5:14 Christianity and Judaism will Persist till the Resurrection?

 

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا خاتم النبيين

Prayers and peace be upon you, Seal of the Prophets

Allah says about the Christians and Jews:

فَأَغْرَيْنَا بَيْنَهُمُ الْعَدَاوَةَ وَالْبَغْضَاءَ إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ

So We planted among them enmity and hatred till the Day of Resurrection

(Surah 5:14)

The Qadianis and some other foolish people interpret this Ayah to mean that the religions of Christianity and Judaism shall persist till the Resurrection. They cite this Ayah as a proof against the orthodox Sunni Islamic belief that that during the Second Advent of the Messiah all religions shall be eliminated except for Islam, as the Holy Prophet, sall Allahu alayhi wasallam, said:

فَيُقَاتِلُ النَّاسَ عَلَى الإِسْلاَمِ فَيَدُقُّ الصَّلِيبَ وَيَقْتُلُ الْخِنْزِيرَ وَيَضَعُ الْجِزْيَةَ وَيُهْلِكُ اللَّهُ فِي زَمَانِهِ الْمِلَلَ كُلَّهَا إِلاَّ الإِسْلاَمَ

He (Jesus) will fight people for the sake of Islam, and he will break the cross, slay the swine, and abolish the Jizyah. Allah will destroy every religion in his time except for Islam (Sunan Abi Dawud)

Since the false prophet and false messiah of the Qadianis, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, failed to fulfill any of these prophecies despite claiming to represent the Second Advent of Jesus, the Qadianis resort to denying the numerous, authentic Ahadith containing these prophecies. They deny that in the time of the Second Advent Allah will eradicate every religion except Islam and cite the Ayah, 5:14, to argue that Christianity and Judaism are destined to persist till the Resurrection. But the meaning of the Ayah, 5:14, is not that Jews and Christians shall remain on the Earth till the Resurrection literally. “Till the Day of Resurrection” is an expression, as explained by Allamah Shabbir Ahmad Uthmani:

یعنی جب تک وہ رہیں گے یہ اختلاف اور بغض وعناد بھی ہمیشہ رہے گا۔ یہاں قیامت تک کا لفظ ایسا ہے جیسے ہمارے محاورات میں کہہ دیتے ہیں کہ فلاں شخص تو قیامت تک بھی فلاں حرکت سے باز نہ آۓ گا۔ اس کے یہ معنی نہیں ہوتے کہ وہ شخص قیامت تک زندہ رہے گا اور یہ حرکت کرتا رہے گا۔ مراد یہ ہے کہ اگر قیامت تک بھی زندہ رہے تو اس بات کو نہ چھوڑے گا۔ اسی طرح آیت الی یوم القیامۃ کا لفظ آنے سے یہ ثابت نہیں ہوتا کہ یہود و نصاری کا وجود قیامت تک رہے جیسا کہ ہمارے زمانے کے بعض مبطلین نے اپنی تفسیر میں لکھ دیا ہے۔

That is, as long as they exist, this difference, hatred, and enmity will also remain forever. Here, the word “until the Day of Resurrection” is like the one we say in our idioms that such and such a person will not stop doing such and such an act even until the Day of Resurrection. This does not mean that that person will live until the Day of Resurrection and continue to do this act. What is meant is that if he lives until the Day of Resurrection, he will not stop doing this. Similarly, the words “to the Day of Resurrection” in the verse do not prove that the existence of Jews and Christians will continue until the Day of Resurrection, as some of the falsifiers of our time have written in their tafsir (Tafsir Usmani, Dar ul-Isha’at, v.1, p.511)

The interpretive principle that the phrase “till the Day of Resurrection” does not necessitate literal persistence and existence in this world till the Resurrection is supported elsewhere in the Holy Quran,

وَمَنْ أَضَلُّ مِمَّن يَدْعُو مِن دُونِ اللهِ مَن لَّا يَسْتَجِيبُ لَهُ إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ وَهُمْ عَن دُعَائِهِمْ غَافِلُونَ

And who is more astray than one who invokes besides Allah one who will not answer him till the Day of Resurrection, and are, of their invocations, unaware

(Surah 46:5)

No one would understand from this Ayah that the idols and false gods that are invoked shall remain in this world till the Resurrection. Many of those idols have already been destroyed.

