ICSFP
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
Introduction
All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of All the Worlds. And may peace and blessings
be upon the Prophet of Mercy and Guidance, the Prophet who was sent to all humanity.
Muslims in the East and West have been deeply disturbed by the fierce campaign
being launched against our Prophet (peace be upon him) by a number of prominent
American religious leaders. Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is Allah’s
Messenger to the whole of humanity since he is the last of the Prophets and
Messengers whom our Lord sent as a mercy to the world.
Slandering Muhammad (peace be upon him) is an act of disbelief. It is also a
blatant denial of Allah who sent him and called him: “a
Messenger from the Lord of the Worlds”. [Sûrah al-A`râf: 61]
It is slander against – as well as a denial of – all the other Prophets
and Messengers, for whoever rejects one Prophet by implication rejects them
all. Allah says:
“Indeed this religion is one religion and I am Your
Lord, so worship Me.” [Sûrah al-Anbiyâ’: 92]
“The Messenger believes in what was revealed to him
from his Lord and so do the believers. All of them believe in Allah, His angels,
His books, and His messengers [saying], ‘We make no distinction between
any of His messengers’ and they say, ‘We hear and we obey. We seek
your forgiveness, our Lord, and to you is the final destination.’”
[Sûrah al-Baqarah: 285]
What has made the matter more alarming is that this campaign of slander coincides
with the oppressive campaign that America has launched against the Muslim world.
This only proves that both emanate from the same source.
“They want to extinguish the light of Allah with their mouths, but Allah
will perfect His light although the disbelievers dislike it.” [Sûrah
al-Saff: 61]
There can be no doubt that their resorting to this strategy is proof that their
plotting has failed them and they perceive an imminent moral defeat leading
to a tangible one. So they are pulling out the last arrow in their quiver. Since
they were incapacitated by the power of logic, they resorted to the logic of
power, and the two are quite different indeed.
A Legacy Passed Down
The enemies of the Prophets have always endeavored, when foiled by the clear
arguments of Islam, to change the subject of discussion from the religion itself
to one in which people of dignity do not engage in. They malign, slander and
calumniate the one who brings them the truth from Allah in the manner of those
whose argument is feeble. All they hope to achieve by this is to avert people
from guidance and truth.
We can see this behavior when we read the story of Moses (peace be upon him)
whom Allah sent to Pharaoh. What did Pharaoh do when he saw the clear signs?
He resorted to calumnies and slanders. Although the Jews were deeply affected
by Pharaoh’s slander of Moses when he called him “a sorcerer and
a liar,” they did not learn a lesson from it. Rather, when Jesus was sent
to them, they in turn called him “a sorcerer and a liar.”
Ibn Jarîr al-Tabarî, in his commentary of the Qur’ân,
comments on Allah’s statement “This is Jesus,
the son of Mary, the statement of truth about which they are in dispute”
[Sûrah Maryam: 34] saying:
The Jews and the Christians argued about Jesus. As for the
Jews, they claimed he was a sorcerer, while the Christians claimed he was
the son of God, one in a trinity, and God. But they both told lies. He was
in truth a servant and Messenger of Allah, His word, and a spirit from Him.
Allah tells us about their state: “The
Jews say, ‘the Christians have nothing true to stand on, and the Christians
say, ‘the Jews have nothing true to stand on, though they both recite the
scripture. Those who have no knowledge speak the same.” [Sûrah al-Baqarah:
113]
Allah tells us the following as well: “And to `Âd,
We sent their brother Hûd. He said: ‘O my people! Worship Allah. You
have no God besides Him. Will you not then fear Him?’” [Sûrah
al-A`râf: 65]
But what was their response? “The leaders of the Unbelievers
among Hûd’s people said: ‘Ah! We see you are a fool and we think
you are a liar!’” [Sûrah al-A`râf: 66]
All of the Prophets faced the same thing. “Similarly,
no Messenger came to the nations before them, but they likewise called him a sorcerer
or a madman. Is this the legacy they have passed down, one to another? Nay, they
are themselves a people transgressing beyond bounds!” [Sûrah al-Dhâriyât:
52-53] Al-Tabarî, in his commentary of this verse, says:
Allah the Almighty shows that in the same way that Quraysh
denied their Prophet (peace be upon him) and labeled him a poet or a sorcerer
or a lunatic, the disbelieving nations of before denied their messengers.
