Professor David Benjamin Keldani
Professor of Biography David Benjamin Keldani: Former Roman Catholic Bishop
of the Uniate Chaldean
Chapter 1 PREFATORY REMARKS
I propose through this article and the ones which will follow to show that
the doctrine of Islam concerning the Deity and the last great messenger of
Allah is perfectly true and conforms to the teachings of the Bible.
I shall devote the present article to discussing the first point, and in a
few other papers I shall attempt to show that Prophet Muhammad is the real
object of the Covenant and in him, and him alone, are actually and literally
fulfilled all the prophecies in the Old Testament.
I wish to make it quite clear that the views set out in this article and
those which will follow it are quite personal, and that I am alone
responsible for my personal and unborrowed researches in the Hebrew Sacred
Scriptures. I do not, however, assume an authoritative attitude in
expounding the teachings of Islam, meaning submission to God.
I have not the slightest intention nor desire to hurt the religious feelings
of Christian friends. I love Christ, Moses and Abraham, as I do Prophet
Muhammad and all other holy prophets of God.
My writings are not intended to raise a bitter and therefore useless dispute
with the Churches, but only invite them to a pleasant and friendly
investigation of this all-important question with a spirit of love and
impartiality. If the Christians desist from their vain attempt of defining
the essence of the Supreme Being, and confess His absolute Oneness, then a
union between them and the Muslims is not only probable but extremely
possible. For once the Oneness of God is accepted and acknowledged, the
other points of difference between the two faiths can more easily be
settled.
ALLAH AND HIS ATTRIBUTES
There are two fundamental points between Islam and Christianity which, for
the sake of the truth and the peace of the world, deserved a very serious
and deep investigation. As these two religions claim their origin from one
and the same source, it would follow that no important point of controversy
between them should be allowed to exist. Both these great religions believe
in the existence of the Deity and in the covenant made between God and the
Prophet Abraham. On these two principal points a thoroughly conscientious
and final agreement must be arrived at between the intelligent adherents of
the two faiths. Are we poor and ignorant mortals to believe in and worship
one God, or are we to believe in and fear a plurality of Gods? Which of the
two, Christ or Prophet Muhammad, is the object of the Divine Covenant? These
two questions must be answered once for all.
It would be a mere waste of time here to refute those who ignorantly or
maliciously suppose the God as mentioned in Islam to be different from the
true God and only a fictitious deity of Prophet Muhammads own creation. If
the Christian priests and theologians knew their Scriptures in the original
Hebrew instead of in translations as the Muslims read their Quran in its
Arabic text, they would clearly see that Allah is the same ancient Semitic
name of the Supreme Being who revealed and spoke to Adam and all the
prophets.
Allah is the only Self-Existing, Knowing, Powerful Being. He encompasses,
fills every space, being and thing; and is the source of all life, knowledge
and force. Allah is the Unique Creator, Regulator and Ruler of the universe.
He is absolutely One. The essence, the person and nature of Allah are
absolutely beyond human comprehension, and therefore any attempt to define
His essence is not only futile but even dangerous to our spiritual welfare
and faith; for it will certainly lead us into error.
The trinitarian branch of the Christian Church, for about seventeen
centuries, has exhausted all the brains of her saints and philosophers to
define the Essence and the Person of the Deity; and what have they invented?
All that which Athanasiuses, Augustines and Aquinases have imposed upon the
Christians "under the pain of eternal damnation" to believe in a God who
is "the third of three"! Allah, in His Holy Quran, condemns this belief in
these solemn words:
"Because the unbelivers are those who say: Allah is one of three. There is
but One God. If they do not desist in what they say, a painful punishment
will afflict those of them that disbelieve." (Quran Ch.5 v73).
The reason why the orthodox Muslim scholars have always refrained from
defining Gods Essence is because His Essence transcends all attributes in
which it could only be defined. Allah has many Names which in reality are
only adjectives derived from His essence through its various manifestations
in the universe which He alone has formed. We call Allah by the appellations
Almighty, Eternal, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Merciful, and so forth, because
we conceived the eternity, omnipresence, universal knowledge, mercifulness,
as emanating from His essence and belonging to Him alone and absolutely. He
is alone the infinitely Knowing, Powerful, Living, Holy, Beautiful, Good,
Loving, Glorious, Terrible. Avenger, because it is from Him alone that
emanate and flow the qualities of knowledge, power, life, holiness, beauty
and the rest. God has no attributes in the sense we understand them. With us
an attribute or a property is common to many individuals of a species, but
what is Gods is His alone, and there is none other to share it with Him.
