Mustafa ‘the chosen one’ “It is He Who has sent amongst the Unlettered a messenger from among themselves, to rehearse to them His Signs, to sanctify them, and to instruct them in Scripture and Wisdom, - although they had been, before, in manifest error;” (Quran 62:2) . Amazing as it may seem, I am not amazed anymore! For this is His way - He chooses an Ummi (Ummi: “Unlettered.” “One other circumstance we must not forget: that he had no school- learning; of the thing we call school-learning; none at all.” Thomas Carlyle) non-literate Prophet for an Ummi illiterate nation. “A poor shepherd people, roaming unnoticed in its deserts since the creation of the World: A hero Prophet was sent down to them with a word they could believe: See, the unnoticed becomes world notable, the small has grown world-great; within one century afterwards, Arabia is at Grenada (Spain) on this hand, at Delhi (India) on that; - glancing in valour and splendor and the light of genius, Arabia shines through long ages over a great section of the World. Belief is great, life- giving. The history of a nation becomes fruitful, soul elevating, great, so soon as it believes. These Arabs, the man Mahomet, and that one century, - is it not as if a spark had fallen, one spark, on a world of what seemed black unnoticeable sand; but lo, the sand proves explosive powder, blazes heaven high from Delhi to Grenada! I said, the great man was always as lightning out of heaven; the rest of men waited for him like fuel and then they too would flame.” Thus concluded the speech of Thomas Carlyle, one of the greatest thinkers of the past century. It was Friday, the 8th of May 1840. His theme - “The Hero as Prophet.” His audience: were Anglicans - English Christians. The chosen people God chooses His Messengers and God chooses His People. In the realm of the Spirit no nation was as favoured as the Jews and yet Moses is made to bewail against his own people - “Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you.” (Deuteronomy 9:24) In this last will and testament of Moses the Israelites frustrate their “meek and gentle” Messenger who is forced to rail against their continual stubborn resistance and arrogant attitudes to God’s guidance “For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the lord; and how much more after my death?” (Deuteronomy 31:27) Alas how true! I am not going to philosophise on God’s choice. But in the very next chapter the fire of God’s anger is kindled to a blaze and He decries the Jews - “They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they (the Jews) have provoked me to anger with their vanities: “And I will move them to jealousy with those which are Not A People; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish Nation.” (Deuteronomy 32:21) Jews substituted Anyone with a modicum of Scriptural knowledge will be able to guess who in the eyes of these arrogant, racist Jews is “not- a-people” - a non-entity and “a foolish nation” if not their Ishmaelite cousins - the Arabs who in the words of Thomas Carlyle have been “roaming unnoticed in its deserts since the creation of the world.”!? The Arabs Alexander the Great passed them by; the Persians passed them by; the Egyptians passed them by; and the Romans passed them by. It would have been an absolute liability for any nation to conquer and subdue them. But the Creator did not pass them by. He picked them up from the depths of darkness and transformed them into torch-bearers of light and learning to the world. “I will move them (the Jews) to jealousy.” (If the Romans or the Greeks had displaced the Jews as the “Chosen of God” then the envy would not have been as acute or as intolerable to the Jews.) This jealousy is a cultivated sickness. Remember, Sarah and Hagar the two wives of Abraham, the Friend of God? The jealousy of Sarah was bequeathed to her children and on to nations and tribes yet unborn. Not so long ago I read a book on the discovery of medicine written by a Jewish medical man. I can unfortunately not remember the name of the author and failed to retrace the book. However, the wordings of the tribute paid by this Jewish author to his Semitic (Arab) cousins have made an indelible impression on my mind. And I quote from memory: “goatherds and camel drivers sitting on the throne of the Caesars.” Full of spite, venom and sarcasm, but how true! This is what God did and always does. He honours whom He wills. This is what He does to show His Mighty Hand (Power)! “If ye turn back (from the Path), He will substitute in your stead another people; then they would not be like you!” (Quran 47:38) “It is surely one of the greatest miracles of history that from the backwater of Arabia there should have exploded a group of men, companions of a prophet, who within the space of a few brief decades were able to create a magnificent civilisation extending from the pyrenees to the gates of China.” (‘Islam Religion of Life’)
Posted on: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 03:42:25 +0000
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