do you know what Islam says it says that
life's the
greatest greetings this is Dr Lawrence
Brown coming to you with another episode
we have been discussing the evidences
for the prophethood of Muhammad s. wasam
and we left off
discussing the example of his
persistence and steadfastness in the
face of adversity and that is where I
intend to continue this talk today so
perhaps the greatest example of Muhammad
sallallah alaihi wasallam his
steadfastness against adversity was that
during the time of
persecution when he was suffering the
loss of his wealth the loss of his
social
status and
humiliation which for any Arab is worse
than any wound
at this time The KES came together and
conveyed an offer to him to give up his
preaching the offer was as follows quote
if you oh Muhammad are doing all this
with a view to getting wealth we will
join together to give you greater riches
than any keshite has possessed if
ambition moves you we will make you our
chief if you desire kingship we will
readily offer you that if you are under
the power of an evil spirit which seems
to haunt and dominate you so that you
cannot shake off its yoke then we shall
call in skillful Physicians to cure you
now what have they just offered him they
have offered him the greatest wealth of
any keshite they have offer to him the
position of Chief among them and the
position of King which are different
positions the chief being the one who
actually orders Affairs of course
kingship in that time might have meant
something different but the fact of the
matter was that in their minds there was
a difference between the two and they
were both desirable I mean they were
both as high as you can get basically
and yet what did Muhammad Sall alai
wasam say when the offer was conveyed to
him through his uncle Abu Talib what did
he say to to his uncle he said quote Oh
my uncle by Allah if they put the sun in
my right hand and the Moon in my left
hand on condition that I abandon this
course until Allah makes me Victorious
or I perish
therein I would not abandon it he is
recognizing that he might perish upon
this course he is being offered the
greatest riches and the greatest social
position and the greatest power
within his
community and knowing that he might
perish upon the path of bearing his
message he says that he would not take
it even if they offered him the sun in
his right hand and the Moon in his left
the example of a human being or the
example of a prophet well of course he
was both a human being and a prophet but
I think everybody gets the point if we
examine a man's claim to prophethood we
have to look at the other possibility
namely that he was not a prophet but if
not a prophet what could Muhammad s.
wasam possibly have been doing this for
what could he possibly have hoped for he
has just been offered everything wealth
power social status to be Chief to be
king he has just been offered everything
thing and he refuses it even though at
this time he is being beaten he is being
humiliated his life is threatened he has
fallen from wealth he has fallen from
Social Status he is a social
outcast and yet he can rise from this
low position that he has been beaten
down into to the highest positions in
the society in terms of wealth and power
and he refuses
why to bear his message is that not a
powerful evidence for the prophethood of
Muhammad Sall Al wasam at a time when
anybody else would be
conceiving a list of dreamed
paybacks he devotes himself to one thing
the conveyance of the message of
prophethood similarly when he did return
to Mecca Victorious establish the
religion within
Mecca and establish
himself as the prophet of
Allah among the
people what did he do he has returned to
the city of his
persecution he has returned the
Victorious Prophet at a time when any
charlatan
would be dreaming up as I said before a
list of paybacks and start designing
Revelation to say give the Prophet this
give the prophet that what did he do he
revealed Revelation saying quote This
Day have I perfected your religion for
you completed my favor upon you and have
chosen for you Islam as your
religion this was a revelation
signifying
completion we find another Revelation at
this time quote celebrate the Praises of
your lord and pray for his
forgiveness again at a time when any
charlatan would be tailoring Revelation
according to their desires Muhammad
sallallah alai wasam revealed verses
that signaled completion of the
Revelation bade him and his followers to
celebrate the Praises of your lord and
pray for his forgiveness and did not not
lower himself to his worldly desires
what was the final Revelation in the
Holy Quran during this time the last
verse revealed counseled Muhammad quote
and fear the day when you shall be
brought back to
Allah then shall Every Soul be paid what
it earned and None Shall be dealt with
unjustly from the Holy Quran 2 20
81 where other conquerors bask in self
veneration and die from the poisons of
their excesses Muhammad sallallah alai
wasam transmitted a series of verses
which B him to glorify the Creator and
seek his
forgiveness the exact opposite of what
you would expect from a charlatan but
precisely what you would expect from a
prophet of
Allah he avoided the whim of self-
glorification the satiation of long
unsatisfied suppressed lusts and the
satisfaction of a thirst for revenge and
instead devoted himself to the religion
that he was committed to
transmitting in the words of Washington
Irving quote even in his own dying hour
when there could be no longer a worldly
motive for deceit
he Muhammad s Al wasam still breathed
the same religious
devotion and the same belief in his
Apostolic
Mission with that let's move on to the
next evidence for the prophethood of
Muhammad sallallah alai wasam and that
evidence is the category of lack of
disqualifiers we have discussed all of
the things that point to Muhammad
sallallah alai wasam having been a true
prophet of Allah now let's discuss the
sort of things that would have
disqualified him from prophethood which
we would expect to find in a human
example but significantly which we do
not find in the example of Muhammad
sallallah alaihi wasallam to begin with
many false prophets claim Divinity they
manipulate Revelation for their own
desires and for personal G gain they
show signs of
unreliability at some point maybe lying
maybe mental instability or maybe we
simply find out something about them at
some point in their life which is not
appropriate not consonant with a man
being a prophet we do not find any of
these in the example of Muhammad
Sall to begin with some charge that
Muhammad Al wasam was a
voluptuary that the purpose of his claim
