by one opponent
prophet, who breaks to pieces the wooden yoke from
Jeremiah's neck and repeats the harangue of the false
prophets. Jeremiah is thrown into a deep dungeon full of
mire, and is fed only on a dry loaf of barley a day until
a famine prevails in the city, which is besieged by the
Chaldeans. The pseudo-prophet Hananiah dies as Jeremiah
had foretold. The wall of the city is thrown down
somewhere, and the victorious army rushes into the city,
the fleeing King Zedekiah and his retinue are seized and
taken to the King of Babylon. The city and the temple,
after being pillaged, are set on fire and all the
inhabitants of Jerusalem are carried into Babylonia; only
the poorer classes are left to cultivate the land. By
order of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah is granted a favor of
staying in Jerusalem, and the newly appointed governor,
Gedaliah, is charged to guard and well look after the
prophet. But Gedaliah is killed by the rebellious Jews,
and then they all flee to Egypt, carrying Jeremiah with
them. Even in Egypt he prophesies against the fugitives
and the Egyptians. He must have ended his life in Egypt.
His books, as it now stands, is quite
different from the text of the Septuagint; evidently the
copy from which the Greek text was written by the
Alexandrian translators had a different order of chapters.
The Biblical critics consider that
Jeremiah was the author, or, at any rate, a compiler, of
the fifth book of the Pentateuch called Deuteronomy. I
myself am of the same opinion. Jeremiah was a Levite and a
priest as well as a prophet. There is much of Jeremiah's
teachings in Deuteronomy which are unknown in the rest of
the Old Testament writings. And I take one of these
teachings for my present subject, which I consider as one
of the gems or golden texts of the Old Testament and must
be esteemed very precious and holy.
After this detailed explanation I hasten
to the main point which I have selected for the topic of
this article: How to distinguish a genuine prophet from a
false prophet. Jeremiah has supplied us with a fairly
satisfactory answer, namely:
"THE PROPHET WHO TEACHES
ISLAM"
In the Book of Deuteronomy (xiii. 1- 5,
xviii. 20 - 22) God the Almighty gives some instructions
concerning the false prophets who may prophesy in the Name
of the Lord and in such an insidious way that they could
mislead His people. Further, he tells us that the best way
to find out the impostor's perfidy was to anticipate the
fulfillment of his predictions, and then to put him to
death when his fraud was divulged. But, as is well known,
the ignorant cannot well distinguish between the genuine
prophet and the imposter, just as much as they to-day are
unable to definitely discover which of the two, a Roman
Catholic priest or a Calvinist minister, is a genuine
follower of Jesus Christ! A false prophet would also
foretell events, work wonders, and do other religious
things similar - at least in appearance - to those
performed by a true one. The competition between the
Prophet Moses and the magicians of Egypt is an apt
illustration of this statement. Thus it is Jeremiah who
gives us the best way of testing the veracity, the
genuineness, of a prophet, and that way is the sign of
Islam. Please read the whole chapter xxviii. of Jeremiah,
and then ponder and reflect on the ninth verse: -
"The prophet which foretells the
Islam (Shalom), at the coming of the word of the Prophet,
that prophet will be recognized to have been sent by God
in truth" (Jer. xxviii. 9).
This translation is strictly literal.
The original verb naba, usually translated as "to
foretell" or "to prophesy," and the noun
nabi, "a prophet" has given the impression that
a prophet is a person who foretells the future or past
events by the aid of divine revelation. This definition is
only partially true. The complete definition of the word
"Prophet" must be: "one who receives
oracles or messages from God, and delivers them faithfully
to the person or people intended." It is evident that
a divine message need not necessarily be a foretelling of
past and future events. In the same way verb
"prophesy" does not necessarily mean to reveal
the past or future occurrences, but rather to preach or
promulgate the message from God. Consequently to prophesy
is to deliver and utter a new oracle, its nature or
character being quite immaterial. To read the words of a
prophet would be to prophesy no more than would a prophet
deliver an oracle when making a discourse or public speech
of his own accord. In the Qur'an God orders His beloved
worshiper Prophet Muhammad to declare: "Say: 'I am
only human like you, revealed to me is that your God is
One God....'" Ch. 18:110 so that we may be careful
not to attribute to any of the prophets the quality of
knowing and saying everything through the Revelation. The
Divine Revelations used to come at intervals, while the
prophets in their personal intercourse and knowledge might
be liable to mistakes and errors. A prophet is not
appointed by God to teach humanity physics, mathematics,
or any other positive science. It would be very unjust on
our part to blame a prophet for a slip of language or a
mistake committed as a man.
A prophet, therefore, is the subject of
test and examination only when he officially and formally
delivers the Message he has received from his Lord. His
private affairs, his family concerns, and his personal
attainments do not concern us so much as his mission and
office. In order to find out whether a prophet is genuine
or an impostor, it is not fair to give a verdict against
his prophetical character because he is reported to have
been a little harsh or rude to his mother or because he
believed in the literal inspiration and the Mosaic
authorship of the Pentateuch. While making this
observation, I have in mind the case of Jesus Christ, and
many others in the history of Israel on other points.
