Pamphlet
What Does The
Holy Qur'an Say
What Does The
Holy Qur'an Say
Volume
I
September
2015
Zahir
Ebrahim
Copyright
© 2011, 2013, 2015 by Zahir Ebrahim
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rights reserved.
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Pages: 78 |
Pamphlet 8.5x11 | Friday, September 18, 2015
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The
Zahir Ebrahim
Holy Qur'an
Reader
Volume I
Zahir Ebrahim
Holy Qur'an
Reader
Volume I
This
short compilation of analytical articles on the Holy Qur'an is
intended to tear-down, or at least challenge, some precepts that have
crept into the religion of Islam which are not supported by its
singular scripture, the Holy Qur'an. This presentation is not a work
of piety or spiritualism. It is a work of intellectual labor. The
analysis is presented to hold up in a fair court of law if such a
case is brought before it for clear adjudication of what the Good
Book itself avers in its foundational and categorical verses by its
own yardstick.
Non-Muslims
and atheists are invited to join in as tourists in another peoples'
scripture. This will be an educational ride for those so called
secular humanists interested in understanding social engineering and
how consent is engineered in the name of God by the superman using
the socialized idiocy of the popes and plebes alike. One does not
have to believe in the Holy Qur'an in order to understand its Message
– like when reading Shakespeare, who cares who is the real
author behind that nom de plume when one studies or performs
The Merchant of Venice and MacBeth? – and that is
the hook for non-Muslims fed-up with learning about Islam from the
Machiavellian pens of Western propagandists like Bernard Lewis, and
from the antediluvian nibs (old fashioned writing instrument) of the
pious parrots of Islam.
Turbans
of Islam are encouraged to issue fatwas on the author's work. Learned
scholars of the Holy Qur'an and Muslim Jurists are invited to
critique and offer additional insights to move this baby-step
forward. The giant stride to Reformation so fashioned from the
contributions of individual learned minds unwilling to accept
socialization as religion surely ought to be greater than the sum of
their individual baby-steps for the benefit of all mankind.
Zahir
Ebrahim, an electrical engineer and computer architect, temporarily
gave up his high-tech career in Silicon Valley, California, in the
late 1990s to spend time raising his kids. Zahir originally studied
EECS at UET (Lahore, Pakistan), MIT, and Stanford University (via
SITN). He was an ordinary engineer and worked in several corporations
in the San Francisco Bay Area pursuing his own “American Dream”
like most ordinary people (see engineering patents at
http://tinyurl.com/Zahir-Patents).
Zahir switched directions immediately after 9/11 and turned towards
justice activism with the same zest with which he had previously
endeared himself to his profession. Zahir's 2003 maiden book of
protest against the criminal military invasion of Iraq, titled
Prisoners of the Cave, was rejected by numerous
publishers and can be read on the web at
http://PrisonersoftheCave.org.
Zahir writes exclusively for Project Humanbeingsfirst.org which he
founded as The Plebeian Antidote to Hectoring Hegemons.
Zahir may be reached at http://Humanbeingsfirst.org.
Bio at http://ZahirEbrahim.org.
Full Copyright Notice at http://humanbeingsfirst.org/#Copyright.
I
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1
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II
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20
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III
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33
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IV
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62
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Zahir
Ebrahim | Project
Humanbeingsfirst.org
Abstract
The
Sunni and Shia have needlessly argued for centuries over matters that
are at times wholly Indeterminate in the Holy Qur'an. Sometimes
through ignorance of the Qur'anic text, and at other times by going
to the partisan scribes of history based on their respective
socialization biases. This report speaks to the former, ignorance of
the Qur'anic text due to its careless reading, especially in
translation, which needlessly creates an unbridgeable chasm in the
understanding of the Qur'anic message between the two major sects of
Islam. Verse 33:33 is among the most contentious verses in the Holy
Qur'an between the Shia and Sunni; they each argue their own
socialization biases without paying careful attention to what the
Holy Qur'an itself states in that verse, and does not state. This
report highlights that absurdity.
The
Qur'anic phrase: أَهْلَ
الْبَيْتِ
,
Ahlul Bayt, is a
proper noun. In the Qur'anic semantics, it specifically means the
household of the family of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (PBUH). In
Arabic vernacular of course, أَهْلَ
الْبَيْتِ
is
a common noun. It generally means members of the household
of any person. Linguistically,
it can be used to refer to anyone's household.
It is customary to capitalize the phrase in English as Ahlul
Bayt when the family of the
Messenger of Islam is the explicit context.
Who
precisely comprise the Ahlul Bayt
is not made unambiguously clear in the Holy Qur'an. It remains a
point of contention among the two main protagonist sects of Islam
which virtually comprise nearly 99 percent of Muslims in the world
today, the Sunni and the Shia. The contention is sometimes needlessly
heated, and often based on outright ignorance and/or the socialized
dogma that one grows up in. This article takes a look at what the
Holy Qur'an itself says, and does not say, when it uses the phrase
Ahlul Bayt, as in the
famously contentious verse 33:33. Sometimes referred to as the verse
of purification, it is among the
most commonly misperceived verses of the Holy Qur'an, especially when
read in translation. Both Shia and the Sunni have argued for over 14
centuries about the scope of its composition, namely, who is being
referred to in this verse:
“And
stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display,
like that of the former Times of Ignorance; and establish regular
Prayer, and give regular Charity; and obey Allah and His
Messenger.
And
Allah only wishes to remove all abomination from you, ye members
of the Family, and to make you pure and spotless.” (Surah
Al-Ahzaab, 33:33)
|
وَقَرْنَ
فِي بُيُوتِكُنَّ
وَلَا تَبَرَّجْنَ
تَبَرُّجَ
الْجَاهِلِيَّةِ
الْأُولَىٰ
ۖ وَأَقِمْنَ
الصَّلَاةَ
وَآتِينَ
الزَّكَاةَ
وَأَطِعْنَ
اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ
ۚ
إِنَّمَا
يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ
لِيُذْهِبَ
عَنْكُمُ
الرِّجْسَ
أَهْلَ الْبَيْتِ
وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ
تَطْهِيرًا
|
Caption
Verse 33:33 Surah
Al-Ahzaab – incredible verse that hides a wellspring of
semantics by employing the gender sensitivity
of Arabic grammar in its second person pronoun to describe the
composition of Ahlul
Bayt. Another reason for
misunderstanding the Holy Qur'an – its sophistication
of using the Classical Arabic language constructs to hide a
wellspring of secrets that none among the ordinary people seeking
guidance from it shall fathom except those who are capable of
understanding أُولُو
الْأَلْبَابِ
(see
verse 3:7) and having command of its unsurpassed natural language of
exposition بِلِسَانِ
قَوْمِهِۦ
(see
verse 14:4)!
Verse 33:33 is a categorical example of why the Holy Qur'an is
simply untranslatable, even syntactically, let alone semantically!
Even the “Orientalism”
jaundiced West is reluctantly forced to admit this characteristic of
the Holy Qur'an: “The miraculous rhetorical quality
that the Qur’an has for the reader is lost in translation, ...
mistranslation usually occurs when translators retain Arabic terms or
force a single meaning upon Arabic words.”
(tinyurl.com/Quran-Untranslatable-Harvard).
The
following table captures the complete context of the topic under
discussion in Surah Al-Ahzaab, verses 33:28-34, using Yusuf Ali's
translation.
O
Prophet! Say to thy Consorts: "If it be that ye desire the
life of this World, and its glitter,- then come! I will provide
for your enjoyment and set you free in a handsome manner. (28)
|
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا
ٱلنَّبِىُّ
قُل لِّأَزْوَٰجِكَ
إِن كُنتُنَّ
تُرِدْنَ
ٱلْحَيَوٰةَ
ٱلدُّنْيَا
وَزِينَتَهَا
فَتَعَالَيْنَ
أُمَتِّعْكُنَّ
وَأُسَرِّحْكُنَّ
سَرَاحًا جَمِيلًا
|
But
if ye seek Allah and His Messenger, and the Home of the
Hereafter, verily Allah has prepared for the well-doers amongst
you a great reward, (29)
|
وَإِن
كُنتُنَّ تُرِدْنَ
ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥ
وَٱلدَّارَ
ٱلْءَاخِرَةَ
فَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ
أَعَدَّ لِلْمُحْسِنَٰتِ
مِنكُنَّ أَجْرًا
عَظِيمًا
|
O
Consorts of the Prophet! If any of you were guilty of evident
unseemly conduct, the Punishment would be doubled to her, and
that is easy for Allah. (30)
|
يَٰنِسَآءَ
ٱلنَّبِىِّ
مَن يَأْتِ
مِنكُنَّ
بِفَٰحِشَةٍ
مُّبَيِّنَةٍ
يُضَٰعَفْ
لَهَا ٱلْعَذَابُ
ضِعْفَيْنِ
ۚ وَكَانَ ذَٰلِكَ
عَلَى ٱللَّهِ
يَسِيرًا
|
But
any of you that is devout in the service of Allah and His
Messenger, and works righteousness,- to her shall We grant her
reward twice: and We have prepared for her a generous Sustenance.
(31)
|
وَمَن
يَقْنُتْ مِنكُنَّ
لِلَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِۦ
وَتَعْمَلْ
صَٰلِحًا
نُّؤْتِهَآ
أَجْرَهَا
مَرَّتَيْنِ
وَأَعْتَدْنَا
لَهَا رِزْقًا
كَرِيمًا
|
O
Consorts of the Prophet! Ye are not like any of the (other)
women: if ye do fear (Allah), be not too complacent of speech,
lest one in whose heart is a disease should be moved with desire:
but speak ye a speech (that is) just. (32)
|
يَٰنِسَآءَ
ٱلنَّبِىِّ
لَسْتُنَّ
كَأَحَدٍ مِّنَ
ٱلنِّسَآءِ
ۚ إِنِ ٱتَّقَيْتُنَّ
فَلَا تَخْضَعْنَ
بِٱلْقَوْلِ
فَيَطْمَعَ
ٱلَّذِى فِى
قَلْبِهِۦ
مَرَضٌ وَقُلْنَ
قَوْلًا مَّعْرُوفًا
|
And
stay quietly in your houses, and make not a dazzling display,
like that of the former Times of Ignorance; and establish regular
Prayer, and give regular Charity; and obey Allah and His
Messenger.
And
Allah only wishes to remove all abomination from you, ye members
of the Family, and to make you pure and spotless. (33:33)
|
وَقَرْنَ
فِى بُيُوتِكُنَّ
وَلَا تَبَرَّجْنَ
تَبَرُّجَ
ٱلْجَٰهِلِيَّةِ
ٱلْأُولَىٰ
ۖ وَأَقِمْنَ
ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ
وَءَاتِينَ
ٱلزَّكَوٰةَ
وَأَطِعْنَ
ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥٓ
ۚ
إِنَّمَا
يُرِيدُ ٱللَّهُ
لِيُذْهِبَ
عَنكُمُ ٱلرِّجْسَ
أَهْلَ ٱلْبَيْتِ
وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ
تَطْهِيرًا
|
And
recite what is rehearsed to you in your homes, of the Signs of
Allah and His Wisdom: for Allah understands the finest mysteries
and is well-acquainted (with them). (Surah Al-Ahzaab, 33:34)
(Tr. Abdullah Yusuf Ali)
|
وَٱذْكُرْنَ
مَا يُتْلَىٰ
فِى بُيُوتِكُنَّ
مِنْ ءَايَٰتِ
ٱللَّهِ وَٱلْحِكْمَةِ
ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ
كَانَ لَطِيفًا
خَبِيرًا
|
Caption
Surah Al-Ahzaab, verses 33:28-34 – An illustrative case of how
a translation fails to capture the semantics of the Qur'anic Arabic
grammar accurately due to language limitations of English which does
not have gender-specific second person pronouns and possessive
pronouns. In this instance, it leads to the misperception that the
interspersed verse fragment purifying the Ahlul Bayt in 33:33
is referring to the Messenger's wives just
because the wives are being addressed by the Author earlier in that
verse, and also in the preceding verses, and in the succeeding verse!
This switch in topic for the verse of purification cannot be
captured in a translated language which does not have gender-specific
2nd person pronoun with the same semantics as the Classical Qur'anic
Arabic does, without explicit elaboration.
The
following table completely decomposes verses 33:33 and 33:34 word by
word. Please take a few minutes to study the switch in pronoun from
2nd person feminine plural possessive pronoun when referring
to the houses of the wives, to 2nd person masculine plural object
pronoun when referring to the Ahlul
Bayt, and back to 2nd person feminine plural possessive pronoun
when referring again to the houses of the
wives in 33:34:
- 2nd person feminine plural possessive pronoun
- (33:33:3) بُيُوتِكُنَّ buyūtikunna your houses
- 2nd person masculine plural object pronoun
- (33:33:20) عَنكُمُ ankumu from you,
- (33:33:24) وَيُطَهِّرَكُمْ wayuṭahhirakum And to purify you
- 2nd person feminine plural possessive pronoun
- (33:34:5) بُيُوتِكُنَّ buyūtikunna your houses
The
significance of this switch in pronouns is striking. But what is even
more striking is how little attention is paid to this switch by those
who argue needlessly about the semantics without due diligence to the
Arabic language syntax that is expressing the semantics. The 2nd
person masculine pronoun كُمُ
“kum”,
and 2nd person feminine pronoun كُنَّ
“kunna”,
unambiguously represent the following semantics in order to be
grammatically correct in their usage:
- “kum” when used with a plural object or possessive case represents a composition that must contain at least one or more males, and may contain zero or more females
(it is equivalent of 2nd person pronoun “you”, “ تم ” and “vous” in gender neutral English, Urdu, and French respectively) ; - “kunna” represents an all female composition
(it has no equivalent in English, Urdu, French, et. al.; consequently, the same 2nd person pronoun “you”, “ تم ” and “vous” are respectively re-used causing a loss in semantics in translation).
Translation
|
Arabic
word
|
Syntax
and morphology
|
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
V – 2nd person feminine plural imperative verb PRON – subject pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
فعل أمر والتاء ضمير متصل في محل رفع فاعل |
||
(33:33:2)
fī in |
P
– preposition
حرف
جر
|
|
N
– genitive masculine plural noun
PRON – 2nd person feminine plural possessive pronoun
اسم
مجرور والكاف
ضمير متصل في
محل جر بالاضافة
|
||
(33:33:4)
walā and (do) not |
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
PRO – prohibition particle
الواو
عاطفة
حرف نهي |
|
V
– 2nd person feminine plural (form V) imperfect verb,
jussive mood
PRON – subject pronoun
فعل
مضارع مجزوم
والتاء ضمير
متصل في محل
رفع فاعل
|
||
N
– accusative masculine (form V) verbal noun
اسم
منصوب
|
||
PN
– genitive feminine proper noun → Al-Jahiliyah
اسم
علم مجرور
|
||
N
– nominative feminine noun
اسم
مرفوع
|
||
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
V – 2nd person feminine plural (form IV) imperative verb PRON – subject pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
فعل أمر والتاء ضمير متصل في محل رفع فاعل |
||
N
– accusative feminine noun
اسم
منصوب
|
||
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
V – 2nd person feminine plural (form IV) imperative verb PRON – subject pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
فعل أمر والتاء ضمير متصل في محل رفع فاعل |
||
N
– accusative feminine noun
اسم
منصوب
|
||
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
V – 2nd person feminine plural (form IV) imperative verb PRON – subject pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
فعل أمر والتاء ضمير متصل في محل رفع فاعل |
||
PN
– accusative proper noun → Allah
لفظ
الجلالة منصوب
|
||
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
N – accusative masculine noun PRON – 3rd person masculine singular possessive pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
اسم منصوب والهاء ضمير متصل في محل جر بالاضافة |
||
(33:33:16)
innamā Only |
ACC
– accusative particle
PREV – preventive particle mā
كافة
ومكفوفة
|
|
V
– 3rd person masculine singular (form IV) imperfect verb
فعل
مضارع
|
||
PN
– nominative proper noun → Allah
لفظ
الجلالة مرفوع
|
||
PRP
– prefixed particle of purpose lām
V – 3rd person masculine singular (form IV) imperfect verb, subjunctive mood
اللام
لام التعليل
فعل مضارع منصوب |
||
(33:33:20)
ʿankumu from you |
P
– preposition
PRON – 2nd person masculine plural object pronoun
جار
ومجرور
|
|
N
– accusative masculine noun
اسم
منصوب
|
||
N
– accusative masculine noun
اسم
منصوب
|
||
N
– genitive masculine noun
اسم
مجرور
|
||
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
V – 3rd person masculine singular (form II) imperfect verb, subjunctive mood PRON – 2nd person masculine plural object pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
فعل مضارع منصوب والكاف ضمير متصل في محل نصب مفعول به |
||
N
– accusative masculine indefinite (form II) verbal noun
اسم
منصوب
|
||
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
V – 2nd person feminine plural imperative verb PRON – subject pronoun
الواو
عاطفة
فعل أمر والتاء ضمير متصل في محل رفع فاعل |
||
(33:34:2)
mā what |
REL
– relative pronoun
اسم
موصول
|
|
V
– 3rd person masculine singular passive imperfect verb,
subjunctive mood
فعل
مضارع مبني
للمجهول منصوب
|
||
(33:34:4)
fī in |
P
– preposition
حرف
جر
|
|
N
– genitive masculine plural noun
PRON – 2nd person feminine plural possessive pronoun
اسم
مجرور والكاف
ضمير متصل في
محل جر بالاضافة
|
||
(33:34:6)
min of |
P
– preposition
حرف
جر
|
|
N
– genitive feminine plural noun
اسم
مجرور
|
||
PN
– genitive proper noun → Allah
لفظ
الجلالة مجرور
|
||
CONJ
– prefixed conjunction wa (and)
N – genitive feminine noun
الواو
عاطفة
اسم مجرور |
||
(33:34:10)
inna Indeed, |
ACC
– accusative particle
حرف
نصب
|
|
PN
– accusative proper noun → Allah
لفظ
الجلالة منصوب
|
||
V
– 3rd person masculine singular perfect verb
فعل
ماض
|
||
N
– accusative masculine singular indefinite noun
اسم
منصوب
|
||
ADJ
– accusative masculine singular indefinite adjective
صفة
منصوبة
|
Caption
Surah Al-Ahzaab, verse 33:33-34 Word
by Word syntactical decomposition. (Arabic
syntax and grammar courtesy of
corpus.quran.com/documentation/grammar.jsp ;
corpus.quran.com/wordbyword.jsp?chapter=33&verse=33 )
The
following table captures some prominent
English and Urdu translations of verse
33:33. It can be seen that all of them, without exception,
spectacularly fail to capture the gender switch of the 2nd person
pronoun from feminine to masculine form of the original verse in
Arabic when referring to the Ahlul Bayt.
Whether or not this translated
language limitation is footnoted in the original
printed editions by their respective translators to draw attention to
the significance of this switch in pronouns, is not known.