Ibn Arabi: 100,000 Adams

 

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا خاتم النبيين

Prayers and peace be upon you, Seal of the Prophets

Shaykh Ibn Arabi (1165-1240 CE) said he saw a vision in which he was circling the Ka’bah:

ولقد أراني الحق تعالى فيما يراه النائم وأنا طائف بالكعبة مع قوم من الناس لا أعرفهم بوجوههم فأنشدونا بيتين ثبت على البيت الواحد ومضى عني الآخر فكان الذي ثبت عليه من ذلك لقد طفنا كما طفتم سنينا بهذا البيت طرا أجمعينا وخرج عني البيت الآخر فتعجبت من ذلك فقال لي واحد منهم وتسمى لي باسم لا أعرف ذلك الاسم ثم قال لي أنا من أجدادك قلت له كم لك منذ مت فقال لي بضع وأربعون ألف سنة فقلت له فما لآدم هذا القدر من السنين فقال لي عن أي آدم تقول عن هذا الأقرب إليك أو عن غيره فتذكرت حديثا عن رسول الله ص إن الله خلق مائة ألف آدم فقلت قد يكون ذلك الجد الذي نسبني إليه من أولئك

And God the Exalted showed me in a dream I was circling the Ka’bah with a group of people whom I did not recognize by their faces. They recited to us two verses. He remained on one verse and the other passed me by. So the one he remained on from that was, “We have circled this House as you have circled for years, all of us together,” and the other verse passed me by. I was amazed at that. Then one of them said to me, and he called me by a name I did not know. Then he said to me, “I am one of your ancestors.” I said to him, “How long have you been dead?” He said to me, “Forty-two thousand years.” I said to him, “Why did Adam have this number of years?” He said to me, “Which Adam are you talking about? This one who is closest to you or someone else?” I remembered a Hadith from the Messenger of Allah that Allah created one hundred thousand Adams. I said, “Perhaps that grandfather to whom I am related is from one of those.” (al-Futuhat ul-Makiyyah, Dar ul-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah, v.6, p.369)

According to the kashf of Ibn Arabi there were many Adams before our Adam, as many as a hundred thousand. A similar idea is attributed to Imam Muhammad al-Baqir, rahmatullah alayh, who is reported to have said:

وترى أن الله لم يخلق بشرا غيركم بلى والله لقد خلق الله ألف ألف عالم وألف ألف آدم أنت في آخرتلك العوالم واولئك الآدميين

You see that Allah did not create any human beings other than you. Yes, by Allah, Allah created a million worlds and a million Adams. You are in the last of those worlds and those Adams (al-Tawhid li-Ibni Babawayh al-Saduq, ch.38, #2, p.271)

The discovery of hominid fossils that apparently date back hundreds of thousands and even millions of years lends credence to the idea that there were other Adams before our Adam. When Allah announced to the Angels that He is creating Adam and making him His khalifah or vicegerent upon the Earth, the Angels questioned its wisdom, saying,

أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَن يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِكُ الدِّمَاءَ

Will you make upon it one who will spread corruption therein and shed blood?

(Surah 2:30)

It seems the Angels made this prediction about a new Adam and a new race that would emerge in his offspring on the basis of their observation of the many other hominids that preceded us and which were violent like us. According to Biblical chronology, accepted by most Christian fundamentalists and Orthodox Jews, the Earth and humanity are about six thousand years old. This is the doctrine known as Young Earth creationism. However, the Holy Quran does not confirm this chronology, nor do Muslims necessarily accept it. But Muslims, at least us orthodox Sunnis, do believe that Adam was created by God from clay without mother and father:

يَا إِبْلِيسُ مَا مَنَعَكَ أَن تَسْجُدَ لِمَا خَلَقْتُ بِيَدَيَّ

O Iblis! What prevented you from prostrating to that which I created with both My hands?

(Surah 38:75)

اِنَّ مَثَلَ عِیۡسٰی عِنۡدَ اللّٰہِ کَمَثَلِ اٰدَمَ ؕ خَلَقَہٗ مِنۡ تُرَابٍ ثُمَّ قَالَ لَہٗ کُنۡ فَیَکُوۡنُ

Verily, the example of Jesus in the sight of Allah is like the example of Adam. He created him from soil then He said to him, “Be!” and he became

(Surah 3:59)

These Verses strongly support our belief that Allah created Adam without any parents. Some Muslims who unquestioningly accept the theory of human evolution and are uncritical of scientism have attempted to reinterpret these and other Verses of the Holy Quran. All humans on the planet today, numbering in the billions, settled in the continents of Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America and Australia, are all descendants of the Adam mentioned in the Holy Quran, and are therefore addressed every time Allah says therein,

يَا بَنِي آدَمَ

O children of Adam

Whenever this Adam lived, the one who along with his wife Eve was expelled from the Garden for eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, it is likely his children intermarried with some of those archaic humans who were already present on Earth. These archaic humans and the many hominids who came before them may be the descendants of those other Adams, according to Ibn Arabi, numbering a hundred thousand.

