September 1, 2012
By Saeed Qureshi
(Note: All the years quoted in
this article are in Christian calendar- C.E. or B.C.E.)
All the known
religions and their founders of the past do not have clear-cut chronological
facts and figures about their lives and missions. It is only the prophet of
Islam who has the unsurpassed distinction of his life properly chronicled and
recorded. All the phases encompassing his birth to his final departure from the
transitory earthly abode have been meticulously and distinctly preserved.
The times
periods and years relating to the ancient apostles starting from Adam to
Solomon and afterwards are ambiguous and lack credibility. These years are
simply approximate that in a roundabout manner describe the periods in which
these apostles of God existed. This assertion in no way negates their divinity
or their being the messengers of God in various eras.
The Biblical
or history-based religions are three i.e., Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
From among the litany of the mythical religions, the Hinduism, Buddhism,
Shinto, Taoism, Confucianism, stand on top. The ancient mythical religions and
their dogmas come to be known from one generation to another by word of mouth
or from writing on the stone tablets or columns. As such these religions
suffered from distortions, exaggerations and a kind of mythical stuff that
mostly are hard to believe.
The principal
reason for such a lacuna was the absence of a workable or credible system for
recording the chronological data and securing the utterances, sayings and
sermons of the sages, saints and prophets of the bygone ages delivered to their
respective communities. As such these religions belong to an age when the
techniques of preserving the history of the world or religions were yet not
discovered.
The New
Testament was historically written by different authors at different times
after the ascension of Jesus to heavens. The period of writing the New
Testament is reckoned to be between 35 to 85 years after Jesus’ ascension. With
regard to the contents of the Bible both in the old and the New Testament,
there are grave variations in the editions published in various stages and
times. The authors of the four gospels, Mathew, Johan, Luke and Mark differ
with each other on a whole range of episodes and events concerning Jesus
Christ. Jesus did not dictate his speeches, sermons and conversations, nor did these
scribes take notes for securing his utterances and messages.
The myriad of
different texts of the Bible and the variation in narration by authors bear the
testimony that the gospels lacked the actual utterances of the Jesus. It could
at best be described the life account of an apostle or prophet of God with
broader events but not in the actual sequence as he lived and delivered his
divine discourses According to a
research scholar on religions, Dr. Abdul Hye, there were 103 clear contractions
in the Bible.
From the
primitive manuscripts of the Bible to the latest one known as “King James
Version” (KJV) compiled and published in 1611, a staggering number of fifty
thousand grammatical and descriptive errors have been corrected or redrafted.
The KJV has dropped 7 books that were part of the Bible for roughly almost
three thousand years. The Protestants do not believe in these 7 discarded
books. If such a hug number of books are excluded as apocrypha, then one can
imagine how fictitious this stuff could that was believed by the Christians for
almost 16 hundred years.
As we all know
that there are a total of 66 books that constitute the two parts of the Bible
commonly known as the old and the New Testament. The Hebrew or the old
treatment consists of 39 chapters or books and the New Testament comprises 27
chapters. These two sections were written by some 40 men in the course of 1600
years that is from 1513(B.C.E.) to 98(A.C.). There are only fables and
narrations concerning kings, rulers, battles or the messages of the apostles
covering several centuries written by a diversity of authors who were not even
present during the occurrence of those incidents. These writings are devoid of
clear-cut chronological order.
The Hindu religion does not have a founder,
‘definite creed, priestly hierarchy or governing agency” (Mankind’s Search for
God) It historically starts from the writing of the Vedas some 900 years before
the Jesus Christ (B.C.E.). The Vedas were later augmented and supplemented by
Brahmanas, Upanishads and Puranas. It would be utterly impossible to justify or
figure out if the 330 million gods in the Hindu mythology actually exist or
not? It is also difficult to apportion definite periods or times during which
these volumes were written and by whom these were written.
As for the
founder of Buddhism there is no evidence or account of his life and religious
doctrine that was scribed during his life time. All that we know about him are
the canonical texts that have no historical evidence about their time of
writings and their authors. There is a mention of the convening of council by
500 monks after the death of Buddha to deliberate about the authentic teachings
of the master i.e., Siddhartha Gautama. So the Buddhist canonical material as
uttered from the mouth of Gautama was not recorded in his life time but was
compiled much later by others.
The Shinto and
Tao and Confucianism religions too are embodiments of obscurity and are unclear
about the exact time and periods of their apostles. Taoism is believed to be
founded by philosopher Lao-Tzu some six centuries before the Jesus Christ.
Little is known about him except that after his retirement from the royal
service he wrote a brief treatise of 5000 words at the request of some custom
officer of those primitive times.
After writing
the book he departed and was seen or heard no more. The researchers however are
skeptical about this story. But one thing is quite clear that Lao-Tzu has been
obscure and least known among the founders of religious or faith based creeds.
The gist of the Taoism is to “shun the society and return to the nature”
The life story
of the great philosopher of the East Confucius is more elaborate as compared to
Lao. Both these sages belonged to the same period of Chou dynasty; torn and
weakened by a long period of wars and chaos. A part of the life account of
Confucius looks to be more mythical than reality. He is described to be a great
teacher. His lectures and sayings are saved in nine books by his disciples who
travelled with him during his tours. This is one sage or the founder of creed
and a moral code, whose writings are preserved but still not in a chronological
format and without mention of any specific time periods.
