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Part 6: Conclusions We Must Draw On Islam Back To Main Index CHAPTER XXIII: ‘A NEW PROPHET NEEDED’ It is necessary to turn our eyes to what all this means in terms of what the followers of Islam assert concerning their belief in the ‘eternality of the prophethood of Muhammad’. What we have seen from first to last is that while Islam has been accusing others of corruption, it has within its own ranks admitted corruption on every level, be it ‘Uthmanic texts, the ‘no’/’yes’ readings, the ‘NO’ for ‘YES’ graphic forms, etc. The Qur’an which cannot stand on its own was supposed to be given life from other Sources and together reveal ‘something’ - the ‘Eternal Revelation’ it is asserted. All has failed by any standard. This leads us to other obvious consequences. Is This ‘Islam’ Or ‘Kufr’? The translator of Sahih Muslim while commenting on the topic of prayer as perceived by the ‘founders’ of the Madhabs (as cited earlier) shows he is PAINFULLY aware of the consequences of the claimed Shari’ah not being ‘clear’. This is evident in his comments in a paragraph following the aforementioned discussion on prayer: "One can easily find in these arguments the true nature of the difference amongst the opinions of the jurists. They all draw their argument from the Qur’an and the Sunnah, so their difference is only a difference of interpretation and understanding. It is, in fact, a difference in preference rather than that of kufr and Islam." (Sahih Muslim, ft. 616; emphasis added) Maududi makes a similar type of statement concerning the 4 Madhabs: "The differences that appear in the four schools are but the natural outcome of truth being many sided. When different persons employ themselves in interpreting a given event, they come out with different explanations according to their own lights. What gives these various schools of thought the authenticity that is associated with them is the unimpeachable integrity of their respective founders and the authenticity of the method they adopted. That is why all Muslims, whatever school they may belong to, regard all the four schools of thought as correct and true." (Towards..., p. 96f) The outcome of the four Madhabs was not in any way "because truth is many sided"!! Nor were these i remain out of the hundreds because their ‘founding scholars’ were ‘unimpeachable’, or because of "the authenticity of the method they adopted"!! The truth is that the scholars couldn’t agree on how to evaluate the evidence and they chose to evaluate everything in completely opposing manners! Their conclusions on the Qur’an and Sunnah thus disagreed! 270 |
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Part 6: Conclusions We Must Draw On Islam Back To Main Index They could not agree on what the religion was ‘supposed to be’! If we were speaking of any religion other than Islam, the followers of Islam would quickly conclude on the basis of what we have examined that this is KUFR - nothing else! Some who are followers of Islam agree with us. For example, the following Salafiyyah sources agree with us that this is KUFR and use the very evidence which Islam uses against ‘the Jews and Christians’ as ‘Proof’: "Linguistically, Taqleed is taken from the word Qiladah (necklace) that one helps others to wear. An example is to put necklaces (of iron or leather) around the necks of cattle that one is offering for sacrifice during Hajj. Therefore the Muqallid, is the one who makes his following of someone, like putting a necklace around the neck of the person whom he follows. In Islamic terminology, Taqleed means following other people’s sayings without proof...Taqleed is not useful knowledge. Allah criticised Taqleed in many Ayat of the Qur’an. This is why sayings of Imams, who rejected Taqleed, are in abundance.... Allah criticised Taqleed in many places in His Book. He said (what translated means): They (Jews and Christians) took their rabbis and their monks to be their lords besides Allah" (9;31). It was narrated that Huthaifah, and others, said about this Ayah: ‘They did not worship them instead of Allah. Rather, they (rabbis and monks) legislated for them in matters of what is lawful or prohibited, and they (Jews and Christians) followed them.’ Adi ibn Hatim said: ‘I came to the Messenger of Allah wearing a cross on my neck. He said to me: ‘O Adi! Throw this idol from around your neck.’ I reached him when he was reciting Surah Baraa’h (chapter 9 of the Qur’an) till he reached this Ayah, They (Jews and Christians) took their rabbis and their monks to be their lords besides Allah. I said: `O Messenger of Allah! We did not take them as lords.’ He said: `Yes, indeed! Did they not allow for you what has been forbidden on you, and you consider them permissible, and did they not forbid you what Allah made permissible for you, and you forbade them?’ I said: `Yes.’ He said: This is (your) taking them as lords.’ ... And the likes of these Ayat, in which Allah criticises Taqleed of leaders and fathers, are numerous in the Qur’an. Although they were revealed about the disbelievers, scholars still used these Ayat to refute Taqleed. The similarity is not drawn between one party’s belief and the other party’s disbelief. Rather, in both cases, the similarity comes from Taqleed, because they both follow other men in the religion, without evidence that permits it. (The Hadith is Proof, al-Albani, p.84f; emphasis added) Yet most followers of Islam seem blissfully unaware that Islam itself is guilty of this very thing that it accuses others of. For, while the followers of the Madhabs only accuse the Christians and Jews of such things, we have seen the ‘manufacture’ of an entire religion by men who sought to build ‘the religion of Muhammad’ after its early form had fallen to corruption and ‘dust and ashes’.