And
stay in your houses and do not display your finery like the
displaying of the ignorance of yore; and keep up prayer, and pay
the poor-rate, and obey Allah and His Apostle. Allah only desires
to keep away the uncleanness from you, O people of the House! and
to purify you a (thorough) purifying. (Muhammad Ali Habib Shakir,
House of Habib, Pakistan)
|
And
stay in your houses and do not display your finery like the
displaying of the ignorance of yore; and keep up prayer, and pay
the poorrate, and obey Allah and His Apostle; Allah only desires
to take away the uncleanness from you, O people of the household!
and to purify you a (thorough) purifying. (Maulana Muhammad Ali
MMA 1917 PDF)
|
And
stay in your houses. Bedizen not yourselves with the bedizenment
of the Time of Ignorance. Be regular in prayer, and pay the
poor-due, and obey Allah and His messenger. Allah's wish is but
to remove uncleanness far from you, O Folk of the Household, and
cleanse you with a thorough cleansing. (Marmaduke Pickthall)
|
Remain
in your houses; and display not your finery, as did the pagans of
old. And perform the prayer, and pay the alms, and obey God and
His Messenger. People of the House, God only desires to put away
from you abomination and to cleanse you. (Arthur John Arberry)
|
Stay
at home, and do not deck yourselves with ostentation as in the
days of paganism; fulfil your devotional obligations, pay the
zakat, and obey God and His Apostle. God desires to remove
impurities from you, O inmates of this house, and to cleanse and
bring out the best in you. (Ahmed Ali)
|
And
stay in Your houses. and display not yourselves! with the display
of the times of former Paganism; and establish the prayer and
give the poor-rate and obey Allah and His apostle. Allah only
desireth to take away uncleanness from you, people of the
house-hold, and to purify you with a thorough purification.
(Abdul Majid Daryabadi)
|
And
abide quietly in your homes, and do not flaunt your charms as
they used to flaunt them in the old days of pagan ignorance; and
be constant in prayer, and render the purifying dues, and pay
heed unto God and His Apostle: for God only wants to remove from
you all that might be loathsome, O you members of the [Prophet’s]
household, and to purify you to utmost purity. (Muhammad Asad)
|
And
stay in your homes and do not go about displaying your
allurements as in the former Time of Ignorance. Establish Prayer,
give Zakah, and obey Allah and His Messenger. Allah only wishes
to remove uncleanness from you, O members of the (Prophet's)
household, and to purify you completely. (Abul Ala Maududi)
|
Stay
in your houses and do not display your finery with the display of
the former [days of ] ignorance. Maintain the prayer and pay the
zakat and obey Allah and His Apostle. Indeed Allah desires
to repel all impurity from you, O People of the Household, and
purify you with a thorough purification. (Ali Quli Qara'i)
|
اپنے
گھروں میں ٹِک
کر رہو اور سابق
دور جاہلیت
کی سی سج دھج
نہ دکھاتی پھرو
نماز قائم کرو،
زکوٰۃ دو اور
اللہ اور اُس
کے رسولؐ کی
اطاعت کرو اللہ
تو یہ چاہتا
ہے کہ اہلِ بیتِ
نبیؐ سے گندگی
کو دور کرے اور
تمہیں پوری
طرح پاک کر
دے
(Abul Ala Maududi) |
اور
اپنے گھروں
میں بیٹھی رہو
اور گزشتہ زمانہ
جاہلیت کی طرح
بناؤ سنگھار
دکھاتی نہ پھرو
اور نماز پڑھو
اور زکواة دو
اور الله اور
اس کے رسول کی
فرمانبرداری
کرو الله یہی
چاہتا ہے کہ
اے اس گھر والو
تم سے ناپاکی
دور کرے اور
تمہیں خوب پاک
کرے
(Ahmed Ali) |
اور
اپنے گھر میں
بیٹھی رہو اور
پہلی جاہلیت
جیسا بناؤ سنگھار
نہ کرو اور نماز
قائم کرو اور
زکوِٰادا کرو
اوراللہ اور
اس کے رسول کی
اطاعت کرو -
بس
اللہ کا ارادہ
یہ ہے اے اہلبیت
علیھ السّلام
کہ تم سے ہر برائی
کو دور رکھے
اور اس طرح پاک
و پاکیزہ رکھے
جو پاک و پاکیزہ
رکھنے کا حق
ہے
(Syed Zeeshan Haider Jawadi) |
اور
اپنے گھروں
میں قرار سے
رہو اور سابقہ
زمانۂ جاہلیت
کی طرح اپنی
آرائش کی نمائش
نہ کرتی پھرو
(باہر
نہ نکلا کرو)
اور
نماز قائم کرو
اور زکوٰۃ ادا
کرو اور اللہ
اور اس کے رسول
کی اطاعت کیا
کرو۔ اے اہل
بیت!
اللہ
تو بس یہی چاہتا
ہے کہ تم سے ہر
قسم کے رجس
(آلودگی)
کو
دور رکھے اور
تمہیں اس طرح
پاک و پاکیزہ
رکھے جس طرح
پاک رکھنے کا
حق ہے۔
(Ayatollah Muhammad Hussain Najafi) |
Caption
various translations of Surah Al-Ahzaab verse 33:33 into English and
Urdu, the non-gender sensitive languages,
all spectacularly failing to capture the semantics created due to the
gender change from feminine to masculine form of the 2nd person
pronoun when referring to the Ahlul
Bayt. (Translations
are from the electronic versions at tanzil.net/trans/ ; MMA 1917 PDF
courtesy of aaiil.org ; Ali Quli Qara'i courtesy of
islamawakened.com/Quran/33/33/default.htm )
In
French, which is more gender sensitive than either English or Urdu
but less so than Classical Arabic, the translation of verse 33:33 is
given below. The 2nd person pronoun “vous” in French,
like its Urdu and English 2nd person pronoun counterpart “ تم
” and
“you” respectively, including the possessive case
variations thereof, are unfortunately gender neutral and unable to
distinguish between singular and plural object, leading to the same
loss in semantics.
Restez
dans vos foyers; et ne vous exhibez pas à la manière
des femmes d'avant l'Islam (Jâhiliyah). Accomplissez la
Salât, acquittez la Zakât et obéissez à
Allah et à Son messager. Allah ne veut que vous
débarrasser de toute souillure, ô gens de la maison
[du prophète], et veut vous purifier pleinement. (verse
33:33 Tr. Muhammad Hamidullah)
|
Caption
Translation of verse 33:33 into French. The second person pronoun
vous is gender neutral just like in Urdu and English, despite
French being more gender sensitive than either English or Urdu,
therefore leading to the same loss in semantics.
In
Spanish however, the matter is salvaged. Spanish enables expressing
gender sensitivity of the object by addition of either “os”
or “as” to the verb. Therefore, a correct semantic
translation of verse 33:33 from Arabic into Spanish is possible by
reflecting the 2nd person plural gender sensitivity
of the pronoun in Arabic, to the correct conjugated form of the verb
expressing the gender and plurality of the object. So, if “gente
de la casa” (Ahlul Bayt) was referring
to only the wives of the Messenger, the grammatically correct verb
conjugation of the root verbs 'librar' and 'purificar' in Spanish
would have been “libraras” and “purificaras”
instead of “libraros” and “purificaros”.
¡Quedaos
en vuestras casas! ¡No os acicaléis como se
acicalaban las natiguas paganas! ¡Haced la azalá!
¡Dad el azaque! ¡Obedeced a Alá y a Su
Enviado! Alá sólo quiere libraros de la mancha,
gente de la casa, y purificaros por completo. (verse 33:33 Tr.
Julio Cortes)
|
Caption
Translation of verse 33:33 into Spanish. The loss of semantics in
translation is prevented by reflecting the
2nd person plural masculine pronoun of Arabic on the correct
selection of masculine or feminine verb
conjugation, since both choices are available in Spanish to indicate
object composition and its plurality.
That
language limitation conundrum disclosed above is an obvious source of
misunderstanding the Holy Qur'an – when studying it in
translation! The Holy Qur'an is simply untranslatable, in almost any
language. Which is why the famous translator Arthur J. Arberry,
in deep humility, called his excellent rendition into English: “The
Koran Interpreted”. Even
the “Orientalism” jaundiced
West is reluctantly forced to admit this characteristic of the Holy
Qur'an: “The miraculous rhetorical quality that the
Qur’an has for the reader is lost in translation, ...
mistranslation usually occurs when translators retain Arabic terms or
force a single meaning upon Arabic words.”
(see tinyurl.com/Quran-Untranslatable-Harvard).
Furthermore,
a translation also lends itself easily to both Machiavellian as well
as inadvertent perception management of the public mind (see
tinyurl.com/Making-the-public-mind
). We can see this pernicious cognitive infiltration in the
contemporary English translation of the Holy Qur'an titled: The
Sublime Quran (see tinyurl.com/Critique-Laleh-Bakhtiar-Zahir
).
To
this day, countless generations of Muslims growing up in non Arabic
speaking Muslim countries do not perceive what has so
straightforwardly been demonstrated above, as the sophistication of
the classical Arabic language to mask its secrets from the unwary by
something so elegant as simply a gender change in its 2nd person
pronoun. The syntactic as well as semantic limitations of any
translation language in comparison to the intrinsic richness and
succinctness of Qur'anic Arabic requires much reframing for the
target language in order to preserve both literal as well as semantic
accuracy, which, as in the case of verse 33:33, simply cannot be
maintained without additional footnotes and parenthetical
annotations. (See a detailed examination of the
translation issue in: Critique:
Laleh Bakhtiar and The Sublime Quran,
Ibid.)
These
language limitations naturally create additional motivation to seek
sources of explanation and exegeses outside of the pages of the Holy
Qur'an, called “tafsir”,
especially for those who do not speak Arabic, which is approximately
90 percent of the 1.6 to 2 billion Muslim public spread throughout
the world in many different cultures and civilizations. That fact
automatically leads to the paradox: fallible hands, fallible minds,
and fallible hearts, some clean and some unclean, some competent and
some incompetent, none of them categorically known to be among the
“Ar-Rasikhoon-fil-ilm”
(
الرَّاسِخُونَ
فِي الْعِلْمِ
)
of verse 3:7
of the Holy Qur'an, expositing the
pristine text of the Holy Qur'an according to their own perception
and socialization bias – rather than the Word of its own Author
explain itself.
At
least with respect to this verse fragment 33:33, the native Arabic
speaker has a leg-up on the non Arabic speaker. The former knows that
Ahlul Bayt is being referred to with a masculine pronoun and
therefore its composition, by definition, comprises one or more
males, and cannot comprise only females, and therefore the verse
fragment 33:33 is not necessarily referring to the wives, or even
just the wives alone. If that verse fragment was indeed referring to
only the wives, an all female group, then the feminine
form of the pronoun would have been used to refer to the Ahlul
Bayt as is done when referring to the
houses of the wives before and after that verse of purification.
But
that's also where the native Arabic speaker's advantage over the
non-speaker ends. Neither knows the actual composition of the Ahlul
Bayt beyond that prima facie information contained in that
sequence of verses 33:28-34 reproduced above, that it is a Household
of the Prophet, and comprises one or more males, and zero or more
females, and it may or may not contain the wives of the Prophet,
irrespective of the fact that the verse fragment is interspersed in
between where the Author of the Holy Qur'an is commanding the wives
of the Prophet of Islam what they are supposed to do. Whereas, in the
purification fragment of verse 33:33, the Author declares what
He Himself intends to do to the Ahlul Bayt. That change of
“actor” from the wives to the Author and back to the
wives is most conspicuous in the verse. In that interspersed switch,
the Author pledged some abstract “perfect purification”
to the Ahlul Bayt. What that “perfect purification” means
remains as foreign to the native speaker of Arabic as to the
non-speaker. It requires for both to indulge in much due diligence to
uncover.
There
are numerous other places in the Holy Qur'an where the family of the
Prophet of Islam is referenced, but with different indirection nouns,
which though not explicit, from the context of the verse itself
clearly only mean the Messenger's family, his progeny, or his kin, as
the case may be.
For
instance, the phrase فِى
ٱلْقُرْبَىٰ
,
fil-qur-ba, as in verse 42:43, which
obviously means those near of kin to the Messenger:
'Say:
“No reward do I ask of you for this except the love of
those near of kin.”' (Surah Ash-Shura
42:23)
|
قُل
لَّآ أَسْـَٔلُكُمْ
عَلَيْهِ أَجْرًا
إِلَّا ٱلْمَوَدَّةَ
فِى ٱلْقُرْبَىٰ
ۗ
|
Or
the word ٱلْكَوْثَر
,
Kausar, in verse 108:1, which the full
context of Surah Al-Kausar and the verse
following it, 108:3, make amply clear means the Messenger's
posterity, the Prophet of Islam's progeny from his
only seed, his daughter Fatima (as):
Surely
We have given you Kausar, (108:1)
Therefore
pray to your Lord and make a sacrifice. (108:2)
Surely
your enemy is the one who shall be without posterity, (Surah
Al-Kausar
108:3)
|
إِنَّآ
أَعْطَيْنَٰكَ
ٱلْكَوْثَر
فَصَلِّ
لِرَبِّكَ
وَٱنْحَرْ
إِنَّ
شَانِئَكَ
هُوَ ٱلْأَبْتَرُ
|
Caption
Surah Al-Kausar, translation by Shakir
This
is an amazing Surah of the Holy Qur'an. Because, to the enemies of
Islam, its prophecy provides an easy touchstone upon which to falsify
the Holy Qur'an and consequently the Divine claims for the religion
of Islam. But we see today, nearly fifteen centuries later, that the
Prophet of Islam's progeny is ubiquitous, known as the “Syeds”
and “Syedas”, whom all Muslims revere. The most
famous among them is the famous Aga Khan, the Hazir Imam of
the Ismaili Muslim sect whose followers revere him as per his claim
of being the direct descendant of the only seed of the Prophet of
Islam. But no trace is known of the Prophet's enemies' progeny as
vouchsafed by the Holy Qur'an. Syeds and Syedas today are found among
both the Sunni and the Shia sects and their subsects wherever Muslims
live on earth. And they are treated with general reverence by the
Muslim public across the board. Where did they spring from? Only from
the singular source: the marriage union of the daughter of the
Prophet of Islam, Hazrat Fatima (as), from his first wife Hazrat
Khadija (as), with Hazrat Ali (as).
As
we can see in Surah Al-Kausar, the Holy Qur'an once again does not
directly mention the offspring of that first Prophetic seed by name
who is to be the only source of fulfillment of the prophecy of verse
108:3. But it is also self-evident. And the offspring directly
comprises the Messenger's Ahlul Bayt,
by definition. Therefore, without any controversy or conjecture, the
prima facie fulfillment of the prophecy of
verse 108:3 is a direct reference to the Messenger's household, his
Ahlul Bayt, the only source from
whence that prophecy can ever be fulfilled. Subsequently, by logical
inference, the word “Kausar” in verse 108:1, in the
context of verse 108:3, refers to the endless abundance of the
Messenger's progeny being granted by Allah. Only when we venture into
documented history do the names of the Messenger's offspring become
known when we discover that the Messenger's only seed was his
daughter Hazrat Fatima (as), from his first wife Hazrat Khadija (as).
Arguably therefore, the word “Kausar”, in context of
verse 108:3, inter alia refers to Fatima (as), the singular member of
the Messenger's Ahlul Bayt through whom his seed was “not
cut off”, ٱلْأَبْتَرُ
,
to make the prophecy of Surah Al-Kausar
perpetually true.
Since
one person is not sufficient to continue the line of progeny, it
takes two, a husband and a wife, Hazrat Ali (as) comes into the
picture as being half the source of the abundance promised to the
Prophet of Islam. It is historically self-evident, and without any
doubt, that it was Hazrat Ali's marriage union with Hazrat Fatima
(as) that became the wassilah (means) for the fulfillment of
this Divine prophecy in Surah Al-Kausar! Hazrat Ali (as) is the
genetic grandfather of the millions of genuine Syeds and Syeddas in
existence today, and Hazrat Fatima (as) the genetic grandmother –
the never ending abundance, ٱلْكَوْثَر
,
promised by Allah to the Prophet of Islam. Without these two souls,
the Holy Qur'an Surah Al-Kausar would have been falsified!
Just
contemplating the remarkable fulfillment of this prophecy of the
pithy Surah Al-Kausar – especially for those who are aware of
Muslims' early history and the extraordinary calamities that had
befallen the family of the Prophet of Islam whereby every effort was
made by the Muslim rulers for over 200 years to wipe them out –
is sufficient to fill a Muslim mind and heart with enormous awe and
spiritual wonderment! No follower of any of the other great religions
of the world has such a unique heritage. The very existence of their
prophets is at times argued as mythical by their antagonists. No such
charge can be laid at the doorsteps of the Messenger of Islam –
the empirical evidence still continuing, fifteen centuries and some
50 or so generations later. But the effort to wipe out the progeny of
the Messenger also continues to this very day. Surah Al-Kausar is the
divine guarantee as a continuing prophecy that such effort will never
succeed. And not only will it never succeed, but that no trace shall
be left of those who persist in such enmity.
It is a perpetual testament to the veracity of the Holy Qur'an. If
anyone wishes to falsify it – there is the open challenge by
the Author of the Holy Qur'an!
These
are some of the more explicit and obvious places in the Holy Qur'an
where the Messenger's family is mentioned. If one ventures to sources
outside the pages of the Holy Qur'an, as for instance to the exegeses
of the Holy Qur'an, or to narratives of history, a few more verses
from the Holy Qur'an are identified by the scribes of history as
being about specific members of the Prophet's Household, his wives,
his companions, or the specific events involving these personages.
These specifics are not deducible or inferable directly from the Holy
Qur'an as the local context for the verses is not contained within
the pages of the Holy Qur'an. Since this article is only about what
the Holy Qur'an itself clarifies, or does not clarify, we refrain
from exiting the pages of the Holy Qur'an. And as far as this scribe
in his grossly abbreviated and wholly inadequate study has been able
to ascertain, the exact identity of the
composition of the Ahlul Bayt is Indeterminate in the Holy
Qur'an. One has to venture to the pages of history to fill
in those Indeterminates. While
some facts are empirical and remain historically incontrovertible,
such as whether or not the Prophet of Islam existed, who his daughter
was, who she married, who their children were, whom did the Messenger
marry, what battles he fought, and so on so forth, each sect
nevertheless fills the many Indeterminates
of the Holy Qur'an according to their own sect's sacred books,
dogmas, interpretations, and base misconceptions.
Often
times, both ignorance and careless reading of the Qur'anic text
itself are the primary cause for basic misconceptions. The latter,
careless reading, has been amply demonstrated in this article. The
former, ignorance of how to study the Holy Qur'an, subsequently adds
to the reinforcement of incorrect parsing. If one were to categorize
this class of misconceptions by way of nomenclature, it would rightly
be classed under Aliasing error,
meaning, proper nouns of the Holy Qur'an aliased as common nouns;
their meanings looked up in the Arabic language dictionary instead of
in the Holy Qur'an itself. We can now clearly perceive that indeed
this is what has happened in this specific instance of incorrectly
parsing the proper noun Ahlul Bayt which has led some Muslim
scholars to insist that it refers to the wives of the Messenger.
