Muhammad: the Seal of the Prophets?

[TashaN]

Originally Posted by Adib

I admit to wording that really badly, my mistake.

What I had meant is that, through a discussion like this, perhaps we'll both gain some new insight; me into Islam and you into the Baha'i Faith. I do care about what is right and wrong - otherwise as you said yourself there's no point in talking to begin with - and I didn't mean to come off as close-minded. My apologies.

I would really appreciate it if you could cite any verses that put the Baha'i Faith or Baha'u'llah into a questionable position and I will do my best to try and find some common ground. Discussions should be learning experiences, after all. I would like you to learn what I have to say and I am just as eager to understand your perspective on these topics.

Never mind.

Also, as the master in the Baha'i faith in RF "Popeyesays" is here, so i'm already interested.

Originally Posted by Popeyesays

THe nabi rasul argument goes nowhere when discussing with Muslims.


It's far more productive to pursue exactly what Seal MEANS in Arabic and English it is quite similar.

Muhammed was the seal of the prophets in the sense that He warranted all that came before Him as authentic.

The particular veerse quoted has nothing to do with declaring finality.

In short don't expect it to be more easily argued with the Muslim than Jesus declaration to be the Messiah was found to be effective with the Pharisees.

Simply speaking if they agree with you, they're out of a job.

Regards,
Scott

If the seal argument from a baha'i point of view has turned out to be false, does that mean your faith is baseless, and thus, a false one?

I think that's the case, because if prophet Mohammed was proven to be the last one, then the prophets of baha'i faith would be false prophets, and agreeing with Muslims at the end would definitely give the same conclusion, but this time, it will be the other way around ...

Simply speaking if they agree with you, they're out of a job.

[Popeyesays]

Originally Posted by TashaN

Never mind.

Also, as the master in the Baha'i faith in RF "Popeyesays" is here, so i'm already interested.



If the seal argument from a baha'i point of view has turned out to be false, does that mean your faith is baseless, and thus, a false one?

I think that's the case, because if prophet Mohammed was proven to be the last one, then the prophets of baha'i faith would be false prophets, and agreeing with Muslims at the end would definitely give the same conclusion, but this time, it will be the other way around ...

Arguyments reach an impasse when there is no way to empirically prove one argument or the other false.

We've reached an impasse.

Regards,
Scott

[tariqkhwaja]

What the ...?

This question has already been said and done in Muslims Only: Finality of Prophethood of Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).

Obviously, there can be no Prophets outside the fold of Islam. The Quran clearly states that Prophethood from now on will only be granted to those who:
"... obey Allah and this messenger of his ... " (Nisa: 69).

You see the Quran is different from all previous books in that in categorically states that Islam is a complete religion.
"... today I completed for you your religion, and I completed on you My blessing , and I accepted/approved for you the Islam (as) a religion, ..." (5:3)

The verse points out one very important proof of this. The fact that Islam is THE ONLY religion in the world (of the great world religions) that has its name in its Holy Book.

Ask Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, etc. Ask anyone. Where do the names of their religions come from? It is a big deal that one would expect that the very names of different religions of the world all claiming to be truth would, at least, be found in the main Holy Book. But nowhere in the Bible, for example, do you find "Christianity" mentioned anywhere. Or nowhere in the Vedas does one find "Hinduism".

It is a very important property unique to Islam. The Quran makes a statement "completed your religion for you" and the proves it when it gives our religion a name.

Bahais claim the Quran is old stuff but the fact is that if the Bahais believe Quran to be the word of God then the Quran, itself, prohibits anyone who believes in it to call it old stuff till the day of judgement.

[Popeyesays]

Originally Posted by tariqkhwaja

What the ...?

This question has already been said and done in Muslims Only: Finality of Prophethood of Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).

Obviously, there can be no Prophets outside the fold of Islam. The Quran clearly states that Prophethood from now on will only be granted to those who:
"... obey Allah and this messenger of his ... " (Nisa: 69).

You see the Quran is different from all previous books in that in categorically states that Islam is a complete religion.
"... today I completed for you your religion, and I completed on you My blessing , and I accepted/approved for you the Islam (as) a religion, ..." (5:3)

The verse points out one very important proof of this. The fact that Islam is THE ONLY religion in the world (of the great world religions) that has its name in its Holy Book.