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Part 6: Conclusions We Must Draw On Islam Back To Main Index It is not surprising to find the la-Madhabis (like the Salafiyyah) claiming that ‘official’ Islam is guilty of all this. The accusation is that the scholars have innovated with both the Qur’an and the i (and consequently the Shari’ah) by obeying the caliphs and ulema. Al-Khajnadee1 of the Salafiyyah is also cited as saying of those who follow the 4 Madhabs: "They have taken a path opposite to that of the people of knowledge, their late-comers have invented the way of the Salaf and turned the foundations of the Deen upside down. So they declare the Book of Allah, the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace be upon him), the sayings of his khulafaa and the rest of the Companions - radiallaahu `anhum- to be false." (Al-Albani Unveiled, p. 96; emphasis added) Yet all the Madhabi writer who opposes this says in response is: "I ask you which of the four madhhabs, let alone the ‘blind followers’ declared it "To be false?" Would it not be true, that if one declared the above sources to be "false" he or she may automatically go out of the fold of Islam (especially the first two sources), let alone be a follower of a Madhhab (and only Allah knows best)? How could the ‘blind followers’ declare something to be false, when the great scholars have said that it is impermissible to take the "Ijtihad" of a non-Mujtahid’s as documentary proof? May Allah guide the people who believe what al-Khajnadee proclaimed!" (Al-Albani Unveiled, p. 96; emphasis added) So, he has nothing which refutes the accusation that they have abandoned the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and can only say ‘the ulama have decreed...’, the very thing which the Salafiyyah are decrying, the non-original decrees of the scholars. Kufr is perceived by Islam in various perspectives. One is evident in the cry of the commentator of Sahih Muslim which is directed at all ‘blame’ for the confusion of the religion away from the scholars of Islam who tried to ‘rejuvenate’ Islam after its corruption. It is well defined by the Saudis (also Salafiyyah leaning) in their notes in the new version of Sahih Bukhari known as Summarised Sahih Bukhari which state: "ASH-SHIRK.. .... Manifestations: (1) Ash-Shirk-al-Akbar (The major Shirk): ... (c) Shirk-at-Ta’a. This aspect implies rendering obedience to any authority against the Order of Allah." They then cite the very same Hadith which we just noted the ipublication used as ‘Proof’ of Islam’s Kufr, but use it for ‘the Jews and the Christians’. 272 |
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Part 6: Conclusions We Must Draw On Islam Back To Main Index Thus the Salafiyyah and the Saudis admit that Islam is guilty of Shirk-at-Ta’a, and the followers of the madhabs have no defense! But, this particular mode of Shirk aside. Should not all the corruptions of Islam be treated exactly as Islam says others need to be treated who it accuses of doing the same thing! It is obvious that Islam has suffered the very ‘loss’ it has falsely accused others of. It IS, therefore, on many grounds, a matter of ‘KUFR’ and not ‘Islam’!! Is this not why our Madhabi scholar declared: "Would it not be true, that if one declared the above sources to be "false" he or she may automatically go out of the fold of Islam (especially the first two sources), let alone be a follower of a Madhhab (and only Allah knows best)?" To acknowledge the true condition of the Qur’an and Sunnah demands the rejection of Islam. This alone shows the condition is KUFR. We note that the example concerning the conflicts in the Shari’ah on prayer can be repeated numerous times from the footnotes of Sahih Muslim, and is indeed representative of the true condition of Islam - that of KUFR. It is because of this that ‘Orthodox’ Islam is accused of elevating the ulema and their ‘ijtihads to a position equal to ‘revelation’, something Islam claims only for Muhammad. For it is only in this way that all the innovations (bid’a) can be ‘rationalised’. Of course, it denies outright the perfection of Islam, and the Qur’an’s claim that "TODAY, We have perfected your religion for you.". Perhaps in the next printing by Amana the translation will be, "TOMORROW, We will perfect your religion for you."? "Islam Is Like A Sinking Ship" - "A New Fiqh Exactly Conforming To... The Qur’an And [Sunnah]" But, again, there is much hidden in Islam for not only is there great rivalry between the i, and not only did there exist hundreds of schools of fiqh in the early centuries, all trying to "conform to the Qur’an and Sunnah", but when Islam restricted its followers to only four schools, it also "closed the door on ‘ijtihad" as many bemoan: "Much ado has been made about the closure of the gate of Ijtihad, the subsequent rigidity that set in and the need for making it wide open again. We have already noted briefly how this happened. Ijtihad worked as a dynamic institution in the first five centuries of Islam. The giant intellectual upsurge generated by the study of the Shari`ah has few parallels. Later, due to circumstance like the Mogul invasion and Western domination, the Mus 273 |
