by - Professor David Benjamin Keldani
Muslim Name: Abdu'l-Ahad Dawud

"THE PROPHET WHO TEACHES ISLAM"

In the Book of Deuteronomy (xiii. 1- 5, xviii. 20 - 22) God the Almighty gives some instructions concerning the false prophets who may prophesy in the Name of the Lord and in such an insidious way that they could mislead His people. Further, he tells us that the best way to find out the impostor's perfidy was to anticipate the fulfillment of his predictions, and then to put him to death when his fraud was divulged. But, as is well known, the ignorant cannot well distinguish between the genuine prophet and the imposter, just as much as they to-day are unable to definitely discover which of the two, a Roman Catholic priest or a Calvinist minister, is a genuine follower of Jesus Christ! A false prophet would also foretell events, work wonders, and do other religious things similar - at least in appearance - to those performed by a true one. The competition between the Prophet Moses and the magicians of Egypt is an apt illustration of this statement. Thus it is Jeremiah who gives us the best way of testing the veracity, the genuineness, of a prophet, and that way is the sign of Islam. Please read the whole chapter xxviii. of Jeremiah, and then ponder and reflect on the ninth verse: -
"The prophet which foretells the Islam (Shalom), at the coming of the word of the Prophet, that prophet will be recognized to have been sent by God in truth" (Jer. xxviii. 9).

This translation is strictly literal. The original verb naba, usually translated as "to foretell" or "to prophesy," and the noun nabi, "a prophet" has given the impression that a prophet is a person who foretells the future or past events by the aid of divine revelation. This definition is only partially true. The complete definition of the word "Prophet" must be: "one who receives oracles or messages from God, and delivers them faithfully to the person or people intended." It is evident that a divine message need not necessarily be a foretelling of past and future events. In the same way verb "prophesy" does not necessarily mean to reveal the past or future occurrences, but rather to preach or promulgate the message from God. Consequently to prophesy is to deliver and utter a new oracle, its nature or character being quite immaterial. To read the words of a prophet would be to prophesy no more than would a prophet deliver an oracle when making a discourse or public speech of his own accord. In the Qur'an God orders His beloved worshiper Prophet Muhammad to declare: "Say: 'I am only human like you, revealed to me is that your God is One God....'" Ch. 18:110 so that we may be careful not to attribute to any of the prophets the quality of knowing and saying everything through the Revelation. The Divine Revelations used to come at intervals, while the prophets in their personal intercourse and knowledge might be liable to mistakes and errors. A prophet is not appointed by God to teach humanity physics, mathematics, or any other positive science. It would be very unjust on our part to blame a prophet for a slip of language or a mistake committed as a man.

A prophet, therefore, is the subject of test and examination only when he officially and formally delivers the Message he has received from his Lord. His private affairs, his family concerns, and his personal attainments do not concern us so much as his mission and office. In order to find out whether a prophet is genuine or an impostor, it is not fair to give a verdict against his prophetical character because he is reported to have been a little harsh or rude to his mother or because he believed in the literal inspiration and the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. While making this observation, I have in mind the case of Jesus Christ, and many others in the history of Israel on other points.

It is mala fides and ill will to accuse prophets of sensuality, rudeness, ignorance in sciences, and of other personal frailties. They were men like ourselves and subject to the same natural inclinations and passions. They were protected from mortal sins and from the perversion of the message they had to hand further. We must be extremely careful not to exalt the prophets of God too high in our imagination, lest God be displeased with us. They are all His creatures and worshipers; they accomplished their work and returned to Him. The moment we forget God and concentrate our love and admiration upon the person of any of the messengers of God we are in danger of falling into the sin of polytheism.

Having so far explained the nature and the signification of the prophet and the prophecy, I shall now endeavor to prove that no prophet could be genuine unless, as Jeremiah expressly says, he preaches and propagates the religion of Islam.

In order to understand better the sense and the importance of the passage under our contemplation we should just cast a glance over the preceding verse where Jeremiah tells his antagonist Prophet Hananiah: "The prophets that have been before me and before thee from old (times) prophesied against many lands, and against great kingdoms, concerning war and evil and pestilence." Then he proceeds: -
"The prophet that prophesies concerning Islam as soon as the word of the prophet comes, that prophet is known to have been sent by the Lord in truth."

There can be raised no serious objection to the English wording of this passage excepting the clause "l shalom" which I have translated as "concerning Islam." The preposition "l" before "shalom" signifies "concerning" or "about," and places its subject in the objective case and not in the dative, as it would be if the predicate were a verb like "come," "go," or "give."

That "shalom" and the Syriac "Shlama," as well as the Arabic "salam" and "Islam," are of one and the same Semitic root, "shalam," and mean the same thing, is an admitted truth by all the scholars of the Semitic languages. The verb "shalam" signifies "to submit, resign oneself to," and then "to make peace;" and consequently "to be safe, sound, and tranquil." No religious system in the world has ever been qualified with a better and more comprehensive, dignified, and sublime name than that of "Islam.' The true Religion of the True God cannot be named after the name of any of His worshipers, and much less after the name of a people or country. It is, indeed, this sanctity and the inviolability of the word "Islam" that strikes its opponents with awe, fear, and reverence even when the Muslims are weak and unhappy. It is the name and title of a religion that teaches and commands an absolute submission and resignation of will and self to the Supreme Being, and then to obtain peace and tranquillity in mind and at home, no matter what tribulations or passing misfortunes may threaten us that fills its opponents with awe (1).

------------- Footnote (1) It is interesting and significant to note how the observations of the learned professor coincide with those of the ex-Kaiser of Germany who on the occasion of his seventieth birthday celebrations at Doorn, Holland, was reported to have said in his speech: "And understand this - if ever the Muhammadans should conceive the idea that it is the command of Allah to bring order into a declining West and subjugate to His will, then - with faith in God - they will come upon the godless Europeans like a tidal wave, against which even the reddest Bolshevist, full of eagerness for combat, will be helpless." (Evening Standard, London, January 26, 1929.) ------------- End of footnote

It is the firm and unshaking belief in the Oneness of Allah and the unswerving confidence in His Mercy and justice that makes a Muslim distinguishable and prominent among non-Muslims. And it is this sound faith in Allah and the sincere attachment to His Holy Qur'an and the Prophet that the Christian missionaries have been desperately attacking and have hopelessly failed. Hence, Jeremiah's words that "the Prophet who prophesies, namely, who preaches and speaks concerning the affairs of Islam as his religion, he will at once be known to have been sent by the Lord in truth." Let us, therefore, take into serious consideration the following points:-

1. The Prophet Jeremiah is the only prophet before Christ who uses the word Shalom in the sense of a religion. He is the only prophet who uses this word with the object of setting or proving the veracity of a messenger of God. According to the Qur'anic revelation, Prophets Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all the prophets were Muslims, and professed Islam as their religion. The term "Islam" and its equivalents, "Shalom" and Shlama," were known to the Jews and Christians of Mecca and Medina when Prophet Muhammad appeared to perfect and universalize the religion of Islam. A prophet who predicts "peace" as an abstract, vague and temporary condition cannot succeed in proving his identity thereby. In fact, the point of dispute, or rather the critical national question, controverted by the two eminent prophets known to the court and the nation like Jeremiah and Hananiah (Jer. xxviii.), could not be solved and definitely settled by the affirmation of the one and the denial of the other, of the imminent catastrophe. To predict "peace" by Jeremiah when he had all the time been predicting the great national disaster - either by the submission of the King Sidaqia to the Chaldean sovereign or by his resistance - would not only involve his failure, not to talk of his being a success in proving his veracity, but also it would make him even ridiculous. For, in either case, his presumed "peace" would mean no peace at all. On the contrary, if the Jews resisted the Chaldean army, it meant a complete national ruin, and if they submitted, an unconditional servitude. It is evident, therefore, that Jeremiah uses the term "Shalom" in the sense of a tangible, concrete, and real religious system which Islam comprises. To make it more clear, we should attentively listen to the arguments of the two opponent prophets discussing and disputing the national question in the presence of a wicked king and his court of vile flatterers and depraved hypocrites. Jeremiah has at heart the cause of God and His religion of peace, and in the vital interests of the religion of peace, or Islam, he advises the wicked king and his courtiers to submit to the yoke of Babylon and serve the Chaldeans and live. For there was no other alternative open to them. They had abandoned the God of their forefathers, polluted His temple, mocked and reviled His prophets, and committed evil and treachery (2 Chron. xxxvi. etc.). So God had delivered them into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, and would not save them. For a true and sincere worshiper of God, the religion comes first and the nation after. It is the government and the nation - especially when they have forsaken God - that are to be sacrificed for the cause of religion, and not vice versa! The other Prophet of Gibeon, called Hananiah, sought to please his master the king; he was a courtier and favorite, rich and in splendor, whereas his antagonist was always languishing and starving in the prisons and dungeons. He cares not a fillip for the religion and the real welfare of the people. He is also a prophet, for so says the Book of Jeremiah, yet he is a villain, and has exchanged God for a depraved king! He prophesies in the name of the same God as does Jeremiah, and announces the return of the booty and the captives from Babylon in two years' time.
Now, from the above imperfect description of the prophets, which of the two would you qualify as the true worshiper of God and as the loyal defender of God's religion? Surely Jeremiah would at once attract your sympathy and choice.

2. It is only the religion of Shalom, of Islam, that can testify to the character and the office of a true prophet, Imam, or any minister of God on earth. God is One, and His religion is one. There is no other religion in the world like Islam, which professes and defends this absolute Oneness of the Deity. He who, therefore, sacrifices every other interest, honor and love for the cause of this Holy Religion, he is undoubtedly the genuine prophet and the minister of God. But there is still one thing more worthy of our notice, and that thing is this. If the religion of Islam is not the standard and the measure by which to test the veracity of a prophet or minister of God, then there is no other criterion to answer that purpose. A miracle is not always a sufficient proof, for the sorcerers also work wonders. The fulfillment of a prophecy or prediction, too, is not in itself a sufficient proof; for just as one holy Spirit reveals a future event to a true prophet, so does sometimes an evil spirit the same to an imposter. Hence it is clear that the prophet who "prophesies concerning Shalom - Islam - as being the name of Faith and path of life, as soon as he receives a message from God he will be known to have been sent by Him." Such was the argument which Jeremiah had recourse to and with which he wished to convince his audience of the falsity of Hananiah. But the wicked king and his entourage would not listen to and obey the Word of God.

3. As argued in the preceding paragraph, it should be noted that neither the fulfillment of a prediction nor the work- ing of a miracle was enough to prove the genuine character of a prophet; that the loyalty and strict attachment to the religion is the best and the decisive proof for the purpose; that "Shalom" was used to express the religion of peace. Once again we repeat the same assertion that Shalom is no other than Islam. And we demand from those who would object to this interpretation to produce an Arabic word be- sides Islam and Salam as the equivalent of the Shalom, and also to find for us another word in Hebrew besides Shalom that would convey and express the same meaning as Islam. It is impossible to produce another such an equivalent. Therefore we are forced to admit that Shalom is the same as "salam" or "peace" in the abstract, and "Islam" as a religion and faith in the concrete.

4. As the Qur'an in chap. ii expressly reminds us that Abraham and his sons and grandsons were the followers of Islam; that they were neither Jews nor Christians; that they preached and propagated the worship and the faith in the one God to all the peoples among whom they sojourned or dwelt, we must admit that not only the Jews, but several other nations that descended from the other sons of Abraham and many tribes converted and absorbed by them, were also Muslims; that is to say, believers in Allah and resigned to His Will. There were the people of Esau, the Edomites, the Midianites, and numerous other peoples living in Arabia, who knew God and worshipped Him like the Israelites. These peoples had also their own prophets and religious guides like Job, Jethro (the father-in-law of the Prophet Moses), Balaam, Hud, and many others. But they, like the Jews, had taken to idolatry until it was totally eradicated by the Prince of the prophets. The Jews, in about the fifth century B.C., produced the greater portion of their canonical books of the Old Testament, when the memories of the conquest of the land of Canaan by Joshua, the temple and Jerusalem of Solomon, were events buried in the past epochs of their wondrous history. A nationalistic and Judaistic spirit of solicitude and seclusion reigned among the small remnant of Israel; the belief in the coming of a great Savior to restore the lost throne and crown of David was regnant, and the old meaning of "Shalom" as the name of the religion of Abraham and common to all the different peoples descended from him was no longer remembered. It is from this point of view that I regard this passage of Jeremiah as one of the golden texts in the Hebrew sacred writ.

