The Message and the Messenger 5
Muslim Education Quarterly, Vol. 12, No.3, 1995
The Islamic Academy, Cambridge, U.K.
THE MESSAGE AND THE MESSENGER
Syed Ali Ashraf
Islam never claimed to be a new religion. It has always claimed to be the
purified and perfected form of the Religion which God had sent to earlier
Prophets for the spiritual, moral and worldly guidance of human beings during
their existence on the face of the earth. Though it admits the differences in rites
and rituals, it claims that the essence is the same: worship of God and God
alone for which human beings have been created by God. 1 According to Islam
prophets are the chosen people of God through whom God had sent this
guidance, as to how to worship Him, to all human habitations. But later
followers deviated from this guidance, invented or forged false ideas or gods
and started worshipping other gods and goddesses besides or along with God or
became total secularists denying the existence of God and started worshipping
themselves or wealth and power. That was why God had to send other prophets
to bring people back into the 'fold'. Some of these prophets received message
from God and are known as Messengers (in Arabic, rasal); others tried to
reform the society and get the message of an earlier prophet re-implemented.
Muhammad (peace be on him, as all Muslims are taught to say after uttering
his name) is claimed to be the last Prophet. To him came the last most
comprehensive message known as the Qur'iin. As through him the Message
had come and was implemented, his sayings and doings provide for a believer
the entire basic norm for the interpretation of the Qur' an and for the
implementation of its message in the life of the believer. This norm is known
as the Sunnah of the Prophet. Anyone who wants to understand Islam must try
to understand the Qur'an and the Sunnah.
Islam therefore does not try to deny Truth to other religions. In a seminar
organised by the Islamic Academy and the Department of Education of
Cambridge University the representatives of Islam, Christianity, Judaism,
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, agreed that they (with some exception or
modification by Buddhism) hold to the following four beliefs:
(1) Belief in a Transcendental Reality, i.e. a Reality that
transcends all limitation that particular qualities impose upon
an object. With the exception of the Buddhists they believe
this Reality to be the Essence of the Being whom they worship
and whose name in English is 'God' ...
(2) Belief in the existence of the spiritual dimension in each
human being.
(3) Belief in eternal and fundamental values, such as Truth,
Justice, Righteousness, Mercy, Love, Compassion and Care
towards all creation. These values are to be found reflected in
the human self and need to be encouraged, nurtured, refined
and developed so that such seeds may grow, flourish and
blossom.
" (4) Belief in the need for Divine (or Transcendental) Guidance.
There is a conflict between selfishness and selflessness in each
individual, a conflict that is also mirrored in societies, races,
states and groups of people. Human beings, therefore, need
some norms which transcend race, colour and groups. These
norms human beings receive from the Divine Source and
through divinely inspired people. 2
The difference between Islam and other religions, therefore, lie in the
claim of Islam for fmality, completion and perfection and in the challenge of
Islam to other religions for their "unauthorised distortions and false
additions't.> Neither in the Qur'an nor in the Hadith collections do we find any
logical or historical justification of this claim. It is a matter of belief in the
authenticity of the Qur'an and the truthfulness of the Prophet that compels all
Muslims to accept this qualification of other faiths in spite of their common
beliefs.
Even in these common beliefs there are certain basic doctrinal
differences, which it is necessary for us to appreciate in order to understand
their common origin. In this discussion I shall refer to Hinduism, Judaism and
Christianity only, while comparing with Islam, because Buddhism needs a
somewhat different dimension or method of approach. Sikhism will not be
referred to because whatever be the Truth in what the Sikhs believe in, from
the Islamic point of view Guru Nanak cannot be regarded as a prophet chosen
by God. After Prophet Muhammad, .peace be on him, there cannot be a
prophet, according to Islam. We shall however discuss the above four beliefs in
a different order. After item number 1 we shall take up item number 4 and then
items 2 and 3.
