WO MAJOR ATTEMPTS
have been made by Muslim theologians and thinkers to logically justify
the cessation of even non-law-bearing prophets. The first relates to the
issue of the need for a new teacher. The advent of a perfect teacher
and a perfect book, it is argued, obviates the need of any other teacher
to follow. Of course, if it can be proved that the presence of a
perfect book and the appearance of a perfect teacher are sufficient
guarantees against any future moral or spiritual decline, then there is
no reason why, after this, another prophet should ever be raised again.
Regrettably however, this proposition can neither be proved correct
theoretically nor historically.
This contention
is insupportable because the bringing of a book of law is not the only
function performed by prophets. Prophethood is a thing of many
splendours. After the death of a law-bearing prophet, the mere
preservation of his book and his traditions cannot offer a sufficient
substitute for prophethood itself. The case in point becomes amply clear
when we examine the conduct of Muslims after the demise of the Holy
Prophetsa. The progressive
deterioration of Muslim society should be sufficient to prove this
point. The difference between their moral status during the lifetime of
the Holy Prophetsa and that of Muslims
today defies comparison. The Book however remains the same perfect,
unaltered, un-interpolated Book that it was fourteen hundred years ago.
HE SECOND
justification in support of the Doctrine of Absolute Finality relates
to the idea of the intellectual maturity of man. The chief proponent of
this view is no less a person than 'Allamah Iqbal claimed by some to be
the greatest Muslim thinker of modern times. This doctrine of maturity
is based on the assumption that the Holy Quran was revealed at a time
when man had finally reached the ultimate stage of his mental and
intellectual maturity. As such, he stood in no further need of
day-to-day guidance by any Divine personage as did his ancestors of
earlier ages. A beautiful philosophy but how hollow and empty of
substance it turns out to be under closer scrutiny. The very premise
that man has matured enough to be able to draw his own conclusions and
chart his own course of conduct from the principle teachings of a
perfect religion is challengeable on many counts.
It
should not be forgotten that at every stage of man's progress, he
always considered himself to be at the summit of intellectual maturity.
At every point in history, the generation which occupied it also
considered itself to be at the pinnacle of human progress. Looking back
from their vantage point, all previous generations must have appeared
less mature and less advanced by comparison. Yet at no stage in the past
has man behaved wisely enough to guide himself. Heads such as that of
the Pharaoh's were always raised in defiance of Divine guidance. All
such rebels rejected the prophets of their time with the same inflated
ideas of their own importance. All repeated the same claim over and over
again that they had matured to take care of their own affairs.
Nonetheless, history proves each of them to be wrong. It is so naive
therefore, to consider the contemporary age as the only one in which man
has finally become self-sufficient in every aspect of his moral and
spiritual requirements.
As far as the concept of
maturity is concerned, it is also falsified by the realities of history.
After the passing away of prophets the division and multiplication of
religious sects, based on doctrinal differences and varying
interpretations, is a universal trend that has not spared the followers
of any religion including Islam. Hence, it is not simply his
intellectual maturity which helps man to draw right conclusions from the
scriptures, he must also be Divinely guided.
If
'maturity of man' is taken to mean that he becomes independent in
drawing his conclusions from the study of scriptures, then there must
ensue a perfect unity of agreement on all the fundamental aspects of
religious teachings. Alas, what we observe in real life fails miserably
to support this view. Muslims, the proud recipients of the last perfect
Book, are no less divided among themselves in the matter of
interpretation than are the peoples of all other religions. To what
avail therefore, is the so-called maturity of man? The history of
religion proves that people once split into sects and schisms have never
been reunified by human effort alone. The same inevitably applies to
the Muslims today. Without the agency of a Divine Reformer, they cannot
be assembled again under the single flag of Unity. But they have
outrightly rejected this Divine measure, the only avenue of hope left
open to them.
The existence of about seventy-two
doctrinal divisions among them, despite a well-preserved book and a
well-documented record of traditions, throws a dismal light on the
Iqbalian philosophy of the maturity of man.
Their
differences are not merely marginal. They are fundamental and
deep-rooted, further multiplying and proliferating as time goes by. Add
to this the moral destitution prevailing in the Muslim world and the
tragedy of their lifeless existence becomes all the more pathetic.
Commit their survival to the maturity of their intellect and perform
ablution for their funeral rites, 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust and
earth to earth—Amen!'
What misery! Why can modern
intellectuals not understand that the purification of a religious
society is a task which the mere existence of a Perfect Book cannot
perform? Were it so, the followers of Islam must have retained an
exemplary state of ideological unity. This unfortunately is farthest
from the truth.
All that can be said here in
defence of the late Dr. 'Allamah Sir Muhammad Iqbal is that the idea of
blocking the passage of Heavenly light with this balderdash did not
originate from him. His mistake was to copy, rather blindly one must
say, the great German philosopher Nietzsche. It was Nietzsche who had
first employed the idea of the maturity of human mind in the modern age
against any need of guidance from God. In fact, Nietzsche coaxed man to
come to age and utilize his own faculties of five senses. Overman, or
superman, is Nietzsche's term for a man who reaches a stage of maturity
where his senses are developed to the full. Such a man needs no God to
guide him—a God which according to him is no more than a conjecture.
