DEMONSTRATION
OF THE PROPHETHOOD OF THE GREATEST MESSENGER, MUHAMMAD, GOD'S BLESSINGS
AND PEACE BE UPON HIM AND HIS HOUSEHOLD
As the existence of the wise Creator has been demonstrated by the inductive argument and
the methods of scientific argument, so likewise the prophethood of Muhammad, peace be upon
him and his household, will be demonstrated by means of the same scientific and inductive
argument and through the same method we employ in proof of the various truths in our daily
life and scientific investigation. Let us present some examples by way of introduction in
proof of this truth as well.
If a man were to receive a letter
from one of his relatives who is a youth studying in a small elementary school in a rural
area, and if the recipient were to notice that the letter was written in a brilliant
idiom, employing learned and precise expressions, manifesting high artistic ability, then
he would certainly conclude that another person, highly educated and possessing an unusual
ability of expression had dictated that letter to the youth. If we wish to analyze this
argument and conclusion, we may divide it into the following steps:-
1. The letter was written by a
country boy studying in an elementary school.
2. The letter is characterized by
an eloquent style, a high level of artistic excellence and an unusual ability to arrange
ideas.
3. The science of induction
demonstrates in such situations that a youth of the characteristics noted in the first
step could not formulate a letter of the qualities noted in the second step.
4. It must be concluded from all
this that the letter was the product of another person of whose abilities the youth was
able, in one way or another, to take advantage.
Let us present another analogy
for the same idea, this time a scientific argument. It is the argument which scientists
used in studying the electron. A scientist had studied a specific kind of ray which he
produced in a closed tube. Then he focussed on the middle of the tube a magnetic devise
shaped like a horseshoe. He noticed that the rays tended to move toward the positive pole
of the magnetic field and avoid the negative. He repeated the experiment under different
circumstances until he become certain that rays may be attracted by magnetic power and
that the positive pole is the one which attracts them. Since this scientist knew through
inductive arguments and his study of other rays, such as those of ordinary light, that
rays are not influenced by magnetic power or attracted by it and that a magnet attracts
bodies, not rays, he was able to conclude that the attraction of the special rays on which
he conducted his experiments could not be interpreted on the basis of the usual
hypothetical information. He rather discovered a new force and a new truth, namely, that
these rays are made of minute negative particles and are present in all material bodies
because they are derived from various elements. These particles were named electrons.
The process of demonstration in
both analogies may be summarized as follows: Whenever a specific phenomenon is observed,
within the context of specific factors and concrete circumstances, it is noticed
inductively that these factors and circumstances in similar situations do not necessarily
lead to the same phenomenon. This points, therefore, to another unseen factor which must
be presupposed for interpreting that phenomenon.
In other words, the conclusion,
if it is greater than the circumstances and concrete factors in similar situations, as
demonstrated through the inductive method, reveal an unseen factor behind these
circumstances and concrete factors.
This attests to the proof of the
prophethood of the greatest apostle, Muhammad, peace be upon him and his household, and
the truth of the message which he declared to the world in the name of heaven. The
application of the method to this argument takes the following steps:
1. The man who declared his
message to the world in the name of heaven hailed from the Arabian peninsula which was one
of most backward areas of the world at the time culturally, intellectually, socially,
politically and economically. He belonged specifically to the Hijaz, a region of this
peninsula which had not passed through even the limited developments of the cultures in
neighbouring regions of the peninsula. Nor had it experienced any social development to
speak of, or attained any share of the intellectual wealth of that period worthy of
mention.
Its poetry and literature
reflected nothing of the intellectual currents of the world of that era. It was rather
immersed, from the point of view of religious faith, in the chaos of polytheism and
idolatry. The region had socially disintegrated under the burden of tribal mentality. Its
society was therefore pray to tribal allegiances in all aspects of its life.
All this led to deep social
conflicts, struggle and senseless, purposeless raids. The country in which this apostle
grew up knew no form of government except that which tribal allegiances had dictated. The
level of productive energy and the economic circumstances contributed nothing to
distinguish the Hijaz from the most backward areas of the world at the time. Even reading
and writing, which are the simplest rudiments of education, were rare in that environment,
where society in general was an illiterate one.