Belief in a transcendent God is central to Islam. The basic confession of a
Muslim is his or her recognition and admission and assertion that "there is no
god but God"-La ilaha illallah, It means there is no one worthy of worship
except Allah. God is One, Unique, Indivisible and Incomparable, without a
beginning and an end.s He is the beginning and the end, the manifest and the
hidden and He has authority over everything." Though other religions accept
this notion, Hinduism and Christianity differ from Islam in their concepts of
manifestation of this Reality. According to Hinduism, though God is One
(ekomevadditiam), He wanted to be Many (ekoham bahushshyam). Hence this
entire creation is His manifestation. The highest and most glorious
manifestation is in the human self. Hence the concept of god-humanity. Along
with this comes the concept of special incarnations the last of which is known
6 Muslim Education Quarterly
as Kalki whom two Hindu Professors of Hindu Theology of Benares University
and Jadavpur University identified as Muhammad, peace be on him. It is
because of this faith in the manifestation of God in this creation that a Hindu
can worship all natural objects.
According to Christianity, God descended in the human form of Jesus
Christ or in other word, manifested Himself through Christ in order to take
upon Himself the burden of the sins of the faithful and purify them. Otherwise
the difference between the Creator and the creature or the whole creation
remains unbridgeable.
According to Islam God in His Essence remains Transcendent but He
creates His Own Attributes or Qualities which He utilises in order to bring into
existence every single item in this creation. That is why His Beauty, Power,
Glory, Grandeur, Creative Quality, Destructive Power and other Qualities are
manifested through different aspects of the universe. It is impossible for any
created being including the human being to understand that Transcendent
Essence but it is possible for human beings to love and appreciate His Qualities
because He has entrusted the human spirit with potential knowledge about
them. With the cultivation of that knowledge the human spirit gains the ability
to control and supervise the universe as the Vicegerent of God. That
knowledge is the amanab or the trust that the first Man, Adam, accepted when
God showed him the trust with which came the responsibility of knowing the
Creation, cultivating the knowledge and becoming able to fulfil the duty of
God's representative on this Earth. These Qualities of God are expressed
through the 'Beautiful Names' of God, al-asma' al-husnii, which indicate and
posit the Absolute Norms of Justice, Truth, Mercy, Love, Beauty and hence the
moral norms. The innate consciousness of these Absolutes is what the human
being has inherited through the primordial First Human Being whose spirit was
made conscious of them so that he might understand the significance of the
creation that reflects these Qualities.
This awareness can only come through love and obedience. According to
the Prophet's statement no one can become a true believer (mu' min) if that
person does not love God and the Prophet more than himself or herself, his or
her family, tribe and entire humanity. Obedience is innate in this love. That is
why God says, "Tell them that if you love God then follow me, then God will
love you.:" That is why the Prophet was asked to say, "My prayer, my rites,
my life and my death are all for the Lord of the universe". 7 Though Kenneth
Cragg sees a basic difference between Islam and Christianity in this God-
human being relationship and sees in Islam stress on obedience rather than on
love, he completely overlooks this personal relationship. As the spirit of a
human being is derived from the Spirit of God, this inner relationship is but
natural, eternal and complete. But because the human spirit is derived through
an order of God, its separateness cannot be eliminated. A human being can
never become God but his total self can become so transformed through this
love that, as reported in a statement of God uttered by the Prophet, "the servant
does not see through his eyes, he sees through God's eyes, he does not speak
with his tongue, he speaks with the tongue of God, he does not walk on his
own feet, he walks with God's feee.8 This transformation comes through
The Message and the Messenger 7
complete submission to God's Will as manifested in the revelations sent
through the Prophet and in the person's selfless total obedience to the way of
life presented by the Prophet of Islam.
When this love pervades the soul, the human spirit becomes so
completely immersed in the consciousness of Divine Oneness, the inalienable
quality of Divine Unity that any ideas of God having coexistents, coequals or
partners not only vanish from the mind, they are felt as supreme negation of
Reality and hence regarded as the greatest sin committed by a human being. It
is shirk, the sin of associating partners with God. It was this tremendous
passion dominating the heart of Prophet Muhammad (p.b.u.h) that compelled
him to break the pagan idols and cleanse the Ka'bah, the House of God.