Another
example of this basic class of Aliasing
error can be found in this scribe's critique of the much
hyped English translation of the Holy Qur'an by the American woman
Laleh Bakhtiar, who, brazenly enough, has even proclaimed that she
endeavors to “bring reform to
Islam” (Ibid.)
Credits
Arabic
Qur'an recitation by Shaykh Mahmoud Khalil al-Husary, audio courtesy
of Verse By Verse Quran, acquired 8/13/2011 from
http://www.versebyversequran.com
Arabic
verses courtesy of the open source Qur'an Tanzil Project,
acquired 8/13/2011 from http://tanzil.net/download/
Most
(not all) English translation of Qur'an verses are by Yusuf Ali,
Shakir, and Pickthall, acquired 8/13/2011 from
http://tanzil.net/trans/ (archived Yusufali,
Shakir,
Pickthall).
Short URL:
http://tinyurl.com/What-Quran-Say-Ahlul-Bayt
Source
URL:
http://islam-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-does-quran-say-about-ahlul-bayt.html
First
Published March 21, 2013 12:00 pm 5816
Was
the Prophet of Islam infallible as the Messenger of God, or did he
make mistakes as any ordinary mortal?
Zahir
Ebrahim | Project
Humanbeingsfirst.org
Abstract
The
Sunni and Shia Muslims have needlessly argued since the very
inception of Islam over matters that are at times wholly Determinate
in the Holy Qur'an. Sometimes through ignorance of the Qur'anic text,
and at other times by going to the partisan scribes of history based
on their respective socialization biases, the Muslims have managed to
misapprehend the religion of Islam despite its manifest clarity on
its fundamental precepts. Whether or not
the Prophet of Islam was inerrant, or did he make mistakes, is the
most fundamental question concerning Islam for those who believe in
it as a revealed religion of Divine origin. The entire edifice of the
religion of Islam rests on the status and stature of the Prophet of
Islam. Without the Prophet, there is no Islam, there is no Holy
Qur'an, and therefore no religion. Likewise, without belief in the
Messenger as inerrant, how can one believe that the Message claimed
by the Prophet to be a Revelation from God
is error free? As on the question previously examined
in this series, What does the Holy Qur'an say about Ahlul Bayt, on
this issue too, the Muslims have split exactly along partisan and
sectarian lines. This report examines what the Holy Qur'an itself
states with utmost clarity on this subject. At least on this pivotal
question, the Muslims, those who believe in Islam as a revealed
religion, should be self-consistent and acquire a common
understanding based on their singular scripture that is claimed by
both the major sects to be error-free; but idiotically enough, they
are not. This report highlights that absurdity and shows the degree
of influence of socialization bias on the spiritual mind.
This
scribe shall dare to be different compared to all others. Instead of
offering his own high-falutin learned discourse, he shall permit the
Holy Qur'an to speak in its own exposition to establish a
self-consistent criterion for addressing the question posed in the
title of this article. After all, this
blessed month of Ramadan is the birthday of the Holy Qur'an:
Ramadhan
is the (month) in which was sent down the Qur'an, as a
guide to mankind, also
clear (Signs) for guidance and judgment (Between right and
wrong). (Surah Al-Baqara verse fragment 2:185)
|
شَهْرُ
رَمَضَانَ
ٱلَّذِىٓ أُنزِلَ
فِيهِ ٱلْقُرْءَانُ
هُدًى لِّلنَّاسِ
وَبَيِّنَٰتٍ
مِّنَ ٱلْهُدَىٰ
وَٱلْفُرْقَانِ
ۚ
|
Caption
Ramadan, Birthday of the Holy Qur'an. What birthday gift can be given
to it by man?
And
as is customary on birthdays for the living, the Good Book too
deserves a birthday present: its believers rising beyond the mindless
recitation enjoyed in this holy month of fasting in expectation of
lofty rewards after death, attempting to rationally comprehend
its Message for reaping useful rewards right here in this life.
Perhaps this one blessed Ramadan, as its birthday gift, the Book for
the dead can become the Book for the living in the public mind.
The
Holy Qur'an establishes the Principle of Inerrancy
for its own Messenger very clearly and most emphatically in at least
two Surahs:
I
swear by the star when it goes down. (53:1)
|
وَٱلنَّجْمِ
إِذَا هَوَىٰ
|
Your
companion does not err, nor does he go astray; (53:2)
|
مَا
ضَلَّ صَاحِبُكُمْ
وَمَا غَوَىٰ
|
Nor
does he speak out of desire. (53:3)
|
وَمَا
يَنطِقُ عَنِ
ٱلْهَوَىٰٓ
|
It
is naught but revelation that is revealed, (53:4)
|
إِنْ
هُوَ إِلَّا
وَحْىٌ يُوحَىٰ
|
The
Lord of Mighty Power has taught him, (Holy Qur'an, Surah
An-Najm 53:5)
|
عَلَّمَهُۥ
شَدِيدُ ٱلْقُوَىٰ
|
Verily
this is the word of a most honourable Messenger, (81:19)
|
إِنَّهُۥ
لَقَوْلُ رَسُولٍ
كَرِيمٍ
|
Endued
with Power, with rank before the Lord of the Throne, (81:20)
|
ذِى
قُوَّةٍ عِندَ
ذِى ٱلْعَرْشِ
مَكِينٍ
|
With
authority there, (and) faithful to his trust. (81:21)
|
مُّطَاعٍ
ثَمَّ أَمِينٍ
|
And
(O people!) your companion is not one possessed; (81:22)
|
وَمَا
صَاحِبُكُم
بِمَجْنُونٍ
|
And
without doubt he saw him in the clear horizon. (81:23)
|
وَلَقَدْ
رَءَاهُ بِٱلْأُفُقِ
ٱلْمُبِينِ
|
Neither
doth he withhold grudgingly a knowledge of the Unseen. (81:24)
|
وَمَا
هُوَ عَلَى
ٱلْغَيْبِ
بِضَنِينٍ
|
Nor
is it the word of an evil spirit accursed. (81:25)
|
وَمَا
هُوَ بِقَوْلِ
شَيْطَٰنٍ
رَّجِيمٍ
|
When
whither go ye? (81:26)
|
فَأَيْنَ
تَذْهَبُونَ
|
Verily
this is no less than a Message to (all) the Worlds: (81:27)
|
إِنْ
هُوَ إِلَّا
ذِكْرٌ لِّلْعَٰلَمِينَ
|
(With
profit) to whoever among you wills to go straight: (81:28)
|
لِمَن
شَآءَ مِنكُمْ
أَن يَسْتَقِيمَ
|
But
ye shall not will except as Allah wills,- the Cherisher of the
Worlds. (Holy Qur'an Surah
At-Takwir (81:29)
|
وَمَا
تَشَآءُونَ
إِلَّآ أَن
يَشَآءَ ٱللَّهُ
رَبُّ ٱلْعَٰلَمِينَ
|
Caption
The Holy Qur'an establishes the Principle of Inerrancy very clearly
and most categorically for the Prophet of Islam in at least two
notable places in two Surahs. Surah An-Najm verses 53:1-5
unequivocally declaring the Prophet of Islam inerrant,
infallible, and whose speech is naught but revelation that is
revealed! And Surah At-Takwir verses 81:19-29 which similarly
corrects the misconception among the companions of the Prophet about
the utterances of the Messenger of Islam, unequivocally declaring
that the Prophet is invested with special power and rank by Allah,
that his speech are the words of a most honorable Messenger, and that
his words are a Message to (all) the Worlds, to benefit from if they
so choose to do so. Click on verse number to hear its Arabic
recitation in the incomparable voice of the well-known qaari Shaykh
Mahmoud Khalil al-Husary.
The
concept of inerrancy is most clearly, most emphatically, and most
unambiguously, asserted in Surah An-Najm verses 53:1-5, and Surah
At-Takwir verses 81:19-29 (both quoted above). These are very clearly
Determinate verses of
the Holy Qur'an. These are self-sufficient, clear, and without
indirections, allegories, metaphors, and hidden meanings. From the
Qur'anic terminology specified in verse 3:7 of Surah Aal-'Imran,
these are the آيَاتٌ
مُحْكَمَاتٌ
,
the foundational and categorical verses, the heart of the Holy
Qur'an, the أُمُّ
الْكِتَابِ
,
and not the مُتَشَابِهَاتٌ
,
the allegorical and metaphorical verses with hidden meanings. See
this scribe's book,
pg. 120, for the definition of the nomenclature Determinate
and Indeterminate for
categorizing the semantics of the verses of the Holy Qur'an.
Surah
An-Najm verses 53:1-5 clearly preempt the questions: How is the
Messenger communicating the Author's Word unerringly to the people;
How is the Messenger being an unerring Exemplar of the Holy Qur'an;
How can the Messenger's companions know when to believe and obey the
Messenger and when to follow their own opinion on any matter?
Firstly,
verse 33:36 of Surah
Al-Ahzaab has already made it explicitly clear that the
Messenger's decisions have to be abided by at all times. That his
words are not subject to discussion, debate, argumentation, or
questioning, specifically for those who are believers in the religion
of Islam. That if any believer disobeys the
Messenger, they are “on a clearly wrong Path”:
“It
is not fitting for a Believer, man or woman,
when a matter has been decided by Allah and His Messenger to have
any option about their decision: if any one disobeys
Allah and His Messenger, he is indeed on a clearly wrong Path.”
(Surah Al-Ahzaab, 33:36
)
|
وَمَا
كَانَ لِمُؤْمِنٍ
وَلَا مُؤْمِنَةٍ
إِذَا قَضَى
ٱللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُۥٓ
أَمْرًا أَن
يَكُونَ لَهُمُ
ٱلْخِيَرَةُ
مِنْ أَمْرِهِمْ
ۗ وَمَن يَعْصِ
ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥ
فَقَدْ ضَلَّ
ضَلَٰلًا
مُّبِينًا
|
Caption
Verse 33:36 Surah Al-Ahzaab, the
most shocking admonition to the companions, believing man and woman,
of the Messenger! Why is this admonition even present in the Holy
Qur'an – unless there was a need for it in some circumstance?
That
explicit admonition in verse 33:36 to the companions of the Messenger
(quoted above), and its blanket authority for obedience explicitly
vested in the Messenger by the Author of the Holy Qur'an, is
remarkable. The Author, directly addressing the believing Muslim
contemporaries of the Messenger in that verse, and not the
unbelievers or the hypocrites, unequivocally and explicitly calls
those Believing man and Believing
woman who dispute and disobey the decisions of the Messenger on any
matter, as being “on a clearly wrong Path”! It
leaves no room for discretion and individual opinion or
decision-making on any matter upon which the Prophet of Islam has
spoken!
Secondly,
verses 53:1-5 categorically put to bed the capricious speculation
that the Messenger is only inerrant in some
speech (and acts) and not in others, and therefore people may follow
their own opinions and discretion in the
latter case. The statement is succinctly categorical: “Your
companion does not err, nor does he go astray; Nor does he speak out
of desire. It is naught but revelation that is revealed,”.
If
that absurd proposition were true, it would create a logical
conundrum: How could the Messenger's companions ever know when is the
Messenger errant and when is he inerrant? They'd obviously have to
rely on the Messenger's own word to even know that in the first place
– since there is no third party to adjudicate! But if the
Messenger is capable of making an error, he is also capable of making
an error in that determination as well.
If
the Messenger is not inerrant in every
single matter, every single act, every single speech, every single
thought, then even one errancy is sufficient to put his entire
Messengership in doubt – due to transmission error for
instance. If not infallible, the Messenger
could have made an error in a hundred thousand different ways that
would remain undetectable by the people and they would be misled by
the Messenger masquerading his own fallible opinion for the Author's
infallible Word. The Messenger's own word differentiating what is the
Author's Words vs. his own word could itself be in error if the
Messenger is ever capable of even a single
error. It opens the Pandora's box: Is the
Holy Qur'an error-free from transmission errors of the Author's
Message? For a Muslim who believes in the Holy Qur'an as the word of
God delivered by the Messenger, how can he ever be sure that the
medium, the Messenger, did not make an error delivering the Message
and explaining it to the people?
One
must not forget that it is the Messenger who is ab initio introducing
the Holy Qur'an, and not vice versa. It is the belief of the peoples
in the Messenger's truthfulness upon which the Holy Qur'an itself is
predicated. Unless the Messenger of
the Holy Qur'an is infallible, it puts the words uttered by the
Prophet, who alone designated that the specified words belonged to
the Author of the Holy Qur'an and not to himself, into jeopardy.
If
there is no belief in the Prophet, there is no belief in the Holy
Qur'an! Once that belief is established, only then the Holy Qur'an
has any meaning. And only at that point does the Author of the Holy
Qur'an avers, putting no caveat to His Declaration of the Prophet's
infallibility, and making His Proclamation blanket, unequivocal,
universal, affirming not just the Prophet's Messengership of having
accurately delivered the Author's Message (Surah Al-Maeda 5:3), but
also the Prophet's Exemplarship of having accurately explained the
Message to his companions by way of a living example and for which
complete obedience to him was mandated so that the Author's Message
would not get distorted or questioned (verse 33:36 quoted above).
Surah Al-Maeda 5:3 asserted that the Prophet did his job to
“perfection”, without error:
“This
day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favour
upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion.”
(Surah Al-Maeda verse fragment 5:3)
|
الْيَوْمَ
أَكْمَلْتُ
لَكُمْ دِينَكُمْ
وَأَتْمَمْتُ
عَلَيْكُمْ
نِعْمَتِي
وَرَضِيتُ
لَكُمُ الْإِسْلَامَ
دِينًا ۚ
|
Caption
Surah Al-Maeda verse fragment 5:3
asserting that the Prophet of Islam “completed” his
mission as Messenger and Exemplar to “perfection” as
assigned to him by the Author of the Holy Qur'an!
And
on that basis of inerrancy alone is full obedience delegated to the
Prophet of Islam at the same precedence level as
the Author demanded for Himself:
“O
ye who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger, and those
charged with authority among you.
If
ye differ in anything among yourselves, refer it to Allah and His
Messenger, if ye do believe in Allah and the Last Day: That is
best, and most suitable for final determination.” (Surah
an-Nisaa' 4:59)
|
يَا
أَيُّهَا
الَّذِينَ
آمَنُوا أَطِيعُوا
اللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُوا
الرَّسُولَ
وَأُولِي
الْأَمْرِ
مِنْكُمْ ۖ
فَإِنْ
تَنَازَعْتُمْ
فِي شَيْءٍ
فَرُدُّوهُ
إِلَى اللَّهِ
وَالرَّسُولِ
إِنْ كُنْتُمْ
تُؤْمِنُونَ
بِاللَّهِ
وَالْيَوْمِ
الْآخِرِ ۚ
ذَٰلِكَ خَيْرٌ
وَأَحْسَنُ
تَأْوِيلًا
|
Caption
Verse 4:59 of Surah
an-Nisaa', Verse
of Obedience,
demanding obedience to the Prophet of Islam at the same precedence
level as the Author of the Holy Qur'an!
The
logic implicit in the Verse of Obedience, verse 4:59, is
elegantly simple. Its “AND” conjunction,
وَ
,
to join the three entities to whom obedience is demanded, is at best
a sixth grade grammar composition question. The verse is that
straightforward in its syntactical parsing. All three in that Verse
of Obedience must always agree in order for the verse to not be
falsified! The logic itself is straightforward. If the Prophet can
make an error, then his will can differ from the Will of the Author
of the Holy Qur'an. The Verse of Obedience asserts that that
outcome is impossible, by making obedience to the Prophet of Islam
akin, at the same precedence level, to obedience to the Author of the
Holy Qur'an. The two cannot disagree or there will be a conflict as
both must be obeyed; and if they ever disagree then there is no
divine religion as God and His Messenger can't even agree on the
Message! The same logical reasoning extends to the third entity in
verse 4:59, the “ulul-amar”, who derive its authority
from the authority of the Messenger due to the way the verse is
grammatically structured. The command “obey” is not
repeated again for the “ulul-amar”, but the clause is
concatenated with the previous “obey” of the Messenger
with the “AND” conjunction. If the will of “ulul-amar”
ever differs from that of the Messenger, there is again a conflict as
both are commanded to be obeyed. As per the semantics of the verse
4:59 implied from its straightforward syntax, the latter two cannot
disagree with the Will of the Author of the Holy Qur'an and therefore
the Messenger and the “ulul-amar” must also always agree.
Thus
it follows that if the Author of the Holy Qur'an is Error-Free, there
is no “Oops!” for Him, then so must His Messenger and
“ulul-amar” be just as free from their own “oops”;
they must not be touched by any “rijis” and always
reflect the Will of the Author of the Holy Qur'an in both letter and
spirit throughout their respective mission!
That
semantic property of the Messenger having his own will exactly
reflect the Will of the Author of the Holy Qur'an implicit in the
syntactical composition of verse 4:59, is explicitly confirmed in
Surah An-Najm verses 53:1-5, and Surah At-Takwir verses 81:19-29, by
the Author of the Holy Qur'an! This is complete closure. If the
reader is still unable to grammatically parse an “AND”
conjunctive clause in a sentence in any language correctly, he or she
better return to sixth grade – for that is the level of reading
skills necessary to parse the syntax of the Verse of
Obedience.
It
is only after the trust in the Messenger's veracity and truthfulness
is established among his contemporaries, that the people are invited
to come to the Holy Qur'an. It is only at that point, after the
Messenger has already established his veracity among the peoples,
that the Holy Qur'an subsequently confirms, through the speech of the
Messenger itself and not via some other independent source, that the
Messenger does not even err, always exactly reflecting the Will of
the Author of the Holy Qur'an. To not err in his role as the
Messenger to mankind means that the Messenger is infallible! The
Author of the Holy Qur'an, speaking through the mouth of the
Messenger, explicitly confirms and extends the people's earlier
adjudication of Muhammad's integrity, by first swearing some
unexplainable oath: “I swear by the star when it goes down.”
( وَٱلنَّجْمِ
إِذَا هَوَىٰ
),
and then categorically confirming to the Messenger's contemporaries:
“Your companion does not err, nor does he go astray; Nor
does he speak out of desire. It is naught but revelation that is
revealed”!
Despite
that most clear precept of Islam concerning its noble Messenger
explained in the wholly Determinate verses of the Holy Qur'an,
the early scribes of history imputed errancy to the Prophet of Islam.
They used the verse of the Holy Qur'an which referred to the Prophet
of Islam as “man”, out of context to dignify their
villainy. They employed the logic that if the Prophet was merely a
“man”, he was just like other men – willfully
ignoring explicit statements in the same Good Book as reproduced
above which lend an accurate picture of the status of this most
special man who was categorically affirmed to not be “god”.
But one who is unlike any other man: “Endued with Power,
with rank before the Lord of the Throne,”, whose speech is
no ordinary speech: “Verily this is no less than a Message
to (all) the Worlds.”, and to whom obedience:
أَطِيعُوا
الرَّسُولَ
,
is as compulsory for believers in Islam as obedience to God:
أَطِيعُوا
اللَّهَ .