Allah and His Apostle know best!

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and Spontaneous Generation of Insects

 

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا خاتم النبيين

Prayers and peace be upon you, Seal of the Prophets

The false prophet and Antichrist Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, in attempting to belittle the miraculous virgin birth of Jesus Christ, compared it to what he considered the spontaneous generation of insects:

مسیح کا بن باپ پیدا ہونا میری نگاہ میں کچھ عجوبہ بات نہیں۔ حضرت آدم ماں اور باپ دونوں نہیں رکھتے تھے۔ اب قریب برسات آتی ہے ضرور باہر جاکہ دیکھیں کہ کتنے کیڑے مکوڑے بغیر ماں باپ کے پیدا ہو جاتے ہیں۔

It is not strange in my eyes that Christ was born without a father. Adam did not have both a mother and a father. Now that the rains are coming, definitely go outside and see how many insects are born without parents (Ruhani Khaza’in, v.6, pp.280-281; Jang-i-Muqaddas, pp.198-199)

برسات کے دنوں میں ہزارہا کیڑے مکوڑے خود بخود پیدا ہو جاتے ہیں اور حضرت آدم علیہ السلام بھی بغیر ماں باپ کے پیدا ہوۓ تو پھر حضرت عیسی کی اس پیدائش سے کوئی بزرگی ان کی ثابت نہیں ہوتی بلکہ بغیر باپ کے پیدا ہونا بعض قوی سے محروم ہونے پر دلالت کرتا ہے۔

Thousands of insects are born spontaneously during rainy days, and Prophet Adam (peace be upon him) was born without parents, so then the birth of Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) does not prove his greatness. Rather, being born without a father indicates that he was deprived of some powers (Ruhani Khaza’in, v.20, p.356; Chashma-i-Masihi, pp.27-28)

Now the idea that insects are generated spontaneously from non-living matter is simply untrue scientifically speaking. The false prophet Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was simply unaware of scientific facts and reiterated a myth of ignorant, uneducated people that has been decisively disproved. Mirza of Qadian constantly expressed his contempt for the real Messiah, Jesus, peace be upon him, and this is yet another instance of that where he compares his virgin birth to the supposed spontaneous generation of bugs and even makes a swipe at him being born without a father, claiming that individuals born without a father are deprived of certain faculties! The blasphemy of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad against Jesus Christ in comparing his virgin birth to the spontaneous generation of insects is therefore compounded by the fact that spontaneous generation of insects is an unscientific myth.

In these quotations, Mirza of Qadian stated that Adam was born without father or mother, an argument presented from the Holy Quran:

اِنَّ مَثَلَ عِیۡسٰی عِنۡدَ اللّٰہِ کَمَثَلِ اٰدَمَ ؕ خَلَقَہٗ مِنۡ تُرَابٍ ثُمَّ قَالَ لَہٗ کُنۡ فَیَکُوۡنُ

Verily, the example of Jesus in the sight of Allah is like the example of Adam. He created him from soil then said to him, “Be!” so he became

(Surah 3:59)

Yet it appears that Mirza of Qadian only used the argument of Adam being born without any parents in order to refute the Christians, otherwise he suggested elsewhere that Adam was not the first human nor are all humans today descended from that Adam:

ہم اس بات کے قائل نہیں ہیں اور نہ ہی اس مسئلہ میں ہم توریت کی پیروی کرتے ہیں کہ چھ سات ہزار سال سے ہی جب سے یہ آدم پیدا ہوا تھا اس دنیا کا آغاز ہوا ہے اور اس سے پہلے کچھ بھی نہ تھا اور خدا گویا معطل تھا اور نہ ہی ہم اس بات کے مدعی ہیں کہ یہ تمام نسل انسانی جو اس وقت دنیا کے مختلف حصوں میں موجود ہے یہ اسی آخری آدم کی نسل ہے۔ ہم تو اس آدم سے پہلے بھی نسل انسانی کے قائل ہیں

آدم سے پہلےبھی مخلوق موجود تھی۔ پس امریکہ اور آسٹریلیا وغیرہ کے لوگوں کے متعلق ہم کچھ نہیں کہہ سکتے کہ وہ اس آخری آدم کی اولاد میں سے ہیں یا کہ کسی دوسرے آدم کی اولاد میں سے ہیں۔

We do not believe, nor do we follow the Torah in this matter, that this world began six or seven thousand years ago, when Adam was born, and that before that there was nothing and God was suspended, nor do we claim that all the human race that currently exists in different parts of the world is the offspring of this last Adam. We believe that the human race existed even before this Adam. Creation existed even before Adam. So, we cannot say anything about the people of America and Australia, etc., that they are the offspring of this last Adam or the offspring of some other Adam (Malfuzat, 1984 edition, p.432)

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad suggested that perhaps the Amerindians and the Australian Aborigines are not the offspring of our Adam, but descended from an earlier population of humans that are of another Adam!