The great destroyer of the "Eleventh Horn," that personified Constantine the Great and the Trinitarian Church, was not a Bar Allaha ("Son of God"), but a Bar Nasha ("Son of Man") and none other than Prophet Muhammad al-Mustapha who actually established the Kingdom of God upon earth. It is this Kingdom of God that we are now to examine and expound.

In examination of that marvelous vision of the Prophet Daniel (Chap. vii.) we saw how Prophet Muhammad was escorted by the myriads of celestial beings and conducted to the glorious presence of the Eternal; how he heard the words of honor and affection which no creature had ever been favor- ed with (2 Cor. xii.); how he was crowned to the dignity of the Sultan of the Prophets and invested with power to destroy the "Fourth Beast" and the "Blasphemous Horn." Further, we saw how he was authorized to establish and proclaim the Kingdom of God on earth; how all that human genius can possibly imagine of the highest honors accorded by the Almighty to a beloved worshiper and to His most worthy Messenger could be ascribed to Prophet Muhammad alone. It should be re- membered that among all the Prophets and Messengers of Allah, Prophet Muhammad alone figures like a tower above all; and the grand and noble work he accomplished stands a permanent monument of his honor and greatness. One cannot appreciate the value and importance of Islam as the unique bulwark against idolatry and polytheism unless the absolute Oneness of God is earnestly admitted. When we fully realize that Allah is the same God whom Adam and Abraham knew, and whom Moses and Jesus worshipped, then we have no difficulty in accepting Islam as the only true religion and Prophet Muhammad as the Prince of all the Prophets and Worshipers of God. We cannot magnify the greatness of Allah by con- ceiving Him now as a "Father," now as a "Son," and now as a "Holy Ghost," or to imagine Him as having three persons that can address each other with the three singular personal pronouns: I, thou, he. By so doing we lose all the true con- ception of the Absolute Being, and cease to believe in the true God. In the same way, we cannot add a single iota to the sanctity of the religion by the institution of some meaningless sacraments or mysteries; nor can we derive any spiritual food for our spirits from feeding upon the corpse of a prophet or an incarnate deity; for by so doing we lose all idea of a true and real religion and cease to believe in the religion altogether. Nor can we in the least promote the dignity of Prophet Muhammad if we were to imagine him a son of God or an incarnate deity; for by so doing we would entirely lose the real and the historical Prophet of Mecca and fall uncon- sciously into the abyss of polytheism. The greatness of Prophet Muhammad consists in his establishing such a sound, plain, but true religion, and in the practical application of its precepts and principles with such precision and resolution that it has never been possible for a true Muslim to accept any other creed or faith than that which is professed in the for- mula: "I believe there is no god except Allah, and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." And this short creed will continue to be the faith of every true believer in Allah to the Day of the Resurrection.

"The kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under all heaven shall be given to the people of the Saints of the Most High; its (the people's) kingdom (shall be) a kingdom for ever, and all dominions shall serve and obey it" (Dan. vii. 22 and 27).

The expressions in this prophetical passage that the Kingdom of God shall consist of "the People of the Saints of the Most High," and that all other dominions or powers shall serve and obey that people, clearly indicate that in Islam the Religion and State are one and the same body, and consequently inseparable. Islam is not only the Religion of God, but also His earthly empire or kingdom. In order to be able to form a clear and true idea concerning the nature and the constitution of the "Kingdom of God on earth" it is necessary to cast a glance upon the history of the religion of Islam before it was perfected, completed, and formally established by God Himself under His Messenger Muhammad.

1. ISLAM BEFORE PROPHET MUHAMMAD WAS NOT THE KINGDOM OF GOD UPON EARTH, BUT ONLY GOD'S TRUE RELIGION

Those who believe that the true religion of Allah was revealed only to Abraham and preserved by the people of Israel alone, must be very ignorant students of the Old Testament literature, and must have a very erroneous notion of the nature of that religion. Abraham himself offered tithes to the King and Imam (l.) of Jerusalem and was blessed by him (Gen. xiv. 18). The father-in-law of Moses was also an Imam and a Prophet of Allah; Job, Balaam, Ad, Hud, Loqman, and many other prophets were not Jews. The various tribes and nations like the Ishmaelites, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, and others which descended from the sons of Abraham and Lot, knew God the Almighty though they too, like the Israelites, fell into idolatry and ignorance. But the light of Islam was never entirely extinguished or substituted by idolatry. Idols or images, which were considered as "sacred" and as household gods by the Jews, as well as their kindred nationalities, and usually called "Traphim" (Gen. xxxi.) in the Hebrew, were, in my humble opinion of the same nature and character as the images and idols which the Orthodox and Catholic Christians keep and worship in their houses and temples. In those olden times of ignorance the idols were of the kind of "identity card" or of the nature of a passport. Is it not remarkable to find that Rachel (Rahil), the wife of Jacob and the daughter of Laban, should steal the "traphim" of her father? (Gen. xxxi). Yet Laban as well as her husband were Muslims, and on the same day raised the stone "Mispha" and dedicated it to God!

------------- Footnote (1) In Hebrew these old Imams are called Cohen,' and rendered by Christians as "Priest." A Jewish priest can never be identified with a Christian Sacramentarian priest. ------------- end of footnote

The Jews in the wilderness, inebriate with the wonders and miracles worked day and night - their camp shadowed by a miraculous cloud at daytime and illuminated by a pillar of fire at night, themselves fed with the "manna" and "Salwai" - as soon as the Prophet Moses disappeared for a few days on the misty top of Mount Sinai, made a golden calf and worshipped it. The history of that stubborn people from the death of Joshua to the anointment of King Saul, covering a period of more than four centuries, is full of a series of scan- dalous relapses into idolatry. It was only after the close of the revelation and the Canon of their holy Scriptures in the third century before Christ that the Jews ceased to worship idols, and have since remained monotheists. But their belief in the Oneness of God, though it makes them Unitarians, does not entitle them to the qualification of being called "Muslims," because they have stubbornly rejected both the persons and the revelations of Prophets Jesus and Muhammad. It is only through submission to the Will of God that a man can attain peace and become Muslim, otherwise the faith without obedience and submission is similar to that of the devils who believe in the existence of Allah and tremble.

As we possess no records concerning the other peoples who were favored with Divine Revelations and with the Prophets and Imam sent to them by God, we shall only content ourselves with the declaration that the religion of Islam existed among Israel and other Arab peoples of old, sometimes more luminous, but mostly like a flickering wick or like a dim spark glimmering in a dark room. It was a religion professed by a people who soon forgot it, or neglected it, or transformed it into pagan practices. But all the same there were always individuals and families who loved and worshipped God.

It seems that the Jews, especially the masses, had no true conception of God and of religion as the Muslims have had of Allah and Islam. Whenever the people of Israel prospered and was successful in its wars, then Jahwah was acknowledged and worshipped; but in adverse circumstances He was abandoned and the deity of a stronger and more prosperous nation was adopted and its idol or image worshipped. A careful study of the Hebrew Scripture will show that the ordinary Jew considered his God sometimes stronger or higher, and sometimes weaker, than those professed by other nations. Their very easy and reiterated relapse into idolatry is a proof that the Israelites had almost the same notion about their El or Yahwah, as the Assyrians had of their own Ashur, the Babylonians of Mardukh, and the Phoenicians of their Ba'al. With the exception of the Prophets and the Sophis, the Muslims of Torah, the Israel of the Mosaic Law, never rose equal to the height of the sanctity of their religion nor of the true conception of their Deity. The faith in Allah and a firm conviction and belief in a future life was not ingrained and implanted in the spirit and in the heart of that people.

What a contrast, then, between the Muslims of the Qur'an, the believers of the Islamic Law, and the Muslims of Torah or the Mosaic Law! Has it ever been seen and proved that a Muslim people abandoned its Mosque, Imam, and the Qur'an, and embraced any other religion and acknowledged that Allah was not its God? Never! It is extremely unlikely that a Islamic Muslim community, so long as it is provided with the Book of Allah, the Mosque and the Mullah, could relapse into idolatry or even into Christianity.

I am aware of the certain so-called Tartar families who embraced the Orthodox Christian Faith in Russia. But I can assure my readers, on authentic authority, that these "Tartars" were those Mongols who, long after the subjugation of Russia and the establishment of the "Altin Ordu" by Batu Khan, were either still pagans or newly converted to Islam and seem to have been forced or induced to join the Russian Church. And in this connection it should not be ignored that this happened after the Muslim power of the "Golden Horde" ("Altin Ordu") tumbled down at the tremendous invasion of Timur Lang (Tamerlane). On the contrary, Muslim traders and merchants, in China as well as in the dark continent of Africa, have always propagated their Holy Religion; and the millions of Chinese and negro Muslims are the fruit of these unpaid and unofficial Mussulman missionaries. It is evident from the above that the true religion of God before Prophet Muhammad was only in its infancy, that it remained immature and undeveloped amongst the Hebrews, although it shone brilliantly in the life of the true worshipers of Yahwah. Under the direction of the God-fearing Judges and the pious Kings of Israel, the government was always theocratic, and as long as the oracles of the Prophets were favorably received and their injunctions duly executed, both the religion and the nation prospered.

But the True Religion of God never took the form of the Kingdom of God as it did under the Qur'anic regime. Allah in His Infinite Wisdom had decreed that four great Powers of Darkness should succeed each other before His own Kingdom was to be established. The great ancient civilizations and empires of the Assyro-Chaldeans, of the Medo-Persians, of the Greeks and of the Romans, had to appear and flourish, to persecute and oppress the people of God, and to perpetrate all the evil and wickedness that the Devil could devise. All the glory of these great powers consisted in their worshipping the Devil; and it was this "glory" that the "Prince of the Darkness" promised to grant to Jesus Christ from the top of a high mountain if he were only to follow him and worship him.

2. CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES PREACHED THE KINGDOM OF GOD

They were, it is true, the harbingers of the Kingdom of God upon earth. The soul and the kernel of the Gospel of Jesus is contained in that famous clause in his prayer: "Thy Kingdom come." For twenty centuries the Christians of all denominations and shades of belief have been praying and repeating this invocation, "Thy Kingdom come," and God alone knows how long they will continue to pray for and vainly anticipate its coming. This Christian anticipation of the coming of the Kingdom of God is of the same nature as the anticipation of Judaism for the coming of Messiah. Both these anticipation exhibit an inconsiderate and thoughtless imagination, and the wonder is that they persistently cling to this futile hope. If you ask a Christian priest or parson what he thinks of the Kingdom of God, he will tell you all sorts of illusory and meaningless things. This Kingdom is, he will affirm, the Church to which he belongs when it will overcome and absorb all the other heretical Churches. Another parson or priest will harangue on the "millennium." A Salvationist or a Quaker may tell you that according to his belief the Kingdom of God will consist of the new-born and sinless Christians, washed and cleansed with the blood of the Lamb; and so forth.

The Kingdom of God does not mean a triumphant Catholic Church, or a regenerated and sinless Puritan State. It is not a visionary "Royalty of the Millennium." It is not a Kingdom composed of celestial beings, including the departed spirits of the Prophets and the blessed believers, under the reign of a divine Lamb; with angels for its police and gendarmes; the Cherubs for its governors and judges; the Seraphs for its officers and commanders; or the Archangels for its Popes, Patriarchs, Bishops, and evangelical preachers. The Kingdom of God on earth is a Religion, a powerful society of believers in One God equipped with faith and sword to fight for and maintain its existence and absolute independence against the Kingdom of Darkness, against all those who do not believe that God is One, or against those who believe that He has a son, a father or mother, associates and coevals.

The Greek word euangelion, rendered "Gospel" in English, practically means "the enunciation of good news." And this enunciation was the tidings of the approaching Kingdom of God, the least among whose citizens was greater than John the Baptist. He himself and the Apostles after him preached and announced this Kingdom to the Jews, inviting them to believe and repent in order to be admitted into it. Jesus did not actually abrogate or change the Law of Moses, but interpreted it in such a spiritual sense that he left it a dead letter. When he declared that hatred was the root of murder, lust the source of fornication; that avarice and hypocrisy were as abominable sins as idolatry; and that mercy and charity were more acceptable than the burntofferings and the strict observance of the Sabbath, he practically abolished the letter of the Law of Moses in favor of its spiritual sense. These spurious and much interpolated Gospels report frequent parables and references of Christ to the Kingdom of God, and to Bar-Nasha or the Son of Man, but they are so corrupted and distorted that they have succeeded, and still succeed, in misleading the poor Christians to believe that by "Kingdom of God" Jesus only meant his Church, and that he himself was the "Son of Man."