While it is understandable for non-believers in Islam to not buy into
that immaculate precept of Islam for its Messenger, nor into what the
non-believers see as circular reasoning of the Prophet and the Holy
Qur'an incestuously vouching for each other though the same “mouth”.
But it is unpardonable that this travesty has been parroted by other
Muslim scholars and believers down the ages without reflection. And
it is among the most idiotic of differences between the two major
sects of Islam, the majority Sunni who subscribe to it, and the
minority Shia who vehemently argue precisely the opposite.
The
presentation in this article cleanly separates the chaff from the
wheat and it can surely stand in any fair court of law if such an
argument is presented before it for adjudication. Since this
presentation goes against the ingrained ethos of the Sunnis, they
will surely oppose it. And since it favors the Shia understanding,
suddenly this plebeian will be anointed their “scholar”.
But not for long, as should become obvious to anyone scrutinizing
this scribe's aforementioned book where the asininity in the
socialized ethos of both these fraternal twins has been unmasked with
equal candor. The precision of a surgeon's scalpel is used not for
cutting the jugular, but to increase blood flow to the left-half
brain of the nearly comatose patients living in pious denial.
Unfortunately, this battle for self-consistent understanding is
virtually against human nature. Especially when one is invested
spiritually in dogmas from birth which become instinctual and almost
second nature. Socialization fosters a tendency in the public mind
for both quick rejection and quick acceptance of evidence. A
psychological fact which is aptly captured by atheist philosopher
Bertrand Russell in these incisive words:
“What
a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index to
his desires – desires of which he himself is often
unconscious.
If
a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts [or
worldview], he will scrutinize it closely, and unless [and at
times even when] the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to
believe it.
If,
on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason
for acting in accordance with his instincts [or worldview], he
will accept it even on the slenderest evidence.” ---
Bertrand Russell, Proposed Roads to Freedom, 1919, pg 147
|
Caption
Bertrand Russell on the feebleness and susceptibility of the public
mind. Are you exempt?
The
most shocking example of this sorry fact of imputing errancy to the
Prophet of Islam by believers in Islam in brazen contradiction to the
most categorical statements in the Holy Qur'an, is demonstrated by
some translators and exegeses writers of verses 80:1-12 of Surah
Abasa, including the most respectable modern English translator of
the Holy Qur'an, Abdullah Yusuf Ali.
While
no explicit reference to the Prophet of Islam is made in these verses
of Surah Abasa quoted below, and indeed in the entire Surah, some
Sunni translators drawing upon the earliest existent tafsirs
(exegeses) dating back to the Abbasside dynastic empire, have added
the word (Prophet) in parenthesis to indicate their opinion that it
is the Prophet of Islam who is being chastised by Allah for the
mistake of turning away from the blind man. Other translators have
wisely avoided this gratuitous pitfall, including Pickthall and
Shakir, who accurately use the masculine pronoun “He” as
specified in the verse:
(The
Prophet) frowned and turned away, 80:1
|
عَبَسَ
وَتَوَلَّىٰ
|
Because
there came to him the blind man (interrupting). 80:2
|
أَنْ
جَاءَهُ الْأَعْمَىٰ
|
But
what could tell thee but that perchance he might grow (in
spiritual understanding)?- 80:3
|
وَمَا
يُدْرِيكَ
لَعَلَّهُ
يَزَّكَّىٰ
|
Or
that he might receive admonition, and the teaching might profit
him? 80:4
|
أَوْ
يَذَّكَّرُ
فَتَنْفَعَهُ
الذِّكْرَىٰ
|
As
to one who regards Himself as self-sufficient, 80:5
|
أَمَّا
مَنِ اسْتَغْنَىٰ
|
To
him dost thou attend; 80:6
|
فَأَنْتَ
لَهُ تَصَدَّىٰ
|
Though
it is no blame to thee if he grow not (in spiritual
understanding). 80:7
|
وَمَا
عَلَيْكَ أَلَّا
يَزَّكَّىٰ
|
But
as to him who came to thee striving earnestly, 80:8
|
وَأَمَّا
مَنْ جَاءَكَ
يَسْعَىٰ
|
And
with fear (in his heart), 80:9
|
وَهُوَ
يَخْشَىٰ
|
Of
him wast thou unmindful. 80:10
|
فَأَنْتَ
عَنْهُ تَلَهَّىٰ
|
By
no means (should it be so)! For it is indeed a Message of
instruction: 80:11
|
كَلَّا
إِنَّهَا
تَذْكِرَةٌ
|
Therefore
let whoso will, keep it in remembrance. 80:12
(Surah Abasa 80:1-12, translation by Yusufali) |
فَمَنْ
شَاءَ ذَكَرَهُ
|
Caption
Verses 80:1-12 of Surah Abasa, Yusuf Ali's translation. The verses in
Arabic make no explicit reference to the Prophet of Islam. Verse 80:1
uses a pronoun, and the subsequent verses rapidly switch pronouns so
that without its local context, it is impossible to know which
persons are being referenced! These are Indeterminate verses –
ripe for cognitive infiltration by the vulgar scribes of history
either shilling for empire, or socialized into their own narrow
dogmas, but in either case, wittingly or unwittingly, misleading
generations of Muslims downstream! Source:
http://tanzil.net/download/
The
un-stated motivation of the early scribes and exegeses writers being
to argue that the Prophet made mistakes and therefore was not
inerrant, and therefore anyone could succeed the Prophet of Islam as
the temporal ruler of the nascent but rapidly expanding Muslim empire
after the Prophet's demise. That wicked legacy has been blindly
mimicked by subsequent scholars without reflection upon what the Holy
Qur'an is itself stating most plainly on that subject of inerrancy!
This is shocking mistreatment of the Prophet of Islam by Muslim
scribes shilling for the ruling interests who had become caliphs and
rulers by making recourse to the “ulul-amar” clause of
verse 4:59 despite the most clear exposition of the Principle of
Inerrancy being the co-requisite for succeeding the Prophet of Islam.
This is examined in great depth in this scribe's book. To patronize
the Muslim rulers, the House Nigger Muslim pulpit evidently
had no compunction even belittling their own noble Prophet!
How
much more explicit should the verses of the Holy Qur'an be on this
wholly Determinate question?
But
no – the socialized mobs, the reverent Muslims throughout the
past fourteen and half centuries of Islam, both laity and gentry,
pope and sheep, rather go by what is written by the hand of man in
their socialized cultural memory than by the Author of the Holy
Qur'an whom they proclaim and believe to be their Inerrant Creator!
The Creator is falsified, His Messenger maligned, but not the
socialized dogma in which the spiritual mind is anchored from birth.
This
unpardonable mistreatment concerning the stature of the Prophet of
Islam has now become the permanent ethos of the majority Sunni sect
and remains a point of major contention with the minority Shia sect.
Each pulpit casts aspersions about the asininity of the other,
seeking out every crack and lacuna it can harvest to marginalize its
fraternal twin. While it makes little difference to the daily grind
of the laity's existence on earth today whether or not their Prophet
of Islam was inerrant, the fact that the question enables harvesting
of cracks and fault-lines among Muslims to build empires and
police-states makes it an important question to put to bed once and
for all!
Tyranny
is easily inflicted upon Muslims by making recourse to theological
arguments such as the one falsely extracted from the Verse of
Obedience, verse 4:59: “O ye who believe! Obey Allah,
and obey the Messenger, and those charged with authority among you.”
Anyone who can acquire political power claims to be the “ulul-amar”
of verse 4:59, “those charged with authority among you”,
with a pious face and demands obedience! It is not just the sins of
antiquity. Look in modernity today – we have from the Royal
Saud family ruling the birthplace of Islam with Jewish jackboots, to
the police-state in the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan, to the vilayat-i
faqih in Iran who also piously stretch the Indeterminates
of the Holy Qur'an combining their interpretation with Plato's
“philosopher-king” most imaginatively; in every case
installed by the good graces of Western powers, some to play friends,
others to play perpetual “enemy”. We also have various
modern exponents of “return to caliphate” relishing in
the prospect of enjoying absolute obedience from the Muslim masses,
principal among them being the new House Nigger of empire who
has been artfully groomed for that special purpose of seeding
“revolutionary times” among Muslims, the Barelvi Sunni
Muslim pope du jour, Tahir ul Qadri. See Zahir Ebrahim's open
challenge to this Western anointed pope: Response
to the Fatwa on Terrorism in the Service of Empire
(http://tinyurl.com/Tahir-ul-Qadri-Fatwa-Terrorism).
The
same abstract arguments which are of little concern to the common man
easily become the primemover for extracting servitude from him.
Overturning this significant force majeure for subversion is
the raison d'être of this article and the scribe's book
upon which it is based. Opposition to it is expected from all
quarters of power, and from socialized fools and useful idiots
occupying the pulpit. Suicide bombers surely can't be that far
behind.
When
Determinates of the Holy Qur'an are so easy to subvert, by
idiocy or by narrow self-interests, what of the Indeterminates
of the Holy Qur'an which deliberately leave the door wide open for
both socialized interpretation and narrow self-interests!
Speak
of Western hectoring hegemons hijacking Islam for imperial
mobilization! Pious Muslims beat that subversion to the punch by
a long shot.
Happy
Birthday Holy Qur'an.
Credits
Arabic
Qur'an recitation by Shaykh Mahmoud Khalil al-Husary, audio courtesy
of Verse By Verse Quran, acquired 8/13/2011 from
http://www.versebyversequran.com
Arabic
verses courtesy of the open source Qur'an Tanzil Project,
acquired 8/13/2011 from http://tanzil.net/download/
Most
(not all) English translation of Qur'an verses are by Yusuf Ali,
Shakir, and Pickthall, acquired 8/13/2011 from
http://tanzil.net/trans/ (archived Yusufali,
Shakir,
Pickthall).
Source
URL:
http://islam-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2013/08/what-does-quran-say-about-inerrancy.html
First
Published Thursday, August 1, 2013 12:00 am, 22nd Ramadan in
Pakistan, Muslim year 1434, 4781
Does
the religion of Islam condone Interpreter of Faith?
Zahir
Ebrahim | Project
Humanbeingsfirst.org
Islamabad,
Pakistan
Thursday,
August 08, 2013, 29th of Ramadan, Muslim year 1434 A.H.
Abstract
The
protocol for the Guidance System of Islam as specified in its
singular scripture the Holy Qur'an requires obeying and following the
inerrant Messenger and “ulul-amar” appointed by the
Author of the Holy Qur'an as the divinely ordained Interpreter of
Faith for those who choose Islam as their religion, as per its
categorical declaration in verse 4:59. But does the Holy Qur'an also
advocate following others, including scholars, doctors, lawyers,
jurists, sufis, saints, imams, pirs, malangs, sadhus, mullahs,
muftis, sheikhs, ayatollahs, caliphs, princes, kings, presidents, and
any other pretender to the position of Interpreter of Faith in the
religion of Islam? Non-Muslims and atheists are invited to join in as
tourists in another peoples' scripture. This will be an educational
ride for those so called secular humanists interested in
understanding social engineering and how consent is engineered in the
name of God by the superman using the socialized idiocy of the popes
and plebes alike. One does not have to believe in the Holy Qur'an in
order to understand its Message – like when reading
Shakespeare, who cares who is the real author behind that nom de
plume when one studies or performs The Merchant of Venice and
Macbeth? – and that is the hook for non-Muslims fed-up with
learning about Islam from the Machiavellian pens of Western
propagandists like Bernard Lewis, and from the antediluvian nibs (old
fashioned writing instrument) of the pious parrots of Islam.
On
this last night of the month of Ramadan in the Muslim calendar
year 1434 A.H., it is only befitting to conclude this auspicious
birthday month of the Holy Qur'an:
Ramadhan
is the (month) in which was sent down the Qur'an, as a
guide to mankind, also
clear (Signs) for guidance and judgment (Between right and
wrong). (Surah Al-Baqara verse fragment 2:185)
|
شَهْرُ
رَمَضَانَ
ٱلَّذِىٓ أُنزِلَ
فِيهِ ٱلْقُرْءَانُ
هُدًى لِّلنَّاسِ
وَبَيِّنَٰتٍ
مِّنَ ٱلْهُدَىٰ
وَٱلْفُرْقَانِ
ۚ
|
Caption
Ramadan, birthday month of the Holy Qur'an. What birthday gift can be
given to it by man?
by
continuing with the presentation of a weighty birthday gift to the
Holy Qur'an that was initiated in the previous episode of 22nd
Ramadan, 1434 A.H., What
does the Holy Qur'an say about Inerrancy of Prophet Muhammad?
(http://tinyurl.com/what-quran-say-about-inerrancy).
Meaning,
instead of the mindless recitations of the Holy Qur'an enjoyed in
this holy month of fasting by the two billion Muslims worldwide in
expectations of lofty personal gains after death, endeavoring to
rationally comprehend the Divine Message
for reaping useful rewards right here for the living.
Indeed,
instead of the selfish preoccupation with personal prayers and ritual
piety seeking to only spiritually benefit
our own selves individually in anticipation
of the lovely maidens and fragrant gardens of Heaven, to learn
the necessary Guidance from the Book of Guidance in order to
extricate ourselves collectively from the regressive and repressive
societies that have come to be built up in the pious name of Islam.
Perhaps
this one blessed Ramadan, as its birthday gift, the Book which for
fourteen hundred years has mainly been used by the laity for
benefiting the dead, and by the popes and patricians alike to build
world empires, can become the Book for benefiting the living –
to live a life which is not at a loss as per its own Teaching in
Surah Al-Asr (see this scribe's article: The
Noble Path: Denying to Caesar what is not Caesar’s).
Even if only a handful among the two billions pious Muslims on earth
would feel this way – and endeavor
to make this one life in which they do exist a heaven right here on
earth instead of the majority's preoccupation with Islam's promised
future Heaven and Hell of the Afterlife –
it would surely be a sufficient primemover for global transformation
to a life less hellish for all the world's peoples.
Like
the inducement role played by the sweet lollipop and the ferocious
cat in a mother's goading of her small children into respectively
drinking their milk and not playing outside after dark, naturally
diminishes as the child grows up into a college student and chooses
his days and nights without the fear of the fabricated cat eating him
and the lure of the sweet tooth enticing him, the abodes of Afterlife
too hold little inducement for the adult mind that finally grows up.
For the empathetic mind that is under the firm control of the heart,
one like Solon's (considered by Plutarch to
be among the ten greatest law givers of the Classical Hellenic
civilization), to pursue truth and justice
is its own merit, and to not create hell on earth for others is its
own virtue. Personal piety to the Deity is
not an end in itself, but the means to an end in a religion which
specifically chose to call itself “Deen ul Haq” –
the religion of Truth and Justice.
What
has unfortunately transpired instead, and this is plainly visible in
the month of Ramadan with the Mussalman's
obsession with Heaven while hell on earth engulfs mankind all
around, the lofty Divine Guidance System has been transformed into
the opiate of the people. The Avenue mainly of self-catharsis –
to make oneself ready for another eleven months of heady
living.
Thus,
continuing with the presentation of a
weighty birthday gift to the Holy Qur'an in this most auspicious of
months for Muslims, the singular scripture of the religion of Islam
is permitted to speak once again in its own exposition to disabuse
the obfuscation surrounding the question
posed in the byline of this article.
After
all, instead of using the pious tongues and virtuous pen of all the
learned men and women in creation, when a sacred scripture which
alone among all the existent sacred scriptures of
world religions so boldly proclaimed itself the Criterion,
Al-Furqaan, هُدًى
لِّلنَّاسِ
وَبَيِّنَٰتٍ
مِّنَ ٱلْهُدَىٰ
وَٱلْفُرْقَانِ
,
“a guide to mankind, also clear (Signs) for guidance and
judgment (Between right and wrong)” (Surah Al-Baqara
2:185 quoted above), why not permit that Criterion from the
Creator of all creation to explain and adjudicate matters pertinent
to its own Guidance System? And we sensibly do just that.
Revealingly,
even when we attempt to understand and accurately extract lessons
directly from the Holy Qur'an without relying on “cliff notes”
and the pious opinions of man and therefore endeavor to be among the
“ulul-albab”,
أُولُو
الْأَلْبَابِ
,
mentioned in the Good Book (see for instance Surah Aal-'Imran
3:7,
and Surah Az-Zumar
39:9)
– the men and women of understanding who rise beyond being
misled by the fertile imagination and pious pen of man – the
lazy and indoctrinated mind living off of the same pen of man in
socialized books of pious narratives, does not cease in its
nonsensical intransigence: “you are bringing
lessons from the Qur'an, anyone can extract anything they want from
the Holy Qur'an, the Ahle-Quran (a Muslim sect that focusses mainly
on the Holy Qur'an) do that you know”!
This
article is intended to tear-down, or at least
challenge, some precepts which have crept into the religion of
Islam and which are not supported at their very root, even by a
stretch, in the Holy Qur'an, the singular scripture of the religion
of Islam. The aforementioned statement will surely be the first
response of those whose pulpits get shaken;
noted here only in anticipation of course. One never knows when the
hounds of persecution will be let loose by who, and set upon whom;
mere intellectual discourse is only for a civilized people who have
developed an enduring culture of deep learning and intellectual
interlocution. Something that has been most
diabolically removed from virtually all Muslim societies on earth
today. This presentation is not a work of piety or spiritualism. It
is a work of intellectual labor. The
analysis in this article is presented to hold up in a fair court of
law if such a case is brought before it for clear adjudication of
what the Good Book itself avers in its foundational and categorical
verses by its own yardstick.
The
gauntlet is boldly thrown to the Muslim pulpits, not by this scribe,
but by the Holy Qur'an itself.
What
this scribe adds is what Socrates might have stated in his own
defence in his trial for “corrupting” the people of
Athens with all his truth-telling (employing the words of the
littérateur Edith Hamilton):
‘Agree
with me if I seem to you to speak the truth; or, if not, withstand me
might and main that I may not deceive you as well as myself in my
desire, and like the bee leave my sting in you before I die. And now
let us proceed.’
In
order to deeply scrutinize the question posed in the byline, one must
first comprehend how divine instruction, divine guidance, is imparted
in the Guidance System of the Holy Qur'an which Muslims believe to be
of Divine origin. Non-Muslims and atheists who do not subscribe to
this view are invited to join in as tourists in another peoples'
scripture. This will be an educational ride for those interested in
understanding social engineering and how consent is engineered in the
name of God. One does not have to believe in the Holy Qur'an in order
to understand its Message – like when reading Shakespeare, who
cares who is the real author behind that nom de plume when one
studies or performs The Merchant of Venice and Macbeth?
– and that is the hook for non-Muslims fed-up with learning
about Islam from the pens of Western propagandists like Bernard
Lewis, and from the antediluvian nibs (old fashioned writing
instrument) of the pious parrots of Islam.
The
rest of the presentation is structured in two parts. Part-I explains
the Overarching Architecture of the Guidance System System of Islam
as succinctly as possible without
compromising completeness. Part-II takes on the main topic of this
article.