Allah inflicted his wrath and punishment on such nations as the people
of Noah, Âd, Thamûd, and Pharaoh. Likewise, Quraysh said the same
thing about Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Al-Qurtubî, in his commentary, writes:
Allah’s words “Is this the legacy they have passed
down, one to another?” apparently ask whether the earlier people enjoined
the rejection of the Prophets upon the later. The question, however, is rhetorical
and conveys a tone of astonishment and ridicule. It basically means that they
did not tell each other to do this, but all of them are the same in their
wrongdoing and transgression.
This collective transgression by the enemies of the Messengers
is the normal habit of the people of falsehood. Sayyid Qutb, in his commentary
of the Qur’ân, discusses the following statement made by Pharaoh
about Moses, “I fear that he should change your religion
or spread chaos and corruption in the land” [Sûrah Ghâfir:
26]. He writes:
Is this not the very statement that every despotic tyrant
declares about every righteous reformer? Is it not the very same statement
of falsehood designed to obscure the bright face of truth? Is it not the very
same statement of sinister deception calculated to raise evil doubts in the
face of confident belief? It is not the same logic being repeated when there
is an encounter between truth and falsehood, belief and unbelief, righteousness
and transgression? It is an old story that recurs again and again.
Let us consider some passages from the Talmud that talk about
Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) so we can see how its authors are following
in the footsteps of their predecessors:
-The Talmud states that “Christ was a sorcerer and a pagan.”
-It says that “Jesus the Nazarene is simmering in the bottom of Hades
(or Hell) in the midst of pitch and tar.”
The Talmud also says, “Jesus misled, corrupted and subverted Israel.”
The Most Inviolable of People
It is quite amazing that the most tested and abused of all people are the most
sacrosanct. They are the Prophets. This fact has been conveyed to us in a number
of authentic hadîth. If slandering righteous believers is an abomination,
then how much worse must it be to slander the Messengers? The Prophet (peace
be upon him) relates to us from Allah: “Whoever stands in enmity against
one of my friends, I will declare war on him.” [Sahîh al-Bukhârî
(5/2384)]
Slandering people of knowledge and those who call others to Allah is more monstrous
than slandering other righteous believers. Ibn `Asâkir said, “The
flesh of scholars is poisoned, and it is Allahs’ custom to disgrace those
who partake of it. Whoever lets loose his tongue against the scholars, Allah
will make his heart dead before his body dies.”
Allah says: “Then let those beware who withstand the
Messenger's order, lest some trial befall them, or a grievous penalty be inflicted
on them.” [Sûrah al-Nûr: 63]
We are told that Balaam, the son of Boer, was an Israelite who supposedly knew
Allah’s greatest name. However, he devoted his knowledge to attacking
Moses (peace be upon him) and cursing him, so Allah told us his similitude in
the Qur’ân: “And recite to them the news
of him to whom We gave knowledge of Our signs, but he detached himself from
them; so Satan pursued him and he became of the deviant. And if We had willed,
We could have elevated him thereby, but he adhered to the Earth and followed
his own desire. So his example is like that of the dog: if you chase him he
pants, or if you leave him, he [still] pants. That is the example of the people
who have denied our signs. So relate the stories, perchance, they will give
thought. How evil an example is that of the people who denied our signs and
used to wrong themselves.” [Sûrah al-Arâf: 175-177]
The Islamic Legal Ruling on One Who Slanders the Prophet (peace be upon
him)
Due to the seriousness of the crime of insulting the prophets, scholars concur
with the verdict given by Ibn Hazm in his Muhallâ:
“It is therefore proven that whoever insults the Prophet
(peace be upon him) is an unbeliever and an enemy of Allah. The Prophet (peace
be upon him) is not an enemy of a Muslim. Allah says, “The
Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another” [Sûrah
al-Tawbah: 71] Therefore it is proven that anyone who blasphemes against
Allah, insults an angel, calumniates a prophet or mocks him, or makes fun
of the verses of the scripture or the divine legislation is an apostate. It
is as stated in the Qur’ân: “And if
you ask them, they will surely say ‘we were only conversing and playing’.
