Fifth Argument

Without any uncertainty or doubt (says Allah the Exalted) We have sent a Messenger of great grandeur as a Witness over you; and this Messenger is like unto the Messenger We had sent to Pharaoh.

O ye who deny! Do tell how you will safeguard yourselves from the chastisement if you reject this Messenger; meaning that: if Pharaoh was chastised for rejecting Moses, peace be upon him, then how can you, O deniers, escape punishment?

In short, there are many verses of the same type present in the Holy Quran and it is clearly evident from these verses that the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, held the utmost and absolute certainty in his Messengership, Prophethood, veracity, and righteousness. Anyone who believes in the Old Testament and the New Testament can certainly not justly deny this because in Deuteronomy 18:18 and in chapter 3 of Acts it is clearly written that a Prophet like unto Moses, peace be upon him, is to come. Furthermore, it is also written in the Torah that a false prophet who calls himself the like of Moses, peace be upon him, by way of fabrication and falsehood, shall be killed.

The Holy Prophet (may my father and mother be sacrificed for him), the Arab Prophet, claimed to be a Messenger like unto Moses, peace be upon him, as has been noted earlier. And reciting the noble verse,

(Surah al-Ma’idah, 5:68)—which means that Allah the Exalted will protect you from the people—he even did away with guards and arrangements for his security. In absolutely no uncertain terms, he announced to Madinah’s Jewish and Christian communities that he would not be killed and, by the grace of Allah, he remained safe from being killed—peace and blessings of Allah be upon him.

Christian gentlemen! If the Prophet of Arabia is false (God forbid) in this claim of Prophethood (and by announcing

—Like unto the Messenger We had sent to Pharaoh—which is that very claim to Prophethood that is mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:18 and Acts chapter 3; and it is absolutely clear that the Arab Prophet was not killed), then the Torah is not a holy book, but is instead totally wrong and false, since it is written in Deuteronomy 18:20 that the false prophet would be killed. However, if the Holy Torah is by way of Divine revelation and true, then our Guide, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, is a true Messenger and—as a matter of fact—the Messenger referred to in chapter 18 of Deuteronomy.

It is for this very reason that the Noble Quran repeatedly declares both the Holy Prophet—Ahmad Mujtaba [the Elect], Muhammad Mustafa(sas) [the Chosen]—and itself to be

[fulfilling that which is with you]. (Surah Al-e-‘Imran, 3:82)

What does this mean? It means that the Noble Quran and the Arab Prophet, by his advent, security, and being safeguarded from being killed, proved the Torah to be true.

Now, take further heed: the Noble Quran makes the claim that there is no contradiction in the Quran.

If the Noble Quran had not been the Word of Allah the Exalted, then there would necessarily have been contradictions—indeed much contradiction—in it.

First, that the themes of the Noble Quran be falsified by the law of nature, and the meanings of the Quran be opposed to the Divine system and dictates of human nature, or that our natural faculties be unable to bear them.

The second way a contradiction may occur is for the contents of the Quran to be opposed to each other.

Ponder! An unlettered Arab from unlettered Arabia (

) [O Allah! Relieve me of that which I ask of You] recited this Quran to the people. Thereafter, thirteen centuries of the most intense research by natural philosophers failed to falsify any subject of the Holy Quran, the Word of the Gracious God, and, thus—through this experimentation—it became certain that they would be unable to falsify it in the future as well.

The Noble Quran was recited to the people over a span of twenty-three years. During this lengthy duration of time the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, was sometimes alone and sometimes governing over thousands upon thousands of people. Sometimes he was battling enemies and sometimes he was sitting among his friends; sometimes he was at home with his wives and sometimes in pursuit of enemies; sometimes he was speaking with the ignorant and faithless people of Arabia and sometimes debating with the scholars of the Christians and the Jews. At times he was short of provisions and at other times he was self-sufficient, etc., etc.

During such times of varying circumstances, the thoughts of a weak individual can never remain steady, and discord and deviation inevitably transpire. Yet, there is no discord in the Holy Quran even though it was revealed over a period of twenty-three years under varying circumstances.

The Holy Quran has also said to its own credit:

[‘a Book, whose verses are mutually supporting’].1 Having proven from the Holy Quran that neither the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, entertained any uncertainty or doubt, nor any contradiction exists in the Quran, I will now focus on the question of the critic.