Ibn Abd ul-Wahhab: Allah told Prophet "Cleanse Your Deeds of Shirk"

 

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا خاتم النبيين

Prayers and peace be upon you, Seal of the Prophets

Allah said to the Holy Prophet Muhammad, sall Allahu alayhi wasallam:

وَثِيَابَكَ فَطَهِّرْ

And your garment do purify

(Surah 74:4)

The neo-Kharijite Ibn Abd ul-Wahhab interpreted this to mean that Allah commanded the Prophet, sall Allahu alayhi wasallam, to cleanse his deeds of Shirk!

وَثِيَابَكَ فَطَهّرْ أي طهر أعمالك من الشرك

(al-Usul ul-Thalathah, Dar ul-Watan, p.6)

But we Sunni Muslims believe the Prophet, sall Allahu alayhi wasallam, never committed Shirk in his life, including the period before he announced his Prophethood. The Wahhabis, however, apparently believe the Prophet, sall Allahu alayhi wasallam, was upon Shirk before Allah commanded him to “cleanse your deeds of Shirk”!

Yazidis are Devil Worshippers

 

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا خاتم النبيين

Prayers and peace be upon you, Seal of the Prophets

The Yazidi or Yezidi religion is accurately described as devil worship by us Muslims. Yezidis take offense and object to this charge, claiming that their deity or object of worship, Tawûsî Melek, is a benevolent “peacock angel” and an emanation of God. But Devil worshippers rarely view the Devil as evil. Consider the infamous Church of Satan founded by Anton LaVey (1930-1997) in 1966. These Satanists do not consider Satan evil, rather the symbolic personification of what they consider positive hedonism and sexuality. The fact of the matter is that the Yezidis identify their god, Tawûsî Melek, with the figure of Iblis. In the Holy Quran is the account of Allah ordering the Angels and Iblis to prostrate before Adam, but Iblis obstinately and proudly refused, resulting in the Fall. Iblis justified his refusal to obey Allah and prostrate before Adam, saying,

أَنَا خَيْرٌ مِّنْهُ خَلَقْتَنِي مِن نَّارٍ وَخَلَقْتَهُ مِن طِينٍ

I am better than him. You created me from fire and you created him from clay

(Surah 7:12)

According to Yezidi lore, their god, Tawûsî Melek, likewise refused to bow before Adam: “Then God gave life to Adam from his own breath and instructed all archangels to bow to Adam. The archangels obeyed except for Tawûsê Melek. In answer to God, Tawûsê Melek replied, ‘How can I submit to another being! I am from your illumination while Adam is made of dust.’”

According to one of the two sacred texts of the Yezidis known as the Mashaf Reš or the “Black Book”: “Thereupon Melek Ta’us visited Adam and said ‘Have you eaten of the grain?’ He answered, ‘No, God forbade me.’ Melek Ta’us replied and said, ‘Eat of the grain and all shall go better with thee.’ Then Adam ate of the grain and immediately his belly was inflated. But Melek Ta’us drove him out of the garden” (Joseph, Isya. Devil Worship: The Sacred Books and Traditions of the Yezidiz. The Gorham Press, Boston, 1919, p.38)

The Yezidis identify their god with the figure of the Devil who tempted Adam and Eve to eat from the forbidden tree, thus being the cause of their banishment from the Garden of Eden. The Black Book further states that the false god of the Yezidis is named Azazil: “a separate community shall appear upon the earth, that of Azazîl, i. e., that of Melek Tâ’ûs, which is the sect of the Yezidis.” (ibid)

Azazil is one of the names of Iblis, according to the eminent Sahabi, Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him:

‌كَانَ ‌إِبْلِيسُ ‌اسْمُهُ ‌عَزَازِيلُ

The name of Iblis was Azazil (Tafsir Ibn Abi Hatim, v.1, p.84, #360)

Punishment for Apostasy (Part 2)

 