It is mala fides and ill will to accuse
prophets of sensuality, rudeness, ignorance in sciences,
and of other personal frailties. They were men like
ourselves and subject to the same natural inclinations and
passions. They were protected from mortal sins and from
the perversion of the message they had to hand further. We
must be extremely careful not to exalt the prophets of God
too high in our imagination, lest God be displeased with
us. They are all His creatures and worshipers; they
accomplished their work and returned to Him. The moment we
forget God and concentrate our love and admiration upon
the person of any of the messengers of God we are in
danger of falling into the sin of polytheism.
Having so far explained the nature and
the signification of the prophet and the prophecy, I shall
now endeavor to prove that no prophet could be genuine
unless, as Jeremiah expressly says, he preaches and
propagates the religion of Islam.
In order to understand better the sense
and the importance of the passage under our contemplation
we should just cast a glance over the preceding verse
where Jeremiah tells his antagonist Prophet Hananiah:
"The prophets that have been before me and before
thee from old (times) prophesied against many lands, and
against great kingdoms, concerning war and evil and
pestilence." Then he proceeds: -
"The prophet that prophesies
concerning Islam as soon as the word of the prophet comes,
that prophet is known to have been sent by the Lord in
truth."
There can be raised no serious objection
to the English wording of this passage excepting the
clause "l shalom" which I have translated as
"concerning Islam." The preposition
"l" before "shalom" signifies
"concerning" or "about," and places
its subject in the objective case and not in the dative,
as it would be if the predicate were a verb like
"come," "go," or "give."
That "shalom" and the Syriac
"Shlama," as well as the Arabic
"salam" and "Islam," are of one and
the same Semitic root, "shalam," and mean the
same thing, is an admitted truth by all the scholars of
the Semitic languages. The verb "shalam"
signifies "to submit, resign oneself to," and
then "to make peace;" and consequently "to
be safe, sound, and tranquil." No religious system in
the world has ever been qualified with a better and more
comprehensive, dignified, and sublime name than that of
"Islam.' The true Religion of the True God cannot be
named after the name of any of His worshipers, and much
less after the name of a people or country. It is, indeed,
this sanctity and the inviolability of the word
"Islam" that strikes its opponents with awe,
fear, and reverence even when the Muslims are weak and
unhappy. It is the name and title of a religion that
teaches and commands an absolute submission and
resignation of will and self to the Supreme Being, and
then to obtain peace and tranquillity in mind and at home,
no matter what tribulations or passing misfortunes may
threaten us that fills its opponents with awe (1).
------------- Footnote (1) It is
interesting and significant to note how the observations
of the learned professor coincide with those of the
ex-Kaiser of Germany who on the occasion of his seventieth
birthday celebrations at Doorn, Holland, was reported to
have said in his speech: "And understand this - if
ever the Muhammadans should conceive the idea that it is
the command of Allah to bring order into a declining West
and subjugate to His will, then - with faith in God - they
will come upon the godless Europeans like a tidal wave,
against which even the reddest Bolshevist, full of
eagerness for combat, will be helpless." (Evening
Standard, London, January 26, 1929.) ------------- End of
footnote
It is the firm and unshaking belief in
the Oneness of Allah and the unswerving confidence in His
Mercy and justice that makes a Muslim distinguishable and
prominent among non-Muslims. And it is this sound faith in
Allah and the sincere attachment to His Holy Qur'an and
the Prophet that the Christian missionaries have been
desperately attacking and have hopelessly failed. Hence,
Jeremiah's words that "the Prophet who prophesies,
namely, who preaches and speaks concerning the affairs of
Islam as his religion, he will at once be known to have
been sent by the Lord in truth." Let us, therefore,
take into serious consideration the following points:-
1. The Prophet Jeremiah is the only
prophet before Christ who uses the word Shalom in the
sense of a religion. He is the only prophet who uses this
word with the object of setting or proving the veracity of
a messenger of God. According to the Qur'anic revelation,
Prophets Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all
the prophets were Muslims, and professed Islam as their
religion. The term "Islam" and its equivalents,
"Shalom" and Shlama," were known to the
Jews and Christians of Mecca and Medina when Prophet
Muhammad appeared to perfect and universalize the religion
of Islam. A prophet who predicts "peace" as an
abstract, vague and temporary condition cannot succeed in
proving his identity thereby. In fact, the point of
dispute, or rather the critical national question,
controverted by the two eminent prophets known to the
court and the nation like Jeremiah and Hananiah (Jer.