The
Divine Guidance System is Built on Following the Wasilah
The
most commonly recited Surah of the Holy Qur'an is Surah al-Fatiha. It
is recited in the daily ritual prayers several times, on births and
deaths, for expressing gratitude, and generally to bless both happy
and solemn occasions. It is an all purpose “dua”,
prayer, taught by the Creator to man – in the Divine
Guidance System of the religion
of Islam. Surah al-Fatiha opens the dialog of Islam for those who
seek Divine Guidance
from the Creator, on how to seek it, and principally offers this
guidance:
“Show
us the straight path,” (1:6)
|
ٱهْدِنَا
ٱلصِّرَٰطَ
ٱلْمُسْتَقِيمَ
|
“The
path of those whom Thou hast favoured;”
|
صِرَٰطَ
ٱلَّذِينَ
أَنْعَمْتَ
عَلَيْهِمْ
|
“Not
the (path) of those who earn Thine anger”
|
غَيْرِ
ٱلْمَغْضُوبِ
عَلَيْهِمْ
|
وَلَا
ٱلضَّآلِّينَ
|
Caption
Surah Al-Fatiha, 1:6-7, Verses Defining the Overarching Architecture
of the Divine Guidance System of Islam. Translation by Pickthall.
According
to the prima facie prescription of the religion of Islam in its most
oft recited Surah without which no ritual prayer is complete, the
journey on the “straight path” of the Divine
Guidance System can only be undertaken by seeking out the path of
some unnamed persons whom God has favored; and avoiding the paths of
some other unnamed persons who are clearly on the wrong path.
This
journey to discover the “straight path” by first
discovering the unnamed persons whom God has favored, is further
underscored as the only means of finding the “straight
path”:
“O
ye who believe! Do your duty to Allah, seek the means of approach
unto Him,” Holy Qur’an, Surah Al-Maeda 5:35
|
يَا
أَيُّهَا
الَّذِينَ
آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا
اللَّهَ وَابْتَغُوا
إِلَيْهِ
الْوَسِيلَةَ
|
Caption
Holy Qur’an, Surah Al-Maeda 5:35, Verse of Wasilah,
unequivocally putting to bed for all times any uncertainty
concerning the journey of the straight-path; it can only be achieved
by seeking the “means
of approach unto him”,
and not directly.
That
“means of approach unto
him” is further fleshed
out:
This
is Allah's guidance, He guides thereby whom He pleases of His
servants; and if they had set up others (with Him), certainly
what they did would have become ineffectual for them. (6:88)
|
ذَٰلِكَ
هُدَى ٱللَّهِ
يَهْدِى بِهِۦ
مَن يَشَآءُ
مِنْ عِبَادِهِۦ
ۚ وَلَوْ أَشْرَكُوا۟
لَحَبِطَ عَنْهُم
مَّا كَانُوا۟
يَعْمَلُونَ
|
These
are they to whom We gave the book and the wisdom and the
prophecy; therefore if these disbelieve in it We have already
entrusted with it a people who are not disbelievers in it.
(6:89)
|
أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ
ٱلَّذِينَ
ءَاتَيْنَٰهُمُ
ٱلْكِتَٰبَ
وَٱلْحُكْمَ
وَٱلنُّبُوَّةَ
ۚ فَإِن يَكْفُرْ
بِهَا هَٰٓؤُلَآءِ
فَقَدْ وَكَّلْنَا
بِهَا قَوْمًا
لَّيْسُوا۟
بِهَا بِكَٰفِرِينَ
|
These
are they whom Allah guided, therefore follow their guidance.
Say: I do not ask you for any reward for it; it is nothing but a
reminder to the nations. (Surah
Al An'aam 6:90)
|
أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ
ٱلَّذِينَ
هَدَى ٱللَّهُ
ۖ فَبِهُدَىٰهُمُ
ٱقْتَدِهْ ۗ
قُل لَّآ
أَسْـَٔلُكُمْ
عَلَيْهِ أَجْرًا
ۖ إِنْ هُوَ
إِلَّا ذِكْرَىٰ
لِلْعَٰلَمِينَ
|
Caption
Surah Al An'aam verses 6:88-90, Verse of Following,
qualitatively asserting who is to be followed: “We have
already entrusted with it a people who are not disbelievers in it.
These are they whom Allah guided, therefore follow their guidance.”
Ergo,
and most straightforwardly in fact, derived exclusively from the
logic of the Holy Qur'an and not the pen of man, only “the
path of those whom Thou hast favoured” as proclaimed in
Surah Al-Fatiha 1:7,
and subsequently clarified as “seek
the means of approach unto Him,” the “Wasilah”
( الْوَسِيلَةَ
)
in Surah Al-Maeda 5:35,
can exemplify, interpret, and explain the journey of the “straight
path” (
الصِّرَاطَ
الۡمُسۡتَقِيۡمَۙ
)
as “These are they whom Allah guided, therefore follow
their guidance.”!
Verse
1:7 teaches the supplicant to beseech the
Creator to show the path of His Favored ones. And verse 5:35 commands
the supplicant to first seek
the means of approach unto Him
as his duty to the Creator, in order to even approach the
“straight path”!
In
simpler words for the language and logic challenged, by the
proclamation of the Holy Qur'an itself, the supplicant seeking
guidance cannot approach the Creator directly, but only through the
designated means of seeking the “Wasilah”. For emphasis,
it is even couched as a “duty” of the “believers”
to first seek the “Wasilah”! It is further
emphasized that only the Author's own
favored ones can delineate the “straight path”
unto Him for the rest of mankind. These favored ones are the Wasilah,
“the means of approach unto Him.”
The
Holy Qur'an straightforwardly informs us that the “straight
path” is
specifically a guided journey, a journey shown by the path tread by
the Divinely Favored ones, the Al-Wasilah,
and not a solo journey by one's own interpretation, discretion, and
intellect. According to the Holy Qur'an, it is a Revelation
أُنزِلَ
فِيهِ ٱلْقُرْءَانُ
,
from the Lord of the Worlds, رَبِّ
الْعَالَمِينَ
,
and not a path that man could have uncovered by his and her own
intellect. It further clarifies a superlative characteristic
of those “whom Allah guided, therefore follow
their guidance”:
“Is
one who worships devoutly during the hours of the night
prostrating himself or standing (in adoration), who takes heed of
the Hereafter, and who places his hope in the Mercy of his Lord―
(like one who does not)? Say: 'Are
those equal, those who know and those who do not know?'
It is those who are endued with understanding that receive
admonition.” (Surah Az-Zumar 39:9)
|
أَمَّنْ
هُوَ قَانِتٌ
آنَاءَ اللَّيْلِ
سَاجِدًا
وَقَائِمًا
يَحْذَرُ
الْآخِرَةَ
وَيَرْجُو
رَحْمَةَ رَبِّهِ
ۗ قُلْ هَلْ
يَسْتَوِي
الَّذِينَ
يَعْلَمُونَ
وَالَّذِينَ
لَا يَعْلَمُونَ
ۗ إِنَّمَا
يَتَذَكَّرُ
أُولُو الْأَلْبَابِ
|
Caption
Surah Az-Zuman verse 39:9, Verse of Egalitarianism,
Say: 'Are those equal, those who know and those who do not
know?'
This
is a most profound criteria articulated in the Holy Qur'an to
delineate those whom Allah has Guided versus
all others, Say: 'Are those equal, those who know and those who do
not know?'
Meaning,
these “Wasilah” (5:35), the show-ers of the “straight
path” upon whom God has
bestowed favors (1:7), must also be the ones highest in learning and
inerrant in their understanding of the Divinely ordained “straight
path”. Because, verse 39:9
gives the criteria that draws an explicit
merit line of momentous proportion between
those who know and those who don't, those who are divinely guided
versus those who uncover-discover matters from their own intellect or
by following others, as manifestly unequal!
This
is, even logically, a necessary condition to be a Divinely appointed
teacher of man. Otherwise, how can one proclaiming to be a guide sent
by God guide others more knowledgeable than themselves, or if their
own understanding concerning this “straight path”
is error prone, incomplete, distorted, misapprehended, and based
merely on their own conjectures, opinions
and theories? As is evidenced in practice, no two reasonable people
can ever agree on intellectual matters unless beholden to a higher
authority which all obey. And if it is especially an obscure esoteric
path which Allah ordained that no man may otherwise know of his and
her own accord, except through those who were Divinely favored, how
can two people agree on what it is, let alone entire peoples and
nations? Which, of course, logically also implies that the teacher of
these divinely favored ones can be none among those whom they have
been divinely chosen
and ordained to guide! The Holy Qur'an precisely confirms this
logical conclusion, that their teacher is only Allah, in verse 6:90
of Surah Al An'aam: “These
are they whom Allah guided, therefore follow their guidance”!
Which is why, the Author of the Holy Qur'an Says of His Messengers
that 'We make no distinction (they say) between
one and another of His messengers.' –– because
they have the same common Teacher:
“Say
(O Muslims): 'We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto
us and that which was revealed unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and
Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus
received, and that which the prophets received from their Lord.
We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we
have surrendered.'” Holy
Qur'an, Surah Al-Baqara 2:136
|
قُولُوٓا۟
ءَامَنَّا
بِٱللَّهِ
وَمَآ أُنزِلَ
إِلَيْنَا
وَمَآ أُنزِلَ
إِلَىٰٓ إِبْرَٰهِۦمَ
وَإِسْمَٰعِيلَ
وَإِسْحَٰقَ
وَيَعْقُوبَ
وَٱلْأَسْبَاطِ
وَمَآ أُوتِىَ
مُوسَىٰ وَعِيسَىٰ
وَمَآ أُوتِىَ
ٱلنَّبِيُّونَ
مِن رَّبِّهِمْ
لَا نُفَرِّقُ
بَيْنَ أَحَدٍ
مِّنْهُمْ
وَنَحْنُ لَهُۥ
مُسْلِمُونَ
|
“The
Messenger believeth in what hath been revealed to him from his
Lord, as do the men of faith. Each one (of them) believeth in
Allah, His angels, His books, and His messengers. 'We make no
distinction (they say) between one and another of His
messengers.' And they say: 'We
hear, and we obey: (We seek) Thy forgiveness, our Lord, and to
Thee is the end of all journeys'” Holy
Qur'an, Surah Al-Baqara 2:285
|
ءَامَنَ
ٱلرَّسُولُ
بِمَآ أُنزِلَ
إِلَيْهِ مِن
رَّبِّهِۦ
وَٱلْمُؤْمِنُونَ
ۚ كُلٌّ ءَامَنَ
بِٱللَّهِ
وَمَلَٰٓئِكَتِهِۦ
وَكُتُبِهِۦ
وَرُسُلِهِۦ
لَا نُفَرِّقُ
بَيْنَ أَحَدٍ
مِّن رُّسُلِهِۦ
ۚ وَقَالُوا۟
سَمِعْنَا
وَأَطَعْنَا
ۖ غُفْرَانَكَ
رَبَّنَا
وَإِلَيْكَ
ٱلْمَصِيرُ
|
Surah
Al-Maeda verses 5:44 to 5:48 further underscore that principled
teaching of the Divine Guidance System for all mankind and not just
for Muslims. It is most elegantly and pragmatically summed up by
verse 5:48 which applies equally to Muslims and to their intra-Muslim
disputes:
“If
Allah had so willed, He would have made you a single people, but
(His plan is) to test you in what He hath given you: so strive
as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to Allah;
it is He that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye
dispute.” (Surah Al-Maeda, 5:48)
|
وَلَوْ
شَاءَ اللَّهُ
لَجَعَلَكُمْ
أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً
وَلَٰكِنْ
لِيَبْلُوَكُمْ
فِي مَا آتَاكُمْ
ۖ فَاسْتَبِقُوا
الْخَيْرَاتِ
ۚ إِلَى اللَّهِ
مَرْجِعُكُمْ
جَمِيعًا
فَيُنَبِّئُكُمْ
بِمَا كُنْتُمْ
فِيهِ تَخْتَلِفُونَ
|
Indeed,
“strive as in a race in all virtues”
and leave disputations on whose god is
greater, or whose sect is correct, to God, rather than make it a
mission to civilize others, 'la mission civilisatrice', and
wage divisive propaganda warfare upon each other. See
elaboration of this concept of inter-religion and inter-people
Guidance to all mankind for amicable mutual co-existence in the
religion of Islam in this scribe's article Islam
and Knowledge vs. Socialization.
What is briefly summarized in the above passages is sufficient in
completeness to continue this focussed presentation on Muslims
without further digression into what the Holy Qur'an speaks to
benefit non Muslims in its Overarching Architecture for Divine
Guidance for all mankind.
The
Holy Qur'an then goes on to further clarify verse 1:7, that not all
paths are the same, some are clearly the wrong path, even when tread
by noble companions and contemporaries of the Messenger, even when
they may be the highest category of Believers
annotated in the Holy Qur'an as momineen
and mominaat, لِمُؤْمِنٍ
وَلَا مُؤْمِنَةٍ
:
“It
is not fitting for a Believer, man or woman,
when a matter has been decided by Allah and His Messenger to have
any option about their decision: if any one disobeys
Allah and His Messenger, he is indeed on a clearly wrong Path.”
(Surah Al-Ahzaab, 33:36)
|
وَمَا
كَانَ لِمُؤْمِنٍ
وَلَا مُؤْمِنَةٍ
إِذَا قَضَى
ٱللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُۥٓ
أَمْرًا أَن
يَكُونَ لَهُمُ
ٱلْخِيَرَةُ
مِنْ أَمْرِهِمْ
ۗ وَمَن يَعْصِ
ٱللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُۥ
فَقَدْ ضَلَّ
ضَلَٰلًا
مُّبِينًا
|
Caption
Verse 33:36 Surah Al-Ahzaab,
Verse of Wrong Path, the path not to tread, even when tread by the
highest category of the most holy and the most pious among the
Messenger's own contemporaries. This is a shocking statement in the
Holy Qur'an --- for it falsifies the popular notion among the
mainstream Muslims that all the companions
of the Prophet of Islam were like stars in the sky, anyone can be
used for navigation. The verse not only categorically condemns that
notion, but goes to the extent of noting that even the Believers who
believe in the prophet of Islam can end up on the wrong path by their
disobedience to the Prophet's directives, in letter or in spirit.
The
Messenger's word is akin to God's Word and has to be obeyed without
question by believers in the religion of
Islam in order for them to continue to journey on the “straight
path” of Surah Al-Fatiha, 1:6,
ٱلصِّرَٰطَ
ٱلْمُسْتَقِيمَ
.
Even a slight disobedience or questioning the decision and
edict of the Messenger is sufficient to put a believer “on a
clearly wrong Path.” In
other words, until the moment one breathes the very last breadth of
life, for even the most pious believer it is still possible to end up
on the wrong side of the road to Heaven!
The
object lesson implicit in verse 33:36 is wisely telling: followers of
the religion of Islam have to remain mindful that they can easily be
misled onto the wrong path if they follow merely the Believers,
لِمُؤْمِنٍ
وَلَا مُؤْمِنَةٍ
,
even when presumed to be holy and pious by the scribes and narratives
of history or contemporary opinion. The Holy Qur'an is categorically
clear, and at the risk of being repetitive but by necessity of its
importance, restating it: seek the designated ones who are the
“Wasilah” (5:35), الْوَسِيلَةَ
,
“whom Allah guided, therefore follow their
guidance” (6:90)!
And when Allah guides, they
do not make a mistake, they do not err, nor are they led astray. In
other words, they are inerrant. See What
does the Holy Qur'an say about Inerrancy of Prophet Muhammad?
for further elucidation of this matter of inerrancy, and the
Determinate
logic of the quoted verses which automatically and inescapably
extends inerrancy to the “ulul-amar” of Surah
an-Nisaa' verse 4:59:
“O ye who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the
Messenger, and those charged with authority among you.”
In
that remarkable Verse of Obedience, 4:59, already examined in
the aforementioned article, apart from Allah, only His Messenger and
some unnamed “ulul-amar”, “those
charged with authority among you”, are
categorically commanded to be obeyed and followed by all those who
wish to seek the “straight-path”. Therefore, these
latter two entities must also exclusively
be the ONLY “Wasilah”
of verse 5:35 whom the Author of the Holy Qur'an
is categorically commanding the believer to seek as a “Duty
to Allah”; because, most revealingly, no one else is
commanded to be obeyed and followed in the entire Holy Qur'an for
seeking the “straight path”! This is a categorical
statement.
There
is not a single mention of companions of the Prophet of Islam as
someone one should follow and obey just because they are Believers
and the companions of the Messenger! There
is also not a single mention of the later scribes of Islam who should
be followed and obeyed for what they pen with their hands attributing
what they write to the words of the Messenger. Both those statements
of fact are also categorical.
One
can write anything in any book – the Holy Qur'an is the only
scripture that is deemed to be of Divine origin and complete.
Therefore, the journey to the “straight-path” can
also only commence in the Holy Qur'an by
using its own Criteria to judge and adjudicate all other matters. It
is the last word.
What
does the Holy Qur'an say about following non-Wasilah?
Now
we come to the topic at hand, the adjudication of the legitimacy of
the self-anointed role of Interpreter of Faith for those who
are not inerrant, not the “Wasilah” of verse 5:35. Can
they be followed? Should they be obeyed as if some divine authority
is vested in them? Have they been sanctioned by the Holy Qur'an to be
the Interpreter of Faith?
The
Holy Qur'an once again avers categorically on the concept of
followers and following as the Interpreter of Faith, making
its own aforementioned prescription to the “straight-path”
the singular golden rule and all others explicitly forbidden, without
exception.
Behold
– the foundational verses of the Holy Qur'an categorically
explain the Message of the religion of Islam in the most simple
language that every laity and common man
can understand:
“(On
the day) when those who were followed disown those who followed
(them), and they behold the doom, and all their aims collapse
with them. (2:166)
|
إِذْ
تَبَرَّأَ
الَّذِينَ
اتُّبِعُوا
مِنَ الَّذِينَ
اتَّبَعُوا
وَرَأَوُا
الْعَذَابَ
وَتَقَطَّعَتْ
بِهِمُ الْأَسْبَابُ
|
And
those who were but followers will say: If a return were possible
for us, we would disown them even as they have disowned us.
Thus will Allah show them their own deeds as anguish for them,
and they will not emerge from the Fire.” (Surah Al-Baqara,
2:167)
|
وَقَالَ
الَّذِينَ
اتَّبَعُوا
لَوْ أَنَّ
لَنَا كَرَّةً
فَنَتَبَرَّأَ
مِنْهُمْ كَمَا
تَبَرَّءُوا
مِنَّا ۗ كَذَٰلِكَ
يُرِيهِمُ
اللَّهُ أَعْمَالَهُمْ
حَسَرَاتٍ
عَلَيْهِمْ
ۖ وَمَا هُمْ
بِخَارِجِينَ
مِنَ النَّارِ
|
Let
them bear, on the Day of Judgment, their own burdens in full, and
also (something) of the burdens of those without knowledge, whom
they misled. Alas, how grievous the burdens they will bear!
