By Waseem A. Sayed, Ph.D., Chino Hills, CA - USA
Originally published: December 16, 2009
One Salam Al-Marayati wrote an op-ed entitled "Major Hasan and the Quran" for The Wall Street Journal on December 8, 2009. The author could not intelligently articulate the purpose of his writing and the articles prompted many online comments and responses from the readers of various religious persuasions. [read here]
I believe there are two things that every Muslim (and everyone else, too, for that matter) involved in these type of discussions has to hear about and neither was mentioned by Mr. Salam Al-Marayati. I do not know why - and I care not to speculate.
First, the Holy Quran tells Muslims to obey the laws of the land where they live - even if they are persecuted. Here are the two verses that confirm this: 'O ye who believe! obey God, and obey His Messenger and those who are in authority among you.' [Ch. 4, verse 60], and: 'Verily, those whom the angels cause to die while they are wronging their own souls, they (the angels) will say to them: ‘What were you after?’ They will reply: ‘We were treated as weak in the land.’ They will say, ‘Was not God’s earth vast enough for you to emigrate therein?’ It is these whose abode shall be Hell, and an evil destination it is.' [4: 98]. And this is how Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing of Allag be upon him) lived his entire life. I will come back to this briefly later.
The SECOND important thing to know is that Prophet Muhammad said: [Arabic] 'hubbul watanee minal eeman' - meaning love of one's country, one's place of residence, is a part of a Muslim's faith.
The Holy Prophet Muhammad followed these rules. All the nonsense that people talk about, abrogation of this and that verse of the Holy Quran and how he lived a different life before and after migration is just that, NONSENSE. All historical evidence proves the opposite,and I shall come back to this also shortly and briefly.
Nothing of the Holy Quran has been abrogated. It was only when, even after having abandoned his home and belongings and having moved to a new place, only after the Meccans traveled 200+ miles to pursue and attack him and the weak and few in number Muslims there; it was only then that he was told to defend himself and take up whatever arms he had available to him.
Even though he lacked men and means, yet God said to him that HE, God, would assure him victory. And that is what happened. All those verses that people quote about fighting people are related to those who came to kill innocent people for the simple purpose of denying them their freedom to worship.
This is so well captured in the verses where this permission to take up arms was first given: 'Permission to fight is given to those against whom war is made, because they have been wronged — and Allah indeed has power to help them — Those who have been driven out from their homes unjustly only because they said, ‘Our Lord is God’ — And if God did not repel some men by means of others, there would surely have been pulled down cloisters and churches and synagogues and mosques, wherein the name of God is oft commemorated. And God will surely help one who helps Him. God is indeed Powerful, Mighty' — [22: 40-41]. Now show me a person who says that this is unreasonable and I will show you someone who is in immediate need of a brain transplant!
I would recommend that people read The Life of Muhammad [read / download here] and learn what the Quran really teaches and how Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of God be upon him, exemplified these teachings that are full of love for all and hatred for none.
This, after all, is why all who came to him fell in love with him and would not leave him. And, his holiness was so overpowering and overwhelming that it transformed a wholly ignorant, vicious and primitive people, in the short time span of 23 years, into people who won over the whole known world of their time..and today some 1,600,000,000 people live under its roof.
Can you do that being the kind of person these people - who malign Islam - say he was; and on the back of those kinds of teachings that they allege Islam contains? Certainly not!
This is so well captured by Thomas Carlyle in the beginning of his famous Lecture: THE HERO AS PROPHET. MAHOMET: ISLAM [May 8, 1840].
"Our current hypothesis about Mahomet [Mohammad], that he was a scheming Impostor, a Falsehood incarnate, that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and fatuity, begins really to be now untenable to any one. The lies, which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man, are disgraceful to ourselves only. When Pococke inquired of Grotius, Where the proof was of that story of the pigeon, trained to pick peas from Mahomet's ear, and pass for an angel dictating to him? Grotius answered that there was no proof! It is really time to dismiss all that. The word this man spoke has been the life-guidance now of a hundred and eighty millions of men these twelve hundred years. These hundred and eighty millions were made by God as well as we. A greater number of God's creatures believe in Mahomet's word at this hour, than in any other word whatever. Are we to suppose that it was a miserable piece of spiritual legerdemain, this which so many creatures of the Almighty have lived by and died by? I, for my part, cannot form any such supposition. I will believe most things sooner than that. One would be entirely at a loss what to think of this world at all, if quackery so grew and were sanctioned here."
"Alas, such theories are very lamentable. If we would attain to knowledge of anything in God's true Creation, let us disbelieve them wholly! They are the product of an Age of Scepticism: they indicate the saddest spiritual paralysis, and mere death-life of the souls of men: more godless theory, I think, was never promulgated in this Earth. A false man found a religion?
Why, a false man cannot build a brick house! If he do not know and follow truly the properties of mortar, burnt clay and what else be works in, it is no house that he makes, but a rubbish-heap. It will not stand for twelve centuries, to lodge a hundred and eighty millions; it will fall straightway. A man must conform himself to Nature's laws, _be_ verily in communion with Nature and the truth of things, or Nature will answer him, No, not at all! Speciosities are specious--ah me!--a Cagliostro, many Cagliostros, prominent world-leaders, do prosper by their quackery, for a day. It is like a forged bank-note; they get it passed out of _their_ worthless hands: others, not they, have to smart for it. Nature bursts up in fire-flames, French Revolutions and such like, proclaiming with terrible veracity that forged notes are forged."
It would be good to hear from someone a rebuttal of the logic of Carlyle, especially now that the house that Muhammad built has survived fourteen centuries and houses under its roof some one thousand six hundred million people! I am moved to repeat his assessment. How well he had put it:
"A false man found a religion? Why, a false man cannot build a brick house! If he do not know and follow truly the properties of mortar, burnt clay and what else be works in, it is no house that he makes, but a rubbish-heap. It will not stand for twelve centuries, to lodge a hundred and eighty millions; it will fall straightway. A man must conform himself to Nature's laws, _be_ verily in communion with Nature and the truth of things, or Nature will answer him, No, not at all!"
At the end, the truth will prevail! As that is, in of itself, the definition of truth. And this is what God has stated in the Holy Quran:
And say, ‘Truth has come and falsehood has vanished away. Falsehood does indeed vanish away fast. [17:82]
Say, ‘The Truth has come, and falsehood could neither originate any good nor reproduce it.’ [34:50]
God has decreed: ‘Most surely I will prevail; I and My Messengers.’ Verily, God is Powerful, Mighty. [58:22]
He it is Who has sent His Messenger with the guidance and the Religion of truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all religions, even if those who associate partners with God hate it. [61:10]
In his book, The Victory of Islam [1890], Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahamd of Qadian, India, the Holy Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, had prophesied that the time for the fulfillment
of the promise made by God in the Holy Quran with regard to the global trymph of Islam had dawned. He wrote:
"Truth will prevail. A new bright day will dawn again for Islam. The same as it did before. The sun of Islam will rise in full bloom, as it did before."
All praise belongs to God, the Lord of all the worlds!
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