Though the Arabs believed in 'Allah', they considered these gods and
goddesses as more intimately related to their daily lives and hence, worthy of
worship. The rejection of these man-made gods and goddesses established the
basic principle which prevents all Muslims from accepting the gods and
goddesses that are worshipped in popular Hinduism and the sonship of Christ
though theological and mystical justifications are available. God and no one
else is worthy of worship. Islam therefore draws the attention of human beings
away even from the Qualities to the Owner or Possessor of these Qualities-to
God. Even though the Qur' an exhorts a believer to call upon God by His
Names, a Muslim does not worship a particular Quality of God. He worships
the Possessor and addresses Him and Him only. To worship a particular
Quality is to limit God to that specific Quality but to call upon the Merciful is
to pray to God to bestow mercy on us. A Muslim prays to God the Merciful
and not to Mercy as a god or goddess.
In this God-human being relationship God's Will and the human will
play the most significant role. All these Names of God indicate God in action.
In a sense it is a descent of God from His total Transcendence which is His
Unity of Being (in Arabic, ahadiyyah ) into the unity of Will active through the
Oneness of the Possessor of the Qualities. This is known in Arabic as the stage
of wahidiyyah, The manifestation of these Qualities after God willed the
creation into existence is the stage of unity in multiplicity. It is known in
. Arabic as the stage of wahdaniyyah. It is at this stage that human will gets the
freedom of choice. So that Humanity does not destroy itself, God sends His
guidance through His Messenger in order that human beings may know what is
good for their nature and what is unsuitable and hence 'evil' for it. This
freedom has not been granted by God to external nature. It is controlled and
guided by 'natural' laws. Neither the Sun nor the Moon nor the stars can
generate new laws for themselves or evolve new laws. The entire creation is
thus governed by God. For human beings also God's Will is continuously and
unceasingly operative but because of this freedom human beings may disobey,
ignore or deliberately violate the 1T0rmand disregard this message. As God
permits a human being to behave in this manner, it is with this permission to
misbehave that a human being does harm to himself or herself. His warning
comes in various forms including natural disasters but human beings may
totally ignore them as they are doing these days. That is why repeatedly God
says in the Qur'an that ,"He does not do injustice and harm to us, it is we who
8 Muslim Education Quarterly
do injustice to ourselves and inflict harm on US".9 God also says, "'Whatever of
good happens to thee is from God: whatever evil happens to thee is from
thyself"."? That is why God says also, "God does not change what has to do
with a people until they change what has to do with their own souls". II
It is this freedom that necessitates the coming of the Message from God
for the guidance of human beings. Had the first Man been a rebel there would
have been probably no guidance. By nature man is shown to be weak and
forgetful. Adam, the archetypal Man did not rebel or defy God's instructions
but he is shown to have been tempted to forget and get misled. Those who try
to rebel, defy or flout God's instructions do so for want of knowledge. But
those who deliberately do so are allowed by God to behave in that way because
God had ordained their destruction. In spite of this weakness the human spirit
is endowed with the potential knowledge of the essence of this creation which
gave Adam, the archetypal Man superiority over angels and jinns. That
knowledge meant the awareness of all the Qualities of God and the ability to
see how they are reflected in the creation. As entire creation has been placed
under the control of the human being, it is necessary for the human being to
know how his inner being has to be cultivated so that they can understand the
Truth and be able to play the role of the Vicegerent of God on the Earth. God
sent revelations through His chosen people, the Prophets, in order to help
human beings reach that state of purification through total submission to God's
Will which will enable them to perform their duties as representatives of God
on the Earth. From Adam, the first prophet, till Muhammad the last Prophet,
there was a long sequence of volumes of revelations. The climax is reached in
the Holy Book, the Qur'an , the last book of revelations which alone claims to
be as it was during the days of the Prophet. Though these revelations were not
collected in a book form during the Prophet's life-time, they were arranged in a
given order during his life-time, and many memorisers (/:tuffti;., pl. of hafi; who
learnt the Quran by heart according to that arrangement) used to recite the
whole of the Qur'an in that order during the special night prayer during the
month of Ramadan, the month of fasting. It was with the help of these
memorisers and a team of writers (kuttiib) who used to accompany the Prophet
that the first Caliph, Abu Baler, got all the records and documents collected and
the whole book written down. No change was made to the original. This was
kept in his custody by the Caliph Abu Baler, and after his death by his
successor, Umar. After his death it was preserved by Hafsa, one of the wives of
the Prophet. The third Caliph, Uthman made copies from this and distributed
them to his governors throughout the Muslim caliphate. Millions of
memorisers are preserving the Qur'an=-exactly the same Qur'an as was
revealed to the Prophet-in their memory in the world today. Hence the same
tradition is continuing and there is no chance of additions, alterations or
modifications.