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Part 6: Conclusions We Must Draw On Islam Back To Main Index lims had to fall back upon formal law to preserve the identity of the Ummah." (Shari`ah, Murad, p. 21). But, why should this be considered relevant in the 14th century A.H. to a religion that declares itself ‘Complete and Perfect’? We find an astounding thing! M. Asad pining, and concluding that everyone should have a fresh look at Islam, chop out the error, and develop (by ‘ijtihad again!!) something new, something that agrees with "the Qur’an and i"!! For this, the ‘gate of 'ijtihad’ needs to be reopened: "Our longing for regeneration, the desire of so many of us to become better than we are at present, gives us the right to hope that it is not over with us. There is a way to regeneration, and this way is clearly visible to everyone who has eyes to see. Our first step must be a shedding of that spirit of "apology" for Islam, which is only another name for intellectual defeatism: only a masquerade for our own scepticism, deliberate following of the Sunnah of the prophet. For Sunnah means no more and no less than the teachings of Islam translated into practice. By applying it as an ultimate test to the requirements of our daily life we will easily recognise which impulses from Western civilisation might be accepted and which are to be rejected. Instead of meekly submitting to foreign intellectual norms, we must learn - once more - to regard Islam as the norm by which the world is to be judged. It is true, however, that many of the original intentions of Islam have been brought into a false perspective through inadequate but nevertheless commonly accepted interpretations, and those of the Muslims who are not in a position to go back for themselves to the original sources and thus to readjust their conceptions are confronted with a partially distorted picture of Islam and things Islamic. The impracticable propositions which are today put forward by a self-styled "orthodoxy" as postulates of Islam are in most cases nothing but conventional interpretations of the original postulates on the basis of the old Neo-Platonic logic2 which might have been "modern." that is, workable, in the second or third century of the Hijrah, but is extremely out-of-date now. The Muslim educated on Western lines, mostly unacquainted with Arabic and not well-versed in the intricacies of fiqh, is naturally prone to regard those worn-out, subjective interpretations3 and conceptions as reproducing the true intentions of the Law-Giver, and in his disappointment over their inadequacy he often draws back from what he supposes to be the canonical law (shari`ah) of Islam.4 Thus, in order that they may once again be a creative force in the life of Muslims, the valuation of the Islamic propositions must be revised in the light of our own understanding of the original sources and freed from the thick layer of conventional interpretations which have accumulated for centuries and have been found wanting in the present time. The outcome of such an endeavour might be the emergence of a new fiqh, exactly conforming to the Two Sources of Islam - the Qur’an and the life-example of the Prophet - and at the same time 274 |
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Part 6: Conclusions We Must Draw On Islam Back To Main Index answering to the exigencies of present life: just as the older forms of fiqh answered to the exigencies of a period dominated by Aristotelian and NeoPlatonic philosophy and to the conditions of life prevailing in those early ages. ...As things stand today, Islam is like a sinking ship. All hands that could help are needed on board." (Islam at the Crossroads, M. Asad, p. 157-160) Although this is the same man whom we cited as claiming "of all religious systems Islam alone can successfully stand the test of unbiased criticism." (p. 76), in fact he has just raised a topic which is a dividing factor within Islam, namely that what is "made to appear" to be the "canonical law (shari`ah) of Islam" is acknowledged to be only the deviations5 of what has become the "self-styled orthodoxy" of Islam. His assertion that everything needs to "be revised in the light of our own understanding" is a plea for the rejection of these and other deviations, and the opening of the door of ‘Ijtihad! In 1948 Sheikh M. Ashraf, now well-known for publishing many translation of Islamic materials, began publishing The Islamic Literature in which he set out in a series of articles exactly what this ‘renovating of Islam’ meant to him. In one such he relates: "What we should do is evolve fresh principle of historical and rational criticism, re-examine and re-codify the existing corpus of tradition, and then proceed on the basis of the holy Qur’an and the hadith so selected and codified towards a modification of the existing body of Islamic laws." (cited from Islam, Guillaume, p. 169) Islam wants metamorphosis, it wants a new start, but it doesn’t want to admit it is ‘lost and corrupt’ for this would mean it would have to be abandoned. And this metamorphosis can already be seen to be happening in the translating of the Qur’an, as is obvious from the notes in the 1995 Amana printing of the false Mushaf al-Madinah: "Where necessary, the content has been brought up-to-date and within the current understanding and interpretation of the Qur’an."!! (p. IX; emphasis added) No wonder Islam wants a "new Fiqh"!! Those who write on the subject seem to be interested in ‘outsiders’ perceiving this ‘new Fiqh’ as a mere ‘shift’ the ‘old content’. In fact it is a mixture of two changes. The one aspect is to make the Shari`ah more applicable in the modern context, and the other is to re-examine the sources and correct the erroneous ‘ijtihads of the early generations, much established under the influence of Greek rational thought. But this is an admission that Islam, according to its own method 275 |