When we say, "Solomon is wise, powerful, just and beautiful," we do not
ascribe exclusively to him all wisdom, power, justice and beauty. We only
mean to say that he is relatively wise as compared with others of his
species, and that wisdom too is relatively his attribute in common with the
individuals belonging to his class.
To make it more clear, a divine attribute is an emanation of God, and
therefore an activity. Now every divine action is nothing more or less than
a creation.
It is also to be admitted that the divine attributes, inasmuch as they are
emanations, posit time and a beginning; consequently when Allah said: "Be,
and it was" - or He uttered, His word in time and in the beginning of the
creation. This is what the Sufis term "aql-kull", or universal intelligence,
as the emanation of the "aql awwal", namely, the "first intelligence." Then
the "nafs-kull", or the "universal soul" that was the first to hear and obey
this divine order, emanated from the "first soul" and transformed the
universe.
This reasoning would lead us to conclude that each act of God displays a
divine emanation as His manifestation and particular attribute, but it is
not His Essence or Being. God is Creator, because He created in the
beginning of time, and always creates. God spoke in the beginning of time
just as He speaks in His own way always. But as His creation is not eternal
or a divine person, so His Word cannot be considered eternal and a divine
Person. The Christians proceed further, and make the Creator a divine father
and His Word a divine son; and also, because He breathed life into His
creatures, He is surnamed a divine Spirit, forgetting that logically He
could not be father before creation, nor "son" before He spoke, and
neither "Holy Ghost" before He gave life. I can conceive the attributes of
God through His works at manifestations a posteriori, but of his eternal and
a prior attributes posses no conception whatever, nor do I imagine any human
intelligence to be able to comprehend the nature of an eternal attribute and
its relationship to the essence of God. In fact, God has not revealed to us
the nature of His Being in the Holy Scriptures nor in the human intellect.
The attributes of God are not to be considered as distinct and separate
divine entities or personalities, otherwise we shall have, not one trinity
of persons in the Godhead, but several dozen of trinities. An attribute
until it actually emanates from its subject has no existence. We cannot
qualify the subject by a particular attribute before that attribute has
actually proceeded from it and is seen. Hence we say "God is Good" when we
enjoy His good and kind action; but we cannot describe Him - properly
speaking - as "God is Goodness," because goodness is not God, but His action
and work. It is for this reason that the Quran always attributes to Allah
the adjectival appellations, such as the Wise, the Knowing, the Merciful,
but never with such descriptions as "God is love, knowledge, word," and so
forth; for love is the action of the lover and not the lover himself, just
as knowledge or word is the action of the knowing person and not himself.
I particularly insist on this point because of the error into which have
fallen those who maintain the eternity and distinct personality of certain
attributes of God. The Verb or the Word of God has been held to be a
distinct person of the Deity; whereas the word of God can have no other
signification than an expression of His Knowledge and Will. The Quran, too,
is called "the Word of God," and some early Muslim doctors of law asserted
that it was eternal and uncreated. The same appellation is also given to
Jesus Christ in the Quran - Kalimatun minho, i.e. "a Word from Him" (Ch.3
v45). But it would be very irreligious to assert that the Word or Logos of
God is a distinct person, and that it assumed flesh and became incarnate in
the shape of a man of Nazareth or in the form of a book, the former
called "the Christ" and the latter "the Quran"!
To sum up this subject, I insistently declare that the Word or any other
imaginable attribute of God, not only is it not a distinct Divine entity or
individuality, but also it could have no actual (in actu) existence prior to
the beginning of time and creation.
The first verse with which St. Johns Gospel commences was often refuted by
the early Unitarian writers, who rendered its true reading as follows: "In
the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God; and the Word was
Gods."
It will be noticed that the Greek form of the genitive case "Theou"
i.e. "Gods" (1) was corrupted into "Theos"; that is, "God," in the
nominative form of the name! It is also to be observed that the clause "In
the beginning was the word" expressly indicates the origin of the word which
was not before the beginning! By the "word of God" is not meant a separate
and distinct substance, coeval and coexistent
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(1) Footnote: Concerning the Logos, ever since the the "Gospels"
and "Commentaries" as well as the controversial writings belonging to the
Unitarians, except what has been quoted from them in the writings of their
opponents, such as the learned Greek Patriarch Photius and those before him.