These important points will be fully discussed, if Allah wills, later on; but for the present I have to content myself with remarking that what Prophet Jesus announced was, it was Islam that was the Kingdom of God and that it was Prophet Muhammad who was the Son of Man, who was appointed to destroy the Beast and to establish the powerful Kingdom of the People of the Saints of the Most High.

The religion of God, until Jesus Christ, was consigned chiefly to the people of Israel; it was more material and of a national character. Its lawyers, priests, and scribes had dis- figured that religion with a gross and superstitious literature of the traditions of their forefathers. Christ condemned those traditions, denounced the Jews and their leaders as "hypocrites" and "the children of the Devil." Although the demon of idolatry had left Israel, yet later on seven demons had taken possession of that people (Matt. xii. 43-45; Luke xi. 24-26).

Christ reformed the old religion; gave a new life and spirit to it; he explained more explicitly the immortality of the human soul, the resurrection and the life in the next world; and publicly announced that the next Messiah whom the Jews were expecting was not a Jew or a son of David, but a son of Ishmael whose name was Ahmad, and that he would establish the Kingdom of God upon earth with the power of the Word of God and with sword. Consequently, the religion of Islam received a new life, light and spirit, and its adherents were exhorted to be humble, to show forbearance and patience. They were beforehand informed of persecutions, tribulations, martyrdoms, and prisons. The early "Nassara," as the Qur'an calls the believers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, suffered ten fearful persecutions under the Roman Emperors. Then comes the Emperor Constantine and proclaims liberty for the Church; but after the decisions and the Trinitarian Creed of the Nicene Council in 325 A.C., the Unitarian Muslims (l) were submitted to a series of new and even more cruel persecutions by the Trinitarians, until the advent of Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be peace and blessings).

----------- Footnote 1. Jesus Christ has never authorized his followers to call themselves "Christians". There is no better title for the early Unitarians than "Muslims." AD. ----------- end of footnote

3. THE NATURE AND CONSTITUTION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

There is a call to prayer repeated aloud five times a day from the minarets and the mosques in every part of the globe where the Muslims live. This anthem is followed by a most solemn worship of Allah by His faithful worshipers. This call to prayer is called Adhan (Azan). This is not all; every action, enterprise and business, however important or trifling it may be, is begun with the words Bismi 'l-Lah, which means "in the Name of Allah," and ends with an Al-Hamdu li'l-Lah, meaning "praise be to Allah!" The bond of faith which binds a Muslim to his Eternal King is so strong, and the nearness between the Sovereign and His worshiper is so close, that nothing, however powerful or seductive, can separate him from Allah. The Qur'an declares that Allah is nearer to one than the life-vain.

Never was there a favorite courtier who, in his sentiments of affection, devotion, obedience, and respect for his beneficent monarch, could ever equal those which a Muslim entertains towards his Lord. Allah is the Owner of the Heavens, Earth and Universe, He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is the King and the Lord of every Muslim in particular, for it is a Muslim alone who thanks and praises the Almighty King for all that happens and befalls him, be it prosperity or adversity.

Nearly three hundred million Muslims or more are endowed with the same feelings of faith and trust in Allah.

It is evident, therefore, that the nature of Islam consists in its being the only real and truly Theocratic Kingdom on earth. Allah need no longer send Messengers or Prophets to convey His Messages to the Muslims as He used to do to Israel and other Hebrew peoples; for His will is fully revealed in the Holy Qur'an and imprinted on the minds of His faithful worshipers.

As to the formation and the constitution of the Kingdom of God, inter alia, the following points should be noted: -

(a) All Muslims form one nation, one family, and one brotherhood. I need not detain my readers to study the various quotations from the Qur'an and the Hadith (Quotations of the Prophet) on these points. We must judge the Muslim society, not as it presents itself now, but as it was in the time of Prophet Muhammad and his immediate successors. Every member of this community is an honest worker, a brave sol- dier, and a fervent believer and devotee. All honest fruit of the toil belongs by right to him who earns it; nevertheless the law makes it impossible for a true Muslim to become excessively wealthy. One of the five foundations of Islam is the duty of almsgiving, which consists of sadaqa and zakat, or the voluntary and the obligatory alms. In the days of the Prophet and the first four Caliphs, no Muslim was known to be enormously rich. The national wealth went into the common treasury called "Baitu 'I-Mal," and no Muslim was left in need or want.

------------- Footnote (1) The Jihad or "Holy War" is also an obligatory practice of piety. ------------- end of footnote

The very name "Muslim" signifies literally "a maker of peace." You can never find another human being more docile, hospitable, inoffensive and peaceful a citizen than a good Muslim. But the moment his religion, honor, and property are attacked, the Muslim becomes a formidable foe. The Qur'an is very precise on this point: "Wa la ta'tadu" - "And you must not transgress" (or take the offensive). The Holy Jihad is not a war of offence, but of self-defense. Though the robbers, the predatory tribes, the semi-barbarous nomad Muslims, may have some religious notions and believe in the existence of Allah, it is the lack of knowledge and of religious training which is the root-cause of their vice and depravity. They are an exception. One can never become a good Muslim without the religious training and education.

(b) According to the description of the Prophet Daniel, the citizens of the Kingdom of God are "the People of the Saints." In the original Chaldish or Aramaic text, they are described as "A'mma d' qaddishid' I'lionin," an epithet worthy only of the Prince of the Prophets and of his noble army of the Muhajirm (Emigrants) and the Ansar (Helpers), who uprooted idolatry from a great part of Asia and Africa and destroyed the Roman Beast.

All the Muslims, who believe in Allah, in His angels, Books, and Prophets; in the Day of the Resurrection and Judgment; that the good and evil are from Allah; and perform their pious practices according to their ability and with good will, are holy saints and blessed citizens of the King- dom. There is no grosser religious ignorance than the belief that there is a person called the Holy Ghost who fills the hearts of those who are baptized in the names of three gods, each the third of the three, or the three of the third, and thus sanctifies the believers in their absurdities. A Muslim believes that there is not one Holy Spirit, but innumerable holy spirits all created and ministers of the One Allah. The Muslims are sanctified, not by baptisms or ablution, but their spirits are purified and sanctified by the light of faith and by the fire of zeal and courage to defend and fight for that faith. John the Baptist, or rather Christ himself (according to the Gospel of Barnabas), said: "I baptize you with water unto repentance, but he who comes after me, he is stronger than I; he will baptize you with fire and with the holy spirit." It was this fire and this spirit with which Prophet Muhammad baptized the semi-barbarian nomads, the heathen Gentiles, and con- verted them into an army of heroic saints, who transformed the old waning synagogue and the decaying church into a permanent and strong Kingdom of Allah in the promised lands and elsewhere.

4. THE PERMANENCE AND THE DIGNITY OF THE KINGDOM OF ALLAH

This is doubly assured by an Angel to Daniel. It is stated that "all the nations under the heaven shall serve the People of the Saints of the Most High." It requires no proof to say that all the Christian Powers show a particular respect, and even deference when necessary, not only to Muslim Powers, to Muslim sacred places and mosques, but also to the local institutions of their Muslim subjects. The mystery of this "service" lies in this: in the first place, the Muslims always inspire respect and fear through their dignified behavior, attachment to their religion and obedience to just laws, and their peacefulness; and secondly, because the Christian Governments, as a rule, treat the Muslims with justice and do not interfere with their laws and religion.

Space does not permit us to extend our observations over other points of this Divine Religion and Kingdom, such as the Muslim Caliphas, Sultans, etc. Suffice it to say that the Muslim Sovereigns are subject to the same Qur'anic laws as their compatriots; that justice and modesty are the best safeguards for the prosperity and stability of every State, Muslim or non-Muslim; and that the spirit and the principles of the Book of Allah are the best guidance for all legislation and civilization.

Muhammad in the New Testament

Islam And Ahmadiyat Announced By Angels

Two very extraordinary events have been recorded by two Evangelists in connection with the birth of Prophet Jesus Christ (upon whom be peace and the blessings of Allah). The Evangelist Mattai (Matthew) has left to us an account of the wonderful pilgrimage of the Magi, who were guided by a star from Persia to the manger at Bethlehem, where the new-born Jesus, whom they "worshipped" and presented with rich gifts of gold, myrrh, and incense, was lying. The condensed material in this historical event or fictitious story of the "Wise Men" from the East is in itself a plausible legend consisting of more than half a dozen miracles, which the Christian Church alone has been able to create and to believe in. The Church has preserved the very names of the Magi, who, headed by the King Caspar, were "inspired by God," and knew that the little Babe of Bethlehem was God, Lamb, and King, and therefore they offered him incense as to a deity, myrrh for his burial as a sacrifice, and gold for his royal treasury! That the Zoroastrian magicians, or the astrologian Chaldees, through the astral divination and guidance, traversed all that distance to Jerusalem, and there lost the sight of the star; that the Jewish reigning sovereign Herod and the inhabitants of Jerusalem shook and trembled at the news of the birth of a new king; that only an incoherent passage in the writings of the Prophet Micah (v. 2) could solve the problem of the locality where the nativity had taken place; and finally that the astrologers were informed by God in a dream not to return to Herod, are indeed some wonderful miracles which only the Christian superstition can swallow. The royal retinue of the pilgrims proceeds to Bethlehem only at a few miles' distance from Jerusalem, and, lo! the old guiding star again appears and leads them on until it stops exactly above the spot where the infant was born. The prodigious rapidity with which the long journey from Persia to Bethlehem was completed while the babe was still in the stable (Luke ii. 4-7) shows the importance of the miracle.
Another miracle connected with the birth of Christ is the fact, or the fiction, that after all those demonstrations at the Court of Herod and in the educated classes at Jerusalem, nobody knew the address of the Holy Family; and that this mystifying ignorance cost the massacre by Herod of hundreds of infants at Bethlehem and its suburbs. The last but not the least miracle insinuated in this narrative is the fulfillment of another prophecy from Jeremiah (xxxi. 15), where Rachel is represented as weeping and lamenting over the slaughter of the Ephraimites at Ramah and not at Bethlehem, and this, too, some seven hundred years ago, when the descendants of Rachel were deported into Assyria while she herself was dead long before Jacob her husband descended into Egypt! St. Matthew, who alone among all the ancient archivists and historians knows this event, does not tell us what the impressions of King Caspar and his astrologers after their visit of pilgrimage to the manger of Bethlehem were. Were they convinced that the son of Mary was a king, or were they not? If they were persuaded that Jesus was a king, why then did Persia persecute Christianity until it was converted to Islam in the seventh century? Is it not true that the Persians received no light and information about Jesus of Nazareth from their magicians, but only from the Muslim army sent by Hazrat Omar, the second caliph?
It is not my intention to deny altogether the truth of the visit of some Eastern Magi to the crypt of Jesus, but simply to show the avidity or the ambition of the Church to exaggerate simple events in the life of Jesus Christ and to exhibit in them some supernatural characteristics.

The other equally wonderful event which concerns our present discourse is recorded by the Evangelist Luke (ii. 1-20). Some shepherds were watching their flocks in a field near Bethlehem on the very night when Jesus was born in a manger. An angel announces the birth of the "Savior Lord," and suddenly a host of angels appear in the sky and sing aloud the following hymn:

Glory be to God in the Highest, And on earth peace, And among men good will. [Verse 14.]

This famous angelic anthem, known as Gloria in excelsis deo, and sung in all the sacerdotalist churches during their celebration of the sacraments, is, unfortunately, only a vague translation from the Greek text, which cannot be considered at all reliable or truth worthy because it does not show us the original words in the language in which the angels chanted and which the Hebrew shepherds understood. That the heavenly hosts sang their joyous song in the language of the shepherds, and that that language was not Greek but the vernacular Hebrew - or rather the Aramaic - is an admitted truth. All the scriptural names of Allah, angels, heaven, prophets, etc., are revealed to us in the Semitic tongues (Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic); and to imagine that the celestial hosts sang in Greek to the ignorant Jewish shepherds in the suburbs of Bethlehem would be equivalent to the belief that such an angelic army, in the firmament above the mountains of Kurdistan, sang a similar hymn in Japanese for the digestion, or puzzle, of some Kurdish herdsmen!

The appearance of an angel to the humble shepherds of Bethlehem and the annunciation of the birth of a great Prophet that very night, and the hearing of the angelic Hallelujah (Allilujah) by them alone and not by the haughty priests and the scribes, is one of the innumerable miracles recorded in the history of the people of Israel. There is nothing in the story which might be considered to be such a contradictory nature as to expose the narrative to incredi- bility. An angel can appear to a prophet or to a holy worshiper of God and communicate to him a message from Allah in the presence of other people, yet be quite imperceptible to them. The good shepherds had good hearts and good faith, therefore they were worthy of the divine favor. So from a religious point of view there is nothing incompatible or incredible in this wonderful event as recorded by St. Luke. The author of this narrative exhibits precision of diction, he is discreet and cautious in his statements, and throughout his Gospel he uses a very good Greek style. Considering the fact that he wrote his book long after the death of all the Apostles, and that he had "very carefully" examined numer- ous works concerning Jesus and his Gospel, it seems very probable that he was aware of the legend of the Magi and abstained altogether from including it in his own book (l).