It is He who has sent to the
unlettered people an apostle from among themselves, reciting to them and teaching them the
Boo k and wisdom, although they were before in manifest error. (Qur'an, 62:2)
The Prophet was, from this point
of view, a typical person. He did not read or write before his apostleship, nor did he
receive any formal or informal education.
You did not recite before it (the
Qur'an) any other scriptures, nor did you inscribe it with your right hand; otherwise
the falsifiers would surely have doubted. (Qur'an, 29:48)
This Qur'anic text is a clear
depiction of the apostle's intellectual attainments before his apostleship. It is an
incontrovertible proof even for those who do not believe in the divine origin of the
Qur'an. It is, in any case, a text which the Prophet declared to his people and expounded
in the presence of those who were fully acquainted with his life and history, and no one
objected to what he said. Nor did anyone deny his claim. We moreover observe that the
Prophet did not take part, before his apostleship, even in the intellectual forms of
poetry and rhetoric which were popular among the people at the time. There was no mention
of any distinction of the Prophet over the rest of his people, except in his moral
commitments, his trustworthiness, honesty, truthfulness and integrity.
He lived among them for forty y
ears before his apostleship without their sensing any thing distinguishing him from them,
except his pure conduct. No practical indications or trends towards the change which he
declared to the world, after forty years of his noble life, reflected themselves in his
behavior prior to that time.
Say: "Had God so willed I
would not have recited it (the Qur'an) to you, nor would He have made it known to
you." I have dwelt among you a lifetime: before it,. do you not then understand?
(Qur'an, 10:16)
The Prophet, peace be upon him
and his household, was born in Mecca where he lived the entire period prior to his
apostleship. He did not leave it to go outside the Arabian peninsula except on two brief
journeys. The first was with his uncle Abu Talib when he was still a youth in his early
teens. The other was in his mid-thirties when he accompanied a caravan carrying Khadijah's
goods for trade. Because of his inability to read or write, he had no opportunity to read
any of the religious texts of the Jews or Christians. Nor did he become acquainted, to any
appreciable extent, with these texts through his environment. Mecca was an idolatrous city
both in its ideas and customs, into which neither Christian nor Jewish religious thought
had penetrated. Religion had not entered into the life of its society in any form. Even
the hanifs (pure ones) among the Arabs of Mecca who rejected the worship of idols
were influenced by neither Judaism nor Christianity. Nothing of Jewish or Christian
thought appeared to have been reflected in the literary or poetic heritage left for us by
Qiss ibn Sa'idah and others of the group. Had the Prophet made any effort to be acquainted
with Jewish or Christian thought, it would have been noticed. In such a simple environment
which had no relation with the sources of Jewish or Christian thought, such an attempt
would not have passed without attracting much attention and without leaving its imprint on
many of the moves and relations that followed.
2. The message which the Prophet
proclaimed to the world is embodied in the noble Qur'an and the Islamic sacred law (shari'ah)
which has many distinguishing characteristics. First, it came in a unique form of divine
instruction about God, praised and exalted be He, His attributes, His knowledge and power
and the nature of the relationships which exist between him and humankind. The message
also illustrated the role of prophets in the guidance of humanity, the unity of their
messages, their unique values and examples. It spoke of God's ways (sunan) with His
prophets and the continuous struggle between truth and falsehood and between justice and
wrongdoing. It illustrated the close connection of heavenly messages with those who are
wronged and persecuted, and the opposition of the messages to those who exploit others
through illegal interests and business deals. This divine instruction, furthermore, was
not only greater than the religious level of a society immersed in idolotry; it was also
greater than all the religious cultures known to the world at the time. Any comparison
would clearly show that it came to correct whatever errors other religious systems
contained, to balance whatever deviation they had suffered, and to bring them back to the
judgement of the pure, native intuition (fitrah) of man and his untainted reason.
All this was brought by an
unlettered man who belonged to an idolatrous society isolated from other societies. He was
a man who knew almost nothing of the intellectual heritage or scriptures of his time. Yet
he was the criterion of rectification and progress. The message, moreover, came with
values and concepts regarding life, humanity, social relations and right action. It
expressed these values and concepts in laws and ordinances which have been regarded even
by those who do not accept their divine origin, to be among the most precious and noble
ordinances known to human history.