Ask Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, etc. Ask anyone. Where do the names of their religions come from? It is a big deal that one would expect that the very names of different religions of the world all claiming to be truth would, at least, be found in the main Holy Book. But nowhere in the Bible, for example, do you find "Christianity" mentioned anywhere. Or nowhere in the Vedas does one find "Hinduism".

It is a very important property unique to Islam. The Quran makes a statement "completed your religion for you" and the proves it when it gives our religion a name.

Bahais claim the Quran is old stuff but the fact is that if the Bahais believe Quran to be the word of God then the Quran, itself, prohibits anyone who believes in it to call it old stuff till the day of judgement.

A Bahá'í Approach to the

Claim of Finality in Islam
Seena Fazel and Khazeh Fananapazir
Abstract Because it precludes the acceptance of Messengers of God after the Islamic dispensation, the concept of the Finality of Prophethood (khatm al-nubuwwa) is the major theological barrier between the Bahá'í Faith and Islam. This article surveys the philosophical, theological, and historical interpretations of the terms prophet and seal, and offers an approach based upon the Bahá'í writings to their meaning that reconciles the "Seal of the Prophets" doctrine with progressive revelation. In addition, the related problem of the finality of Islam is analyzed. The article argues the need for a multiplicity of interpretive methods in addressing problems of religious pluralism.

The concept of the finality of prophethood [khatm al-nubuwwa], the belief that Muhammad was the last of God's prophets sent to humanity, is fundamental to contemporary Muslim belief. Muslims accept the Qur'án as absolute truth that prescribes a set of laws operative and incumbent upon humanity for all eternity. Muslim theology therefore asserts that Islam contains all that mankind will ever require until the Day of Judgement and that no further revelation of the divine purpose can or will occur - Islam is the final and perfect religion. These beliefs have two important consequences for Bahá'ís.

First, the belief in finality is the central theological justification for the opposition and persecution of Bahá'ís living in some Islamic countries because the acceptance of the Bahá'í Faith by Muslims is considered an act of apostasy (ridda).[1] "This last point is the single most important issue that completely separates the Islamic and Bahá'í viewpoints" (Moayyad, Historical 78). In Islamic countries that have not punished apostasy by death, this difference between the Bahá'í Faith and Islam has nevertheless had far-reaching civil implications. One notable historical case is the dissolution of marriage contracts in 1925 between Bahá'ís and non-Bahá'ís by the Appellate religious court in Egypt.[2]

The social effects of this issue have been further highlighted in a series of interviews with Iranian Bahá'ís and Muslims which were intended to investigate the reasons for prejudice and discrimination against Bahá'ís in Iran. This study concluded that "the issue of Muhammad's being considered by Muslims as the `Seal of the Prophets' to be extremely important in explaining the hostility of Muslims toward the Bahá'í Faith" (Robinson, Prejudice 35).

In addition, anti-Bahá'í polemical works regularly revert to the consequences of rejecting Islam's claim to finality. One of these, for instance, states at the outset:

[b]elief in the finality of prophethood of Muhammad is crucial and definite, in the same way as is the faith in the Oneness of God or belief in the hereafter. Anyone who denies these truths cannot be considered a Muslim. Similarly anyone who claims to be prophet, or who tries to promulgate a new law is an apostate and a liar. (Noori, Finality 1)

Second, insistence on the Islamic belief in finality could be seen more generally to question the fundamental Bahá'í principle of the underlying oneness and progressiveness of religious truth. Indeed this has been noted by Huston Smith in his introductory textbook to comparative religion, "The Religions of Man". Although he sympathizes with the vision of a "universal religion embedded in the heart of each of the world's great existing religions" (Religions 352), which he associates with the Bahá'í Faith, he argues that a number of serious questions need to be raised before students of religion can accept this concept of religious unity. Smith asks how Bahá'ís resolve the seemingly irreconcilable theological differences between the religions. Seen in this panoramic perspective, this a valid point in so far as it seems to challenge the fundamental premise of the Bahá'í Faith that the world religions come from one source and are essentially one. Among Smith's pertinent questions are:

How fully has the proponent tried and succeeded in understanding Christianity's claim that Christ was the only begotten Son of God, or the Muslim's claim that Muhammad is the Seal of the Prophets, or the Jews' sense of their being the Chosen People? (ibid)[3]

It is the second of these questions that this article will explore.[4]
continued:

[Popeyesays]