(Surah An-Nahl 16:25)
|
لِيَحْمِلُوٓا۟
أَوْزَارَهُمْ
كَامِلَةً
يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَٰمَةِ
ۙ وَمِنْ أَوْزَارِ
ٱلَّذِينَ
يُضِلُّونَهُم
بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ
ۗ أَلَا سَآءَ
مَا يَزِرُونَ
|
Caption
Holy Qur’an Surah Al-Baqara 2:166-2:167, the Verses of Not
Following, unequivocally disclaiming followers; and Surah An-Nahl
16:25, the Verse of Burdens,
unequivocally disclaiming false imams who will equally be apportioned
their due for misguiding the foolish people without knowledge who
followed them! These few categorical verses most clearly specifying
what is impermissible, in conjunction with the verses examined in
Part-I above most clearly specifying what is permissible, explicitly
establish for all times the Do and the Don'ts of the overall
Architecture of the Divine Guidance System. After that categorical
disclosure in the Holy Qur'an of its own System of Guidance, the
question that now remains for the seeker of the “straight
path”: How does one, fourteen and half centuries later,
know whom has Allah guided? How does one know who are the legitimate
“Wasilah” of verse 5:35, the legitimate “ulul-amar”
of verse 4:59, apart from the obvious one, the Messenger whose
identity is well known even to non Muslims? An open-ended
Indeterminate specification? Or a Determinate puzzle
specification, a soluble cipher? See the author's book cited at the
end of this article for the definitions of these terms, and how to
continue on the trail of discovery as a detective solving a puzzle, a
logician solving a cipher, solely from within the criteria
established for their identification in the
scripture which calls itself The Criterion, Al-Furqaan.
Verse
2:166 and 2:167 Surah Al-Baqara convey a most unexpected categorical
warning. Its import is far-reaching, and altogether pulpit
shattering. These verses are so clear as to require no further
elucidation from the pen of man. When read in conjunction with:
- verses 1:6 and 1:7 of Surah Al-Fatiha teaching man the path to choose and the paths to avoid in order to acquire Divine Guidance for the “straight path”;
- verse 5:35 of Surah Al-Maeda clarifying to seek divine guidance only through “Wasilah” as “your duty to Allah”;
- and verse 17:71 of Surah al-Israa' promising every human being will be raised in the company of the “imam” they each followed, for Accountability: “One day We shall call together all human beings with their (respective) Imams” ( يَوْمَ نَدْعُو كُلَّ أُنَاسٍ بِإِمَامِهِمْ );
the
fundamental Architecture of the Divine Guidance System of the Holy
Qur'an reaches full closure.
The
Arabic-English dictionary of the Holy Qur'an in the hands of this
scribe defines the word “Imam” thusly: “Leader;
President; Any object that is followed, whether a human being or a
book or a highway”.
In
Part-I we saw the “Do” categorically asserted. In Part-II
we have the “Don'ts” equally categorically asserted.
Namely, beware of false imams, false caliphs, false leaders, false
guides, false saints, false ayatollahs, false muftis, and false paths
penned in books and announced from pulpits; for indeed, each and
every human being, as per the categorical warning of the Author of
the Holy Qur'an, shall be held to account One Day with the “imam”
they each followed! Commonsense alone reaffirms to avoid the
seductive and socialized path of familiarity tread by heroes
and heroines which may well turn out to be false at the end of the
road as clearly vouchsafed by Surah Al-Baqara verses 2:166-2:167.
What remains therefore, as per the categorical Protocol of the Divine
Guidance System of the religion of Islam is to dutifully seek only
the path tread by the legitimate guides whom Allah has Himself
guided: “These are they whom Allah guided, therefore
follow their guidance” (6:90). And they are commanded,
categorically, to be obeyed: “O ye who believe! Obey
Allah, and obey the Messenger, and those charged with authority among
you.” (4:59). And furthermore, obeyed without question
or hesitation: “It is not fitting for a Believer, man or
woman, when a matter has been decided by Allah and His Messenger to
have any option about their decision: if any one disobeys Allah and
His Messenger, he is indeed on a clearly wrong Path.”
(33:36).
This
begs the obvious question: How does one, fourteen and half centuries
later, know whom has Allah guided? Who are the “Wasilah”?
Who are the “ulul-amar”? Why isn't merely the Messenger
exclusively both of these? Why are additional persons mentioned
through the indirection of “ulul-amar” in verse 4:59 of
Surah an-Nisaa'? Instead of straightforwardly stating to follow only
the Messenger, why does verse 5:35 of Surah Al-Maeda speak in
indirections of seeking some unknown “Wasilah”?
Examination of these weighty questions is not the topic of this
article as the focus here is to critically understand the criteria
for following and not following. The subject is analyzed in more
critical depth in the author's book cited at the end where, instead
of catching the proverbial fish for lazy readers, the curious readers
are taught the art and science of fishing in the Holy Qur'an by
showing the reasoning and thought processes of a forensic detective
as in an Agatha Christie novel.
As
pulpit shattering as the above quoted verses 2:166 and 2:167 are, the
next verse, 16:25 of Surah An-Nahl quoted above, is altogether an
earthquake! It demolishes all pulpits and churches fabricated by
Muslim popes, pontiffs, and caliphs who ruled in the name of Islam as
if some divine authority was vested in them. Verse 16:25
straightforwardly exposes the core lies which have become sanctified
as “religion” in specious dogmas among Muslim sects. For
one, it exposes “taqlid”, the practice of blind emulation
of a jurist by the laity – a practice equally prevalent in both
Shiadom and Sunnidom – as a master fraud for social control.
Upon that master fraud is the edifice of the entire conception of
sectarian Sharia laws, i.e., jurisprudence, constructed.
Before
we proceed further with the checkmate from the Holy Qur'an, this
religious word “jurisprudence” and its impact must be
explained in some depth to those unfamiliar with it. It is not just
Western readers who remain unfamiliar with such esoteric Eastern
matters. Even educated Muslims of modernity, some with Ph.D.
degrees, and others who think of themselves as mighty “scholars”,
often call Islam what is clearly the opinion of man and not to be
found in the Holy Qur'an. Few have any understanding whatsoever of
the forces that have given birth to what Muslims have been socialized
into calling and practicing as Islam. And this word represents what's
at the very top of the heap.
Jurisprudence
means the derivation of religious legalisms for the faithful. It
varies for each Muslim sect based exclusively on the “learned”
opinions of its dominant jurist or leaders who have either:
- appointed themselves Interpreter of faith (Sunnidom, the random turban who impresses the sheep by his rhetoric to become their self-acclaimed “alim”, “pir”, “sheikh”, “imam”, and his flock willingly follows him – example: all the random religious scholars and turbans of India and Pakistan who follow one of the four canonized Sunni jurists, hard pressed to know how they are “certified” for their perch to be so anointed as Interpreter of faith, same in the rest of the world where self-styled “sheikhs” and Ph.D. “scholars” abound each having their own flock who swear by their respective pied piper's interpretation of faith);
- or have been incestuously chosen Interpreter of faith by a coterie of like-minded turbans who have similarly been previously chosen, recursively, generation after generation, by those who have each claimed the title of Interpreter of faith (Shiadom, all of whom claim to follow the Jaffaria School of jurisprudence established by the great grandson of the Prophet of Islam, Jaffar-as-Sadiq, in his own lifetime by himself without state anointment, a hundred and fifty years or so after the death of the Messenger – example: all Marja-e-taqlids in Iran and Iraq, including the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Qom, the aging Ayatollah Sistani of Najaf, and the present spiritual-political leader as the valih-e-faqih of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei);
- or make claims to Interpreter of faith by lineage to the Prophet of Islam (the Ismailis, a sub-sect of Shiadom, but derided by other non Ismaili Shia pulpits – example: Prince Karim Aga Khan IV who claims his role as the hereditary Interpreter of faith for his Ismaili flock solely on his ancestral family's claims as being the descendant of the Prophet of Islam via his great grandson Ismail who was the son of Jaffar-as-Sadiq, the founder of Shia Jurisprudence);
- or have been anointed Interpreter of faith by the ruling political establishment whose interests are so served (Sunnidom – example: the four canonized schools of jurisprudence that developed posthumously during the Abbasside dynastic rule by their tacit as well as explicit support; named after their respective founders who lived over a millennium ago in relative obscurity and without much of any following during their own lifetime; their works today continue to control the understanding of Islam in mainstream Sunnidom and are foundational for the Sunni Sharia laws: Maliki, Shafii, Hanbali, and Hanafi).
Jurists
and Jurisprudence have become an integral part of the
institutionalization of the religion of Islam in Muslim societies. It
is big business among both Shiadom and Sunnidom. Unlike other matters
esoterica Islam, in this rare instance, remarkably, both pulpits and
their sub-pulpits tend to unanimously agree on the need for
Interpreter of Faith to guide the laity in the way of Allah
lest they make mistakes in their ritual practices and be damned to
perdition. From humble beginnings of individual scholar's opinions
borne from voluntary labor of love as in any passionate scholarship
but without state sponsorship, institutionalization, and
consideration of pecuniary matters, jurisprudence has grown to become
a powerful political and psychological tool used almost exclusively
to control the Muslim public mind. It demands blind following from
the Muslim masses who accept it from any of its schools of
jurisprudence.
These
schools of thought for interpreting the canons, precepts, laws and
rituals of Islam for the non-expert laity, principally evolved after
about a hundred fifty years of the demise of the Prophet of Islam.
For Sunnidom these schools became state-sponsored and official Islam
administered throughout its vast Caliphatic empires, while for
Shiadom its singular school became the counterpoint to state's
anointment and officialdom. All the early Sunni jurists while they
were living remained largely unknown among the public, at times even
lashed by the rulers. They got their prominence and anointment as
jurists par excellence posthumously under
the Muslim caliphate's burden of la mission civilisatrice, and
its ongoing need of legitimizing its very existence by sanctioning a
standard state religion that wasn't inimical to its ruling interests
in the face of challenges to its legitimacy from Shiadom then being
led by the direct descendant Imams of the
Ahlul Bayt of the Prophet of Islam. These Imams remained steadfast in
their non-acceptance of the caliphate, even if they remained subdued
in their overt opposition to the state after their great
grandfather's and his family's massacre at Karbala
in 680 A.D. None of the Sunni schools of jurisprudence that arose by
state sanction were principally inimical to the caliphatic empire
then, as now. The legitimacy of caliphate is woven into their very
fabric, as is the marginalizing of the precept of “Imamate”
which constitutes the bedrock of Shiadom.
Despite
these fundamental differences, the pulpits in Shiadom and Sunnidom
have remained united on the fundamental need of Interpreter of
Faith. The practice known as “taqlid”, blind
emulation of a jurist by the laity, not only in matters related to
the ritual practicing of Islam, but on all matters that are decided
by the jurist, came into being by the needs to administer their
respective flock. This included political matters, social matters,
and of course theological and ritualistic matters. Today, juristic
edicts called “fatwas” are issued on wide ranging topics
spanning the full gamut of social engineering, from legitimizing the
rule of anyone who acquires political power, among both Sunnidom and
Shiadom (Saudi Arabia to Iran for instance), to condemning terrorism
in the service of power (Fatwa on Terrorism by Tahir-ul Qadri for
instance), to passing death-sentences on undesirables (Fatwa by
Ayatollah Khomeini on Salman Rushdi for instance), to declaring
birth-control both “legal” and “illegal” (or
permissible vs. impermissible) at varying times depending on the
population growth (in Iran for instance), to esoteric minutiae like
whether or not to fold one's hands in prayer and whether or not to
wash one's feet in ritual purification (idiotic differences between
Sunni and Shia preparation for their personal ritual prayers to their
Creator that are exacerbated by the pious jurists).
Revealingly,
every Muslim pope has his own opinions that he dignifies by some
seemingly persuasive argument, and these can easily differ from all
other popes' equally persuasive arguments. Jurisprudence is also
employed for legislating national and local laws in societies which
like to call themselves “Islamic”. This latter aspect of
jurisprudence pertaining to “personal law” that is given
legal entitlement is not the topic of examination here. The practice
of “taqlid” is more prevalent as an institutionalized
method of social control and public mobilization among the masses in
Shiadom than in Sunnidom today. “Taqlid” is a force
majeure for full spectrum behavior control of the Shia flock,
both religious and secular. A detailed examination of this “Catholic
church” of Shiadom, its institutionalized system of training
the clergy and creating Ayatollahs and
Marja-e-taqlids, and the immense wealth it
commands for social engineering by extracting “voluntary”
religious donations of the “khums” tax from the observing
Shia flock worldwide for which no accounting or public audit is ever
produced, would require a book to do it justice.
It
must suffice here to only briefly illustrate the core lie upon which
the tortuous dogma for extorting voluntary servitude in Shiadom is
based which benumbs the mind of otherwise even the most rational and
educated men and women into blind obedience. The Third Reich had
nothing comparable and had to rely on both the bayonet of Gestapo and
the propaganda of Goebbels in Adolf Hitler's mobilizing call of “Gott
mit uns” (God is with us). Neither does the Machiavellian
Fourth presently under construction despite its full repertoire
of perception management tools of the Mighty Wurlitzer to “United
We Stand” with “either you are with us or with the
terrorists”. It may perhaps surprise both the young and old
generations today to learn that Hitler too had pushed Christianity's
Catholic God in Mein Kampf as the religion of Nazi Socialism
to implant the seeds of World War II: “God does not make
cowardly nations free.”; “I believe that I am
acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by
defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the
Lord,”! George W. Bush Jr. too pushed the Christian
Protestant God to dignify his perpetual World War IV: “God
told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck
them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and
now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.”!
The pious from time immemorial have been kept busy with
increasing sophistication both in seeking salvation to augment the
plebes' general occupation with bread and circuses, and
adeptly mobilized for any villainous cause célébré
which a sensible public really ought not to stand for! Shiadom today
is perhaps the most successful of them all as the faith of over two
hundred million zealous followers worldwide among its nearly two
billion Muslims. The Marja-e-taqlid of
course only does it to benefit the people in the name of Islam's God
unlike the Christians. Briefly, here is the principal dogma as
articulated by the founder of the throne of vilayat-e-faqih,
the late Ayatollah Uzma and father of modern Islamic Republic
of Iran, imam Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini.
In
his book Principles of Jurisprudence (English translation),
imam Khomeini opens its very first page with the principal dogma of
taqlid which remains unchallenged from pulpit to pulpit as an axiom
of Shia faith. Paraphrasing the axiomatic dogma (as the book is not
at hand), an adult Shia Muslim of sound mind must do one of the
following:
- Be a Mujtahid himself (or herself) ;
- Follow a living Mujtahid who is Marja-e-taqlid ;
- Follow the most conservative opinion on every issue among all the Marja-e-taqlids ;
The
word “Mujtahid” is a religious credential typically
conferred by “authorities” of
Shia jurisprudence. It means one who is deemed qualified at making
his or her own “Ijtihad”,
meaning, capable of arriving at his or her own religious decisions
and juristic verdicts independently, for
his or her own self. “Marja-e-taqlid” means a Mujtahid
who has risen to the enormous stature in the eyes of his school of
peers and other Marja-e-taqlids, for the general public to willingly
follow his “Ijtihad”.
The
aforementioned dogma of taqlid is perhaps better comprehended
with an apt analogy. Imagine that Western medicine under the power of
its umbrella organizations AMA, FDA and WHO is able to globally
assert the following rule for every man, woman, and child on earth:
that Jesus Christ ordained in his last breadth in Saul's (Paul's)
dream on the road to Damascus, that for being on the straight path of
good health and to avoid damnation, all mankind must either:
- Be a physician ;
- Follow a master physician from Kaiser or another sanctioned HMO like it ;
- Follow the most conservative opinion of all master physicians on any illness and issue;
And
these master physicians institutionally agree (in order to continue
being licensed for practicing medicine)
that all mankind must be vaccinated against Swine Flu or God
will cause the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse to descend in
full vengeance!
Edward
Bernays
(http://tinyurl.com/mightywurlitzer),
the master behavioral psychologist of the twentieth century who
invented some of the most diabolical methods for engineering consent
based on manipulating the forces that operate on the irrational mind
in the subconscious, would surely turn green with envy at what is
achieved in Shiadom for making the public mind without any
advertising budget. A single call from a Shia Marja-e-taqlid can
voluntarily bring a ripened nation to revolution primarily because of
the dogma of taqlid. The Iranian Islamic Revolution was singularly
wrought by precisely such juristic edicts issued by imam Ayatollah
Khomeini to followers under his taqlid in Iran, while living
comfortably in exile in Iraq under the protection of Saddaam Hussein,
and then France under the protection of the French government and
NATO intelligence, all of whom guarded him round the clock against
assassination by SAVAK agents of the Shah of Iran. The calculus of
revolution is never quite so simple and there are innumerable forces
at play when a society is moved to revolutionary times, some overt
and visible, and others covert and invisible like the 90% mass of an
iceberg. Nevertheless, the Islamic Revolution in Iran without the
fundamental doctrine of taqlid to successfully harvest the public's
discontent against the Shah, and subsequently rebuild a new nation
from its ashes all the while carefully protecting it from
disintegration both internally, like the French revolution did, and
externally through decades of imposed war and economic sanctions,
would have been impossible. This is a statement of fact. Even the
Catholic Church cannot inflict such intimate behavior control upon
its huge flock!
There
is of course no doubt that any conformist dogma, and especially one
in the divine role of Interpreter of Faith
which pragmatically obliges 99.9 percent of the flock to obediently
follow the institutionally anointed shepherds (for, practically
speaking, who has the time, talent, inclination, and opportunity to
all become Mujtahid which often takes decades of monastic study), is
highly utilitarian for organizing public habits and managing the
public mind. The public mind may even be shepherded by the most
altruistic princes and pious “garlic eaters” on earth as
the veritable Platonic dream of philosopher-king
come true in a one-world Republic.
The only question being addressed here is what does the Holy Qur'an
have to say about the foundational axiom of taqlid, and not whether
or not it is utilitarian for corralling the public mind (because it
undeniably is as demonstrated in Iran). And not whether or not there
is merit in utopian rule by philosopher-king
(from Platonic point of view arguably there is great merit in rule by
the virtuous thinker to preempt dystopia of Machiavelli and social
Darwinianism of the superman,
see Plato's The Republic
and Nietzsche's Will to Power).
That latter question, rule by philosopher-king
in Islam, is examined in: What
does the Holy Qur'an say about Vilayat-i Faqih?
(http://tinyurl.com/Divine-Rule-By-Valih-e-Faqih).
Expose
its very foundation as being based on a core lie – and the
entire sacred totem pole comes crashing down under its own weight!