xxviii.), could not be solved and definitely settled by
the affirmation of the one and the denial of the other, of
the imminent catastrophe. To predict "peace" by
Jeremiah when he had all the time been predicting the
great national disaster - either by the submission of the
King Sidaqia to the Chaldean sovereign or by his
resistance - would not only involve his failure, not to
talk of his being a success in proving his veracity, but
also it would make him even ridiculous. For, in either
case, his presumed "peace" would mean no peace
at all. On the contrary, if the Jews resisted the Chaldean
army, it meant a complete national ruin, and if they
submitted, an unconditional servitude. It is evident,
therefore, that Jeremiah uses the term "Shalom"
in the sense of a tangible, concrete, and real religious
system which Islam comprises. To make it more clear, we
should attentively listen to the arguments of the two
opponent prophets discussing and disputing the national
question in the presence of a wicked king and his court of
vile flatterers and depraved hypocrites. Jeremiah has at
heart the cause of God and His religion of peace, and in
the vital interests of the religion of peace, or Islam, he
advises the wicked king and his courtiers to submit to the
yoke of Babylon and serve the Chaldeans and live. For
there was no other alternative open to them. They had
abandoned the God of their forefathers, polluted His
temple, mocked and reviled His prophets, and committed
evil and treachery (2 Chron. xxxvi. etc.). So God had
delivered them into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, and would
not save them. For a true and sincere worshiper of God,
the religion comes first and the nation after. It is the
government and the nation - especially when they have
forsaken God - that are to be sacrificed for the cause of
religion, and not vice versa! The other Prophet of Gibeon,
called Hananiah, sought to please his master the king; he
was a courtier and favorite, rich and in splendor, whereas
his antagonist was always languishing and starving in the
prisons and dungeons. He cares not a fillip for the
religion and the real welfare of the people. He is also a
prophet, for so says the Book of Jeremiah, yet he is a
villain, and has exchanged God for a depraved king! He
prophesies in the name of the same God as does Jeremiah,
and announces the return of the booty and the captives
from Babylon in two years' time.
Now, from the above imperfect
description of the prophets, which of the two would you
qualify as the true worshiper of God and as the loyal
defender of God's religion? Surely Jeremiah would at once
attract your sympathy and choice.
2. It is only the religion of Shalom, of
Islam, that can testify to the character and the office of
a true prophet, Imam, or any minister of God on earth. God
is One, and His religion is one. There is no other
religion in the world like Islam, which professes and
defends this absolute Oneness of the Deity. He who,
therefore, sacrifices every other interest, honor and love
for the cause of this Holy Religion, he is undoubtedly the
genuine prophet and the minister of God. But there is
still one thing more worthy of our notice, and that thing
is this. If the religion of Islam is not the standard and
the measure by which to test the veracity of a prophet or
minister of God, then there is no other criterion to
answer that purpose. A miracle is not always a sufficient
proof, for the sorcerers also work wonders. The
fulfillment of a prophecy or prediction, too, is not in
itself a sufficient proof; for just as one holy Spirit
reveals a future event to a true prophet, so does
sometimes an evil spirit the same to an imposter. Hence it
is clear that the prophet who "prophesies concerning
Shalom - Islam - as being the name of Faith and path of
life, as soon as he receives a message from God he will be
known to have been sent by Him." Such was the
argument which Jeremiah had recourse to and with which he
wished to convince his audience of the falsity of
Hananiah. But the wicked king and his entourage would not
listen to and obey the Word of God.
3. As argued in the preceding paragraph,
it should be noted that neither the fulfillment of a
prediction nor the work- ing of a miracle was enough to
prove the genuine character of a prophet; that the loyalty
and strict attachment to the religion is the best and the
decisive proof for the purpose; that "Shalom"
was used to express the religion of peace. Once again we
repeat the same assertion that Shalom is no other than
Islam. And we demand from those who would object to this
interpretation to produce an Arabic word be- sides Islam
and Salam as the equivalent of the Shalom, and also to
find for us another word in Hebrew besides Shalom that
would convey and express the same meaning as Islam. It is
impossible to produce another such an equivalent.
Therefore we are forced to admit that Shalom is the same
as "salam" or "peace" in the abstract,
and "Islam" as a religion and faith in the
concrete.
4. As the Qur'an in chap. ii expressly
reminds us that Abraham and his sons and grandsons were
the followers of Islam; that they were neither Jews nor
Christians; that they preached and propagated the worship
and the faith in the one God to all the peoples among whom
they sojourned or dwelt, we must admit that not only the
Jews, but several other nations that descended from the
other sons of Abraham and many tribes converted and
absorbed by them, were also Muslims; that is to say,
believers in Allah and resigned to His Will. There were
the people of Esau, the Edomites, the Midianites, and
numerous other peoples living in Arabia, who knew God and
worshipped Him like the Israelites. These peoples had also
their own prophets and religious guides like Job, Jethro
(the father-in-law of the Prophet Moses), Balaam, Hud, and
many others. But they, like the Jews, had taken to
idolatry until it was totally eradicated by the Prince of
the prophets. The Jews, in about the fifth century B.C.,
produced the greater portion of their canonical books of
the Old Testament, when the memories of the conquest of
the land of Canaan by Joshua, the temple and Jerusalem of
Solomon, were events buried in the past epochs of their
wondrous history. A nationalistic and Judaistic spirit of
solicitude and seclusion reigned among the small remnant
of Israel; the belief in the coming of a great Savior to
restore the lost throne and crown of David was regnant,
and the old meaning of "Shalom" as the name of
the religion of Abraham and common to all the different
peoples descended from him was no longer remembered. It is
from this point of view that I regard this passage of
Jeremiah as one of the golden texts in the Hebrew sacred
writ.
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