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful

الصلاة والسلام عليك يا خاتم النبيين

Prayers and peace be upon you, Seal of the Prophets

In a previous article I mentioned my madhhab which is that apostasy from Islam is deserving of capital punishment in the Shari’a, regardless of whether such an apostasy entails rebellion against the State or not. I quoted the Hadith

مَنْ بَدَّلَ دِينَهُ فَاقْتُلُوهُ

ًWhoever changes his Religion then kill him (Sahih al-Bukhari)

Here I shall present a powerful, irrefutable argument from the Holy Quran which establishes that the death penalty is prescribed for apostasy. Allah says,

مَنۡ کَفَرَ بِاللّٰہِ مِنۡۢ بَعۡدِ اِیۡمَانِہٖۤ اِلَّا مَنۡ اُکۡرِہَ وَقَلۡبُہٗ مُطۡمَئِنٌّۢ بِالۡاِیۡمَانِ وَلٰکِنۡ مَّنۡ شَرَحَ بِالۡکُفۡرِ صَدۡرًا فَعَلَیۡہِمۡ غَضَبٌ مِّنَ اللّٰہِ ۚ وَلَہُمۡ عَذَابٌ عَظِیۡمٌ

Whoso disbelieves in Allah after he has believed — save him who is forced thereto while his heart finds peace in the [aith — but such as open their hearts to disbelief, on them is Allah’s wrath; and they shall have a mighty punishment

(Sura 16:106)

Those who claim there is no prescribed punishment for apostasy in this world argue that the words “on them is Allah’s wrath” that here the غضب refers to punishment in the Afterlife. Yet if that is granted it would appear that the next sentence “and they shall have a mighty punishment” referring to the punishment in the Afterlife is redundant. What is more sensible is that the words “upon them is a wrath from Allah” refers to the prescribed hadd of execution for apostasy in this world while “and for them is a great punishment” refers to their being sentenced to burn in Hell in the Afterlife. Going by the principle of tafsir ul-Quran bil-Quran—interpreting passages of the Quran in light of its other passages—we can determine that the purport of the words “upon them is a wrath from Allah” is a worldly punishment of execution:

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ اتَّخَذُوا الْعِجْلَ سَيَنَالُهُمْ غَضَبٌ مِّن رَّبِّهِمْ وَذِلَّةٌ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا

Indeed, those who took the calf [as a god] wrath from their Lord shall come upon them, and disgrace in the life of this world

(Sura 7:152)

Here too Allah uses the word غضب from Himself but in this instance against the Israelite apostates who took the Golden Calf as their god. Elsewhere, it is made clear in the Holy Quran that those apostates were executed as per a divine order delivered through the Prophet Moses:

وَإِذْ قَالَ مُوسَىٰ لِقَوْمِهِ يَا قَوْمِ إِنَّكُمْ ظَلَمْتُمْ أَنفُسَكُم بِاتِّخَاذِكُمُ الْعِجْلَ فَتُوبُوا إِلَىٰ بَارِئِكُمْ فَاقْتُلُوا أَنفُسَكُمْ

And when Moses said to his people, O people, verily you have wronged yourselves by your taking of the calf, so turn back to your Maker and kill yourselves

(Sura 2:54)

Here the order to “kill yourselves” means that the Israelites should atone for their collective, nationwide sin by having the innocent among them, which may also include those among them who were repentant, slay all those who were worshipping the false god. This is made clear in the Torah: “And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.” (Exodus 32:27-28)

It is countered that this order and example of Allah ordering the slaying of the apostates that worshipped the Golden Calf is restricted to the Mosaic Law and has no applicability in the Shari’a of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Allama Shabbir Ahmad Usmani has answered this doubt:

کہا جاسکتا ہے کہ یہ واقعہ موسوی شریعت کا ہے۔ امّہ محمدیہ کے حق میں اس سے تمسک نہیں کیا جا سکتا۔ لیکن آپ کو معلوم ہونا چاہۓ کہ پہلی امتوں کو جن شرائع اور احکام کی ہدایت کی گئی ہے اور قرآن نے ان کو نقل کیا ہے وہ ہمارے حق میں بھی معتبر ہیں اور ان کی اقتداء کرنے کا امر ہم کو بھی ہے جب تک کہ خاص طور پر ہمارے پیغمبر یا ہماری کتاب اس حکم سے ہم کو علیدہ نہ کردیں۔

It can be said that this incident is of the Mosaic law. It cannot be relied upon in favor of the Muhammadan Umma. But you should know that the laws and rulings that guided the previous nations and that the Quran has narrated are valid for us too, and we are also commanded to follow them unless our Prophet or our Scripture specifically dissuades us from this ruling (Al-Shihab, p.19)