------------ Footnote (1) Readers are advised to very carefully read the preface, or the introductory passage, at the beginning of St. Luke's Gospel. ------------ end of footnote

It is precisely stated in the first four verses with which the third Gospel opens that the Apostles, whom he calls "the eyewitnesses and the ministers of the Word," had not written themselves any account about the Master and his teachings, but only by way of tradition had delivered them orally to their followers or successors. It is also clearly stated that the sources to which St. Luke had recourse for the composition of his Gospel were various "stories" composed by persons who had heard them narrated by the Apostles and others who were the eyewitnesses of those events and doctrines, and that the author very attentively examined them all and chose only such as he considered true or trust- worthy. Moreover, it is quite evident from the confession of St. Luke himself, as it may be easily deducted from his preface, that he claims no direct revelation made to himself, nor does he attribute any inspiratory character to his book. It may, too, be safely assumed that the first and the fourth Gospels were either not written when Luke compiled his own narrative, or that he had not seen them; for he could not have ventured to counterpoise or contradict the Gospels written by the two Apostles, Matthew and John.

These brief observations, which can be multiplied, must convince every impartial reader that the so-called "Four Gospels" do not exhibit the necessary features which are indispensable for any Scripture claiming a divine inspiration.

The Churches have believed that the author of the third Gospel is the Physician Luke (Col. iv. 14) who accompanied St. Paul in his missionary journeys and was with him a prisoner at Rome (2 Tim. iv. 11; Philem. 24, etc.). However, this is not the place to discuss the question of the authorship of the book, nor its other important peculiarities. Suffice it to say that St. Luke has recorded some beautiful parables and teachings of the Holy Master, such as the parable of the Good Samaritan (x. 25-37); the Avaricious Rich Man (xii. 15-21); the Self-righteous Pharisee and the Publican (xiii. 9-18); the Perseverance in Prayer (xi. 1-13); the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Prodigal Son (xv); the Dives and Lazarus (xvi. 19-31); the Mite of the Poor Widow (xxi); the Wicked Husbandman (xx 9-16); the Unjust Judge (xviii. 1-8); the Conversion of Zacchaeus (xix 1-10); and several others. But the most important among all the contents of the third Gospel is the angelic hymn, which forms the topic of our present study and contemplation.

This hymn, like all the contents of the New Testament, is presented to us not in the original language in which it was sung, but only in its Greek version; and God alone knows the source from which our Evangelist copied, translated, or simply narrated it from hearsay.

Is it possible that Prophet Jesus or his Apostles did not leave a real and authentic Gospel in the language in which it was revealed? If there were such a true Gospel, what became of it? Who lost it? Was it destroyed? And by whom and when? Was it ever translated into Greek or into another foreign language? Why has not the Church preserved to us the original text of the real Gospel, or its translation? If the answer to these questions is in the negative, then we venture to ask another series of questions of equal importance; namely, why did these Jewish Apostles and Evangelists write not in their own language but all of them in the Greek language? Where did the fisherman Shimon Kipha (Simon Peter), Yohannan (John), Ya'qub (James), and the publican Mattai (Matthew) learn the Greek language in order to write a series of holy Scriptures"? If you say the "Holy Ghost taught them," you simply make yourselves ridiculous. The Holy Ghost is not a teacher of grammar and languages. It would require another Revelation to expound the reason or wisdom why the Holy Ghost should make a revelation in the Jewish language to an Israelite in Nazareth, then cause it to be destroyed, and finally teach half a dozen Jews the Greek tongue and inspire each one to write in his own style and way a portion of the same Revelation!

If it is argued that the Gospels and the Epistles were written for the benefit of the Jews of Dispersion, who knew the Greek language, we venture to inquire: What benefit at all did those Jews of the Dispersion derive from the New Testament; and why a copy of it should not have been made for the Jews of Palestine in their own language, considering the fact that Jerusalem was the center of the new Faith, and James, the "brother of the Lord" (Gal. i. 19), was the President or Head of the Church and residing there (Acts xv.; Gal.ii. 11-l5, etc.).

It would be a desperately hopeless effort to find a single parable, oracle, or any revealed message of Jesus Christ in his own language. The Synod of Nicea must be for ever held criminally responsible as the sole cause of this irreparable loss of the Sacred Gospel in its original Aramaic text.
The reason why I so pertinently insist on the indispensable necessity of the intact preservation of the revealed message of Allah is obvious; it is because only such a document can be considered as reliable and valid. A translation, no matter how faithfully and ably it may have been made, can never maintain the exact force and the real sense as contained in the original words and expressions. Every version is always liable to be disputed and criticized. These four Gospels, for instance, are not even a translation, but the very original text in the Greek language; and the worst of it is that they are badly corrupted by later interpolations.

Now, we have before us a sacred song, undoubtedly sung in a Semitic dialect, but as it is, presented to us in a Greek version. Naturally we are very curious to know its words in the original language in which it was sung. Here I draw the serious attention of the reader to the exact equivalent Semitic term rendered into the Greek language "eudokia" and translated into English "good will". The hymn is composed of three clauses. The subject of the first clause is Allaha (in Aramaic), rendered "Theos" in Greek. The subject of the second clause is Shlama (in Aramaic), and translated "Eiriny" into Greek. And the subject of the third clause is eudokia in Greek, and rendered "Bona voluntas" by the Vulgate and "Sobhra Tabha" (pronounced sovra tava) by the Pshittha (al-Basit).

Both these versions, which have been followed by all other versions, have failed to convey the exact meaning and the sense of the word "eudokia," and consequently the second and the third clauses remain meaningless and even senseless, if not altogether untrue. Disappointed as we may be for not having the exact words of this heavenly anthem in their original forms, yet we need not despair in our endeavor to find out and discover the true sense contained in it.

We shall therefore proceed to find out the true etymological significations of the Greek words "Eiriny" and "Eudokia," and the real sense and interpretation of the Angelical Doxology.
The Christian interpretation of the terms "Eiriny" and "Eudokia" is wrong and utterly untenable.

According to the interpretation of this hymn by all the Christian Churches and sects, the faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ, in the redemption from sin and hell-fire through his death upon the Cross, and in holding a continual communication with the Holy Ghost, brings "peace" and tranquillity to the heart, and makes the believers entertain towards each other "good will," benevolence, and mutual love. This interpretation, thus far, is commonly accepted by the Sacramentarian and the Evangelical groups. But they do not stop at these three principal points, and very discreetly too; for thus far no general peace, no reconciliation, no concord and union, no good will and mutual love is felt among them. Then they part with each other and try other means to ascertain this "peace" and this "good will." The Sacrament- arians insist on the belief in seven sacraments and many dogmas which neither common sense nor the simple doctrine of Jesus could tolerate. The Church, having been cleansed by the blood of the Redeemer through the mysteriously sancti- fied waters of Baptism, has become the Bride of the Lamb and his body; the Church, being herself the body of the Lamb, feeds upon his body in the mysteriously hallowed bread and wine, and transubstantiated into the real flesh and blood of the Bridegroom. The Bride - Church - has particular devotions to the "sacred hearts" of Jesus, of Mary, and of St. Joseph; to the fourteen stages or mansions of the Crucifixion; to the statues and images of hundreds and hundreds of saints and martyrs; to thousands of authentic or fictitious bones and relics of the same; and adoration to the consecrated wafer exactly as to God the Almighty! Still there is no peace; all sins, grave or otherwise, must be confessed to the priest; and it is the absolution that the sinner obtains from that "spiritual father" that produces peace and tranquillity in his heart, and fills it with good will!!!

If we turn to the evangelical group of diverse creeds and tenets, we shall find them endeavoring to procure an internal peace by praying directly to the three persons of the deity individually - now to Jesus, now to the Spirit, then to the Father - with closed eyes, but with oratorical gestures and movements; by reading the Bible, and by other practices private or in public; and then they believe that they are filled with the Holy Spirit and are at peace! But I assure the reader that all these "penitent" Christians, who through their real or artificial devotions pretend to have obtained "peace," and to have possessed "good will" towards their neighbors, instead of becoming docile, meek, and peaceful like their pretended Master, become extremely bigoted and intolerant. Whether an orthodox or a heterodox, when a Christian comes out from the church where he has "shared" the "Lord's Communion" which they call the "Institution of the Eucharist,(1)" they become so hypocritically fanatical and unsocial as to prefer to meet a dog rather than a Muslim or a Jew, because these do not believe in the Trinity and in the "Lord's Supper." I know it. I used to be of the same sentiments when I was a Catholic priest. The more I thought myself spiritual, holy, and sinless, the more I hated the heretics, especially the non- believers in the Trinity.

------------- Footnote (1) I forgot to mention above that St. Luke, according to the ancient Pshittha Version, does not contain verses 17-19 of chapter xxii; nor are these so-called "essential words" existing in the Liturgy of the Nestorians. ------------- end of footnote

When the Christians, especially their priests and pastors, become fervent and zealous in their peculiar devotions and practices, they become exceedingly excited, furious, and offensive towards their religious adversaries! Show me a single Catholic, Schismatic, or a heretical Saint after the Nicene Council, who was not a tyrant, either in his writings, or preachings, or in his deeds against those whom he considered "heretics." The Roman Inquisition is an immortal witness to the fulfillment of this Angelical hymn of "Peace upon earth and good will among men"!

It is apparent that the true peace cannot be acquired by artificial means. There are only three means that can pro- cure the true and perfect peace; namely, a firm belief in the absolute Oneness of Allah; a complete submission and resignation to His Holy Will; and frequent meditation and contemplation on Him. He who has recourse to these three means is a real and practical Muslim, and the peace that he acquires thereby is true and unartificial. He becomes to- lerant, honest, just, and compassionate; but at the same time quite equipped to fight heart and soul in defense of all that appertains to the Glory of Allah and to his own honor when threatened or attacked. It is obvious that the acquisition of this perfect peace is accomplished by an inward faith and an inflexible submission to the Creator, and not by outward ostentatious practices and rituals. These latter will benefit us only when the faith is genuine, and the submission voluntary and unconditional.

But surely the angels did not sing in honor of private or individual peace, which is, after all, limited to a comparatively small number of pious men; nor did they do so in praise of an imaginary universal peace, which would mean a total disarmament of nations and a cessation of wars and hostilities. No; neither of these two specific peaces was the object of this melody. The spiritual peace is a tranquillity of heart and conscience granted by Allah as a grace and blessing only to those few believers who have made great progress in piety and spiritual life, and love Him, above all, and sacrifice every other love for His.

It was neither a social nor political peace for the people of Israel; for the history of the last twenty centuries shows the very contrary. The angels could not, therefore, sing and announce a peace which could never be realized or accomplished. We are forced, then, in face of the subsequent historical facts on the one hand, and by the importance of the occasion, as well as the quarter from which this remark- able announcement was made, on the other, to conclude that this "peace upon earth" was none other than the approaching establishment of the Kingdom of Allah upon earth, which is Islam. The Greek word "Eiriny" stands for the Semitic "Shalom," "Shlama," and "Islam." That is all!

The very mention of "a multitude of heavenly hosts" gives the hymn a martial or triumphal character. It is indeed a singular indication of joy on the part of the armies belonging to the Kingdom of Heaven, in favor of their future allies belonging to the Kingdom of God on earth, of which the newly born Babe of Bethlehem was the greatest Evangelist and Herald.
On various occasions, in the course of these articles, we have explained that Shalom, in its concrete and practical sense, has the signification of the religion that is good, sound, safe, salutary, and the way of peace, in opposition to the religion that is evil, bad, harmful, destructive, and the way that conducts towards misery and perdition. It was in this sense that Allah, in His Message through the prophecy of Isaiah (xiv.) to Cyrus, used the word Shalom, as synonymous with good in opposition to evil. This is precisely the literal, etymological, moral, and practical interpretation of Islam as the true religion, the powerful Kingdom of Allah on earth, with its permanent and sound laws and directions inscribed in the Holy Qur'an.