The
Holy Qur'an which daringly calls itself “Al-Furqaan”
– the Author's Criterion by which to judge the truth or falsity
of any proposition (or understanding) pertaining to His Own Revealed
Guidance System for mankind ( مِّنَ
ٱلْهُدَىٰ
وَٱلْفُرْقَانِ
ۚ );
which He even asserts He “perfected” and “completed”
and named it “Islam” ( الْيَوْمَ
أَكْمَلْتُ
لَكُمْ دِينَكُمْ
وَأَتْمَمْتُ
عَلَيْكُمْ
نِعْمَتِي
وَرَضِيتُ
لَكُمُ الْإِسْلَامَ
دِينًا ۚ ),
and therefore there is no further room in its specification for
additions and subtractions – does precisely that. (Verse
fragments from Surah Al-Baqara 2:185
and Surah Al-Maeda
5:3,
respectively,)
Even
a tiny bit of logical reflection on the concatenation of verses
pertinent to the Qur'anic Principle of Inerrancy already
examined previously in the article:
What
does the Holy Qur'an say about Inerrancy of Prophet Muhammad?,
and in verses elucidated in Part-I above, with verse of 16:25 of
Surah An-Nahl, trivially exposes “taqlid”
as a fabrication of the pulpit! Perhaps it is only an “ijtihad”
of the inventive mind – but it is straightforwardly depricated
in the Holy Qur'an as we shall see. Why it should be such a well-kept
secret from the public is mind numbing.
Perhaps
it is necessary to observe explicitly as it may not be
already obvious to the careless reader, that only
“These
are they whom Allah guided, therefore follow their guidance”
(Surah Al An'aam verse 6:90 quoted earlier), can ever be exempt from
the damnation of this most electrifying
verse 16:25 of Surah An-Nahl! Only
the specific inerrant persons whom Allah is
commanding the believers to follow, cannot mislead anyone, even the
foolish people who follow blindly! No one else is permitted to be
followed, or obeyed, in the religion of Islam as per the categorical
verses 2:166-2:167 because everyone else in mankind is liable to
verse 16:25 on account of not being infallible!
So
how can “taqlid”
of the fallible jurist as Interpreter of faith be part of the
religion of Islam when the very concept of following itself, ab
initio, is not only most clearly deprecated, but Surah An-Nahl verse
16:25 also most clearly apportions culpability to those imams who are
followed?
Here
is the logic.
Witness
the brilliant checkmate administered by verse 16:25 to the pulpits
that push the specious dogma of “taqlid” upon their
flock. The reader unfortunately has to be wide awake to follow even
this straightforward logic. So take a short coffee
break if your head is already spinning...
If
“taqlid” of a fallible jurist was a part of the religion
of Islam, then the Author of the Holy Qur'an created an absurdity, a
foolishness; the Author commanded Muslims to follow an ordinary
mortal who is not infallible, but since the jurist is not inerrant,
and neither does any respectable jurist ever claim to be inerrant,
foolish and sheepish people among the masses, those without knowledge
and understanding, will also follow him. In point of fact and
reality-check, in actual sectarian practice of Muslims, obedience is
extorted from the public mind at the threat of eternal damnation –
otherwise why would the sheepish laity follow the anointed popes
except for that irrational fear which is continually cultivated and
harvested by the church of man?
If
“taqlid” of a fallible jurist was sanctioned by the
religion of Islam, then, as per verse 16:25, these persons whom Allah
is commanding to be followed will be apportioned their measure of
blame if they are followed in their errors and the people are misled!
That is a patent absurdity; a Kafkaesque double jeopardy: follow and
be damned (verses 2:166-2:167), don't follow and be damned
(“taqlid”), and the imam is damned because he is not
inerrant and is followed and obeyed as ordered even in his mistakes,
confabulations, distortions, half-truths, innovations, Indeterminate
fixing, etceteras, which of course no one can adjudicate or catch or
challenge because only the ignorant laity follows him (verse 16:25)!
This is the base reality of Muslim jurists and their blind followers
since the inception of the church of jurisprudence!
The
Author of the Holy Qur'an Who claims to be the most Just and the most
Wise Creator of all creation, cannot command “imams” to
be followed and obeyed, and when they are followed and obeyed as per
ordered, the “imams” are apportioned blame for their
blind following when they venture their fallible opinions dependent
solely on their particular bent of mind, proclivity, psychological
tendencies, socialization bias, natural talent (and un-talent),
ability to think and reason, knowledge, understanding, etceteras, in
their verdict! No two people think the same, never mind agree on any
matter --- and yet they are commanded to be followed!
Indeed,
if this absurd proposition of “taqlid” is true, then the
Author has made a mockery of His own Guidance System! Whereas the
Author is most sensitive about taking His Message lightly. He has
repeatedly Admonished mankind to not mock the Holy Qur'an: “Is
it such a Message that ye would hold in light esteem?”
(Surah Al-Waqia 56:81);
that: “Verily this is no less than a Message to (all) the
Worlds” (Surah At-Takwir 81:27);
and: 'Then the Messenger will say: “O my Lord! Truly my
people took this Qur'an for just foolish nonsense.”' (Surah
Al-Furqaan 25:30).
After
all these straightforward admonitions to Muslims in the clearest of
terms to take the Scripture seriously, the Author then ventures to
mock His Own Message by mandating to the Muslim masses the “taqlid”
of fallible jurists, and subsequently hanging these jurists for
misleading the people because they are not inerrant and foolish
people have inevitably followed them as commanded?
What
a fickle-minded creator who damns if you do and damns if you don't
--- only in the mind of man!
By
reductio ad absurdum, when a proposition reduces to an
absurdity, the premise it is predicated upon is false.
Since
verses 2:166-2:167 and verse 16:25 are categorical and presumed to be
true ab initio as an axiom of faith that the Holy Qur'an has not been
tampered with by the hand of man (no “tahreef”),
therefore, Taqlid must be false as presuming it to be true in the
presence of these verses leads to absurdity. If one still insists
Taqlid to be true, then one also has to accept the consequent fact
that the Holy Qur'an contains absurdities. No Muslim mind on planet
earth will accept that outcome. It's easier for it to accept Taqlid
as falsehood.
Checkmate!
From
the Holy Qur'an itself.
Q.E.D.
Marja-e-taqlid:
right!
The
Aga Khan as Interpreter of Faith: evidently not of Islam!
Maliki-Shafii-Hanbali-Hanafi:
most convenient for aiding and abetting Muslim empires!
Blind
emulation, “taqlid”, of a fallible imam jurist who is
incestuously proclaimed Marja-e-taqlid by his coterie of equally
fallible peers in Shiadom, is an absurdity in the religion of Islam
in no less a measure than blanket obedience demanded to a fallible
imam caliph who is speciously anointed “ulul-amar” by the
shenanigans of political power around him, is in Sunnidom! Both are
weighty fabrications of the respective pious Muslim pulpits; vile
slanders upon the religion of Islam. It is categorically proscribed
in the Holy Qur'an. There is no room for any doubt or interpretation.
The veritable logic of Al-Furqaan, so clear and simple in
adjudication with its Determinate
verses that even a sixth grader can straightforwardly follow its
steps, coldly attests to that statement of fact. The previous
examination of the Principle of Inerrancy which unequivocally
established the singular prerequisite for complete obedience to
“al-Wasilah” from the Determinate
verses, also attests to that fact. “Alas, how
grievous the burdens they will bear!”
Which
is why, failing to find support in the Holy Qur'an, recourse is often
made to pages outside the Holy Qur'an to legitimize this absurdity.
Applying the same logic method of reductio ad absurdum
recursively to every argument and every evidence presented from
outside the Holy Qur'an, trivially demolishes them all. Sometimes
evidence is presented from a recorded act of history, such as the
Prophet or Imams of the Ahlul Bayt having appointed their own
representatives and mandating the people over whom they exercised
authority to obey their representatives on their behalf. Well, even
philosophically, the burden of the acts and decisions of a
representative ultimately still rests upon the one whom he
represents, and who is still ultimately in authority to rectify
matters if the need ever arose, to hear dissatisfaction, and to
adjudicate. This is self-evident by definition of “representative”
in this semantic context. Which is why it is a false argument of the
self-appointed valih-e-faqih (or appointed by a consultative
committee of self-styled holy jurists) for speciously conferring
legitimacy upon himself because one, he can produce no certificate of
such divine appointment, and two, he is now the highest authority
next to God. No one can challenge his authority even legally. A
throwback to the stone age to say the least, and no different than
any vanilla don or king, including the King of kings the
valih-e-faqih replaced with such fanfare in so much Persian blood
tribute. Absolute rule which went away in the Age of Enlightenment in
the West has been brought back with a new vengeance to the backward
Muslims to help shape world order as proxy service providers of the
West.
To
be vigilant of false friends, false guides, false imams making false
claims, is veritably underscored in Surah Al-Furqaan itself:
The
Day that the wrong-doer will bite at his hands, he will say, 'Oh!
Would that I had taken a (straight) path with the Messenger!'
25:27
|
وَيَوْمَ
يَعَضُّ الظَّالِمُ
عَلَىٰ يَدَيْهِ
يَقُولُ يَا
لَيْتَنِي
اتَّخَذْتُ
مَعَ الرَّسُولِ
سَبِيلًا
|
'Ah!
Woe is me! Would that I had never taken such a one for a friend!'
25:28
|
يَا
وَيْلَتَىٰ
لَيْتَنِي
لَمْ أَتَّخِذْ
فُلَانًا خَلِيلًا
|
'He
did lead me astray from the Message (of Allah) after it had come
to me! Ah! the Evil One is but a traitor to man!' 25:29
|
لَقَدْ
أَضَلَّنِي
عَنِ الذِّكْرِ
بَعْدَ إِذْ
جَاءَنِي ۗ
وَكَانَ الشَّيْطَانُ
لِلْإِنْسَانِ
خَذُولًا
|
Then
the Messenger will say: 'O my Lord! Truly my people took this
Qur'an for just foolish nonsense.' Holy Qur’an, Surah
Al-Furqaan 25:30
|
وَقَالَ
الرَّسُولُ
يَا رَبِّ إِنَّ
قَوْمِي اتَّخَذُوا
هَٰذَا الْقُرْآنَ
مَهْجُورًا
|
Caption
Surah Al-Furqaan 25:27-30 The ex post facto lament on the Day of
Judgment by believers of having taken someone for a friend and being
led astray by them, in the language of the Holy Qur'an is a
categorical admonishment before the fact, referring to those who come
posing as friends and not overtly as enemies. This is a warning to
all peoples to be wary of their own kind betraying them, for one
usually takes those whom one knows and trusts as one's friends,
guardians, protectors, guides, and imams. Only friends can betray
because the concept of betrayal is tied to trust. In
other words, the Holy Qur'an, Al-Furqaan,
is warning the simpleton mind in every age to be wary of false
friends, false imams, Trojan Horse,
Machiavelli, who win
the public trust with cognitive infiltration,
and all the rest of the techniques of deception used in betrayal
where the ones being betrayed do not realize it then. The purpose of
the warning is obvious – so that the believers can shrewdly
protect themselves from that outcome rather than lament on the Day of
Accountability that they did not know.
If they still don't wakeup today to their false friends and false
imams who often come wearing the garbs and turbans endearing to the
public mind, then the Prophet of Islam's strong lament is also
recorded. Referring to the misled people as “my people”
to show his deep anguish, the Prophet of Islam cries out that they
did not take the Guidance in the Holy Qur'an seriously, shackling its
meaning down to idiocy, down to their own whim and fancy, making the
Deen-e-mubeen
“mahjoor”!
These
verses of Surah Al-Furqaan, 25:27-30, also unequivocally strike down
false notions fed to the masses to legitimize taqlid of the fallible
jurist that the follower may claim exemption from condemnation in
Afterlife if one's own intention is good and one followed an imam who
leads one astray by honest mistake of his ijtihad: “Ah! Woe
is me! Would that I had never taken such a one for a friend! He did
lead me astray from the Message (of Allah) after it had come to me!
Ah! the Evil One is but a traitor to man!”
Sadly,
no Muslim mind ever believes that these admonishments can ever apply
to it. These always only apply to all the other fools over there in
the other sects! The Sunnis believe this of the Shia with as much
divine conviction as the Shias believe this of the Sunni, both
opening the door wide open to Dr. Machiavelli to come rape them both.
This
characteristic of self-righteousness is itself an inherent part of
the religion of man. The fear and discomfort of cognitive
dissonance evidently inhibits its very occurrence. Without
experiencing cognitive dissonance, the psychological state of inner
mental conflict between two contrarian positions, no transformation
can transpire. Which is why, when faced with contrarian facts or
evidence, the degree to which a man violently resists giving up his
prior beliefs is directly proportional to his inner insecurities and
is an index to his desires (as philosopher Bertrand Russell observed
of the frailty of the human mind). Desires of which he may himself be
unconscious of, as its seat is in the subconscious mind. Freud
established this as an empirical fact of the irrational mind at the
turn of the twentieth century. It is what the multi-trillion dollar
global advertising industry is built upon. It is why masses of human
beings fall easy prey to anyone who can cater to their base desires
and insecurities – the sine qua non for the mass success of
both religion and marketing. Advertising professionals and
Machiavelli understand this human frailty better than the common
mind. It is the cornerstone of success for well-designed propaganda
as well as marketing campaigns. It is why the ministry of truth
(as Geroge Orwell termed it in Nineteen Eighty-four) all
around the world have come into existence to more effectively make
the public mind. So who is your imam now?
Which
is why, at the risk of stating the obvious once again, in the matters
of the straight path,
the Author of the Holy Qur'an is categorically making each human
being accountable for his every decision, including the decision to
follow or not to follow others, to have one's mind made or not made
by others. There is no exemption for “oops!” for anyone
as these categorical verses of Surah Al-Baqara 2:166-2:167 and Surah
Al-Furqaan 25:27-30 unequivocally assert. Neither in this life which
becomes hellish not just for oneself but also for others when one
follows false imams. Nor evidently in the Afterlife of Islam where
everyone is called to account in the company of the “imam”
they each followed: “One
day We shall call together all human beings with their (respective)
Imams” (Surah al-Israa',
17:71).
So if one followed a false guide and did not realize it, there is no
“oops!” exemption!
After
this analytical presentation, why should anyone still believe that
the holy marja-e-taqlid is exempt from the condemnation of verse
16:25? That those who follow him are exempt from the condemnation of
verses 2:166-2:167 and 25:27-30? Precisely, because of a socialized
culture of religion rather than of learning that dominates the public
mind.
If
one was born a Hindu instead of a Muslim, one would be shouting the
virtues of Krishna from the mandirs. Today, the Hindu mind is on
safer ground because Machiavelli has found little use for it in
fueling imperial mobilization. If for nothing else, then just for
that reason alone this subject is of grave public concern. The “arc
of crisis” like a spreading fire, as the world is continually
witnessing, spares no one in its path. To put it out effectively
takes getting the core fundamentals that are being harvested for this
purpose in the name of Islam, better scrutinized in the public eye.
Virtually all of these so called axioms of faith are the creation of
Machiavelli, are not supported in the Good Book, and hence are not
part of the religion of Islam expressed in it.
While
much has been stated about both “militant Islam” and
“moderate Islam” being alien to the religion of Islam,
the third part of the trifecta for the recipe of creating perfect
storm for Muslim on Muslim violence, “revolutionary Islam”
and its enabling axiom of “taqlid”, has escaped forensic
scrutiny by the more learned minds who surely have better “ma'rifat”
(deeper understanding) of the subject. The analytical mind that goes
on facts permits no room for absurdities and gratuitous assumptions
of faith. Things have to make logical sense given all the facts, and
all their linkages. Some linkages are directly visible, while others
are made visible by the logic of adding two plus two correctly equal
to four. This analytical deconstruction of “taqlid”
without prejudice by a layman, is the product of that basic
arithematic. A challenge directly to the valih-e-faqih du jour
to respond, explain, and refute if there is any Qur'anic truth on his
side. Silence is the domain of cowards. No one who claims Imam Ali as
his guide has even a passing acquaintance with cowardice.
The
controlling practice of “taqlid” as it has unfolded in
Muslim civilizations, the underpinning of sects that were
manufactured when the largely sheepish masses were encouraged to
follow the anointed imam of their natural socialization by birth thus
dividing into schools of thought, is a man-made divisive construct of
the church of man. Its purpose is predatory social control of man by
fellow man, be it among the Shia, the Sunni, the Ismaili, or any
other group-think composition, in any religion. Like Christianity,
the man of cloth as the interpreter of faith for the Muslims became a
useful tool.
Is
man so feeble minded, so inadequate in his talents, so corrupted in
his heart, that he needs a fierce looking bearded shepherd until
eternity to “Islamize” him? What an insult to God's
creation --- and to God, that He Created such an absurdity in which
imperfect man shall forever remain beholden to another imperfect man
for guidance. Such an absurd God can only exist in the mind of
Mephistopheles to enslave and control fellow man.
Any
place where fallible man is anointed as the interpreter of faith for
another, or obedience is demanded in the name of the divine, is a
place where social control is being practiced in the name of the
divine. Lift the pious robes and underneath one shall find, linked to
the predatory social control, a bountiful and easy harvest of
public's wealth being paid into the coffers of the pulpit, and
empire. Perhaps this is why it is often hard to find clergy who is
familiar with honest toil and labor. The bulging waist-lines alone
testify to the vulgar empirical truth of virtually all priestly class
living off of public donations in the name of religion.
The
superman rulers have
comprehended this vile modus operandi of social control far more
perceptively than the sheepish public they govern! And the clergy
class in every religion has served that ruling interest with an
iron-clad regimentation from time immemorial. (Superman
is reference to Nietzsche's superman
and not to the Marvel comic book hero; the ubermensch,
the uber alles, deems
himself above all the others, is beyond good and evil, tells noble
lies and thinks nothing of it, and strives with his own “will
to power” instead of superstitious religions to achieve
lordship over mankind who refuse to evolve past their sheep state.)
But when the clergy class has itself become the state, the public has
been reduced to intellectual servitude to fellow man in the name of
divine. To have done that damage to the pristine religion
Islam which its Author claims to have “perfected” as the
Divine Guidance System revealed to free man from the clutches of
fellow man, is an immodest and unpardonable travesty for which verse
16:25 of Surah An-Nahl plainly vouches: “Let them bear, on
the Day of Judgment, their own burdens in full, and also (something)
of the burdens of those without knowledge, whom they misled. Alas,
how grievous the burdens they will bear!”
Unsurprisingly,
no Muslim and his pope is going to give up their socialized
interpretation of religion anymore than a socialized Zionist Jew is
going to give up Zionism and a Brahmin priest is going to give up
racism. And it is not because they each don't know or realize that
their respective ideology is misanthropic and leads to the
enslavement of the 'lesser peoples'. Knowing this general fact of
obduracy about His Own Creation which, by His own Admission, “He
fashioned him in due proportion” (see Surah As-Sajdah
verses 32:07-32:09),
is perhaps why the Author of the Holy Qur'an proffered that
straightforward Admonition to people driven by self-interests and
socialization bias even when truth has clearly been made manifest
from error, of scores only being settled on the Day
of Judgment. That, in this life, to wholeheartedly “strive
as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to Allah; it is
He that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute.”
(Surah Al-Maeda 5:48)
Therefore,
as per the noble advocacy of this verse to eliminate conflict among
mankind, one may hastily conclude that if “taqlid”, or
any other harmonious system for that matter, leads to that wonderful
race in all virtues, all power to it. That is the point – that
any principled system can be made as virtuous in theory as it can be
made evil in practice. The choice is evidently left up to man in the
Holy Qur'an. The problem comes in when it is the latter and reduces
an entire nation in willing servitude to the whims and ideas of one
man, the self-anointed philosopher-king, with his subjects
loving their state of bondage in the name of the Divine.