Among the "Fathers" of the Eastern Christians, one of the most distinguished
is St. Ephraim the Syrian. He is the author of many works, chiefly of a
commentary on the Bible which is published both in Syriac and in Latin,
which latter edition I had carefully read in Rome. He has also homilies,
dissertations called "midrishi" and "contra Haeretici," etc. Then there is a
famous Syrian, author Bir Disin (generally written Bardisanes) who
flourished in the latter end of the second and the first of the third
century A.D. From the writings of Bir Disin nothing in the Syriac is extant
except what Ephraim, Jacob of Nesibin and other Nestorians and Jacobites
have quoted for refutation, and except what most of the Greek Fathers
employed in their own language. Bir Disin maintained that Jesus Christ was
the seat of the temple of the Word of God, but both he and the Word were
created. St. Ephraim, in combating the "heresy" of Bir Disin, says:
( Syriac ): "Wai lakh O, dovya at Bir Disin Dagreit lMilta eithrov
dAIIihi. Baram kthabha la kthabh dakh hikhin Illa dMiltha eithov Allihi,"
(Arabic) "Wailu I-laka yi anta s-Safil Bir Disin Li-anna faraaita kina I- kalimo li I-Lihi Li-kina I-Kitibo mi Kataba Kazi Illa I-Kalimo Kina I- Lih."
(English translation): "Woe unto thee O miserable Bir Disin That thou didst
read the "word was Gods"! But the Book [Gospel] did not write likewise,
Except that "the Word was God."
Almost in all the controversies on the Logos the Unitarians are "branded"
with the heresy of denying the eternality and divine personality of it by
having "corrupted" the Gospel of John, etc. These imputations were returned
to the Trinitarians by the true Nasira - Unitarians. So one can deduct from
the patristic literature that the Trinitarians were always reproached with
having corrupted the Scriptures.
______________end footnote
with the Almighty, but saying of His Knowledge and Will when He uttered the
word Kun, namely, "Be." When God said Kun, the worlds became; when He said
Kun for His Words to be recorded in the Protected Tablets by the pen it
became again.
By His saying: "Be," Jesus was created in the womb of the Blessed Virgin
Mary; and so on - whenever He wills to create a thing He but only says "Be,"
to it and it becomes.
The Christian auspicatory formula: "In the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost," does not even mention the name of God! And this
is the Christian God! The Nestorian and Jacobite formula, which consists of
ten syllables exactly like the Muslim "Bismillahi," is thus to be
transliterated: Bshim Abha wo-Bhra ou-Ruha d-Qudsha, which has the same
meaning as that contained in all other Christian formulas. The Quranic
formula, on the other hand, which expresses the foundation of the Islamic
truth is a great contrast to the Trinitarians formula: Bismillahi r- Rahmani r-Rahim; that is: "In the Name of the Most Merciful and
Compassionate Allah."
The Christian Trinity - inasmuch as it admits a plurality of persons in the
Deity, attributes distinct personal properties to each person; and makes use
of family names similar to those in the pagan mythology - cannot be accepted
as a true conception of the Deity. Allah is neither the father of a son nor
the son of a father. He has no mother, nor is He self- made. The belief
in "God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Ghost" is a flagrant
denial of the Oneness of God, and an audacious confession in three imperfect
beings who, unitedly or separately, cannot be the true God.
Mathematics as a positive science teaches us that a unit is no more nor less
than one; that one is never equal to one plus one plus one; in other words,
one cannot be equal to three, because one is the third of the three. In the
same way, one is not equal to a third. And vice versa, three are not equal
to one, nor can a third be equal to a unit. The unit is the basis of all
numbers, and a standard for the measurements and weights of all dimensions,
distances, quantities and time. In fact, all numbers are aggregates of the
unit 1. Ten is an aggregate of so many equal units of the same kind.
Those who maintain the unity of God in the trinity of persons tell us
that "each person is omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal and perfect God; yet
there are not three omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal and perfect Gods, but
one omnipotent . . . God!" If there is no sophistry in the above reasoning
then we shall present this "mystery" of the churches by an equation:.
God = 1 God + 1 God + 1 God; therefore: 1 God = 3 Gods. In the first place,
one god cannot equal three gods, but only one of them. Secondly, since you
admit each person to be perfect God like His two associates, your conclusion
that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 is not mathematical, but an absurdity!
You are either too arrogant when you attempt to prove that three units equal
one unit; or too cowardly to admit that three ones equal three ones. In the
former case you can never prove a wrong solution of a problem by a false
process; and in the second you have not the courage to confess your belief
in three gods.
