The eternal message
Letters to a daughter - 2
This is the second letter in the series of 5. The first was posted at this link.
In order to answer the questions you pose in your last email some thorny ground has to be cleared. So bear with me and I will get to what you want to know.
One really must start before Islam. In fact, one has to start where we – humanity – start. The Quran tells us that no human community has ever been left without divine guidance. God's messengers have brought His message to humanity from the beginning of time. The Quran mentions their number to be in the tens of thousands. A few are mentioned by name. Most remain anonymous.
Their messages, allowing for local differences and the timing of their descent have always, in essence, been the same. The message Moses brought to his people is the same as what Jesus brought to his and Mohammad to his.
Two questions come to mind: First, why was it necessary to send so many messengers? And second, what about religions that are not mentioned in the Quran such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism? Will not their followers attain to salvation?
It is interesting to note that all the revealed religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have one very prominent feature in common. This is what is called Tauheed in Arabic. It does not have a sufficiently precise equivalent in English. So I'll explain what it means and retain the Arabic term to refer to it. It is the verbal noun, or the infinitive of the verb wahhada which means: to make one, to unify, to render unique. Simply put it means God is one.
But the meaning extends well beyond this: It means that He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He is Reality that recognizes no other reality. The universe exists because of Him. He holds, as it were, the electrons in their orbits. And were it not for Him all matter would self-annihilate.
All the revealed religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam are characterized by Tauheed. (Modern Christianity is an exception. But that is a discussion for another time). What is especially surprising though is that many other world religions also have Tauheed at their core.
Hinduism, despite its outward polytheistic manifestation, is in fact at its core the quintessential religion of Tauheed. Zoroastrianism, the religion of the ancient Persians, with its temples of fire and ash, seems a long way from the creed of Tauheed. But in fact, the Muslims recognized Zoroaster as a Prophet of God. When Persia was conquered by the Arabs the Caliph Omar ordered his governor to treat the Persians as “people of the Book”.
The noted Sufi Muslim scholar Frithjof Schuon spent three years of his life living with a native American tribe studying their faith and way of life. In his book of this experience entitled “The Feathered Sun” Schuon eloquently explains that Tauheed was central to the faith of the Red Indian.
Step a little away from religion and read the metaphysical works of the ancient Greeks. You will see Tauheed stare you in the face.
Is not this too much of a coincidence? These diverse religions and creeds varying widely in their chronology and geographical origin and yet so similar in essence?
And now back to the other question I posed earlier: Why so many messengers? Chronology and geography could be an explanation. But the Quran mentions another reason: It is the human trait of forgetfulness and our tendency to take Truth and bend it to suit our convenience.
The words of the prophets are warped to suit human desires. Their books over time become mere shadows of the originals. The crystal-clear stream, as it were, is muddied as it makes its way down the mountain. And so the need to renew it. This is what God's messengers have been doing from time immemorial.
But something very interesting happens when we get to Islam. We are told that there will be no more messengers sent to humanity after Mohammad. And that the message he brings, the Quran, is the last divine message that will be delivered to us.
The natural question is: Why? Why should the stream of messengers have to end? The Quran does not oblige with a direct answer. But those who read it will not help noticing in its words a sense of finality, an allusion that the cycle of time is reaching its shadowed end. God's messengers have completed their task. The time of warning has finished. The Reckoning approaches.
To summarize then: Islam does not claim to be unique. It is simply the renewal of an eternal message that God's messengers have delivered to humanity from the beginning of time. Islam does, however, claim to be final. There will be no more messages to struggling humanity from their Creator.
It is also important to understand that the words of this final message are not those of the Prophet. He was merely the medium of transmission. They are literally, not figuratively, the words of God. The Creator speaks directly to those of His creatures whom He has endowed the ability to understand! Attributing human authorship to these words, as non-Muslims sometimes do, is to do away with the religion of Islam.
And it is the Divine origin of these priceless words that has obliged Muslims, down through the centuries, not to permit even one word in the book to be changed. Its words remain today exactly as they were on the day they descended from the Divine Presence into the heart of the Prophet some fourteen hundred years ago.
Some more ground needs to be cleared before I can get to the specific questions you posed in your e-mail. I will do this, Inshallah, in my next message.
Continued at this link.