Beyond Islam, which literally signifies "making peace," any other interpretation or imaginary peace is irrelevant with the sense in which "Eiriny" is used in this triumphal angelic anthem. It was in this Islamic sense of the word that Jesus Christ, in his grand sermon on the Mount, said: "Blessed are the Muslims (literally, "the peacemakers"); for they shall be called the children of God" (1) (Matt. v. 9). And it was precisely the imaginary peace which Prophet Jesus Christ repudiated when he exclaimed: "Think not that I came to establish peace upon earth; I did not come to set peace but a sword" (Matt. x. 34-6); or, as Luke declares: "I came to set fire on the earth . . . Do you think that I came to establish peace? I tell you, no; but divisions . . . " (Luke xii. 49-53).

------------ Footnote (1) The expression "children of God" will be treated later on. ------------ end of footnote

Unless "Eiriny" be understood in the sense of the Religion of Islam, these two crucial and contradictory statements of Jesus must remain a riddle, if not an irretrievable injury which the Christian Church has committed in having accepted these Gospels as the "inspired Word of God."

"Eudokia" Means "Ahmadiyeh"

[LUKE ii. 14]

To retranslate a masterpiece of an eminent author from a foreign version if he left other writings in his own language would not be very difficult. For thus the translator could study the mind, the technicalities, and the expressions in his works, and do his best to retranslate the book into its original language. But how far he would be successful is a question which only able translators can decide and determine. Similarly, if there were at least a couple of epistles or writings of St. Luke in the Hebrew, his Gospel could with comparatively less difficulty be translated into that tongue than it can now be done. But unfortunately even such is not the case. For nothing is extant of the ancient writings in the language of Jesus from which St. Luke translated the angelic hymn; nor has he himself left us another book in a Semitic dialect.

To make myself better understood, and in order to make the English readers better appreciate the extreme importance of this point, I venture to challenge the best scholar in English and French literature to retranslate from a French edition the dramatic work of Shakespeare into English without seeing the original English text, and to show the grace and the elegance of the original as well.

The great Muslim philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna) wrote in the Arabic, and some of his works were afterwards retranslated from the Latin into the Arabic because the originals were lost. Are these reproductions the exact texts of that Muslim Aristotle? Certainly not!
In the previous article in this series, on "Eiriny," we discussed this translational point to a certain extent; and we had no difficulty in finding its equivalent Hebrew word "Shalom," because both are identical in the Septuagint and Hebrew texts. But the Greek compound word "Eudokia" does not occur, to the best of my knowledge, in the Septuagint Version, and it is extremely difficult to find out its equivalent or synonymous term in the original. St. Barnabas does not mention in his Gospel this angelic hymn and the story of the Shepherds of Bethlehem; nor do the other Synoptics or the Epistles in the New Testament.

The modern Greeks frequently adopt "Eudokia" and "Eudoxia" for their feminine proper nouns; and both these nouns are composed of two elements; "eu" and "dokeo," from the later being derived "doxa" which means "glory" or "praise" and so on.

In order to discover the original Semitic word in the song that the pious Shepherds heard and related, and which the evangelist Luke has formulated into "Eudokia," we are compelled to examine and trace it right from its Greek root and derivation. But before doing so, it is necessary to criticize and expose the erroneous versions which have eclipsed the true meanings of Eudokia and concealed its prophetical bearing upon Ahmad or Muhammad.

There are two principal versions of the New Testament from the Greek text, one being in the so-called "Syriac" language, and the other in the Latin. Both bear the same significant title of "Simplex" or "Simple," which both the "Pshittha" and the "Vulgate" signify. There is much new material of information about these two famous ancient versions which must embarrass the most erudite Christian historians and the most dogmatic theologians. But for the present it may suffice to say that the Aramaic (1) Version, called the Pshittha, is older than the Latin Vulgate. It is common knowledge that the Church of Rome for the first four centuries had no Scriptures or Liturgy in the Latin but in the Greek. Before the Nicene Council in 325 A.C., the Canon of the books of the New Testament was not completed, or rather established. There were dozens of Gospels and Epistles bearing the names of different Apostles and other companions of Jesus, which were held by various Christian communities as sacred, but they were rejected by the Nicene Council as spurious. As the seat or center of the Syriac language and learning was Orhai, i.e. Edessa, and never Antioch, it was here that the books of the New Testament were translated from the Greek, after the notorious Assembly of Nicea.

------------Footnote (1). The Pshittha Version of the Old Testament never uses the words "Syria" and "Syriac," but "Aram" and "Aramaic." ------------- end of footnote

A profound examination and study of the early Christian literature and history will show that the first preachers of the Gospel were Jews who spoke Aramaic or the old Syriac language. Whether this "Gospel" was a written document, or an unwritten doctrine or religion taught and propagated orally, is a question for itself and lies outside the sphere of our present subject. But one thing is certain and does really fall within the periphery of our subject - namely, the early Christians conducted their religious services in the Aramaic language. That was the common language spoken by the Jews, the Syrians, the Phoenicians, the Chaldeans, and the Assyrians. Now it is but clear that the Christians belonging to the Aramaic-speaking nationalities would certainly prefer to read and pray in their own language, and consequently various Gospels, Epistles, prayer-books, and liturgies were written in the Syriac. Even the Armenians, before the invention of their alphabet in the fifth century, had adopted the Syriac characters.

On the other hand, the proselytes from the non-Semitic "Gentiles" to the "new way" read the Old Testament in its Greek Version of the "Seventy." As a matter of course, the scholars of the Greek philosophy and the ex-ministers of the Greek mythology, once converted to the new faith and with the Septuagint before them, could have no difficulty in the production of a "New Testament" as a completion or a continuation of the old one.

How the simple Gospel of the Nazarene Messenger of Allah became a source of two mighty currents of the Semitic and the Hellenic thought; and how the Greek polytheistic thought finally overpowered the monotheistic Semitic creed under the most tyrannical Greco-Latin Emperors, and under the most intolerant and superstitious Trinitarian Bishops of Byzantium and Rome, are points of extreme moment for a profound study by the Muslim savants.

Then there are the questions of the unity of faith, of doctrine, and of the revealed text. For more than three centuries the Christian Church had no New Testament as we see it in its present shape. None of the Semitic or Greek Churches, nor did Antioch, Edessa, Byzantium, and Rome possess all the books of the New Testament, nor even the four Gospels before the Nicene Council. And I wonder what was or could be the belief of those Christians who were only in possession of the Gospel of St. Luke, or of St. Mark, or of St. John, concerning the dogmas of the Eucharist, Baptism, the Trinity, the miraculous conception of Christ, and of dozens of other dogmas and doctrines! The Syriac Version of the Pshittha does not contain the so-called "Essential" or "Institutional Words," now extant in St. Luke (xxii. 17, 18, 19). The last twelve verses of the sixteenth chapter of the Second Gospel are not to be found in the old Greek manuscripts. The so-called "Lord's prayer" (Matt. vi. 9; Luke xi. 2) is unknown to the authors of the Second and Fourth Gospels. In fact, many important teachings contained in one Gospel were unknown to the Churches which did not possess it. Consequently there could possibly be no uniformity of worship, discipline, authority, belief, commandments, and law in the Early Church, just as there is none now. All that we can gather from the literature of the New Testament is that the Christians in the Apostolical age had the Jewish Scriptures for their Bible, with a Gospel containing the true revelation made to Jesus, and that its substance was precisely the same as announced in this Seraphic Canticle - namely, ISLAM and AHMADIYEH.

The special mission assigned by Allah to His Prophet Jesus was to revert or convert the Jews from their perversion and erroneous belief in a Davidic Messiah, and to convince them that the Kingdom of God upon earth which they were anticipating was not to come through a Messiah of the Davidic dynasty, but of the family of Ishmael whose name was AHMAD, the true equivalent of which name the Greek Gospels have preserved in the forms "Eudoxos" and "Periclytos" and not "Paraclete" as the Churches have shaped it. It goes without saying that the "Periclyte" will form one of the principal topics in this series of articles. But whatever be the signification of the "Paraclete" (John xiv. 16, 26; xv. 26, and xvi. 7) or its true etymological orthography, there still remains the shining truth that Jesus left behind him and unfinished religion to be completed and perfected by what John (ubi supra) and Luke (xxiv. 49) describe as "Spirit." This "Spirit" is not a god, a third of the three in a trinity of gods, but the holy Spirit of Ahmad, which existed like the Spirits of other Prophets in Paradise (cf. the Gospel of Barnabas). If the Spirit of Jesus, on the testimony of an Apostle, John (xvii. 5, etc.), existed before he became a man, the Muslim, too, are perfectly justified in believing in the existence of the Spirit of Prophet Muhammad on the testimony of another Apostle, Barnabas! And why not? As this point will be discussed in the course of the succeeding articles, for the present all I want to ask the Christian Churches is this: Did all the Christian Churches in Asia, Africa, and Europe possess the Fourth Gospel before the Nicene Council? If the answer is in the affirmative, pray, bring your proofs; if it is in the negative, then it must be admitted that a large portion of the Christians knew nothing about St. John's "Paraclete," a corrupt word which does not mean either a "comforter" or "mediator" or anything at all! These are certainly very serious and grave charges against Christianity.

But to turn to the point. The Pshittha had translated the Greek word "Eudokia" (the Greeks read the word "Ivdokia," or rather pronounce it "Ivthokia") as "Sobhra Tabha" (pronounced "Sovra Tava"), which signifies "good hope," or "good anticipation;" whereas the Latin Vulgate, on the other hand, renders "Eudokia" as "Bona Voluntas," or "good will."

I fearlessly challenge all the Greek scholars, if they dare, to contradict me when I declare that the translators of the Syriac and Latin Versions have made a serious error in their interpretation of "Eudokia." Nevertheless, I must confess that I cannot conscientiously blame those translators of having deliberately distorted the meaning of this Greek term; for I admit that both the Versions have a slight foundation to justify their respective translations. But even so, it must be remarked that they have thereby missed the prophetical sense and the true meaning of the Semitic vocabulary when they converted it into the Greek word "Eudokia."
The exact and literal equivalent of "good hope" in the Greek language is not "eudokia," but "eu elpis, or rather "euelpistia." This exposition of "evelpistia" (the proper Greek pronunciation) is enough to silence the Pshittha. The precise and the exact corresponding term to the Latin "bona voluntas," or "good will," in the Greek tongue is certainly not "eudokia," but "euthelyma." And this short but decisive explanation again is a sufficient reprimand to the priests of the Vatican, of Phanar (Constantinople), and of Canterbury, who chant the "Gloria in Excelsis" when they celebrate Mass or administer other sacraments.

1. THE ETYMOLOGY AND SIGNIFICATION OF "EUDOKIA"

Now let us proceed to give the true meaning of "Eudokia."
The adjectival prefix "eu" signifies "good, well, more, and most," as in "eudokimeo" - "to be esteemed, approved, loved," and "to acquire glory"; "eudokimos" - "very esteemed, most renowned and glorious"; "eudoxos" - "most celebrated and glorious"; "eudoxia" - "celebrity, renown." The Greek substantive "doxa," used in the compound nouns "orthodox," "doxology," and so on, is derived from the verb "dokeo." Every student of English literature knows that "doxa" signifies "glory, honor, renown." There are numerous phrases in the classical Greek authors where "doxa" is used to signify "glory": "Peri doxis makheshai" - "to fight for glory." The famous Athenian orator Demosthenes "preferred glory to a tranquil life," "glory equal to that of the gods." I am cognizant of the fact that "doxa" is, although seldom, used to signify (a) opinion, belief; (b) dogma, principle, doctrine; and (c) anticipation or hope. But all the same, its general and comprehensive sense is "glory." In fact, the first portion of the Canticle begins with: "Doxa [Glory] be to Allah in the highest."
In the Dictionnaire Grec-Francais (published in 1846 in Paris by R. C. Alexandre) the word "eudokia" is rendered "bienveillence, tendresse, volunte, bon plaisir," etc.; and the author gives "dokeo" as the root of "doxa," with its various significations I have mentioned above.

The Greeks of Constantinople, among whose teachers I have had several acquaintances, while unanimously understanding by "eudokia" the meaning of "delight, loveliness, pleasantness, and desire," also admit that it does signify "celebrity, renown, and honorability" in its original sense as well.

2. THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE HEBREW FORMS OF MaHMaD AND HiMDaH, AND THEIR SIGNIFICATIONS
I am convinced that the only way to understand the sense and the spirit of the Bible is to study it from an Islamic point of view. It is only then that the real nature of the Divine Revelation can be understood, appreciated, and loved. It is only then, too, that the spurious, the false, and the heterogeneous elements interpolated in it can be discovered in their blackest features and eliminated. And it is from this point of view that I welcome this Greek word "eudokia," which in its true and literal signification admirably corresponds to the Hebrew "Mahmad, Mahamod, Himdah," and "Hemed" so frequently used in the Old Testament.
(a) Hamad. This verb, which is constituted of three essential consonants hmd, and common to all the Semitic dialects, everywhere in the Sacred Writ of the Hebrews signifies: "to covet, fall in love, long for, take pleasure and delight in," and "to desire ardently." Those who know Arabic will naturally understand the comprehensive sense of the word Shahwat, which is rendered in English as "lust, cupidity, ardent desire, and appetite." Well, this is the precise sense and signification of the verb "hamad" in the Hebrew Scriptures. One of the commands in the famous Decalogue of the Torah (Arabic "Taurat") or the Law contains this clause: "Lo tahmod ish reikha" - "Thou shalt not covet the wife of thy neighbor" (Exod. xx. 17.)

(b) Hemed. The substantive in the masculine gender, and "Himdah" in the feminine, signifies: "lust, desire, pleasantness, delight, object of longing and of desire, loveliness" (Hag. ii. 7; Jerem. xxv. 34, etc.).
(c) MaHMaD, MaHaMoD (Lam. i. 7, 10; ii. 4, etc.). These participles forms are also derivatives from the verb "hamad" and mean: "most covetable, delightful, pleasant, delicious, charming, precious, beloved."
That the Arabic form MuHaMmaD and the Hebrew MaHMaD and MaHaMoD are derived from one and the same verb or root, and that they, notwithstanding the slight orthographic difference between the forms, have one common origin and signification, there cannot be a jot or iota of doubt. I have given the meanings of the Hebrew forms as the Jews and the lexicographers have understood them.

(d) It will therefore be observed that the Greek word "eudokia" must be a literal representation of the Hebrew substantive HiMDah, and that both signify: "delight, pleasantness, good pleasure (bon plaisir), desire, loveliness, preciousness," and some other synonymous words.

Now it would follow from the above that the corresponding equivalent to the Hebrew "Mahamod" can be none other than "eudoxos" which was the object of desire and longing, the most delightful, pleasant, and coveted, and the most precious, approved, loved, and esteemed.

That among all the sons of Adam the name Muhammad should be given for the first time alone to the son of 'Abdullah and Amina in the town of Mecca, is a unique miracle in the history of religions. There could be no artificial device, attempt, or forgery in this respect. His parents and relatives were people of "fitr" uprighteous but knew nothing of the prohecies in the Hebrew or Christian Scriptures concerning a great Prophet who was promised to come to restore and establish the religion of Islam. Their choice of the name Muhammad or Ahmad could not be explained away as a coincidence or an accidental event. It was surely providential and inspired.

Whether the Arabian poets and men of letters had preserved the archaic signification of the Hebrew passive participle of the pi'el form of the verb hamad, or not, I have no means to prove one way or another. But the Arabic passive participle of the pi'el conjugation of the verb hammida is Muhammad, and that of the Hebrew himmid Mahmad or Mahamod. The affinity between the similarity and the identity of the two forms is unquestionable.

I have faithfully reproduced the significations of the Hebrew forms as given by the lexicographers and translators. But the intrinsical or spiritual sense of "Himdah" and "Mahamod" is: "praise and praiseworthy, celebrity and celebrated, glory and glorious." For among the created beings and things, what can be "more glorious, honorable, illustrious, and praised than that which is most coveted and desired." It is in this practical sense that the Qur'an uses the word hamdu from which Ahmad and Muhammad are derivations, and hamdu is the same word as the Hebrew hemed. The glory of Prophet Muhammad surpasses that of any other creatures, as illustrated by Daniel (vii.), and in the oracle of Allah: "Law la ka lama Khalaqna 'l-Aflaka" - "Were it not for thee, were is not for thee (O beloved Muhammad), We would not have created the worlds" (or heavens ). But the highest honor and glory granted by Allah to His most esteemed Messenger was that he was commissioned to establish and to perfect the true religion of Allah, under the name of "Islam," which, like the name of Prophet Muhammad, has so very many consolating and salubrious significations; "peace, security, safety, tranquillity, salvation," and "the Good" in opposition to "the Evil"; besides those of submission and resignation to the Will of Allah. The vision by which the pious Shepherds were honored on the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ was timely and opportune. For a great Missioner of Allah, a holy Evangelist of Islam was born. As Jesus was the Herald of the Kingdom of Allah, so was his Gospel an Introduction to the Qur'an. The advent of Jesus was the beginning of a new era in the history of religion and morals. He himself was not the "Mahamod" who was to come afterwards to destroy the Evil One and his Kingdom of Idolatry in the Promised Lands. The "Fourth Beast," the mighty Roman Power, was still growing and expanding its conquests. Jerusalem, with its gorgeous temple and priesthood, was to be destroyed by that Beast. Jesus "came to his own people; but that people received him not." And those among the Jews who received him were made "children of the Kingdom," but the rest dispersed in the world. Then followed the ten terrible persecutions under the pagan Roman Emperors which were to crown thousands with the diadem of martyrdom; and Constantine the Great and his successors were allowed to trample upon the true believers in the Oneness of Allah. And then it was that Prophet Muhammad - not a god or son of a god, but "the glorious, the coveted, the most illustrious Son of Man, the perfect Bar nasha" - was to come and destroy the Beast.

John The Baptist Announces A Powerful Prophet

John the Baptist, according to the narratives of the four Evangelists, was a cousin and contemporary of Jesus, being only about six months older than the latter. The Qur'an does not mention anything about the life and work of this Prophet except that God, through the angels, announced to his father Zachariah: "And the angels called out to him when he was standing in the sanctuary worshipping, saying: 'Allah gives you glad tidings of John, who shall confirm a Word of Allah. He shall be a master and caste, a Prophet and from the righteous.'" Ch:3:39 Qur'an. Nothing is known about his infancy, except that he was a Nazarite living in the wilderness, eating locusts and wild honey, covering his body with a cloth made of camel's hair, tied with a leather girdle. He is believed to have belonged to a Jewish religious sect called the "Essenes," from whom issued the early Christian "Ibionites" whose principal characteristic was to abstain from worldly pleasures. In fact, the Qur'anic descriptive term of this hermit Prophet - "hasura," which means "chaste" in every sense of the word - shows that he led a celibate life of chastity, poverty, and piety. He was not seen from his early youth until he was a man of thirty or more, when he began his mission of preaching repentance and baptizing the penitent sinners with water. Great multitudes were drawn to the wilderness of Judea to hear the fiery sermons of the new Prophet; and the penitent Jews were baptized by him in the water of the River Jordan. He reprimanded the educated but fanatical Pharisees and the Priests, and threatened the learned but rationalistic Saduqees (Saducees) with the coming vengeance. He declared that he was baptizing them with water only as a sign of purification of the heart by penance. He promulgated that there was coming after him another Prophet who would baptized them with the Holy Spirit and fire; who would gather together his wheat into his granaries and burn the chaff with an inextinguishable fire.

He further declared that he who was coming afterwards was to such an extent superior to himself in power and dignity that the Baptist confessed to be unfit or unworthy to bow down to untie and loose the laces of his shoes. It was on one of these great baptismal performances of Prophet Yahya (St. John the Baptist) that Jesus of Nazareth also entered into the water of the Jordan and was baptized by the Prophet like everybody else. Mark (i. 9) and Luke (iii. 21), who report this baptism of Jesus by John, are unaware of the remarks of John on this point as mentioned in Matthew (iii), where it is stated that the Baptist said to Jesus: "I need to be baptized by thee, and didst thou come to me?" To which the latter is reported to have replied: "Let us fulfill the righteousness"; and then he baptized him. The Synoptics state that the spirit of prophecy came down to Jesus in the shape of a dove as he went out from the water, and a voice was heard saying: "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."

The Fourth Gospel knows nothing about Jesus being baptized by John; but tells us that the Baptist, when he saw Jesus, exclaimed "Behold the Lamb of God," etc. (John i). This Gospel pretends that Andrew was a disciple of the Baptist, and having abandoned his master brought his brother Simon to Jesus (John i) - a story flagrantly contradicting the statements of the other Evangelists (Matt. iv. 18-19, Mark i. 16-18). In St. Luke the story is altogether different: here Jesus knows Simon Peter before he is made a disciple (Luke iv. 38, 39); and the circumstance which led the Master to enlist the sons of Jonah and of Zebedee in the list of his disciples is totally strange to the other Evangelists (Luke vi 1-11). The four Gospels of the Trinitarian Churches contain many contradictory statements about the dialogs between the two cousin prophets. In the Fourth Gospel we read that the Baptist did not know who Jesus was until after his baptism, when a Spirit like a pigeon came down and dwelt in him (John i); whereas St. Luke tells us that the Baptist, while a foetus in the womb of his mother, knew and worshipped Jesus, who was also a younger foetus in the womb of Mary (Luke i. 44). Then, again, we are told that the Baptist while in prison, where he was beheaded (Matt. xi. xiv), did not know the real nature of the mission of Jesus!

There is a mysterious indication hidden in the questions put to the Prophet Yahya by the Priests and the Levites. They ask the Baptist: "Art thou Messiah? art thou Elijah?" And when he answers "No!" they say: "If thou art neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, and nor that Prophet, why then dost thou baptize?" (John i). It will therefore be noticed that, according to the Fourth Gospel, John the Baptist was neither the Messiah nor Elijah, nor that Prophet! And I venture to ask the Christian Churches, who believe that the inspirer of all these contradictory statements is the Holy Ghost - i.e. the third of the three gods - whom did those Jewish Priests and the levites mean by "And that Prophet"? And if you pretend not to know whom the Hebrew clergy meant, do your popes and patriarchs know who "and that Prophet" is? If not, than what is the earthly use of these spurious and interpolated Gospels? If, on the contrary, you do know who that Prophet is, then why do you keep silent?

In the above quotation (John i) it is expressly stated that the Baptist said he was not a Prophet; whereas Jesus is reported to have said that "no men born of women were ever greater than John" (Matt. xi). Did Jesus really make such a declaration? Was John the Baptist greater than Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus himself? And in what did his superiority and greatness consist? If this testimony of Jesus about the son of Zachariah be authentic and true, then the greatness of the "Eater of the Locusts in the wilderness" can only consist in his absolute abnegation, self-denial, and refraining from the world with all its luxuries and pleasures; his ardent wish to invite the people to penance; and his good tidings about "that Prophet."

Or did his greatness consist - as the Churches will have it - in being a cousin, contemporary and witness of Jesus? The value and greatness of a man, as well as of a Prophet, can be determined and appreciated by his work. We are absolutely ignorant of the number of persons converted through the sermons and purified by the baptism of John. Nor are we informed with regard to the effect of that conversion upon the attitude of the penitent Jews towards the "Lamb of God!"

Christ is said to have declared that John the Baptist was the reincarnation of the Prophet Elijah (Matt. xi. 14, xvii. 12; Luke i. 17), whereas John expressly told the Jewish deputation that he was not Elijah, nor Christ, nor that Prophet (John i).

Now can one, from these Gospels full of statements opposing and denying each other, form a correct conclusion? Or can one try to find out the truth? The charge is exceedingly grave and serious, because the persons concerned are not ordinary mortals like ourselves, but two Prophets who were both created in the womb by the Spirit and born miraculously - one had no father, while the parents of the other were sterile and an impotent nonagenarian couple. The gravity of the charge is even more serious when we come to consider the nature of the documents in which these contradictory statements are written. The narrators are the Evangelists, persons alleged to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, and the record believed to be a revelation! Yet there is a lie, a false statement, or a forgery somewhere. Elijah (or Elias) is said to come before "that Prophet" (Mal. iv. 5, 6); Jesus says, "John is Elijah"; John says, "I am not Elijah", and it is the sacred Scripture of the Christians which makes both these affirmative and negative statements!

It is absolutely impossible to get at the truth, the true religion, from these Gospels, unless they are read and examined from an Islamic and Unitarian point of view. It is only then that the truth can be extracted from the false, and the authentic distinguished from the spurious. It is the spirit and the faith of Islam that can alone sift the Bible and cast away the chaff and error from its pages. Before proceeding farther to show that the Prophet foretold by the Baptist could be none other than Prophet Muhammad, I must draw the serious attention of my readers to one or two other important points.

It may, in the first place, be remarked that the Muslims have the highest reverence and veneration for all the Prophets, particularly for those whose names are mentioned in the Qur'an, like John ("Yahya") and Jesus (" 'Isa"); and believe that the Apostles or Disciples of Jesus were holy men. But as we do not possess their genuine and unadulterated writings we consequently cannot for a moment imagine the possibility that either of these two great Worshipers of Allah could have contradicted each other.

