By Rashid Samnakay, New Age Islam
8 May 2021
Contrary To The Belief Of Muslims At Large; The Fact That It Was Not Exclusively Apostle Muhammad Rasullullah’s Deliberations That Spawned The Ideology Of Islam, His Book The Scripture Quran At The Very Early Page Confirms It
Main Points:
1. Belief in all previous messengers too forms an integral part for being a Muslim.
2. Among those Apostles before Muhammad's time only a few are named in the Book and others are not named
3. Islam is securely tethered to the Pegs in the time capsule of Muhammad the Arab Messenger
4. Abraham and his followers were THE Early Muslims following Islam
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Contrary to the belief of Muslims at large; the fact that it was not exclusively Apostle Muhammad Rasullullah’s deliberations that spawned the Ideology of Islam, his book the scripture Quran at the very early page confirms it:
2-4: And those who Believe in that which is revealed to YOU and that which was revealed to those BEFORE you.
Thus it establishes the fact that all previous messengers to him had contributed to it and that Belief in them too forms an integral part for being a Muslim.
As for those Apostles before Muhammad's time, who contributed to that ideology; only a few are named in the Book and others are not named, it says. For obvious reason, that there were too many of them over the millennia to name them all. Their search to fathom the existence of the Supreme Being, the Creator of the Universe Rabb and the Code of behaviour of mankind required, evolved in the ideology of Islam which is just the name in Arabic language for that ideology, that expanded in stages from the intellectual Big Bang of mankind.
The Section 10 of Surah 6, is a further example of references to this effect. After referring to Apostle Ibrahim (Abraham) in verse 6-84 at the beginning it continues:
6-85: And We gave him Isaac and Jacob. Each did We guide; and Noah We guided before, and his descendants, David and Solomon and Job and Joseph and Moses and Aron. And thus We reward those who do good to others.
The rest of the verses in this Section names some more; Zacharias, John, Jesus, Elias, Ishmael, Elisha, Jonah and Lot. “ and each one We made to excel the people”!
6-90: These are they to whom We gave the Book and authority and prophesy.....
It will be recognised that these names of the Apostles are also given in the Bible. Of course it is so. The Quran says so too:
10-37.....but it (the Quran) is a verification of that which is before it and clear explanation of the Book, ….
It should be noted that the reference is to the Book – the Word, Dhalikal Kitab.
So, what are the Issues raised by Muslims?
The first Issue is the misconception of the Muslim's in general that, Islam and it's Ideology as given in Quran was promulgated by the Nabi Muhammad Rasullullah essentially as his original concept. As such, Islam is securely tethered to the Pegs in the time capsule of Muhammad the Arab Messenger, his book in Arabic language and the Arabian space particularly the precincts of Makka and Madinah. Thus it encapsulates Islam into a tiny spec on the planet Earth and narrow pages of history. The above quoted verses of Quran amply refute this misconception.
However a reference is given here to show that perhaps it may be the cause of this misconception as translated by parochialism of a community of people:
6-162 to 164: Say (Qul) Indeed my Lord has guided me to the Right path, the true Deen(Code), that was followed by Abraham and his followers and he was not a Polytheist. Say my commitments, sacrifices, living and dying are exclusively for the Creator/Nourisher (Rabb) of the Universe: He has no associates; of this I am commanded. (So) I am among the First (Awwal) of the Muslims.
The Qul is an instruction to the Messenger/Rasool, not only just to verbalise the words but to affirm the message for himself and then to propagate it. That is a Messenger's commission.
To infer from the above Wa Ana Awwal ul Muslimeen. that 'I am the first Muslim' is naivety perhaps for the purposes of putting the person of Muhammad on a pedestal for – his cultism- and elevating the place he was born at and the language in which his Book in written as a holy Icons of religion that is called Islam.
The fact that the verses refer to Abraham who was there long long time Before him and Abraham's ideology makes it clear that the former and his followers were the referenced Muslims (Muslimeen) and so Muhammad is instructed to include himself in that group as its ideological member.
As the Arab Messenger's Book Quran was in Arabic (common sense!) the word Muslimeen in it is Arabic, meaning those who submit to the system of the stated Ideology, the ideology named in it as ad Deen ul Islam 5-4. Therefore Abraham and his followers were THE Early Muslims following Islam, as per the Arabic language. Nothing there that can be misconstrued.
From the verse it would mean also that Islam originated from Abraham's time if not earlier from Noah (and even Adam). To conclude then, Islam the original Kitab/ Logos/Word did not originate from Messenger Muhammad of Arabia's ideology. The Book Quran verified it, 10-37.
Another important Issue arises from the belief that the ideology Islam originated as recently as the sixth century, it regrettably excises all the previous Rusul/Messengers who contributed towards Islam's development. That belief then also is in contradiction of Quran's message. For the belief suggests that the Creator of the Universe Rabb and including human beings, discriminated between its creation of humans and only inspired a particular desert Arab and his tribe for the Divine Message for the world. The Creator rejects this notion in many verses; two examples given are:
2-213: Mankind is but a single nation and God sent as bearers of good news and as warners, and He revealed to them the Book with truth that it might judge between them concerning that in which they differed.......
10-19: Mankind was but one nation, but differed later. Had it not been for the Word that went forth before from your Lord, their differences would have been settled between them.
The unity of mankind is therefore one of the prime requirement. The differences that arose in the matter of ideology, as forms of Religions is no cause of enmity between differing people; as most of them do start with the premise of the existence of one Supreme Being.
Therefore the only discrimination the Lord seems to apply is between Believers and Non-Believers disputing amongst themselves with arms and bloodshed. So He makes no bones as to which side He barracks for. That is manifestly evident from the number of Messengers He sent to every nation with the common message, before the Messenger Muhammad.
As for who those Messengers not named in his Book are, we can only guess. As He declared to have sent “To every Nation”, then who are we to differentiate between Arabian and those in the East, West, North and South and to excise some of them and not others?
Mankind's intellectual vision must therefore have expanded riding on the shoulders of those early Giants from every where. Muhammad ur Rasullullah was therefore the beneficiary of that ride too and the Quran acknowledges it. Hence to brand him, in spite of his Book, as the primal source of Islam is to deny the Universality of Quran's ideology that the Muslims are so keen to have the world believe it to be so.
When an outsider looks in the so called “Nationhood of mankind”, what is observed is its fragmentation in Religions and classes beyond description. The enmity expressed to the extent that arms conflicts between Believers and non-Believers shedding blood; and what is more is that this turmoil is in the name of the same Lord and His Revelations extolling mankind to Reason! It therefore prompted poet Iqbal to say in Urdu:
Garche Hai Meri Justujoo Dair-o-Haram Ki Naqsh Band
Meri Faghan Se Rustkhaiz Kaaba-o-Somanat Mein
Eid Mubarak to you all.
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A regular contributor to NewAgeIslam.com, Rashid Samnakay is a (Retd.) Engineer
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism
8:20 AM
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