Islam and Finality

The idea of khatm al-nubuwwa (finality of prophethood) derives from Qur'án 33:40 which states that, "Muhammad is not the father of any one of your men, but the Messenger of God [rasúl-ulláh], and the Seal of the Prophets [khátam al-nabiyyín]".[5] According to most commentators, the meaning of khátam here is "last". For instance, Yusuf `Alí, whose translation and commentary of the Qur'án has become a standard for Sunni Muslims worldwide, presents the contemporary interpretation of this verse:

When a document is sealed, it is complete, and there can be no further addition. The Holy Prophet Muhammad closed the long line of Messengers. Allah's teaching is and will always be continuous, but there has been and will be no Prophet after Muhammad. The later ages will want thinkers and reformers, not Prophets. This is not an arbitrary matter. (Holy Qur'án, 1069; fn. 3731)

Muslims have referred to hadíth literature in such discussions that have, in their view, corroborated this understanding of Qur'án 33:40. Thus:

O `Alí, to me you are what Aaron was to Moses except that there will be no prophet [nabí] after me. (Concordance 6:335)

God sent Muhammad at a time when for a long time no prophet had appeared, and people were suffering from religious differences and squabbles; God terminated [khatama bihi al-wahy] the institution of Prophethood with Prophet Muhammad. (Imam `Alí, "Nahj al-Balághah" qtd. in Noori, Finality 5)

Further, a frequently cited tradition describes how the Prophet compared the relationship between himself and the prophets who preceded him to a man who had almost finished the construction of a beautiful house, leaving a space for only one brick at a corner. People started to walk around it, admiring it and asked why the last brick had not been put in the space. The Prophet said, "I am that brick and I am the seal of the prophets [khátam al-nabiyyín]" (Al-Bukhari, Sahíh 18). As Friedmann, whose thesis deals in detail with this question, explains, "Here the Prophet is described as completing, perfecting, and putting the final touch on the sumptuous structure of religion, which had gradually been erected, but not completed, by his predecessors in the prophetic office" (Prophecy 54).

Islamic belief in finality also rests on the interpretation of a number of verses in the Qur'án that indicate that Islam is perfect and complete:

the true religion with God is Islam. (3:19)

whoso desires another religion than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him. (3:85)

This day have I perfected your religion for you, and have filled up the measure of my favours upon you; and it is my pleasure that Islam be your religion. (5:4)[6]

He it is who sent His Apostle with the Guidance and a religion of the truth, that He may make it victorious over every other religion. (9:33)[7]

The conjunction of these two themes, i.e. Muhammad as the last Prophet and Islam as the final religion, has resulted in crystallizing an attitude of finality and exclusivism, which, in turn, reflects a common propensity of most religious traditions. This article endeavours to provide the basis of a new framework reconciling the Bahá'í belief that manifestations of God have appeared, in the persons of the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh, and will continue to appear "till `the end that hath no end'"[8] with the time-honoured Islamic doctrines of khatm al-nubuwwa (finality of prophethood), and Islam as the final divinely revealed religion. To put the Bahá'í interpretation of this idea in its proper perspective, a brief explanation of this Faith's teachings in regard to Muhammad and the Qur'án is necessary.

The Bahá'í writings whole-heartedly accept the Qur'án "as an absolutely authenticated Repository of the Word of God", which should be approached "reverently" and studied "with a mind purged from preconceived ideas" (Shoghi Effendi, Advent 49). The Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith explains that "Islám, or its Prophet, or His Book" have not been "or are in any way, or to however slight a degree, disparaged" (idem, Promised Day 108) in its writings. Indeed, Muhammad is called the "Apostle of God" (Gleanings 76), the "Seal of the Prophets" (Epistle 41),[9] and the "Day-star of Truth" (Kitáb-i-Iqán 11) amongst other exalted attributes, and Bahá'u'lláh makes the following tribute to the transforming power of the Prophet's influence:

Reflect for a while upon the behaviour of the companions of the Muhammadan Dispensation. Consider how, through the reviving breath of Muhammad, they were cleansed from the defilements of earthly vanities, were delivered from selfish desires, and were detached from all else but Him. Behold how they preceded all the peoples of the earth in attaining unto His holy Presence - the Presence of God Himself - how they renounced the world and all that is therein, and sacrificed freely and joyously their lives at the feet of that Manifestation of the All-Glorious. (Kitáb-i-Iqán 159-160, emphasis added)