Such conjectures were born out of an imperfect faculty of reasoning
during an age when man had not yet matured enough to become his own
master. Now that man had attained maturity, he concluded in his book Thus spoke Zarathustra*— the symbolic oracle of the wisdom of Nietzsche that there was no more need for holding onto conjectures.
'Once one said God when one looked upon distant seas; but now I have taught you to say: overman (superman).
'God is a conjecture; but I desire that your conjectures should not reach beyond your creative will.'1
'Could you think
a god? But this is what the will to truth should mean to you: that
everything be changed into what is thinkable for man, visible for man,
feelable by man. You should think through your own senses to their
consequences.'2
'God is a conjecture; but who could drain all the agony of this conjecture without dying?'2
| * | see footnote on Zoroaster in Zoroastrianism. |
The long and short of Thus spoke Zarathustra
is a rebellion of Nietzsche against a conjectural god which in fact is
the Christian idea of God, and to understand Zarathustra clearly as to
why he rebelled against God, one must read the chapter Retired.3
But for our purpose it should be sufficient to note that the oracle of
Nietzsche's wisdom sets man free from being guided from on high. The
maturity of his faculties is sufficient to guide him.
This
exactly is the Iqbalian philosophy against the need of a prophet after
man has matured to the maximum of his faculties. Instead of employing
this borrowed philosophy for a categorical rejection of the need for
God, 'Allamah Iqbal neatly trimmed the maturity concept to suit his own
purpose within the framework of Islam. He conceded that though man
stands in need of a Perfect Master and a Perfect Book, once this
objective is accomplished he requires no more to be badgered with any
further interference from on high. But that is not all there is to it.
The doctrine of maturity, as amended by Iqbal, does not merely do away
with the need of prophethood, it does away altogether with the need for
any communication from God even in the form of non-prophetic
revelations. This has to be the only logical conclusion drawn from his
doctrine of maturity. The maturity concept requires total independence
of man from further Divine guidance in any form. He has become capable
of taking all-important decisions for himself in the light of the
guidance already vouchsafed to him. Man, Iqbal argued, is no longer a
child to be walked with his little finger held in a prophet's hand. Has
he not matured to full adulthood, to shift for himself? A sound healthy
logic it seems, but just one glance at the spiritual decadence and utter
moral destitution of man today is sufficient to dispel this argument as
entirely fallacious and conjectural.
NOUGH
of Iqbal and his postulations. Let us now turn to Maudoodi, another
renowned scholar of the mainstream Sunni Muslims. He pleads that the
absolute cessation of prophethood after Prophet Muhammadsa
has been a singular blessing of God upon mankind. It is a boon,
especially for the Muslims, because it spares them the risk of rejecting
a Divine messenger of God ever again. They are shielded from ever being
accursed by God, as others before them were cursed, for committing the
crime of rejecting the prophets of their time. Such a view deserves to
be treated more by way of a joke rather than a legitimate argument.
Maudoodi's
philosophy, if accepted, would imply that the very institution of
prophethood is a curse indeed otherwise its cessation could not have
been claimed to be a blessing. This appears to be more in line with the
thinking of St. Paul, who branded the law of the Torah as a curse and
believed Jesus to be the redeemer because he did away with that law. If
there were no law to be broken, argued St. Paul, there would be no sin
to be committed.
The
aery Maudoodi philosophy however, does not seem to originate from St.
Paul alone. It also resurrects the image of Bahaullah. What the Messiah
had done by rejecting the law of the Torah, according to St. Paul,
Bahaullah claimed to have done to the Quranic law. Thus he pronounced
himself to be the liberator of mankind from the bondage of the Quran.
Nonetheless he did not imitate St. Paul entirely because St. Paul had
never claimed a role of God personified for himself. He assigned this
role of godhead entirely to Jesus. Jesus to him, was in fact a liberator
who had undone the blunder committed by 'God the Father' against
mankind. The very promulgation of Divine law was tantamount to the
creation of sin. Hence, by cancelling the Divine law, what Jesus
actually achieved was to have destroyed the very soil from which sin
sprouted. By the same act of redeeming mankind he appears to have
simultaneously redeemed 'God the father' from the folly of creating sin.
Bahaullah
applied this philosophy only partially and argued that the Quranic law
being too heavy and cumbersome had lost its relevance to the people of
the modern age. So by liberating mankind from this exacting 'burden' he
feigned to set them free, but not entirely so. He betook for himself the
role of a new 'Law-maker', after cancelling the previous Law. But in
the final analysis Bahaullah succeeded only in making a mockery of God
and himself. The shariah that Bahaullah dictated to replace the law of
the Quran was no more and no less than a blatant affront to common
sense, reason and rationality.