This Message was received by Prophet Muhammad during the last
twenty three years of his life. It was delivered to his qalb by angel Gabriel.
Neither his mind nor his intellect was actively engaged in grasping it mentally
or intellectually. Qalb is that spiritual organ of cognition which is the seat of
intuition. Prophet's heart was the receptacle for divine communication through
The Message and the Messenger 9
Gabriel. Once he tried to repeat what he was receiving and he was forbidden to
do so. In other words, there was complete passivity from his side just as if his
heart was the soft clay on which the revelations were written down irrevocably.
It was not an auricular revelation as Kenneth Cragg thinks. God's speech did
not come to the Prophet's physical ear. He heard it with the spiritual ear of the
qalb (heart). It became oracular only when the Prophet uttered it in order to
inform his followers.
. For nearly fifteen years off and on the Prophet used to confine himself in
a cave in Mount Hira just outside Makkah. In the fortieth year of his life his
human consciousness was suddenly transformed by the presence of archangel
Gabriel who told him, 'Read' (iqra' in Arabic). As he was an unlettered person
he said, "I cannot read". The word iqra' also means 'recite'. Gabriel repeated
the word, embraced him and he felt as if his whole being was crushed to
pieces. After Gabriel had repeated thrice, he felt that he could recite whatever
was said. Many western writers cannot understand this reception by the
Prophet's heart of the Message and his ability to convey it to others though he
was unlettered. Attempts have been made to find out other human origin of the
Qur'an. From whom did the Prophet learn and put them together? How could
an unlettered person compose such sublime poetry which has never been
surpassed by any poet in Arabic? These people do not understand the immense
power of the spiritual organ, the heart or qalb of the Prophet, the purity of that
heart and the Divine necessity of a receptacle not charged with human
knowledge. The Holy Book could be sent to this earth only through such a pure
vehicle. The language of the Qur'an has remained in a separate category. This
sacred language enables believers to penetrate into another world and feel
Divine presence and grace (barakah) of God when they recite this Divine Book
in their prayers. This language, as is stated in the Qur'an and realised by many
Muslim saints, has a double meaning, the inner and the outer. The response to
the inner meaning becomes possible only through the qalb of a believer which
has become pure enough to respond to its call. Those who approach the Qur'an
deliberately with unfaith and impurity, their reading only increases their
impurity and faithlessness, because they cannot respond to the inner meaning.
When faith enters the soul, the Qur'an transforms the individual as it happened
in the case of Umar, the second Caliph.
The secrete of the Qur' an, its purest essence and its ultimate aim consist
in calling people to God so that by understanding it and following its message
people's hearts are purified and they gain nearness to God, and enter heaven in
the Hereafter. In order to attain this aim the Qur' an provides us with three
Messages. The first message is about Divine Nature. It consists firstly of verses
that describe the Transcendental Essence of God, which are most difficult to
understand and realise, though through love for God the believer is granted the
ability to feel Divine Presence within and without. The second aspect of this
Message is about the Attributes and Qualities of God, such as, His knowledge,
power, life, speech, wisdom, hearing, seeing. The third aspect of this message
is about divine works which are innumerable. As there is in truth nothing in
existence except God and His works the bounds of His works cannot be
ascertained by inquiry.