Thus the son of a tribal society
appeared on the stage of world history suddenly to proclaim the essential unity of
humanity. The son of an environment whose people devised oppressive social forms of
distinction and superiority based on ethnicity, lineage and socio-economic status, he came
to destroy all such forms and to declare that all human beings are to be equal.
.... Surely the most noble of
you in the sight of God is he who is most pious..... (Qur'an, 49:13)
He made this declaration into a
reality for men to live by. He raised the female, previously buried alive, to her rightful
place of respect to equal the male in humanity and dignity.
The son of the desert whose
people thought only of their petty cares and the alleviation of their hunger. whose men
vied in glory within their clan distinctions, came to lead them to shoulder the greatest
responsibilities. He unified them in the battle of human liberty and the salvation of the
wronged everywhere from the tyranny of Chosroe ( Khusraw) and Ceasar.(15)
The son of a complete political
and economic vacuum, in all its conflicts of usury, hoarding and exploitation, appeared
suddenly to fill that vacuum and to make of that empty society an organized unity
possessing a complex legal, economic and social order. He came to abolish usury, hoarding
and exploitation and to redistribute wealth so that it might not be a commodity exchanged
among the rich few. He came to establish social equality and security which other
societies called for after centuries of social experimentation and development. All these
turning points took place in a relatively short period of time, considering the slow pace
of social changes.
This message speaks in the Qur'an
of earlier prophets and their communities. It discusses events and crises in the life of
these communities in details unknown to the illiterate and idolatrous environment of the
Arabian Prophet. Jewish and Christian learned men challenged the Prophet on more than one
occasion, asking him to discuss their religious heritage. He met these challenges with
great courage. The Qur'an fulfilled their demands without there being any way of
explaining how the Prophet himself could have acquired knowledge of these details.
You (Muhammad) were not
at the western side (of at-Tur, that is, Mount Sinai) when We decreed for Moses the
commission, nor were you among those who witnessed it. But We raised generations, and life
was prolonged for them. Nor were you a dweller among the people of Madian, reciting to
them our verses; rather We were the Sender. You were not on the side of the Mount (at-Tur)
when We called (unto Moses); rather you were sent as a mercy from your Lord to warn a
people to whom no warner came before you, that they may be reminded (Qur'an, 28:44-46)
What overwhelms the observer is
that the true accounts related in the Qur'an could not have been a simple case of
plagarism of the two testaments, even if we allow that the idea that the two Books were
well-known in the Prophet's milieu. Plagarism is only a negative way of taking what
someone else had to offer, whereas the Qur'an assumed the positive role of correcting and
modifying these accounts. It presents details of a story with the purpose of purifying it
from any accretions or contradictions which do not agree with inherent faith (fitrah)
in Divine Oneness (tawhid), an enlightened mind and an uncorrupted religious view.
Another proof of the truth of the
message is that the Qur'an attained such a high level of clarity, eloquence and
originality of expression. This made it even from the point of view of those who reject
its divine origin, an absolute criterion separating two stages in the history of the
Arabic language and the basis of enormous change in this language and its literary
methods. The Arabs who heard the Prophet recite the Qur'an discerned the fact that it in
no way resembled anything they had hitherto known in its power of elucidation and clarity
of expression. One of them (al-Walid ibn al-Mughirah) declared when he heard the Qur'an,
"By God, I have heard words which are neither the speech of men nor jinn! It is a
speech of sweet savour and grace. Its top is fruitful and its bottom is copious. It exalts
and none can surpass it. It truly destroys all that falls beneath it.(16)
The people did not allow
themselves to listen to the Qur'an because they felt its great effect and because of their
fear of its great power, as it depicted the state of their souls. This is a clear proof of
the great uniqueness of Qur'anic expression. It proves further that the Qur'an is not
simply the continuation of a familiar development of a literary expression. The people had
to succumb to the growing challenge with which the Prophet confronted them. The Qur'an
challenged them to bring one like it, or even only ten surahs like it. It went on
to stress their inability to bring even one surah like those of the noble Qur'an.
The Prophet offered this
challenge to a society which excelled in no other craft as it did in that of words. It was
a society which excelled in the art of story-telling (hadith) and the recounting of
feats of glory. Their chief aim was to extinguish the light of this new message and
destroy it. Nonetheless, this society, which was ready to meet any challenge, however
great, did not wish to try itself and oppose the Qur'an in anything. It was because the
people believed that the literary expression of the Qur'an was beyond their linguistic and
artistic ability. The curious thing was that the man who brought them this new literary
wealth lived among them for forty years without their seeing him take part in a literary
debate or display any talent in the literary arts. These are just a few of the
characteristics of the message which the Prophet proclaimed to the world.
