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WHAT IS MEANT BY OBEY THE MESSENGER (PROPHET)? To heed the messenger means obeying God whose orders the messenger transmitted. He is the herald of God who has brought His messages to humanity. Complying with these messages connotes conformity with God and His messenger as well as with the Quran, the message transmitted. The word resul means the carrier of a message. In other words, the message is not issued by the Prophet, but by God. It is preached thereby that man can attain God only through His messenger. The person to whom allegiance is due is God’s messenger, not God directly. God establishes His link with us through His prophet (messenger). Men heed God’s words through the mediation of the Prophet. The Quran was revealed to men through him. The message was not transmitted to each individual separately. There have been innumerable people who refused to obey the Prophet’s message claiming that it was he that spoke and not God. Yet, it is stated in the Quran that the message transmitted through him was God’s message. Obeying God and His messenger should not be interpreted as two separate authorities, since the source is one - that is God. USE OF MUHAMMAD’S NAME IN THE QURANThree verses out of the four in which the Prophet’s name is mentioned and the fact that he is but a messenger have been stressed.In the only verse in which Muhammad’s name is mentioned without stressing his function as a messenger coupled with belief in the Quran is made imperative in the following: The name Ahmad (praised) is derived from the same root as Muhammad and is one of the Prophet’s names mentioned in the following verse, with due emphasis on his capacity as messenger. Nowhere in the Quran do we come across a statement like: “Obey God and Muhammad.” “Obey God and his messenger” is the expression used. So, obedience to the Prophet results from his being the transmitter of the message. The emphasis of the Prophet’s mission as messenger has been made in all the verses except one in which the wording is: THE PROPHET WARNED HIS PEOPLE BY REFERRING TO THE QURANThe Prophet always referred to the Quran when he wanted to warn his community. When there had been an interruption in the verses being revealed and the Prophet was asked to invent something, the fact that this was not possible is plain from the verses below:God mentions often the fact that He sent down and revealed the Quran. Muhammad’s mission had been merely to convey the message, that which was revealed to him. Had the Prophet not carried out this mission, he would have failed to perform his duty as a messenger. The duty of the envoy was to transmit the message revealed unto him, and obedience to the messenger would be obedience to what God had sent down. ABRAHAM’S HADITHS?Kashif Ahmad Shahzade has the following to say about the obedience to God and His envoy. “What is meant by this is obedience to the Quran, the message that God has sent.” He continues to say that the Prophet’s lifestyle must set an example for us, but the only valid source about this is the information provided in the Quran. Shahzade indicates in Sura The Tried, 4:and argues that by the said verse must be understood the adoption of the morals and manners of Abraham” (Kashif Ahmadzade, The Authority of Quran). If one may be permitted to make an analogy between the Prophet and Abraham in terms of their abiding by their respective customs and traditions, we must learn the customs and manners of Abraham’s people and try to unearth Abraham’s hadiths as well. The gist of the matter lies in the adoption of the manners of the Prophet as described in the Quran. Efforts to persuade the Prophet to fabricate things on behalf of God, in addition to the contents of the Quran, existed dukring the Prophet’s lifetime. The Prophet did his best to forestall this. Yet, after his decease and the era of the four caliphs, the efforts of concocting hadiths got the upper hand. The Quran is God’s Book. However, men heard it from the mouth of His messenger Muhammad. The following verses will make this clearer: CONFORMING TO THE VERSES OF THE QURAN IS CONFORMING TO HIS MESSENGERThe announcement of God and His messenger make up the Quranic verses. The same reading may be observed in other sections of the Quran. From the beginning of Sura The Women up until Verse 13, the questions of inheritance etc. are taken up, while Verses 13 and 14 run as follows:Up until the 13th verse, God’s commandments are expressed, while in the 13th and 14th verses to obey them is to obey both God and His messenger. An image of a partnership between God and Muhammad is created. The Prophet thus assumed the character of someone who had the authority to transmit or rescind those decreed by God. Certain traditionalists being aware of the contradiction reverted to a new argument that was still more terrifying, According to this argument, the hadith books in circulation were also part of the revelation. It is useless to disprove this claim since our readers have also witnessed the clash of the hadiths with the text of the Quran, let alone their conflicting character. According to the verse below the Quran is the only source that is to be obeyed. And it is again the Quran that infidels would like to see altered: THE PROPHET MAY HAVE ERREDThe Prophet abides by what the Quran announces. In daily life a prophet may well err in certain things. Exposition of the errors committed by the Prophet in the Quran belies in fact the claim that the Prophet’s word was also a revelation to be obeyed.2- Because there came to him the blind man 3- How do you know? He may purify himself. 4- Or He may take heed, and benefit from the message. 