 10 Muslim Education Quarterly The Message and the Messenger 11

It is this first message which has given birth to different mystical, already dealt with them briefly but successfully. I would advise readers to read
metaphysical and theological explanations. The second Message is about the Martin Ling's biography of the Holy Prophet as it will give all the answers
straight path through which the human being is advised to proceed in order to from the point of view of one who understands what spiritual attainment in the
attain nearness to God. It is this Message which is the source of the entire way path of God means.
of life prescribed by God, the Shariah or Divinely determined law for human One particular assumption that the Qur'an stresses and the Prophet had
advancement towards God. No aspect of human life is left out. The third made about the prophets of all religions is the most convenient point to start
Message is about the condition of the human being at the time of its attaining with. They may commit mistakes and temporarily support an incorrect thing
nearness to God and the condition of those who neglect the path. but they do not commit sins. Islam rejects such stories found in the Old
In support of the above the Qur'an cites examples of those who have Testament about earlier prophets as fabrications. Secondly, all these are
followed the path successfully such as the previous prophets and those who prophets of Islam and all Muslims must believe that they preached God's own
denied the path and had gone astray, such as Nimrod, Pharaoh, 'Ad and Truth and that whatever message they had brought is true. The Prophet of
Tharnud people. Islam is regarded as the Prophet who from childhood till death was the
The Qur'an thus is at the same time a world of spiritual reality to which embodiment of Truth.
the human soul is attracted and a universe that contains this world and the Islam stands for total equilibrium and the Prophet is the symbol of that
world beyond and the Hereafter, both the past and the present and the future, equilibrium. It is evident from his life that he was working all the time under
both what we know of and what we do not know and thereby it gives the the direction of God. Sometimes he did take decisions himself but if he had
believer the taste of a full life. This worldly life is never denied. It treats this committed any error he was immediately told by God. As a result it will be
. existence as a reality to be organised according to a system and norms which wrong on our part to interpret all his actions as his own choice. Though all the
will help an individual to understand human greatness and teach the person Muslims were treated brutally in Makkah he did not migrate till he had
how to attain it. received an order from God. It was a period of tolerance. Though the treaty of
In order to understand the Qur'an and follow the path of spiritual Hudaibiya was at first considered even by a person like Umar to be a dishonour
attainment, God tells the believer to obey and follow the Prophet. The and disaster for the Muslims, he accepted it because, as he said, he was
principles laid down in the Qur'an would have led to confusion and subjective instructed by God to do so. But normally, as the Leader and Master he took
interpretations leading to conflict among groups had not there been a person to upon himself the burden of taking the final decision which he always tried to
show the way to actualise the principles stated in the Qur'an. arrive at after consultation.
In order to convey to humankind this comprehensive message God
needed a person who can be the prototype of perfection. The second part of the
shahada or the witnessing principle that every Muslim recites and that is Notes
recited five times when the muezzin calls all believers to prayer is: "I bear
witness to the fact that Muhammad is the Messenger of God". His life can be 1. Qur'an, 51:56.
2. Faith as the Basis of Education in a Multi-faith, Muui-cultural Country.Discussion Document ll,
studied by anyone who likes to do so in various biographies. But different Seminar sponsored by the Islamic Academy and the Department of Education, University of
people have written from different points of view. It is necessary to stress that Cambridge. The Islamic Academy, 1991, p.8:
3. Quran, 4:46, 5:13, 5:4l.
no one can do justice to such a personality if that person does not have any 4. Qur'an, 112:1-4.
understanding of what spirituality means and what God-human being 5. Quran, 57:3.
relationship is and what the path of spiritual attainment to nearness to God is. 6. Qur'an, 3:31.
7. Qur' an, 6:112.
A person like Sir Syed Ahmed who took scientific empirical approach to be the 8. I:ladith Qudsl.
only correct approach to understand the Qur'an and the Prophet committed 9. Qur 'an, 2:57, 7:160,11:101,16;33,29:40.
serious mistakes and forceful misinterpretations were the results. Pure modem 10. Quran, 4:79.
II. Qur'an,13:1l.
rationalism which is also related to empiricism and is founded on certain
assumptions but which completely ignores the existence of human spirit cannot
understand Prophet's bodily Ascent to Heaven tmi'raj). Similarly anyone who
takes the western or Christian concept of marriage as the only valid norm for
humanity and also considers celibacy as the highest norm for a pure good
person, will completely misunderstand the Prophet and demand all sorts of
explanation for the Prophet having nine wives. I am not going to enter into any
of these discussions nor do I want to follow the apologetics. Professor Hossein
Nasr in his chapter on the Prophet in his book Ideals and Realities of Islam has