Another important matter to be noted is the very significant silence of the Gospel of Barnabas about John the Baptist. This Gospel, which never mentions the name of Yahya, puts his prophecy about the "more powerful Prophet" into the mouth of Jesus Christ. Therein Christ, while speaking of the Spirit of Prophet Muhammad as having been created before that of other Prophets, says that it was so glorious that when he comes Jesus would consider himself unworthy to kneel and undo the laces of his shoes.

The great "Crier" in the wilderness, in the course of his sermons to the multitudes, used to cry aloud and say: "I baptize you with water unto repentance and the forgiveness of sins. But there is one that comes after me who is stronger than I, the laces of whose shoes I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Spirit and with fire." These words are differently reported by the Evangelists, but all show the same sense of the highest respect and consideration in regard to the imposing personality and the majestic dignity of the powerful Prophet herein foretold. These words of the Baptist are very descriptive of the Oriental manner of hospitality and honor accorded to a dignified visitor. The moment the visitor steps in, either the host or one of the members of the family rushes to take off his shoes, and escorts him to a couch or cushion. When the guest leaves the same respectful performance is repeated; he is helped to put on his shoes, the host on his knees tying the laces.

What John the Baptist means to say is that if he were to meet that dignified Prophet he would certainly consider himself unworthy of the honor of bowing to untie the laces of his shoes. From this homage paid beforehand by the Baptist one thing is certain: that the foretold Prophet was known to all the Prophets as their Adon, Lord, and Sultan; otherwise such an honorable person, chaste and sinless Messenger of Allah as Prophet Yahya, would not have made such a humble confession.
Now remains the task of determining the identity of "that Prophet." This article, therefore, must be divided into two parts, namely:

A. The foretold Prophet was not Jesus Christ; and
B. The foretold Prophet was Muhammad.

Everybody knows that the Christian Churches have always regarded John the Baptist as a subordinate of Jesus, and his herald. All the Christian commentators show Jesus as the object of John's witness and prophecy.

Although the language of the Evangelists has been distorted by interpolators to that direction, yet the fraud or error cannot for ever escape the searching eye of a critic and an impartial examiner. Jesus could not be the object of John's witness because:

(1) The very preposition "after" clearly excludes Jesus from being the foretold Prophet. They were both contemporaries and born in one and the same year. "He that is coming after me" says John, "is stronger than I." This "after" indicates the future to be at some indefinite distance; and in the prophetical language it expresses one or more cycles of time. It is well known to the Sufis and those who lead a spiritual life and one of contemplation that at every cycle, which is considered to be equivalent of five or six centuries, there appears one great Luminary Soul surrounded by several satellites who appear in different parts of the world, and introduce great religious and social movements which last for several generations until another shining Prophet, accompanied by many disciples and companions, appears with prodigious reforms and enlightenment. The history of the true religion, from Prophets Abraham to Muhammad, is thus decorated with such epoch-making events under Prophets Abraham, Moses, David, Zorobabel, Jesus, and Muhammad. Each of these epochs is marked with special characteristic features. Each one makes a progress and then begins to fade away and decay until another luminary appears on the scene, and so on down to the advent of John, Jesus, and the satellite Apostles.

John found his nation already toiling under the iron yoke of Rome, with its wicked Herods and their pagan legions. He beheld the ignorant Jewish people misled by a corrupt and arrogant clergy, the Scriptures corrupted and replaced by a superstitious ancestral literature. He found that that people had lost all hope of salvation, except that Prophet Abraham, who was their father, would save them. He told them that Abraham did not want them for his children because they were unworthy of such father, but that "God could raise children for Abraham from the stones" (Matt. iii). Then they had a faint hope in a Messiah, a descendant from the family of David, whom they expected then, as they do to-day, to come and restore the kingdom of that monarch in Jerusalem.

Now when the Jewish deputation from Jerusalem asked, "Art thou the Messiah?" he indignantly replied in the negative to this as well as to their subsequent questions. God alone knows what rebukes and reprimands they heard from those fiery utterings of the Holy Prophet of the Wilderness which the Church or the Synagogue have been careful not to let appear in writing.

Leaving aside the exaggerations, which have been evidently added to the Gospels, we fully believe that the Baptist introduced Jesus as the true Messiah, and advised the multitudes to obey him and follow his injunctions and his gospel. But he clearly told his people that there was another, and the last, great Luminary, who was so glorious and dignified in the presence of Allah that he (John) was not fit to undo the laces of his shoes.

(2) It was not Jesus Christ who could be intended by John, because if such were the case he would have followed Jesus and submitted to him like a disciple and a subordinate. But such was not the case. On the contrary, we find him preaching baptizing, receiving initiates and disciples, chastizing King Herod, scolding the Jewish hierarchy, and foretelling the coming of another Prophet "more powerful" than himself, without taking the least notice of the presence of his cousin in Judea or Galilee.

(3) Although the Christian Churches have made of Jesus Christ a god or son of a god, the fact that he was circumcised like every Israelite, and baptized by St. John like an ordinary Jew, proves the case to be just the reverse. The words interchanged between the Baptist and the baptized in the River Jordan appear to be an interpolation or a commonalty for they are contradictory and of a deceptive character. If Jesus were in reality the person whom the Baptist foretold as "more powerful" than himself, so much so that he was "not worthy to kneel and unloose his shoes," and that "he would baptize with the Spirit and fire," there would be no necessity nor any sense in his being baptized by his inferior in the river like an ordinary penitent Jew! The expression of Jesus, "It behoves us to fulfill all the justice," is incomprehensible. Why and how "all the justice" would be accomplished by them if Jesus were baptized? This expression is utterly unintelligible.

It is either an interpolation or a clause deliberately mutilated. Here is another instance which presents itself to be solved and interpreted by the Islamic spirit. From a Muslim point of view the only sense in this expression of Jesus would be that John, through the eye of a Seer or "Sophi," perceived the prophetical character of the Nazarene, and thought him for a moment to be the Last Great Prophet of Allah, and consequently shrank from baptizing him; and that it was only when Jesus confessed his own identity that he consented to baptize him.

(4) The fact that John while in prison sent his disciples to Jesus, asking him: "Art thou that Prophet who is to come, or shall we expect another one?" clearly shows that the Baptist did not know the gift of prophecy in Jesus until he heard - while in the prison - of his miracles. This testimony of St. Matthew (xi. 3) contradicts and invalidates that of the Fourth Gospel (John i), where it is stated that the Baptist, on seeing Jesus, exclaimed: "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away (or bears) the sin of the world!" The fourth Evangelist knows nothing of the cruel martyrdom of John (Matt. xiv; Mark vi. 14-29).

From Muslims and unitarian point of belief, it is a moral impossibility that a Prophet like the Baptist, whom the Holy Qur'an describes, Sayyidan, Master wa Hasuran, chaste, wa Nabiyyan, a prophet, mina from 's-Salihlina, the righteous" should use such a paganish expression about Jesus Christ. The very nature and essence of John's mission was to preach penance - that is to say, every man is responsible for his sin and must bear it, or take it away himself by repentence. The baptism was only an outward ablution or washing as a sign of the remission of sins, but it is the contribution, the confession (to God, and to him who is injured by that sin - if absolutely necessary) and the promise not to repeat it, that can take it away. If Jesus were the "Lamb of God," to take away the sin of the world, then John's preaching would be - God forbid! - ridiculous and meaningless! Besides, John better than anyone else knew that such words from his lips would have caused - as has been the case - an irreparable error which would entirely disfigure and deform the Church of Christ. The root of the error which has soiled the religion of the Churches is to be sought and found out in this silly "vicarious sacrifice" business! Has the "Lamb of God" taken away the sin of the world? The dark pages of the "Ecclesiastical History" of any of the numerous hostile and "heretical" Churches will answer with a big No! The "lambs" in the confessional-boxes can tell you by their groanings under the tremendous weight of the multi-colored sins loaded upon their shoulders that the Christians, notwithstanding their science and civilization, commit more horrible sins, murders, thefts, intemperances, adulteries, wars, oppressions, robberies, and insatiable greed for conquest and money than all the rest of mankind put together.
(5) John the Baptist could not be the precursor of Jesus Christ in the sense in which the Churches interpret his mission. He is presented to us by the Gospels as a "voice crying aloud in the wilderness," as the fulfillment of a passage in Isaiah (xl. 3), and as a herald of Jesus Christ on the authority of the Prophet Malakhi (Mal. iii. 1). To assert that the mission or duty of the Baptist was to prepare the way for Jesus - the former in the capacity of a precursor and the latter in that of a triumphant Conqueror coming "suddenly to his temple," and there to establish his religion of "Shalom" and make Jerusalem with its temple more glorious than before (Hag. ii. 8) - is to confess the absolute failure of the whole enterprise.

Nevertheless one thing is as true as two and two make four - that the whole project, according to the extravagant view of the Christians, proves a total failure. For, from whatever point of view we examine the interpretations of the Churches, the failure appears to be obvious. Instead of receiving his prince in Jerusalem at the Gate of the Temple clad in diadem and purple, amidst the frantic acclamations of the Jews, the precursor receives him, naked like himself, in the middle of the River Jordan; and then to introduce him, after immersing or plunging his master into the water, to the crowds as "behold, this is the Messiah!" or "this is the Son of God!" or elsewhere "behold the Lamb of God!" would either be tantamount to simply insulting the people of Israel or to blaspheming; or to purely mocking Jesus as well as making himself ridiculous.
The true nature of the austere ascetic's mission, and the true sense of his preaching, is altogether misunderstood by the Churches, but understood by the Jewish priests and casuists who obstinately rejected it. I shall deal with this in my next article, and show that the nature of John's mission as well as the object of Christ's message to the Jews was quite different to what the Churches pretend to believe.

The Prophet Foretold By The Baptist Was Certainly Prophet Muhammad

There are two very significant remarks about John the Baptist made by Jesus Christ, but recorded in a mysterious way. The first remark about the Baptist is that in which John is presented to the world as the reincarnate Eliah (Elijah) the Old Testament. The mystery with which this appellation is enveloped consists in the significant silence of Christ about the identity of the person whom Eliah (not Elias) was expected to officially announce and introduce to the world as the Last Prophet. The language of Jesus in this respect is exceedingly obscure, ambiguous, and mysterious. If John was Eliah, as is expressly and fearlessly declared, why, then, is the person whose precursor was Eliah not expressly and fearlessly mentioned? If Jesus were the "Messenger of the Covenant" and the Dominator [as the Vulgate translates the Hebrew Adon (Mal. iii. 1)], why does he not openly say so? If he courageously declared that it was not he himself but another Prophet who was that 'Dominator' it must, indeed, have been a criminal hand which erased and effaced the words of Jesus from the original Gospel. At all events, it is the Gospels that are responsible for this ambiguity and obscurity. It cannot but be described as diabolical tampering with the text that has misled billions of Christians for so many centuries. Jesus, whatever he believed he represented, ought to have, to say the least, shown himself straightforward, and to have frankly declared: "John is the Eliah who was sent as a precursor to prepare the way for me!" Or if such was not the case, then he could have made the following declaration: "John is the Eliah who was sent to prepare the way for Prophet Muhammad." Perhaps this is due to the love of Jesus for ambiguity. There are, in fact, several instances - as reported in the Gospels - where Jesus gives an answer or makes a statement which is obscure and entirely unintelligible. Leaving his godhead aside, as a Prophet, no, even as a teacher, he was expected to be a straightforward teacher and leader.

The other remark is shrouded in still a thicker mystery. "No man born of woman was ever greater than John the Baptist," says Jesus, "but the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than John." Does Jesus Christ mean to teach us that John the Baptist and all the Prophets and the righteous men were outside the Kingdom of God? Who is the "least" that was "greater" than John, and consequently than all the people of God preceding the Baptist? Does Jesus mean by the "least" himself, or the "least" among the baptized Christians? It cannot be himself, because in his time that Kingdom was not yet established on earth; if it is, then he could not be the "least" in it since he was its founder. The Churches - rather each Church, orthodox or heterodox, from its own peculiar point of view - have discovered a very abstruse or a very absurd solution for this problem; and that solution is that the "]east" Christian washed with the blood of Jesus - either through the Sacrament of Baptism, according to the belief of the Sacerdotalists, or through the regeneration of some kind, according to the superstition of the Evangelicals - becomes "greater" than the Baptist and all the army of the holy men and women, including Prophets Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Eliah, Daniel, and John the Baptist! And the reason or proof of this marvelous claim is that the Christian, however, sinful, ignorant, low, and poor he may be, providing he has faith in Jesus as his Savior, has the privileges which the holy Prophets coveted to have but did not enjoy. These privileges are innumerable; purification from original sin through the Christian Baptism; the knowledge of the "Holy Trinity" (!!! hasha! astaghfiru 'llah! - Allah forbid and pardon this term); the feeding upon the flesh and the blood of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Eucharist; the grace of making the sign of a cross; the privilege of the keys of Heaven and of Hell delivered to the Sovereign Pontiff; and the rapturous ecstasies of the Puritans, Quakers, Brethren, and all other sects called Nonconformists who, each in its own way, while claiming the same privileges and perogatives, all agree that each good Christian will become on the Day of Resurrection a pure virgin and present herself as a bride to the "Lamb of God"!
Do you not think, then, that the Christians are right to believe that the "least" among them is "greater" than all the Prophets? Do you not think, then, that a sturdy Patagonian monk and a penitentiary Parisian nun are higher than Adam and Eve, because the mystery of the Trinity is revealed to these confused people and not to our first parents who lived in the Paradise of Allah before their fall? Or, don't you think that this sort of belief is most unbecoming and undignified in these lofty times of advanced science and civilization? To claim that an English prince or an orphan negro is "greater" that John the Baptist because they are Christians is, to say the least, abominable!