5- As to one who regards himself as self-sufficient, 6– You gave him your attention 7– Though it is not your concern if he should not grow. 8– As for him, who comes to you striving, 9– And is also fearful 10- You ignored him. In the above instances, we observe the criticisms leveled against the Prophet. The justification of an abused claim according to which whatever was uttered by the Prophet outside the context of the Quran should be considered refuted. His lifestyle also has been made into a source of abuse. Even his manners before he became a prophet were made part of his cult. Yet, his pre-prophetic life was far from being exemplary (sunna) as the Quran suggests: We read in the verses that the Prophet, before he received the visit of Gabriel who conveyed the revelation to him, was not on the right path and had no faith. Under the circumstances, how can one consider his past manners to be exemplary (sunna) for believers. The following verses caution those who assign the books of hadiths the reverence due to God’s own words. THE QURAN HAS NO COUNTERPARTWhile God announces that the Quran has no counterpart, the sectarian Islamists find similarity between the hadiths and the Quran (see Abu Davud Kitabý Sunen). Had this been so, one is inclined to ask the reason why the Prophet had been reluctant to see his sayings recorded. While according to this verse the Prophet cannot make things lawful or unlawful even for himself, the intervention of other people having like intentions can hardly be reconciled with the Quran. This is the error committed by the traditionalist interpretation that chooses to act according to a given verse of the Quran taken out of context and fails to conceive the Quran as a whole. THE QURAN AS THE SOURCE OF WISDOMIt is alleged that the word ‘wisdom’ includes the sunna and the hadiths, which is utterly preposterous. Wisdom is attributable to the Quran: Moreover, the Sura Isra after enumerating what is lawful and unlawful and the prohibitions is followed by the following verse: Wisdom attributed to God’s revelations mentioned up until the 39th verse of Sura The Children of Israel stated that one should not set up any other God (22nd verse); that one should serve none but Him and do good to parents (23rd verse); the manner that one should behave toward one’s parents (24th verse); and the fact that God knows what is in our mind (25th verse), and give to the near of kin his due and to the needy and the wayfarer, and squander not wastefully (26th verse)… The Quran is the book of reference in which both sunna and wisdom can be found. The limits of God as set in the Quran are wisdom, which also implies obedience to His messenger, the Prophet. The Quran revealed to Mohammad was communicated to us by his mouth. Most of the verses begin with the imperative ‘say,’ addressed to him. To obey the message is to obey God and His messenger at the same time. If God’s revelation is not complete, what would the function of the Quran be? Why should God leave His message incomplete to be completed by other sources? Had God intended to give us additional injunctions, He would certainly have increased the thickness of the Book. In fact, it is mentioned in the Quran that the Book contains all the details necessary to be known. To give an example of such details, please note that the Quran enjoins the man who finds himself in a difficulty, to eat, without trespassing the limits, the meat of animals slaughtered in the name of other divinities, and the meat of the dead animal, pork etc., a very exceptional case surely. Given this fact how can we presume that God left loopholes in His book? Whatever He has not enjoined His creatures, He has left to the discretion of His servants. THE MESSENGER AND COMMANDERMan is a gregarious being. In the shared life of communities men are obliged to formulate common principles to stick to and in certain cases are forced to adopt critical decisions, like in the case of a declaration of war or the signing of a peace treaty. The messenger (the Prophet) used to make critical decisions as the head of the community which the community could not help but obey. After his death, the persons of authority charged with the governing of the community were expected to be shown reverence and be obeyed. However, in no way did this obedience allow the addition of new precepts to those of God’s laid out in the Quran. We read in the Quran that everything has been made clear in it, and every detail has been explained and that religion was tantamount to what the Quran propounded. Had the obedience foreseen in the Quran included the interpolation of new principles making certain things lawful and others unlawful, we would have the following illogical picture: among the edible items is the prohibition of the consumption of pork, blood, the flesh of dead animals and animals slaughtered in the name of any entity other than God. Had obedience to the Prophet also included imposition of new religious principles, items such as mussels, shrimp and the flesh of donkeys would have been banned and carried the same effect as those laid down in the Quran. Yet, this is exactly what the sectarians argue. Yavuz Sultan Selim, who had taken over the title of ‘caliph,’ might well have added to the list of prohibitions the flesh of chicken, veal and bonito, then what would have happened? This mentality may be carried even further as a person of authority may one day crop up claiming that he is entitled to abrogate certain things laid down in the Quran and to add others instead. OBEDIENCE TO GOD=OBEDIENCE TO THE QURAN=OBEDIENCE TO THE MESSENGEREvery Muslim having faith in the Islam preached in the Quran knows that he is to obey Muhammad, God’s messenger. The only source that the Prophet has bequeathed to us is the Quran. All other books, including the hadith books, are full of slanders. The authorities that claim that God, the Quran and the Prophet must be severed from each other are on the wrong path. Given the fact that we cannot possibly establish contact, the issuer of the message, and the transmitter of it, the only thing that remains for us is the Quran. |