Say, ‘Is it Allah and His verses and His messengers that you were mocking?
Make no excuse; you have disbelieved…” [Sûrah al-Tawbah:
65-66]
Muhammad b. Nasr, in his work entitled Ta`zîm Qadr al-Salâh,
conveys to us that Ishâq said:
Among the matters in which the scholars are unanimously agreed
is that a person who believed in Allah and his revelation and then killed
a prophet or was an accomplice in such a killing becomes an unbeliever, even
if he believed that killing the prophets is prohibited. The same ruling applies
to one who insults a prophet or rejects his message without being coerced
to do so.
A Comparative Study
Today’s Christian Crusaders have not brought anything new. In fact, they
are treading the path of their forefathers. All we have to do is to look at
the similarity between their statements. Jerry Falwell says, “I believe
that Muhammad was a terrorist. I have read enough about him by Muslims as well
as non-Muslims who say that he was a man of violence and of war.”
But we do not know what he read by Muslims. Did he read,
by any chance “We sent you only as a mercy to all the worlds” [Sûrah
al-Anbiyâ’: 107]?
The statement of this unbeliever is essentially no different than that of his
predecessors, like the enemy of Moses (peace be upon him) who said: “O
Moses, do you intend to kill me as you killed someone yesterday. You only want
to be a tyrant in the land and do not want to be of those who do right.”
[Sûrah al-Qasas: 19] It also echoes the statement of Pharaoh who
said: “I fear that he should change your religion
or spread chaos and corruption in the land” [Sûrah Ghâfir:
26] and that of Pharaoh’s chiefs who said: “Will
you leave Moses and his people to spread mischief in the land, and to abandon
you and your gods?"” [Sûrah al-A`râf: 127]
It is also akin to the following statement about Jesus (peace be upon him) in
the Talmud: “Jesus misled, corrupted and subverted Israel.”
Another example is Pat Robertson’s statement about the Prophet (peace
be upon him) in which he said: “He urged his people to kill the polytheists…He
was extremely fanatic. He was a thief and a bandit…he called to deception
and trickery…80% of the Qur’an is taken from the Christians and
the Jews…and yet he turned against the Jews slaughtering them….”
While reading Pat Robertson’s accusations, I recalled what the Jews had
said in the Talmud: “The Nazarene (i.e. the Christian) is he who follows
false teachings which are invented by a man who called people to worship on
the day after Saturday.” So I said to myself: Allah has spoken the truth
when He said: “Their hearts are similar.” [Sûrah
al-Baqarah: 118]
Such accusations have been offered by the unbelievers over and over again. Allah
refutes these accusations in the Qur’ân:
“And you (O Muhammad) were not able to recite a Book
before this Book came, nor are you able to transcribe it with thy right hand.
In that case, indeed, would the talkers of vanities have doubted.” [Sûrâh
al-`Ankabût: 48]
“We know indeed that they say, "It is a man that
teaches him." The tongue of him they wickedly point to is notably foreign,
while this is Arabic, pure and clear.” [Sûrah al-Nahl: 103]
Look at how the accusation mongers today turn reality on its head and try to
depict the people who terrorized the believers in Mecca and Madinah, broke their
treaties, and repeatedly tried to kill the Prophet (peace be upon him) as the
innocent victims and the victimized Muslims as the perpetrators of all offenses.