Why? Because, as mentioned above, it stands proven to me from the Holy Book and the Praiseworthy Furqan,2 that the Most Noble Messenger, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, held the highest degree of certainty, and there is no contradiction in the Quran; yet the critic alleges that the Holy Quran depicts the Guide of Islam as being riddled with doubt. The primary argument of the critic is the following verse of Surah al-Baqarah:

The first Rebuttal—

—lā takūnanna is a form of nafi [negation] not of nahy [prohibition], and it is to lay emphasis that the

[nūn with shadd] has been added to its end to make it

. The

cannot come in cases of the past or present. Thus,

is a future tense. As such, based on this analysis, the meaning of this verse is:

This is the truth from your Lord (because this truth has become established based on revelation and arguments) so you will never be from among those who doubt.

The Second Rebuttal—I accept [for the sake of argument] that lā takūnanna is not a form of nafi, but rather, of nahy. However, I would like to point out that nahy is of two types: one which demands the abandoning of an action and the other which demands the non-existence of the action. The objection of the critic is based on the understanding that, here, nahy should be taken to mean the abandoning of an action; that is, the person addressed should abandon the action of doubting. However, I contend that, here, doubting is non-existent and the intent of nahy is that just as doubting is currently non-existent, it should remain so in the future as well.

The Third Rebuttal—O critic! What indication is there in the verse

to make us believe that

is addressed to the Guide of Islam, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him? I can affirm on the basis of the above-mentioned proofs that the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him, had full faith in his Messengership and there is no contradiction in the Noble Quran. Therefore, it is proved that

is addressed to some wavering sceptic and not the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him.

The Fourth Rebuttal—I accept [for the sake of argument] that this phrase

addresses our Holy Guide, peace be upon him. Nonetheless, the manner of speech in the Arabic and Hebrew languages is very close to each other, and the parts of the [previous] holy books that are unadulterated and the Holy Quran are both the words of the same Speaker and both have issued forth from the same Source. It is the idiom of both that the address is made to the Supreme Founder, but the intended audience are the followers of the Founder. The person addressed is one individual, but the intended addressee is another.

Such holy books can be found in hundreds of places. Now observe such usage from the Noble Quran:

In these places, note who is addressed by the word

[O!] and who by

[you people divorce]; who is addressed by

[to]; who appears to be addressed by the word

[do]; who is referred to by

[whoever]; and who is meant by

[before you].

The Fifth Rebuttal—I concede [for the sake of argument] that

is in the form of nahy [prohibition], and even that nahy conveys the meaning of abandoning [an action], and even that the person addressed is the Chief and Pride of all Creation, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and furthermore, that he is indeed the one intended to be addressed; nevertheless, I assert that

is given in the form of nahy, with the

[nūn with shadd] added for emphasis. The emphatic

never comes for the past or the present; upon whichever verb it comes, it transforms it into a future verb. Therefore, the meaning of 3

would be as follows:

O Muhammad, you have never been the one to doubt in the past nor the present. Now, as you face the future, remain likewise without any doubt or uncertainty. This is a divine prayer so to speak, which is certainly accepted. Furthermore, given that your temperament is not one to entertain any doubts about such a teaching [as Islam], therefore, My aims have now become firmly established with arguments.

The Sixth Rebuttal—I allow, for the sake of argument, that reluctance actually occurred; so, can such hesitation result in dismissal of a person from the office of prophethood based on the principles accepted by the Christians? Most certainly not.

Consider the Books of Exodus and Judges from the Torah of Moses, peace be upon him. Moses, peace be upon him, was selected by Allah the Exalted to save the Children of Israel. Thereupon, Moses says: ‘Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?’ (Exodus 3:11)

Then, Moses, peace be upon him, started offering excuses that he could not speak well and so Allah the Exalted said emphatically, ‘You go; I am with you.’ Even then—according to the Christians—on account of his weaknesses, he was not satisfied, so he submitted that someone else be sent to Egypt. Thereupon, the anger of the Exalted Maker (says the present-day Torah) was roused. See, ‘And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses.’ (Exodus 4:14)

And all that Gideon had done is manifest from Judges 6:36–40.4 How he persistently experimented! Let fair-minded Christians ponder over this.

1 Surah az-Zumar, 39:24 [Publisher]

2 Furqan (Discrimination) is another name of the Holy Quran. [Publisher]

3 Surah al-Baqarah, 2:148; Surah al-An‘am, 6:115 [Publisher]

4 And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said, Behold, I will put a fleece of wool in the floor; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said. And it was so: for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground. ( Judges 6:36–40) [Publisher]