Let us now
turn our attention to the prophet of Islam. He is the most watched, observed,
revered, adored and chronicled prophet in the history. He was born in 570 and died in 632.In between
this period his revelations sayings, commandment, decrees, decisions, tenets
and events were recorded and memorized by those who observed and remained with
him in praying, during hardships, preaching, in battles, social interaction or
in traveling.
As stated in
the foregoing, the scriptures and holy books of the other leading religions
such as Bible were written over a time frame of several centuries by other
authors after the death of Jesus Christ. However, the holy book of the Muslims,
Qur’an was preserved by prophet Muhammad himself for all the 23 years during
which he was receiving the revelations. Since he himself was unlettered, his
method of preserving the divine messages and directions were to recite them
before the Muslim faithful, compatriots, family members and others who would
commit these to memory and keep it alive by repeated recitations. Later these
would be written on shoulder blades of camel or sheep, palm leaves, wood,
parchments and dried skins.
Apart from his
revelations his social utterances, normal conversations, sermons and decisions
are composed in the form of Hadith. Every period of his life starting from the
childhood, to his upbringing, his adolescence, his youth, his marriages, his
business tours, his meditations in the cave Hira and the divine mission to
peach Islam are meticulously preserved, arranged and tabulated in a
chronological order.
It was during
the first Caliph Hazarat Abu Bakr's caliphate that Qur’an was collected from
written and memorized sources and the task of their assembly in shape of a book
was initiated. However it was during the caliphate of the third caliph Hazrat
Usman (Othman) that it was complied in the form of a proper book. A good number of copies of this original
edition of Quran were made and sent to various destinations within the Muslim
territories.
When Hazrat
Usman was murdered in 656, he was reading the same edition of Qur’an that was
compiled under his guidance and circulated to other places. The copy of that
specific Qur’an is preserved in the Topkapi museum in Istanbul (Turkey) and in
Tashkent (Uzbekistan). The Qur’an from that period to the present is the exact
copy of that original edition formulated during the third caliph Hazrat Osman's
period.
From his birth
in 570 to his first marriage with Hazrat Khadija in 595, to his fist revelation
in 610, preaching in public from 613 onwards, to sending of persecuted Muslims
to Abyssinia in 615 are the events that are indelible facts of history. His
crusades, his meeting during the Hajj with a batch of Medina pilgrims in 620
migration from Mecca to Medina in 622, stay in Medina and the “Battle of
Trenches in 627, conquering Mecca in 630, his demise in 632 are various phases
of his glorious life that were witnessed by countless Muslims and non-Muslims
alike of those times and are clearly narrated in history with the dates and
months and even timings.
When he passed away he was buried in the same room where he
lived after migrating to Medina. The tomb erected on his grave stands from day
one and is visited round the year by countless Muslims from all over the world.
That is a continuous evidence of his presence till death in Medina and
therefore is irrefutable.
The graves or
tombs of other ancient prophets do not denote any period and did not survive in
their in their original shape during the course time. The floods, natural
disasters and ravages of invaders did not leave the original forms of their
resting places in holy cities like Baghdad, Mosul, Basra and Cairo, among
others Damascus. During his invasion of Baghdad in 1258, the Mongol invader
Hilaku Khan demolished every building in Baghdad and inundated the city by
diverting the river Euphrates to the city.
In contrast,
the loving and caring way, the tomb of Hazrat Muhammad with its shining green
minaret has been kept intact and well maintained for fourteen centuries speaks
for the imperishable glory of a prophet
who is as immortal after his death as he was held in extreme love and unbounded
reverence by Muslims during his life time. As a model of personal piety and
immaculate moral character, his life is shining like a diamond and serves ever
as a beacon of divine light for the humanity.
The sustained
revelations of the Muslims’ holy book Quran for 23 years and later its
compilation done by prophet himself and later by his two successors also
undeniably testify to the fact that it was not the work of later day scribes or
writers. It is a truthful, genuine and authentic chronological production by
prophet himself and by those who were witnesses to its being revealed,
memorized, written and distributed.
Prophet
Muhammad appeared as God’s messenger in an era that was not as primitive as
compared to those eras of early messengers and apostles. The age of Prophet
Muhammad was considerably advanced and developed. The time distance between
Jesus Christ and Muhammad is 570 years. In between there was no prophet that
could lay claim of prophet-hood. In these 570 years the world had progressed
considerably.
The two main
Biblical religions namely Judaism and Christianity are in fact the forerunners
of Islam. Islam acknowledges and owns these religions as the precursors of
Islam. However, with the advent of
Islam, the outdated, obsolete teachings or unwanted dogmas contained in those
scriptures were edited, updated and refined by the founder of the Islam.
In fact Islam,
as the legend goes, starts from Prophet Adam and assumes the finality with the
last prophet of Islam as declared by him in Mecca in 630 C.E, in his last
sermon during the pilgrimage. On that occasion he declared before a mammoth
assemblage of pilgrims that the religion Islam stood completed today. The
prophets and apostles mentioned in the Old Testament (the Hebrew Scriptures)
and the New Testament (the Greek scriptures) are also the prophets of Islam.
Yet the Prophet Muhammad enjoys the exclusive distinction of being the final
messenger of God in the line of prophets that came before him from time to
time.
It is
therefore, foregone that the life of Prophet Muhammad is not mired in
obscurity, mythical ambiguity and hollow projections. It has been candidly
self–revealing, carefully and diligently chronicled by his colleagues,
contemporary historians and by those who came in subsequent times. As such it is
truthful and pristine.
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