Chapter 2: Surat Al-Baqarah (The Cow), verses 252-253
Translation:
“These are the revelations of God which we recite to you in all truth; and most surely you are one of the Prophets. Of these Prophets, we have exalted some over others; some of them are those to whom God spoke directly, while others He raised to a lofty status. We gave Jesus, the Son of Mary, clear signs and strengthened him with the Holy Spirit. Had God pleased, those who succeeded them would not have fought against one another after clear commands had come to them, but they disagreed among themselves, then some of them believed and some of them disbelieved. Yet had God pleased, they would not have fought against one another, but God does what He wills” (2:252-253).
Commentary:
When God
sends one of His Messengers to bring the truth to mankind, He marks this event
with His unmistakable signs, so that the bearer of His message should be
recognized immediately as His legitimate emissary. Yet, in spite of this, there
are always some who give no credence to his words.
Primarily,
those who have refused to believe in latter-day Prophets are individuals who
entertain the fixed notion that none can surpass the Prophets of old. They
consequently see no reason to make a re-appraisal of their current beliefs, and
feel under no obligation to believe in any subsequent Messenger sent to the
world by the Almighty. They cling to the personal excellence of Prophets whose
names have been hallowed by tradition, seeing it as an absolute virtue, instead
of as a special, God-given endowment designed to meet the varying exigencies of
the different historical periods in which they lived. This very way of thinking
has made it difficult—sometimes impossible—to appreciate the qualities of
new Prophets on their successive missions. For instance, believers in Moses
rejected Jesus. Followers of the latter disbelieved in Muhammad, on all of whom
be peace and God’s blessings. In the case of Moses, his followers held him to
be greater than all other Prophets, because he had had the distinction of being
addressed directly by God. Believers in Jesus considered him peerless because he
had been born to a Virgin Mother.
Since
the passing of the Final Prophet, those who have come to reform and revitalize
the Muslim community have fared no better than the successive Prophets at the
outset of their separate missions. That is, they have been treated with a
complete lack of respect, as creatures of no account whatsoever, for the simple
reason that their contemporaries remain preoccupied with whatever has been
accepted as piety in the past, and feel in no need of further religious
counselling.
When
communities begin to go into a decline, it is largely as a result of their
preoccupations having become exclusively worldly in nature. Yet they do not wish
to forfeit their ‘right’ to salvation, and attach themselves mentally to
hallowed religious personalities as a form of psychological defence. They fondly
imagine that the lofty status of their saintly patrons will ensure their
redemption in the next world, no matter how unethical their conduct has been in
this world.
It
is this false sense of security which gives such people the audacity to oppose
those who call them to God. It is imaginable that God might have arranged human
destiny in such a way that man, having no freedom to demur, was obliged
invariably to bow to His will. But this was not part of God’s scheme for
mankind. God gave man freedom of action in order to put him to the divine test:
He wished to see if man could find his way to his Maker, without ever coming
face to face with Him. For this reason, man is required to be able to recognize
the word of God, albeit uttered by the human tongue. It is, therefore, only with
correct religious guidance that man will ever be able to penetrate the veil of
outward forms in order to reach the hidden, inner truth.