Besides, we all - Muslims and Christians - believe that God is Omnipresent,
that He fills and encompasses every space and particle. Is it conceivable
that all the three persons of the Deity at the same time and separately
encompass the universe, or is it only one of them at the time? To say "the
Deity does this" would be no answer at all. For Deity is not God, but the
state of being God, and therefore a quality.
Godhead is the quality of one God; it is not susceptible of plurality nor of
diminution. There are no godheads but one Godhead, which is the attribute of
one God alone.
Then we are told that each person of the trinity has some particular
attributes which are not proper to the other two. And these attributes
indicate - according to human reasoning and language - priority and
posteriority among them. The Father always holds the first rank, and is
prior to the Son. The Holy Ghost is not only posterior as the third in the
order of counting but even inferior to those from whom he proceeds. Would it
not be considered a sin of heresy if the names of the three persons were
conversely repeated? Will not the signing of the cross upon the countenance
or over the elements of the Eucharist be considered impious by the Churches
if the formula be reversed thus: "In the name of the Holy Ghost, and of the
Son, and of the Father"? For if they are absolutely equal and coeval, the
order of precedence need not be so scrupulously observed.
The fact is that the Popes and the General Councils have always condemned
the Sabelian doctrine which maintained that God is one but that He
manifested Himself as the Father or as the Son or as the Holy Spirit, being
always one and the same person. Of course, the religion of Islam does not
endorse or sanction the Sabelian views. God manifested Jamal or beauty in
Christ, Jelal or Glory and Majesty in Prophet Muhammad, and Wisdom in
Solomon, and so on in many other objects of nature, but none of those
prophets are gods neither the beautiful scenery of nature are gods.
The truth is that there is no mathematical exactitude, no absolute equality
between the three persons of the Trinity. If the Father were in every
respect equal to the Son or the Holy Spirit, as the unit 1 is positively
equal to another figure 1, then there would necessarily be only one person
of God and not three, because a unit is not a fragment or fraction nor a
multiple of itself. The very difference and relationship that is admitted to
exist between the persons of the Trinity leaves no shadow of doubt that they
are neither equal to each other nor are they to be identified with one
another. The Father begets and is not begotten; the Son is begotten and not
a father; the Holy Ghost is the issue of the other two persons; the first
person is described as creator and destroyer; the second as savior or
redeemer, and the third as life-giver. Consequently none of the three is
alone the Creator, the Redeemer and the Life-giver. Then we are told that
the second person is the Word of the first Person, becomes man and is
sacrificed on the cross to satisfy the justice of his father, and that his
incarnation and resurrection are operated and accomplished by the third
person.
In conclusion, I must remind Christians that unless they believe in the
absolute Oneness of God, and renounce the belief in the three persons, they
are certainly unbelievers in the true God. Strictly speaking, Christians are
polytheists, only with this exception, that the gods of the heathen are
false and imaginary, whereas the three gods of the Churches have a distinct
character, of whom the Father - as another epithet for Creator - is the One
true God, but the son is only a prophet and worshiper of God, and the third
person one of the innumerable holy spirits in the service of the Almighty
God.
In the Old Testament, God is called Father because of His being a loving
Creator and Protector, but as the Churches abused this Name, the Quran has
justly refrained from using it.
The Old Testament and the Quran condemn the doctrine of three persons in
God; the New Testament does not expressly hold or defend it, but even if it
contains hints and traces concerning the Trinity, it is no authority at all,
because it was neither seen nor written by Christ himself, nor in the
language he spoke, nor did it exist in its present form and contents for -
at least - the first two centuries after him.
It might with advantage be added that in the East the Unitarian Christians
always combated and protested against the Trinitarians, and that when they
beheld the utter destruction of the "Fourth Beast" by the Great Prophet of
Allah, they accepted and followed him. The Devil, who spoke through the
mouth of the serpent to Eve, uttered blasphemies against the Most High
through the mouth of the "Little Horn" which sprang up among the "Ten Horns"
upon the head of the "Fourth Beast" (Dan. viii.), was none other than
Constantine the Great, who officially and violently proclaimed the Nicene
Creed. But, Prophet Muhammad has destroyed the "Iblis" or the Devil from the
Promised Land for ever, by establishing Islam there as the religion of the
One true God.
"AND THE AHMED OF ALL NATIONS WILL COME." - HAGGAI, ii.7.