3. Now we turn to the third step,
through which we shall demonstrate, on the basis of scientific induction applied to the
history of human societies, that this message (having the characteristics studied in the
second step) is far greater than the factors and circumstances which we reviewed in the
first step would allow. Although the history of human societies has, on many occasions,
witnessed an outstanding man who led his society a step forward, the case with which we
are here concerned displays too many exceptions to be just another instance of human
success in history. We first observe here a tremendous power of innate religious intuition
(fitrah), an all-inclusive evolution of all aspects of life and a reorientation of
values and concepts which relate to the various areas of life, raising it to a better
state instead of carrying it simply a step forward. Thus the society of tribes leaped
forward, under the guidance of the Prophet, into the one universal society. The society of
idols leaped suddenly to the faith of Divine Oneness (dinu't-tawhid); the religion
which corrected the other monotheistic religions and removed from them all accretions of
falsehood and legend. The empty society became full, even becoming a society of leadership
bearing a culture which has illuminated the entire world.
We notice further that any
complete revolution of society, if it is the child of concrete circumstances and causes,
could not rise suddenly, improvised by one man. Nor could it be without connection with
earlier developments which pave the way for it. It cannot arise without a preceding
current of intellectual and spiritual growth wherein a form of able leadership is allowed
to mature and assume its role. Such a leader would then work to revolutionize society on
the basis of this new development.
The comparative study of the
processes of social evolution has clearly shown that an intellectual process of change
begins in any society like seeds scattered in the soil of that society. Then these seeds
rise together to constitute an intellectual current and gradually define its peculiar
characteristics. It is then possible for a kind of leadership to grow within that current
and bring it out onto the world stage as a front for a movement in opposition to the
official establishment in society. Through a long struggle, this current widens until it
gains control.
In contrast to all this, we find
that Muhammad was not simply one link in a chain in. the history of this new message. Nor
was he part of a general current of social change. The values and concepts which he
proclaimed were not simply seeds, or an intellectual wealth growing in the soil of the
society in which he grew up. As for the current which developed in his hands, and which
consisted of the few elect among the first Muslims, it was the product of the message and
the leader. It was not the climate which produced the message or the leader.
Thus the difference between what
the Prophet brought and that of any other leader is not one of degree, such as can be
found among the various elements constituting a new current of thought or social action.
It was rather a fundamental and infinite difference. All this goes to prove that Muhammad
was not part of a current, but that the new current was part of him.
History has proved that if the
intellectual, religious or social leadership of a new trend is concentrated in one centre
through a specific movement of intellectual and social change, that centre must possess
the appropriate power and intellectual ability. It would also be necessary for these
characteristics to be expressed in ways and methods familiar in the life of ordinary human
beings. It would further be necessary for that current to have a gradual process of
practical application that would produce and direct the development of leadership.
Again, in contrast with all this,
we find that Muhammad himself assumed the intellectual, religious and social leadership in
spite of the fact that his situation, as an unlettered man who knew nothing of the
intellectual achievements of his time or its prior religious traditions, did not make of
him a candidate for such a role. Nor did he have any prior experience that would qualify
him for this sudden responsibility.
In light of all this, we must
come to the following conclusion, which alone offers us the only reasonable and acceptable
explanation. We must presuppose an additional factor behind these concrete circumstances.
It is the factor of revelation, the factor of prophethood which constitutes the
intervention of heaven to guide earth.
Thus have We revealed unto you
(Muhammad) a spirit of our command; you did not know what the Book is nor what
faith is. But We made it (the Qur'an) a light with which We guide whosoever We wish
from among our servants, and you surely guide to a straight path. (Qur'an, 42:52)
References:
THE REVEALER THE MESSENGER THE MESSAGE
By: MUHAMMAD BAQIR AS-SADR
Translation: Dr. Mahmoud M. Ayoub
Published by: W O F I S
WORLD ORGANIZATION FOR ISLAMIC SERVICE
TEHRAN-IRAN |