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Part 6: Conclusions We Must Draw On Islam Back To Main Index of evaluating, has lost the way and has ‘innovated’ on both the Qur’an and Sunnah by mis-evaluating them - and some of that through assimilating Greek methods. It is thus trying to find what it thinks is ‘the pure’ religion which everyone else has failed to follow for over 1400 years. We have already seen how easy it is for Mujtahids to "have another crack at it", and, who knows, maybe this time "The outcome of such an endeavour might be the emergence of a new fiqh, exactly conforming to the Two Sources of Islam - the Qur’an and the life-example of the Prophet - and at the same time answering to the exigencies of present life".
Muhammad Is "Dead" - A New Prophet Needed In fact, according to Islam’s theology, this very pathetic condition of all of Islam and the inability to define what it started out as, is a key point in necessitating a new prophet. We note the following from Maududi’s section The Finality of Prophethood: "This brings us to the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him). ...The life and teachings of the Prophet are the beacon to guide a people to the right path, and as long as his teachings and his guidance are alive he is, as it were, himself alive. The real death of a Prophet consists not in his physical demise but in the ending of the influence of his teachings. The earlier Prophets have died because their followers have adulterated their teachings, distorted their instructions, and besmirched their life-examples by attaching fictitious events to them. Not one of the earlier books - Torah, Zabur (Psalms of David), Injili (Gospel of Jesus), for example - exists today in its original text and the adherents of these books confess that they do not possess the original books. The life-histories of the earlier Prophets have been so mixed up with fiction that an accurate and authentic account of their lives has become impossible. Their lives have become tales and legends and no trustworthy record is available anywhere. It cannot even be said with certainty when and where a certain Prophet was born, how he lived and what code of morality he gave to mankind. Thus, the real death of a Prophet consists in the death of his teachings. By this criterion no-one can deny that Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and his teachings are alive. His teachings stand uncorrupted and are incorruptible. The Qur’an - the book he gave to mankind - exists in its original text, without a word, syllable or even letter having been changed. The entire account of his life - his sayings, instructions and actions - is preserved with complete accuracy. It is as though it happened yesterday rather than thirteen centuries ago. The biography of no other human being is so detailed as that of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him). In everything affecting our lives we can seek 276 |
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Part 6: Conclusions We Must Draw On Islam Back To Main Index the guidance of Muhammad (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him) and the example of his life. That is why there is no need of any other Prophet after Muhammad, the last Prophet (blessings of Allah and peace be upon him). Furthermore, there are three conditions that necessitate the advent of a new Prophet over and above the need to replace a deceased Prophet. These may be summed up as follows: 1. That the teachings of the earlier Prophets have been distorted or corrupted or they have died and their revival is needed. 2. That the teachings of the Prophet who passed away were incomplete and it is necessary to amend them, improve on them or add something to them. 3. That the earlier Prophet was raised for a particular nation, or territory and a Prophet for another people or country is required. None of these conditions exist today....The guidance he [Muhammad] has shown unto mankind is complete and flawless, and is enshrined in the Holy Qur’an. All the sources of Islam are full intact and each and every instruction or action of the holy prophet can be ascertained without the least shadow of doubt. Secondly, God has completed His revealed guidance through the Prophet Muhammad... There is no ground for new prophethood on the plea of imperfection." (Towards..., Maududi, p.57ff; emphasis added); In fact there is every ground! It is all too obvious that absolutely everything has gone wrong that could go wrong for Islam in its own eyes. And its followers acknowledge it when they state that all they agree on is the ‘Unity of God’ and ‘the Prophethood’ of Muhammad - "complete and flawless"!? Our Shi’ah missionary, on the other hand, links the ‘prophethood’ and the miracle of the Qur’an: "2. It is the only miracle which has united together the claim and the proof of the prophethood. All other miracles of the Holy Prophet and the previous prophets, needed a separate declaration that the miracle shown was in support of the claim of the prophethood. Qur’an is not so. It contains repeated claims of the prophethood of the Holy Prophet. Therefore, if one accepts the miracle of Qur’an, he automatically accepts the truth of the prophethood of Muhammad Mustafa (s.a.w.). 