Some two centuries after the idolatrous and impenitent Kingdom of Israel was
overthrown, and the whole population of the ten tribes deported into
Assyria, Jerusalem and the glorious temple of Solomon were razed to the
ground by the Chaldeans, and the unmassacred remnant of Judah and Benjamin
was transported into Babylonia. After a period of seventy years captivity,
the Jews were permitted to return to their country with full authority to
build again their ruined city and the temple. When the foundations of the
new house of God were being laid, there arose a tremendous uproar of joy and
acclamation from the assembly; while the old men and women who had seen the
gorgeous temple of Solomon before, burst into a bitter weeping. It was on
this solemn occasion that the Almighty sent His worshiper the Prophet Haggai
to console the sad assembly with this important message:
"And I will shake all nations, and the Himdah all the nations will come; and
I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. Mine is the
silver, mine is the gold, says the Lord of hosts, the glory of my last house
shall be greater than that of the first one, says the Lord of hosts; and in
this place I will give Shalom, says the Lord of hosts" (Haggai, ii. 7-9).
I have translated the above paragraph from the only copy of the Bible at my
disposal, lent to me by an Assyrian lady cousin in her own vernacular
language. But let us consult the English versions of the Bible, which we
find have rendered the original Hebrew words himda and shalom into "desire"
and "peace" respectively.
Jewish and Christian commentators alike have given the utmost importance to
the double promise contained in the above prophecy. They both understand a
messianic prediction in the word Himda. Indeed, here is a wonderful prophecy
confirmed by the usual biblical formula of the divine oath, "says the Lord
Sabaoth," four times repeated. If this prophecy be taken in the abstract
sense of the words himda and shalom as "desire" and "peace," then the
prophecy becomes nothing more than an unintelligible aspiration. But if we
understand by the term himda a concrete idea, a person and reality, and in
the word shalom, not a condition, but a living and active force and a
definitely established religion, then this prophecy must be admittedly true
and fulfilled in the person of Ahmed and the establishment of Islam. For
himda and shalom - or shlama have precisely the same significance
respectively as Ahmed and Islam.
Before endeavoring to prove the fulfillment of this prophecy, it will be
well to explain the etymology of the two words as briefly as possible:
(a) Himda. The clause in the original Hebrew text reads thus: "ve yavu
himdath kol haggoyim," which literally rendered into English would be "and
will come the Himda of all nations." The final hi in Hebrew, as in Arabic,
is changed into th, or t when in the genitive case. The word is derived from
an archaic Hebrew - or rather Aramaic - root hmd (consonants pronounced
hemed). In Hebrew hemed is generally used in the sense of great desire,
covet, appetite and lust. The ninth command of the Decalogue is: "Lo tahmod
ish reikha" ("Thou shalt not covet the wife of thy neighbor"). In Arabic the
verb hemida, from the same consonants hmd, means "to praise," and so on.
What is more praised and illustrious than that which is most craved for,
coveted, and desired? Whichever of the two meanings be adopted, the fact
that Ahmed is the Arabic form of Himda remains indisputable and decisive.
The Holy Quran (ch.61:6 ) declares that Jesus announced unto the people of
Israel the coming of Ahmad: "And when Jesus, the son of Mary said: Children
of Israel, I am sent to you by Allah to confirm the Torah that is before me,
and to give news of a Messenger who will come after me whose name shall be
Ahmad. Yet when he came to them with clear proofs, they said: This is
clear sorcery."
The Gospel of St. John, being written in Greek, uses the name Paracletos, a
barbarous form unknown to classical Greek literature. But Periclytos, which
corresponds exactly with Ahmed in its signification
of "illustrious," "glorious" and "praised," in its superlative degree, must
have been the translation into Greek of Himda or probably Hemida of the
Aramaic form, as uttered by Jesus Christ. Alas! there is no Gospel extant in
the original language spoken by Jesus!
(b) As to the etymology and signification of the words shalom, shlama, and
the Arabic salam, Islam, I need not detain the reader by dragging him into
linguistic details. Any Semitic scholar knows that Shalom and Islam are
derived from one and the same root and that both mean peace, submission, and
resignation.
This being made clear, I propose to give a short exposition of this prophecy
of Haggai. In order to understand it better, let me quote another prophecy
from the last book of the Old Testament called Mallachai, or Mallakhi, or in
the Authorized Version, Malachi (chap. iii. I):
"Behold I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me:
suddenly he will come to his temple. He is the Adonai (i.e. the Lord) whom
you desire, and the Messenger of the Covenant with whom you are pleased. Lo
he is coming, says the Lord of hosts."