Between these two
modern day disciples of St. Paul, i.e. Bahaullah and Maudoodi, nothing
seems to have been left of the religion of Islam. As for the Quranic
law, Bahaullah claimed to have done away with it in the name of
emancipation. As for the institution of prophethood, Maudoodi ventured
to abolish it by virtue of the same Pauline philosophy. Both failed to
achieve their objectives in the sight of God. Both were applauded as
great heroes in the sight of men who were already spiritually diseased.
But
Maudoodi did not follow St. Paul entirely. He did not go as far as to
suggest that the Quranic law should be annulled by God, lest the people
should incur His wrath by failing to abide by it. He only applied the
Pauline principle to the institution of prophethood. Even if
non-law-bearing prophets are raised after the Holy Foundersa
of Islam, they are likely to be rejected by the majority of Muslims as
prophets have been rejected before them. Thus according to Maudoodi's
logic, the threat of the curse would keep hanging over their heads like
the sword of Damocles. In Maudoodi's estimation by altogether doing away
with the institution of prophethood after the Holy Prophet Muhammadsa, God has bestowed untold blessings upon mankind, particularly upon the Muslims.
If
the institution of prophethood is finally brought to a close, lest
people should be cursed, it is tantamount to pronouncing prophethood
itself to be a curse. Thus, the neo-Pauline philosophy of Maudoodi would
require God to do away with the curse of prophethood altogether. What
deliverance! What redemption! Good riddance is the other name for it!
But it should be clearly understood that this logic is applicable as much to the past as it is to the future. Why was Jesusas sent by God before the Holy Prophetsa?
Does not the Holy Quran categorically denounce the Jewish people as
accursed for the crime of denying him? And what happened to earlier
peoples? Did they not defy the Divine messengers sent to them and mock
and ridicule them? A sad reflection on human arrogance indeed! Thus
declares the Holy Quran:
Woe to mankind. Never does a prophet come to them, but they scorn him and ridicule him!4
It
is amazing why God did not think of bringing this curse to an end
earlier in time. What happened to the Jewish people throughout the long
history of their encounters with the prophets? Were they not cursed at
the tongue of Davidas? What happened to the people of the Book between the time of Mosesas and Jesus Christas?
Was this universal human trend of treating all
messengers of God inhumanly not sufficient to make God realize that
prophethood was more of a curse than a blessing? Why was Noahas sent and why Abrahamas and why Lotas?
Did their rejection not cause the wrath of Allah to befall upon their
people? But for some insignificant few, were they not obliterated from
the face of the earth? Still, the idea that struck Maudoodi did not
strike God. Was it because it was Maudoodi's mind which had fabricated
this myth of a god? Such infirmity of judgement behoves only a
brainchild of his. God kept sending prophet after prophet but arrogant
man continued to reject them, one after the other. The curse they thus
earned cannot be blamed on the office of prophethood, they themselves
are to blame.
Again, if this argument is accepted as valid at any
particular point in time, it must also be accepted as valid at all times
since the advent of Adamas. The fear of rejection of Adamas
by his people, who would thus incur upon themselves the wrath of God,
should have been enough justification for God never to have sent Adamas at all. If the fear that people should reject a lesser prophet from among the followers of Hazrat Muhammadsa
is a legitimate reason for the cessation of prophethood altogether,
then the same fear should have stood in the way of the advent of the
Holy Foundersa of Islam even more
powerfully. Is he not the best among all the prophets? Of course he
is—as the entire world of Islam testifies. Being supreme among them, for
him to be rejected was to earn the worst curse of God ever inflicted.
Alas Maudoodi seems to have completely forgotten that not only was the
Holy Prophetsa rejected by most of the
world's population of his time, but also his truth is still denied by
three-fourths of mankind today. At best, it is just one-fourth of the
human population which can be described as believers in the Holy Prophetsa. But can they really be defined as Muslims? Is their faith in the Holy Foundersa
of Islam genuine enough to include them among those who really believe?
Maudoodi thinks otherwise. Out of the one billion population of the
Muslims, nine hundred and ninety-nine in every one thousand are already
condemned by him to be virtually non-Muslims:
'This
huge hotch potch body of the so-called Muslims is such as nine hundred
and ninety nine out of every one thousand have no knowledge of Islam
whatsoever. They are incapable of distinguishing right from wrong. Nor
have their moral and mental attitudes been in the least Islamicised.
From father to son, from grandfather to grandson, they have only
inherited a Muslim name and no more.'5
From
Maudoodi's account of the scheme of things, God had better not send any
Divine book or messenger lest His poor creatures should be cursed
forever.
Yet Maudoodi believes in the justification of God sending all His prophets since the time of Adamas
to the time of the best among them. If their rejection brought a curse
from God on those who rejected them, what exceptional harm would it do
if one more like them is added to the list. But the paradox in Maudoodi
becomes more of an eyesore when he is discovered to believe in the
re-advent of Jesus Christas as a prophet of God.
If instead of the old Jesusas,
a new non-law-bearing prophet was to be raised from among the people of
Islam, how could he in any way alter this eternal grand plan of
cursedness? Why should only his advent be objectionable while all those
before him since the time of Adamas served the same Divine decree of a perpetual curse?