Yet all these diverse beliefs and creeds are derived from the New Testament and from the words put into the mouth of Jesus and of his Apostles. For us Muslim, however, there are a few scintillating sparkles left in the Gospels; and they are enough for us to discover the truth about the real Jesus and his cousin, Yohannan Ma'mdana (John-Baptist).

JOHN THE BAPTIST FORETOLD PROPHET MUHAMMAD

1. According to the testimony of Prophet Jesus, no man born of woman was ever greater than John the Baptist. But the "least" in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than John. The comparison made by the "Spirit of Allah" (Ruhu 'llah, i.e. Jesus) is between John and all the preceding Prophets as the officers and administrators of the Kingdom of Heaven. Now in chronological order the last Prophet would be the least of them all, he would be their junior and their youngest. The word "zira" in the Aramaic, like the Arabic "saghir," signifies "little, small young." The Pshittha Version uses the word "zira or "z'eira" in apposition to "rabba" for "great, old." Every Christian will admit that Jesus is not the "last" Prophet, and therefore he cannot be the "least." Not only were the Apostles themselves endowed with the gift of prophecy, but also many other holy men in the apostolic age were favored with it according to (Acts xi. 27, 28; xiii. 1; xv. 32; xxi, 9, 10, etc)!

And as we cannot determine which of these numerous Church Prophets was the "last", we are naturally forced to seek elsewhere a Prophet who is indisputably the Last and the Seal of the Prophetic List. Can we imagine a stronger and more brilliant evidence in favor of Prophet Muhammad than the fulfillment, in his holy person, of this wonderful prophecy of Jesus Christ?

In the long list of the prophetic family, certainly the "youngest," the "least" is Prophet Muhammad; he is the "Benjamin" of the Prophets; yet he is their Sultan, their "Adon" and their "Glory." To deny the prophetical and apostolical character and nature of Prophet Muhammad's mission is a fundamental denial of the whole Divine Revelation and all the Prophets who preached it. For all other Prophets put together had not accomplished the gigantic work which the Prophet of Mecca did alone in the short period of but twenty-three years of his mission.

The mystery of the pre-existence of the spirits of the Prophets has not been revealed to us, but every true Muslim believes it. It was that pre-existing spirit that by the power of the Word of Allah "Kun" ("Be!") a Sarah, a Hanna, and a Blessed Virgin Mary gave birth to Isaac, to the Baptist, and to Jesus. There are several other names as recorded in the Old Testament - for instance, Samson, Jeremiah.

The Gospel of Barnabas reports Jesus as speaking of the Spirit of Prophet Muhammad which he declares to have been created before everything else. Hence the Baptist's witness about the Prophet whom he foretold: "He who comes after me has become before me, for he was before me" (John i. 15).

It is useless to interpret these wonderful words of the Baptist about Prophet Muhammad as referring to Prophet Jesus as the author of the Fourth Gospel attempts to do.

There is a remarkable chapter about John the Baptist in the well-known book of Ernest Renan on La vie de Jesu. Long ago I carefully read this work. If the learned French writer had the least consideration for Prophet Muhammad's claim in the world of Prophets, I am sure his profound investigations and comments would have led him entirely to a different conclusion. He, like all other dissident and Biblical critics, instead of finding out the truth, criticizes religion adversely and leads his readers to skepticism.

I am happy to say that it is my privilege, by the Grace of Allah, to solve the problem, to ring up the curtain of mystery which has covered the true sense and meaning of "the Least in the Kingdom of Heaven!"
2. John the Baptist recognizes Prophet Muhammad as superior and more powerful than himself. That significant expression made to the Jewish multitudes, "He that cometh after me" reminded their Scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers of the ancient prophecy of their great ancestor Prophet Jacob, in which that patriarch uses the unique title of "Shilokhah" for the "Rasul Allah," the epithet frequently used by Prophet Jesus for the Messenger Muhammad as preserved in the Gospel of Barnabas. At the time of writing my article on the "Shiloh" (l) I said that the word might be a corruption of "shiloukh" or "Shilokhah," (2) which means the Messenger of Allah, but I did not then recollect that St. Jerome, as well, had understood the Hebrew form in that sense, for he has translated it as "qui mittendis est."

------------Footnotes: (1). Cf. Islamic Review for September, 1928, p. 313 et seq. (2). The Oriental Hebrews and Assyrians pronounce the word "Shilokha" or "Shiloakh." It is very difficult to write or transliterate the Semitic languages in the Latin characters. ------------- end of footnotes

We have only an epitome of John's sermon in a few lines, written not by himself but by an unknown hand - at least not in his own original tongue - and much tampered with by transcribers and redactors who had already made his disciple Jesus an idol or a god. But when we come to compare this sermon preached in the wilderness of Judea and on the shores of the Jordan with the marvelous grace, elegance, eloquence, and power so manifest in every verse and page of the Holy Qur'an, we understand the sense of the words, "He is more powerful than I!"

When I picture to myself the ascetic Baptist preaching aloud in the wilderness, or on the banks of the Jordan, to the masses of the Jewish believers, with a theocratic history of some four thousand years old behind them, and then make a brief review of the quiet, orderly, and dignified manner in which Prophet Muhammad proclaimed the celestial verses of the Qur'an to the unbelieving Arabs; and, finally, when I examine and behold the effect of the two preachings upon the hearers and the final result, I understand the magnitude of the contrast between them, and of the significance of the words "He is more powerful than I!"
When I contemplate the seizure and imprisonment of the helpless Baptist by Herod Antipas (l) and his cruel decapitation - or when I peruse the confused but tragical biblical accounts of the flagellation of Jesus (or Judah Ishariot) by Pilate, his coronation with a crown of thorns by Herod, and the catastrophe upon the Calvary - and then turn my eyes upon the triumphal entry of the great Adon - the Sultan of the Prophets - into Mecca, the total destruction of all the ancient idols and the purification of the Holy Ka'ba; upon the thrilling scene of the vanquished deadly enemy headed by Abu Sufyan at the feet of the victorious Shilohah - the Prophet of Allah - begging his clemency and making the profession of faith; and upon the glorious worship, devotion, and the final sermon of the Seal of the Prophets in these solemn Divine words: "Al-yauma akmaltu lakum dmakum." "This day I have perfected your Relgion and completed My favor to you. I have approved Islam to be your Religion..." Ch.5:3 Qur'an then I fully understand the weight and value of the Baptist's confession, "He is more powerful than I!"

-----------Footnote: (1). There is anachronism in the account of John's martyrdom concerning the family of Herod the Great in the Gospels (Matt. xiv, etc.), the reader can consult the Antiquities of Joseph Flavius. ------------ end of footnote

3. "The Coming Wrath." Have you ever met with a sensible, judicious, and convincing interpretation of this phrase in any of the numerous commentaries on the Gospels? What does John mean, or wish his audience to understand, by his expression: "Behold the axe is already set at the root of the tree"? Or his remark: "He holds the van in his hand to purge out his threshing-floor"? Or when he reduced the title "Children of Abraham" to nothing?

I will not detain you on the vagaries of the commentators, for they are reveries which neither John nor his hearers had ever dreamed of. Could John ever teach those haughty Pharisees, and those rationalistic Saduqees (1) who denied the corporeal resurrection, that on the day of the last judgment Jesus of Nazareth would pour down upon them his wrath and burn them like the fruitless trees and like the chaff in the fire of Hell? There is not a single word in all the literature of the Scriptures about the resurrection of bodies or about Hell-fire. These Talmudistic writings are full of eschatological material very similar to those of the Zardushtees, but have no distinct origin in the canonical books. The Prophet of repentance and of good tidings does not speak about the remote and indefinite wrath which certainly awaits the unbelievers and the impious, but of the near and proximate catastrophe of the Jewish nation. He threatened the wrath of Allah awaiting that people if they persisted in their sins and the rejection of his mission and that of his colleague, the Prophet Jesus Christ. The coming calamity was the destruction of Jerusalem and the final dispersion of Israel which took place some thirty years afterwards during the lifetime of many among his hearers. Both he and Jesus announced the coming of the Great Prophet of Allah whom the Patriarch Jacob had announced under the title of Shiloha, and that at his advent all prophetic and royal privileges and authority would be taken away from the Jews; and, indeed, such was the case some six centuries later, when their last strongholds in the Hijaz were razed to the ground and their principalities destroyed by Prophet Muhammad. The increasingly dominating power of Rome in Syria and Palestine was threatening the quasiautonomy of the Jews, and the emigration current among the Jews had already begun. And it was on this account that the preacher inquires, "Who has informed you to flee from the coming wrath?" They were warned and exhorted to bear good fruits and good harvest by repentance and belief in the true Messengers of God, especially in the Rasul Allah, who was the true and the last powerful Commander.

------------Footnote: (1). This Hebrew name is wrongly written "Saducees." ------------- end of footnote

4. The Jews and the Christians have always charged Prophet Muhammad of having established the religion of Islam by force, coercion, and the sword. The Muslim modernists have always tried to refute this charge. But this does not mean to say that Prophet Muhammad never wielded the sword. He had to use it to preserve the Name of Allah. Every patience has limits, every favor has an end. It is not that the Patience or Favor of Allah is finite; with Him all is settled, defined and fixed. The chance and the time graciously granted by Allah to the Jews, to the Arabs, and to the Gentiles lasted for more than four thousand years. It was only after the expiry of this period that Allah sends His beloved Prophet Muhammad with power and sword, with fire and spirit, to deal with the wicked unbelievers, with the ungrateful children of Prophet Abraham - both the Ishmaelites and the Israelites - and to deal with the power of the devil, once for all.

The whole of the Old Testament is a tale of theocracy and of idolatry. Now and then a little sparkle of Islam - that is, the Religion of Allah - glittered in Jerusalem and in Mecca; but it was always persecuted by the power of the devil. The four diabolical Beasts had to come and trample under their feet the handful of believers in Allah. Then comes Prophet Muhammad to crush and kill the Venemous Serpent and to give him the opprobrious title of "Iblis" - the "Bruised" Satan. Certainly Prophet Muhammad was a fighting Prophet, but the object of that fighting was victory not vengeance, defeat of the enemy and not his extermination, and, in a word, to establish the Religion of Islam as the Kingdom of God upon the earth. In fact, when the Crier in the desert shouted, aloud, "Prepare the way of the Lord, and make straight His paths," he was alluding to the Religion of the Lord in the form of a Kingdom which was drawing nigh. Seven centuries before, the Prophet Isaiah had cried out and pronounced the same words (Isa. xl. 1-4); and a couple of centuries later Allah Himself paved the way for Cyrus by raising and filling up every valley, and by lowering every hill and mountain, in order to make the conquest easy and the march rapid (xlv. 1-3). History repeats itself, they say; the language and its meaning is the same in both cases, the former being a prototype of the latter. Allah had smoothed the path for Cyrus, subdued his enemies to the Persian conqueror because of His House in Jerusalem and His chosen people in the captivity. Now again He was repeating the same providence, but on a larger and wider scale. Before the preaching of Prophet Muhammad, idols and falsehood disappeared; before his sword empires tumbled down; and the children of the Kingdom of Allah became equals and formed a "people of the Saints of the Most High." For it is only in Islam that all the believers are equal, no priest, no sacrament; no Muslim high as a hill, or low like a valley; and no caste or distinction of race and rank. All believers are one, except in virtue and piety, in which they can excel each other. It is only the religion of Islam that does not recognize any being, however great and holy, as an absolute mediator between Allah and man.

For the Last part see part - 4

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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Muhammad in the Bible - Part - 3