Then compare these mysterious oracles with the wisdom embodied in the sacred
verse of the Quran: "Exalted is He who caused His worshiper (Prophet
Muhammad) to travel in the night from the sacred Mosque (Mecca) to the
farthest Mosque (Jerusalem) which We have blessed around it that We might
show him of Our signs. He is the Hearer, the Seer." Ch.17:1 Quran
That by the person coming suddenly to the temple, as foretold in the two
biblical documents above mentioned, Prophet Muhammad, and not Prophet Jesus,
is intended the following arguments must surely suffice to convince every
impartial observer:
The kinship, the relation and resemblance between the two tetrograms Himda
and Ahmd, and the identity of the root hmd from which both substantives are
derived, leave not a single particle of doubt that the subject in the
sentence "and the Himda of all nations will come" is Ahmed; that is to say,
Muhammad. There is not the remotest etymological connection between himda
and any other names of "Jesus," "Christ," "Savior," not even a single
consonant in common between them.
Even if it be argued that the Hebrew form Hmdh (read himdah) is an abstract
substantive meaning "desire, lust, covetousness, and praise," the argument
would be again in favor of our thesis; for then the Hebrew form would, in
etymology, be exactly equivalent in meaning and in similarity to, or rather
identity with, the Arabic form Himdah. In whatever sense you wish to take
the tetrogram Hmdh, its relation to Ahmed and Ahmedism is decisive, and has
nothing to do with Jesus and Jesuism! If St. Jerome, and before him the
authors of the Septuagint, had preserved intact the Hebrew form Hmdh,
instead of putting down the Latin "cupiditas" or the Seek "euthymia,"
probably the translators appointed by King James I would have also
reproduced the original form in the Authorized Version, and the Bible
Society have followed suit in their translations into Islamic languages.
The temple of Zorobabel was to be more glorious than that of Solomon
because, as Mallakhi prophesied, the great Prophet or Messenger of the
Covenant, the "Adonai" or the Seyid of the messengers was to visit it
suddenly, as indeed Prophet Muhammad did during his miraculous night
journey, as stated in the Quran! The temple of Zorobabel was repaired or
rebuilt by Herod the Great. And Jesus, certainly on every occasion of his
frequent visits to that temple, honored it by his holy person and presence.
Indeed, the presence of every prophet in the House of God had added to the
dignity and sanctity of the sanctuary. But this much must at least be
admitted, that the Gospels which record the visitations of Christ to the
temple and his teachings therein fail to make mention of a single conversion
among his audience. All his visits to the temple are reported as ending in
bitter disputes with the unbelieving priests and Pharisees! It must also be
concluded that Jesus not only did not bring "peace to the world as he
deliberately declared (Matt. xxiv. Mark xiii., Luke xxi.), but he even
predicted the total destruction of the temple (Matt. x. 34, etc.), which was
fulfilled some forty years afterwards by the Romans, when the final
dispersion of the Jews was completed.
Ahmad, which is another form of the name Muhammad and of the same root and
signification, namely, the "praised," during his night journey visited the
sacred spot of the ruined temple, as stated in the Holy Quran, and there and
then, according to the sacred tradition uttered repeatedly by himself to his
companions, officiated the divine service of prayer and adoration to Allah
in the presence of all the Prophets; and it was then that Allah "to travel
in the night from the sacred Mosque to the farthest Mosque which We have
blessed around it that We might show him of Our Signs." (Ch 17:1 Quran) to
the Last Prophet. If Moses and Elias could appear in bodily presence on the
mount of transfiguration, they and all the thousands of Prophets could also
appear in the arena of the temple at Jerusalem; and it was during
that "sudden coming" of Prophet Muhammad to "his temple" (Mal. iii. 1 ) that
God did actually fill it "with glory" (Hag. ii.).
That Amina, the widow of Abdullah, both of whom died before the advent of
Islam, should name her orphan son "Ahmed," the first proper noun in the
history of mankind, is, according to my humble belief, the greatest miracle
in favor of Islam. The second Caliph, Hazrat Omar, rebuilt the temple, and
the majestic Mosque at Jerusalem remains, and will remain to the end of the
world, a perpetual monument of the truth of the covenant which Allah made
with Abraham and Ishmael (Gen. xv.-xvii).
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