Corrections
are invited from both the pulpits.* Surely, the learned uber alles
presumptuous enough to deem themselves Interpreter of Faith,
as the “ulul-albab” of the Holy Qur'an can
trivially counter this bold challenge to their power base if it is
mistaken or flawed in its evidence based logical assessment.
Eid
Mubarak.
And
a last happy birthday to the Holy Qur'an as we bid au revoir
to this holy month of Ramadan.
Written
Thursday, August 08, 2013, on the 29th of Ramadan, Muslim year 1434
A.H.
Updated Friday, September 18, 2015 02:00 am, on the 22nd Ramadan, Muslim year 1436 A.H.
Updated Friday, September 18, 2015 02:00 am, on the 22nd Ramadan, Muslim year 1436 A.H.
Footnote
* As
this article goes against the ingrained ethos of both the Shia and
Sunni laity who respectively swear by taqlid and their four
institutionalized jurists as Interpreter of Faith – each
macro group respectively representing approximately ten and ninety
percent of the two billion Muslim population on earth today –
it is mainly their preeminent stewards who are invited to the table
of critique and interlocution. The scribe is sure to be demonized by
the laity in both groups, but perhaps more stridently by the Shia. In
the previous episode of What
does the Holy Qur'an say about Inerrancy of Prophet Muhammad?,
the Shia laity surely anointed him their “scholar” when
the facts and analysis brought to the surface from the verses of the
Holy Qur'an in the full context of its Message was generally in favor
of Shiadom's understanding of the inerrant status of Prophet of
Islam, and opposed the Sunnidom's self-contradictory gibberish which
marginalized their own Prophet to dignify caliphate. The same good
people will now surely be demonizing him, or at least exhibiting the
knee-jerk reaction of denial and increased intransigence that is
characteristic of an unpleasant experience of cognitive dissonance,
because, in this episode, the facts and analysis brought to the
surface from the same Holy Qur'an condemn what they live by! Get
Marja-e-taqlids in Qom and Najaf to respond instead – by
sending them this critique and as their follower inviting a fatwa
either refuting it with full elucidation, or boldly affirming it with
any caveats and corrections.
The
scribe predicts that only stoned silence will greet him. It is easier
to ignore unpleasant facts which demolish tall totem poles which are
principally erected for the unthinking masses in the first place,
rather than attempt to counter those intelligent peoples who do no
buy into propaganda systems designed to cater to the lowest common
denominator in the sheepish masses. Refer to Mein Kampf to
understand why the handful of critical thinkers in the population
must be either ignored or demonized, if they cannot be co-opted to
join the system. They can never be given space for public
interlocution. Any debate, even in free societies, let alone in dogma
based dictatorships, must always be narrowly confined within
“acceptable” limits, with vigorous “debate”
permitted only within those bounding boxes to give the illusion of
freedom to think and choose. The “ultimate revolution” in
human enslavement, in the words of the iconic Western sociologist,
Aldous Huxley, is when the public is made to enjoy its own servitude.
Shiadom exemplifies that “ultimate revolution”. Every
adult Shia Muslim who is under taqlid behaves virtually like a
mind-controlled robot – and that is also principally how
Ayatollah Khomeini as the valih-i-faqih was able to command
the foot-soldier fodder in Iran to continue the debilitating war
against its brother nation of Iraq that was imposed by the West upon
both the peoples of Iran and Iraq equally, for eight long years!
Taqlid, the social engineers' dream that is denied to the West for
controlling its own peoples, opens the door wide for the West's
harvesting of Muslim ignorance, our cracks and lacunae, our
asininity, and our divisive socialization into sectarianism, to serve
their interests!
Since
the highest pulpits in both Shiadom and Sunnidom today principally
serve Western interests as the best part of their Hegelian Dialectic
that diabolically fabricates the synthetic cause and effect of
international relations to naturally seed the transformation of the
world into one-world government, none of the pulpits left to
themselves will dare to touch this short article. This scribe intends
to not let predatory nature take its course – and therefore,
solicits assistance from those who care among the worldwide Muslim
scholarship to force their respective pulpits to respond.
Footnote
Added
Thursday, July 9, 2015 09:01 pm, 22nd Ramadan, Muslim year 1436 A.H.
Two years later, still waiting...
Credits
Arabic
Qur'an recitation by Shaykh Mahmoud Khalil al-Husary, audio courtesy
of Verse By Verse Quran, acquired 8/13/2011 from
http://www.versebyversequran.com
Arabic
verses courtesy of the open source Qur'an Tanzil Project,
acquired 8/13/2011 from http://tanzil.net/download/
Most
(not all) English translation of Qur'an verses are by Yusuf Ali,
Shakir, and Pickthall, acquired 8/13/2011 from
http://tanzil.net/trans/ (archived Yusufali,
Shakir,
Pickthall).
Short
URL: http://tinyurl.com/Taqleed
Source
URL:
http://islam-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2013/08/what-does-quran-say-about-taqlid.html
First
Published Friday, August 9, 2013 12:00 am, Eid Day, Muslim year 1434
A.H. | Footnote added on August 17, 2013 | Footnote “still
waiting...” added Thursday, July 9, 2015 09:01 pm, 22nd
Ramadan, Muslim year 1436 A.H. 13152
The
Noble Path: Denying to Caesar what is not Caesar’s - Surah
Al-Asr of the Holy Qur'an
Zahir
Ebrahim | Project
Humanbeingsfirst.org
California,
United States of America
Sunday,
July 31, 2011, Ramadan eve in the United States, Muslim year 1432
A.H.
Abstract
There
is evidently a great deal of confusion among the pious regarding
Islam's pathway to Heaven. Mosques in the United States as in all
Muslim countries are filled in Ramadan with worshippers seeking the
spiritual blessings of the Night of a thousand nights of prayer. In
their efforts at spiritual self-cleansing for a life that is not in a
state of loss, most ignore the abysmal fact that tyranny is spreading
faster than virtue, worldwide. Few dare to standup to it as readings
of the Holy Qur'an resonate throughout Ramadan. The pulpits worldwide
of both Sunnidom and Shiadom lead the flock in obsessing about ritual
worship. What does the Holy Qur'an have to say about the life that is
not in a state of loss?
Reproduced
here is the full recipe of the pithy Surah Al-Asr of the Holy Qur'an
for a noble life which is “not in a state of loss”.
Notice
what's stated and what's omitted in this self-sufficient tiny Surah
which evidently requires reflection in inverse proportion to its
length.
There
is no reference to Muslims, or to Islam, or to any particular people
or religion.
The
Surah is directly addressed to man, “insaan” (
الۡاِنۡسَانَ
),
to every people of all religions, and to people of no religion (the
overarching pluralistic context for peoples of different faiths has
previously been established in the article: Islam
and Knowledge vs. Socialization).
Caption
Islam: The AND Logic of Surah Al-Asr of the Holy Qur’an,
Chapter 103* (Engineering representation of the semantic logic of
Surah Al-Asr; author's conception)
وَالۡعَصۡرِۙ
|
|
اِنَّ
الۡاِنۡسَانَ
لَفِىۡ خُسۡرٍۙ
|
|
Save
those who believe,
and
do good works,
and
strive for “haq”,
|
اِلَّا
الَّذِيۡنَ
اٰمَنُوۡا
وَ
عَمِلُوا
الصّٰلِحٰتِ
وَتَوَاصَوۡا
بِالۡحَقِّ
ۙ
وَتَوَاصَوۡا
بِالصَّبۡرِ
|
Caption
Full text of Surah Al-Asr, Chapter 103 of the Holy Qur'an
The
logic of the verses 2-3 is the AND conjunctive clause.
Meaning, a concatenation of conditions joined by the AND clause
(Arabic وَ
).
Every one of the listed conditions in such a statement has to be
individually true in order for the overall statement to be true.
Otherwise the statement is false.
Being
a techie engineer, I have depicted this AND conjunction in electrical
engineering parlance in the top figure using a simple electronic
device called the AND Gate. One can purchase it for a few cents at
Radio Shack. The logic device is made out of a few transistors and
implements this AND conjunctive clause function.
The
4-input AND Gate in the diagram captures the logic of Surah Al-Asr
verses 2:3 with exact precision. Those more inclined to be
“Left-brained” (logic, math, and problem-solving
dominated) than “Right-brained” (art, creativity, and
language dominated) can perhaps appreciate the import of Surah Al-Asr
better in this representation.
Imagine
that an LED is attached to the pin labeled Output (metaphor
for a man's life).
- It glows green (to indicate a life which is not at a loss) only if all four inputs of the AND Gate labeled I1, I2, I3, and I4 are TRUE (represented by a “one” in the truth table). Observe that there is only a single statement in the truth table when the LED is ever green.
- It glows red (to indicate a life which is at a loss) if one or more input is FALSE (represented by the corresponding “zero” in the truth table). Observe that there are fifteen statements in the truth table representing all the remaining permutations for which the LED is red!! The obvious first statement of all zero inputs clearly captures the vile hectoring hegemons of the planet and is of no surprise to anyone. But the remaining fourteen can indeed be very surprising.
Meaning:
- it doesn't matter how many prayers one offered and how many Hajj one performed to “believe” ( اٰمَنُوۡا );
- or how many hungry mouths one fed, how many hospitals and schools one built, and how honestly one earned one's income and paid one's zakat to do “good works” ( عَمِلُوا الصّٰلِحٰتِ ) ;
- if one didn't strive to oppose falsehoods and uphold “haq” ( حَقّ ), the life, even if otherwise piously and well-lived, is still one of “loss” ( خُسۡرٍۙ ).
I
am not making this up. That's what the Holy Qur'an itself states,
unequivocally – reflect on it yourself while further recalling
the admonishment of the Author of the Book of Reflection:
'That
this is indeed a Qur'an Most Honourable, In a Book well-guarded,
Which none shall touch but those who are clean: A Revelation from the
Lord of the Worlds. Is it such a Message that ye would hold in
light esteem?' Holy Qur'an, Surah Al-Waqia, 56:77-81
Witness
that the hardest thing to do in modern life is to stand up to
oppression and tyranny ( وَتَوَاصَوۡا
بِالۡحَقِّ
).
And also to persevere in adversity when one is experiencing the
jackboots of the new Nazis upon one's neck ( ۙوَتَوَاصَوۡا
بِالصَّبۡرِ
).
Whereas
the easiest thing to do is to sit in a mosque, and/or to feed the
hungry in atonement of a guilty conscience.
We
already see what the pious Muslims worldwide tend to excel in. We pay
our zakat, khums, fitra (religiously mandated donations) on
time, pray our namaz on time, and keep our fasts on
time. Aspire to go for Hajj at least once, while the
privileged take great pride in performing it repeatedly. Many among
the oppressed are also incredibly patient in affliction. Indeed, we
are so patient that we oft proclaim “Allah chala raha hai”
(God is running the world), “Allah malik hai” (God
is our provider), and often cry ourselves to sleep with utmost sabr
(patience in the sense of resignation to fate), repeating to
ourselves with quivering lips and glistening eyes: “hasbun
allahu wa naimal wakeel” (Allah is sufficient for us and
most excellent is the Protector, Arabic: حَسْبُنَا
اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ
الْوَكِيلُ
Holy
Qur'an, Surah Al-e-Imran 3:173).
According
to the testimony of Surah Al-Asr, take it any which you want, the
fact remains that most of us are still in خُسۡرٍۙ
unless
we stand up to oppression and unequivocally affirm حَقّ
with
some measure of constancy to the best of our individual capacity.
While it is true that only Allah can be the fair judge of that
capacity and to what measure each individual is at a loss and not at
a loss, silence and acquiescence to tyranny are the obvious
antithesis of ( وَتَوَاصَوۡا
بِالۡحَقِّ
).
And that, lamentably, seems to be the modus vivendi of the
majority of Muslims today.
The
crafting of that antithesis, evidently, has also come about courtesy
of the imperial scholars subverting the meaning of the religion of
Islam in the service of tyrants and kings throughout the ages,
modernity being no exception. Language being the first target of
corruption.
Thus,
وَتَوَاصَوۡا
بِالۡحَقِّ
has
been reduced to some nonsensical gibberish by the pious turbaned man
on the pulpit to mean: just talk about justice حَقّ
with
utmost earnestness while occupying oneself in the mosque believing
اٰمَنُوۡا
and
in doing good deeds عَمِلُوا
الصّٰلِحٰت
!
The exposition of وَتَوَاصَوۡا
بِالۡحَقِّ
from
the pulpit and among the masses never includes standing up to kings,
rulers, governments, and to their usurpation, oppression, injustices,
and “imperial mobilizations” writ large in the blood of
the masses.
The
ullema (plural for the Muslim man on the pulpit) today, as
yesterday, selectively focus people's attention with verses from the
Holy Qur'an that exhort people to good works and belief
promising a pleasing Hereafter (e.g. Surah Al Baqara 2:25), to
mask their crafty omissions in the service of empire.
Keeping
the masses occupied in rituals and salvation, and “rendering
unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,” is not
merely a Biblical saying (Matthew 22:21). That semantics has existed
from time immemorial. Its biggest harbingers have always been the man
on the pulpit.
Witness
the 600-page
one-sided Fatwa on Terrorism
by the vaunted “scholar of Islam”, the posterboy of
“moderate Islam” who issued a jurist's proclamation
(Fatwa) against the terrorism of the pirates (see
http://tinyurl.com/Fabricating-Pirates
) but not the emperor's. For services rendered to empire, the house
nigger (see Faq:
What is a house nigger)
soon found a place-setting at the massa's table. As previously
examined in Islam
vs. Secular Humanism and World Government
(http://tinyurl.com/Islam-vs-Secular-Humanism),
the religion of Islam was hijacked from its very early days to
service “empire” - Muslims' own. Nothing has principally
changed today except for the color of the imperial flag.
Liberating
the meaning of the religion of Islam, the Deen-ul-Haq
(religion of حَقّ
)
from the clutches of the so called scholars and jurists among Muslims
is only as difficult as the uncongeniality of pondering the message
of the Holy Qur'an directly, with one's own head and commonsense,
rather than merely mouthing its melodic and soothing verses which no
doubt are magic to the soul.
To
strive for “haq” ( وَتَوَاصَوۡا
بِالۡحَقِّ
)
against anyone's tyranny requires no man's sanction – when
Allah Itself has sanctioned it for every man and woman (
اِنۡسَانَ
)
in creation.
That
is the momentous import of Surah Al-Asr – that tiniest Surah of
the Holy Qur'an comprising a mere 27 words (as counted for the
English translation used here). Its utility as a rallying call for
denying to Caesar what is not Caesar’s, for affirming to God
what is God's, and to man what is man's, remains unsurpassed.
But,
at the end of the day, only Allah is also the final Judge of the
extent to which we each did our own due diligence to Allah's guidance
given our individual trials and tribulations, and our individual
bounties and blessings, on all four criterion for a
life which only Allah shall Deem as “not in a state of
loss”!
Q.E.D.
The
holy month of Ramadan, a joyous month of fasting and reflection,
commences tomorrow (or the day after) worldwide for 1.6 billion
Muslims. Perhaps while rushing to “finish” the recitation
of the Holy Qur'an in this month for nourishing the starved soul, the
hunger in the stomach from not eating all day will be matched with a
hunger in the intellect from not thinking at all.
Ramadan
Mubarik.
Footnotes
*
For those “Left-brained” readers with a precision
oriented engineering bent of mind, there is an implicit A/D convertor
at each of the four inputs in the figure above to characterize the
threshold of conversion from a “zero” to a “one”
for every individual. This is consistent with the Accountability
Equation of the religion of Islam for every individual: Output /
Input, wherein, the Output is the individual's voluntary
behavior, choice of acts, performance, thoughts, beliefs; and Input
is the individual's involuntary assets and liabilities, more
specifically: inheritance, DNA, innate abilities and limitations,
psychological bent of mind, involuntary nurturing and opportunities
or lack thereof due to the general lot in life, and life's trials and
tribulations upon which the individual exercised little or no
control. The calculus of Output / Input is merely the verse
fragment of Surah Al-Baqara 2:286: “On no soul doth Allah
Place a burden greater than it can bear. It gets every good that it
earns, and it suffers every ill that it earns.” expressed
mathematically. Thus, for the purpose of individual Accountability in
reference to Surah Al-Asr, in order to be fair and just to every
individual given their respective limiting or extenuating
circumstances, the measurement of individual Accountability is
sensibly not Absolute Output, but Relative Output / Input,
whereby the threshold of a “one” or “zero”,
i.e., threshold of pass or fail on every criterion, in this
abstraction is also set individually for every human being. And
according to the religion of Islam, only God has the perfect
knowledge to determine this threshold for every human being. This
also automatically implies not to judge others, of who is “pass”
and who is “fail”. That determination is exclusively the
Right of Allah, Haquq-Allah, in the religion of Islam! See the
travesty done to minorities among Muslims for political reasons by
encroaching upon this Haquq-Allah, as for instance: What
Role did Shias Play in Condemning Qadianis to Kafirdom in Cahoots
with Sunni Scholars in 1974?
(http://tinyurl.com/The-Plague-of-Kafirdom).
**
وَتَوَاصَوۡا
بِالصَّبۡرِ
To
strive with perseverance, constancy, steadfastness – and not
passivity or self-defeatist resignation to fate. The word “sabr”
is often misused, at times deliberately, to incapacitate strident
action in the face of adversity. Once again, linguistic hijacking
permits subversion of the mind and consequently controlling of mass
behavior. The popular meaning of the word “sabr” in the
Muslim public mind has been transformed into what is perhaps most
closely akin to the Hindu Karma --- it is just one's lot in life to
be born under oppression, so grin and bear it for in the next life
one will surely be compensated for the full resignation to fate in
this one! No devil could have incapacitated human endeavor to strive
to better their condition more than this hijacking of semantics.
Short
URL:
http://tinyurl.com/Surah-Asr-Tafsir
First
Published Sunday, July 31, 2011, Ramadan eve in the United States,
Muslim year 1432
Footnotes Revised July 11, 2013, 1st of Ramadan in Pakistan, Muslim year 1434
Abstract added 29th Ramadan, August 09, 2013, for inclusion in Pamphlet What does the Holy Qur'an Say Volume I
Footnotes Revised September 2015 to sync with 2nd Edition of Hijacking Holy Qur'an And Islam
Footnotes Revised July 11, 2013, 1st of Ramadan in Pakistan, Muslim year 1434
Abstract added 29th Ramadan, August 09, 2013, for inclusion in Pamphlet What does the Holy Qur'an Say Volume I
Footnotes Revised September 2015 to sync with 2nd Edition of Hijacking Holy Qur'an And Islam
This
Pamphlet is based on the author's book: Hijacking The Holy Qur'an
And Its Religion Islam – Muslims and Imperial Mobilization,
abbreviated to Hijacking Holy Qur'an And Islam.
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