Jerry Vines – the former president of the annual conference of the Southern
Baptist Church – said about the Prophet (peace be upon him): “He
is a pedophile who married 12 women, the last of whom was a child at the age
of 9.”
This is the statement of an ignorant person. He should know that the Prophet
married his first wife Khadijah who was 15 years his senior. Yes, he consummated
his marriage with `Â’ishah when she was nine years old. However,
no one denounced that, not even the hypocrites who were more anxious to vilify
the Prophet (peace be upon him) than this Jerry Vines. This is because it was
a common practice among women at that time to marry at the age of nine. So the
Prophet (peace be upon him) did not consummate the marriage until she reached
that age although he married her three years before the emigration to Madinah.
Moreover, he never married a virgin other than her, although he was leader of
his people, nay of all humanity. And this calumny only reminds us of what the
killers of Prophets said about Jesus (peace be upon him) in their Talmud: “Jesus
Christ was an illegitimate son. His mother bore him as a result of an illicit
relationship with the soldier Pandera during her menses.”
Conclusion
I would like to reiterate, in summary, the following points:
1. These Christians have actually denied Jesus and disbelieved in him when they
slander Muhammad (peace be upon him), since Jesus was the one who gave the glad
tidings of his coming: “Behold Jesus son of Mary said,
‘O children of Israel I am the Messenger of Allah sent to confirm the
Torah that came before and to give glad tidings of a Messenger to come after
me whose name shall be "The Praised One".’ But when he came to them with clear signs,
they said, ‘This is evident sorcery’.” [Sûrah al-Saff:
6] Whoever denies one Messenger has indeed denied them all.
2. When these Christian leaders hurl insults at the Prophet (peace be upon him),
they are in fact insulting all Christians, just as an insult against Prophet
Jesus (peace be upon him) is an insult against themselves.
3. All Christians must denounce what these people are saying and apologize to
the Muslims for this slander against their Prophet which, in fact, is a slander
against themselves.
4. Silence of the American government is a proof of their conspiracy and collusion
with the slanderers. This could result in negative consequences, sooner or later.
5. This approach bears out the fact that the US war on against terrorism is
indeed a crusade. “Terrorism” in this context is synonymous with
“Islam” and “Muslims”, since they labeled the Prophet
(peace be upon him) a terrorist. And did he bring anything but Islam? And are
Muslims anything but followers of Islam?
6. All countries that presently support the US in its war against terrorism
should publicly detach themselves from it. They need to abandon that oppressive
alliance. For it is a war against Allah, His Messenger, and all the believers.
The reality is not as they are depicting it. Rather “Hatred
has already manifested from their mouths and that which their breasts conceal
is even greater. We have certainly made clear to you the signs if you only reflect.”
[Sûrah Âl `Imrân: 118]
7. Despite the pain and bitterness that this matter invokes in the hearts of
the Muslims, it should also give us hope. It foreshadows the decline of America
and her allies. America has shot the last arrow in her quiver, and the prudent
never do that. It is the behavior of the defeated. Falsehood may enjoy its temporary
existence, but the truth prevails until the Day of Judgment.
8. America has engaged in war in all theatres. It has employed both legal and
illegal weapons. Therefore, Muslims have to rise up to these developments, organize
themselves, and unite their efforts before they are implicated in a war or trapped
in an ambush that they are not ready for. “And prepare
against them whatever you are able of power and of steed of war, by which you
may terrify the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others besides them who you
do not know but Allah knows. And whatever you spend in the cause of Allah will
be fully repaid to you and you will not be wronged.” [Sûrah al-Anfâl:
60]
Finally, I ask Allah to make this conference successful and fruitful, and to
guide your steps on the path of truth, and I also ask Him to make us of those
for whom the Prophet (peace be upon him) intercedes on the Day of Judgment.
And may the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be upon you..
Your brother,
Nâsir b. Sulaymân al-`Umar