3. Qur’an is unique in one more respect. All other miracles appeared at a given time and then vanished; and now there is no way to prove that such a miracle ever appeared. But Qur’an is a permanent miracle which will continue upto the last days of the world. (it was because the prophethood of the Holy Prophet is to continue upto the end of the world.)" (Prophethood, Rizvi, p. 36) According to all this there is no ‘Proof’ for Muhammad’s claim to ‘prophethood’, and every reason to reject it. In concluding, we read again Azami’s acknowledgement of what is needed for Islam to be viable in its own eyes, something it links to the 277 |
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Part 6: Conclusions We Must Draw On Islam Back To Main Index viability of Muhammad’s ‘prophethood’: "It is beyond doubt that the Qur’an and it’s injunctions and the command to believe in and act according to it are valid and continue to be in force. The only question is whether or not the believer’s way can be ascertained. To entertain any doubts amounts to an abrogation of the Qur’an, and no sane and educated non-believer would venture to suggest to a Muslim its rejection. As long as the path of following the Qur’an remains open, access to the believer’s way (that is, the presence of the Qur’anic injunctions) must also remain open. Likewise the means to obtain complete knowledge of it must remain unchanged. That being so, what other course is there to acquire detailed information regarding the practice of the earliest Muslims than to refer to the compilations of Traditions and the books on Tabaqat, Asma-al-Rajal, history and the life record of the reporters of Sirah, Hadith and Islamic history? To declare these sources of knowledge unreliable, false or fictitious would mean shutting the door on practical adherence to the Qur’an. Moreover, the superiority that Islam and the Muslims enjoy over all other faiths and religious communities would also be destroyed. For it would necessarily mean that the Muslims had no history, no intellectual achievements to their credit, since there is no dependable way of knowing about those achievements." (The Sunnah..., p. 24) In terms of Islam’s own thinking the impurity we have seen of Islam in its entirety is ‘PROOF’ that there was no need for ‘a new book and a new prophet’ in the first place. The reasons it has declared as necessitating ‘a new book and prophet’ have all been contrived fantasy, Islam’s method of rationalising its own existence. 278 |
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Part 6: Conclusions We Must Draw On Islam Back To Main Index Footnotes 1/ We note that "The South African based Majlis al-Ulama" are cited as having written against those who reject Taqleed (see page 84ff, Al-Albani Unveiled), reviling the stand of certain persons mentioned by al-Khajnadee namely "Shaykh Muhammad Rasheed Ridaa... Shaykh Muhammad Abdah... Ibn Taymiyyah... Ibn ul-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah" because of their teachings, and because the first two mentioned were Free Masons, and "all four of them had corrupt beliefs (Aqeedah) on certain controversial points, like the attributes of Allah Subhana wa Ta’ala, as well as being famous for erring on many legal points of the Shari`ah!" (p. 88). Although ibn Taymiyya and those who adhere to his ways are sometimes slated as ‘nearing Kufr’, they are not declared "outside Islam", and so one must not be swayed by the ulema’s accusations to reject that aspect of their arguments which is logical, something the ulema would hope for. 2/ These entered Islam at a time when the Greek philosophies were being translated and the thinking incorporated into Islam, thus corrupting ‘original’ Islamic perceptions. It is difficult to pin this down since one can read a Salafiyyah writer accusing the Madhabis of this, and one can read a Madhabi writer accusing the la-Madhabis of it! But those in Islam know. 3/ Which it has just been admitted were bid’a from 200-300 years after Muhammad, and not original. 4/ Here admitting that the present shari’ah is simply late corruption by assimilating Greek philosophy, and that it is not ‘canonical’. 5/ The application of Greek ‘logic’ onto Islamic thought is known as al-Kalam (rational thought). It seems that only the Hanbalis were against ‘rational thought’ being used in Islam. His later mention (see further along in this quote) of things "Aristotelian and NeoPlatonic" points to this. Back To Part 6 Index 279 |