Since there is no question as to the authenticity of the verse Qur'án 33:40, the challenge, therefore, is to reconcile the Bahá'í position of the continuity of divine revelation after Muhammad with the commonly understood meaning of Muhammad as the `Seal of the Prophets'. A starting point, we suggest, is a rational and balanced textual analysis of the Qur'ánic use of the words `Prophets' and `Seal'.

continued

[Popeyesays]

The Founder of Islam as Nabí

Two different words are used in the Qur'án for the messenger of God: prophet [nabí]10 and apostle/messenger [rasúl].[11] The word prophet is used on 75 occasions while apostle occurs 331 times. Most Muslims use these words interchangeably as indicated by the usual rendering of the shahada,12 as if it would be the confession that "there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is His Prophet", whereas the Arabic title of Muhammad here is rasúl-Alláh (God's apostle/messenger).

The discussion on the use of the terms prophet and apostle has been conducted for over 50 years by several Orientalists. In 1924 Wensinck defended the thesis that there is a distinction between prophet and apostle in the Qur'án:

According to Muhammad's view the Apostle stands as founder and leader at the beginning of a series formed by his representatives, the prophets. (Muhammed 172)

Horovitz, agreeing with Wensinck in so far that the two words have distinctive meanings, rejects the above difference because Abraham is not referred to as an apostle in the Qur'án, but only a prophet. He suggested that nabí (prophet) is used mostly, though not exclusively, for biblical prophets, and, along with rasúl (messenger), for Muhammad himself during the Medina period (Nabí 802). Bell[13] and Jeffrey both argue that the words are synonymous. For instance, Jeffrey concludes: "Apparently he [Muhammad] made no special distinction between the two names rasúl and nabí" (Qur'án 27).

In this article, we suggest that there are three reasons why the two words have distinctly different applications in the Qur'án.

1. The chronological order in which `prophet' and `apostle' are used.

Muhammad is not referred to as a prophet in the Meccan period, whereas this title is applied to him approximately 30 times in Medina. As Bijlefeld elaborates, "When we, moreover, realize that in the Meccan period the rasúl (messenger) title is applied to Muhammad fourteen times, it becomes indeed very difficult to accept the view that the terms `prophet' and `apostle' are fully interchangeable" (Prophet 16).

The reasons for this shift in emphasis are unclear. Bijlefeld argues that in the pre-Hijira period, the intention was to stress the idea of an apostle sent by God to his own community with the very same message which other apostles and communities had received in the past. The use of the prophet title in the post-Hijira period, in contrast, coincided with the need to place a greater emphasis on the Arabs' descendance from Abraham (ibid, 23-24), and thus to position Muhammad in the Abrahamic (Semitic) tradition of prophethood.

2. The individuals who are called prophets and apostles.

Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Enoch, Ezra, Job, Jonah, Ezekiel, John the Baptist, Jesus and Muhammad are the persons to whom the Qur'án directly applies the title prophet. If we include indirect references as well, Elisha, Elijah, Lot, Joseph, and Zechariah can be added, because there is a verse which lists them with several of the aforementioned prophets and concludes: "Those are they to whom We gave Scripture, the Judgement and Prophethood [nubuwwat]" (6:83-89).

The list of apostles is Noah, Lot, Ishmael, Moses (twice with Aaron), Jesus, Hud, Sálih, Jethro and Muhammad. If here we include those referred to as mursalún,14 we can add Elijah and Joseph.

Preliminary conclusions can be drawn from these lists of prophets and apostles. There is the impression of a distinction between nabí (prophet) and rasúl (messenger), which is further confirmed as the prophets are exclusively amongst the descendants of Abraham, while the list of apostles includes three apparently sent to other communities (Hud, Sálih, Jethro). It is also clear that not all the prophets are called apostles, therefore strongly supporting the view that not every prophet is an apostle. In addition, the contrary hypothesis that not every apostle is a prophet can be justifiably concluded as Hud, Sálih, and Jethro are not given the prophetic title. Even more significant is the suggestion, explicitly expressed in a few texts,[15] that there have been many more apostles than those whose names have been revealed in the Qur'án.[16] Interestingly, Parrinder's view is that the title nabí (prophet) refers to a succession of prophets that have come to the "Prophetic religions" - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - while every people has its apostle, which have also come to the Indian and Far Eastern Religions - the "Wisdom religions" (Jesus 43).

continued