to prophethood was his love of women and
that the Revelation granted him the
permission to have multiple
wives well it's a very vain argument to
begin with if that were the case never
had a man in all the history of mankind
suffered so greatly for something he
could have had in any case
before Islam the Arabs lived in a period
of
jalah identified by historians as the
period of ignorance they could have any
number of wives any number of concubines
any number of slave girls any number of
prostitutes they could be free with
their desires to an almost Limitless
capacity because this is what was
socially accepted and yet Muhammad
sallallah alai wasam married when he was
25 a chased man up until that point and
remained married to Khadijah never
betraying the lusts of ordinary men
During the period of his youth when
those lusts are most commonly expressed
and this was in a society where he could
have expressed those lusts and not been
thought less for them but rather been
thought more more for them because the
man who had many concubines many slave
girls many prostitutes and so on was
actually looked up to and not looked
down upon and yet he set the example of
Chastity both before marriage and during
with that thought we're going to take a
break please stay with us we'll be right
back Dr Lawrence Brown continuing this
episode where we are discussing the
evidences for the prophethood of
Muhammad Sall alai wasam I will continue
where I left off a lot of people reject
The Message of Islam because they don't
like the message itself it's not a
matter of not liking the messenger but
not liking the message one of the things
that we find in the example of Muhammad
sallallah alai wasallam and the
Revelation that he revealed is that it
is anything but a man's religion many
object on the basis of saying oh this is
a man's religion you can marry as many
as four wives you can
basically do the things that men like to
do this religion gives you that power
I'm really wondering where have they
studied Islam again we are talking in
this section on the lack of
disqualifiers basically the things that
we would expect to find in a charlatan
but do not find in the example of
Muhammad Sall alai wasam in the society
in which Muhammad sallallah alaihi
wasallam lived
gambling was rampant drunkenness was a
normal social activity
Lous was you know looked up to rather
than down upon people feasted with
abandon um laziness was a an attribute
of the higher class Etc the qualities
that people like are the same qualities
that the Revelation either forbade or
curtailed gambling was forbidden alcohol
became forbidden women could no longer
be misused as they had been misused as
prostitutes but rather they had to be
given their rights and respected in
marriage 1400 years before Western
Society recognized women's rights to
property and inheritance to vote and to
religion Islam recognized women's right
to those things this was a huge social
reform if you think it's unpopular now
imagine how unpopular it was, 1400 years
ago and yet this was the Revelation that
Muhammad sallallah alai wasam conveyed
he conveyed a revelation that curtailed
or forbade the excesses and sins of his
time and put mankind on a pathway of
piety and respectability is this the
example of a man who is driven by his
desires when he is revealing a
revelation that basically curtail or
forbid what most men like to do or is
this the example of a prophet bearing
the message of
Allah to continue I would like to
analyze more of these objections but the
fact of the matter is that with pretty
much every section that I have discussed
we simply don't have the time to go
through it all and so I have to
recommend to the audience if you would
like to look into this deeper please
read my book goded or the book preceding
it Miss goded for this section I am
quoting from goded and both of these
books can be found on my website level
truth.com L Vel
t.com but unfortunately given the
constraints of time I have to flip
forward a little bit as I mentioned
earlier one of of the objections was
that there is a passage in the Holy
Quran
482 which states that Allah forgave
Muhammad Salli wasallam for his
sins some look at the statement and say
okay well so Muhammad had
sins uh well so what first of all they
were minor and they were extremely few
maybe in the category of misjudgments
but um isn't this again the quality of a
human being would a false prophet reveal
a revelation that recognizes his sins
false prophets paint themselves as
perfect this Revelation recognized that
Muhammad sallallah alai wasam had sins
and he was the one who conveyed the
Revelation do sins negate a person's
prophethood of course not but if we are
going to say that sins negate a person's
prophethood we have to cast out Abraham
and ishmail Isaiah Noah
Moses and obviously we cannot do that so
the
possibility or the recognition I should
say that Muhammad sallallah alai wasam
had sins is something you would expect
of a prophet why because he's conveying
a revelation and he has to convey it as
it is revealed he might receive a verse
like this that he would like to hide
because it acknowledges his sins but as
a prophet he is Duty Brown to add it to
the
Revelation another point is that in the
Bible we find Luke 15:7 saying there
will be more joy in heaven over one
sinner who repents than over 99 just
persons who need no repentance in fact
this indicates that the person who
repents creates more joy in Heavens than
the person who never went astray to
begin with we find that in the
principles of the Jewish faith that
Moses was conceived the greatest of the
prophets in Christianity Jesus Christ
was elevated to the level of divinity
Muhammad sallallah alai wasam could just
as easily made such claims and yet he
consistently denied Divinity and
attributed it for himself his humanity
and his prophethood instead he
transmitted a revelation that proclaimed
as follows we believe in Allah and the
revelation given to us and to Abraham
ishma isaah Jacob and the tribes and
that given to Moses and Jesus and that
given to all prophets from their lord we
make no difference between one and
another of them and we bow to Allah in
Islam so if we are to pursue the
consideration of this
subject we have to remember that
Muhammad example was one of temp
he was not a
voluptuary he was not seeking the
pleasure of women had he been so number
one he could have had these things
without the Revelation because that was
the social standard of his time number
two he was offered the wealth of the
Kesh their kingship and their
chieftainship so he could have elevated
himself to that position simply by
receiving their offer however he denied
it for the sake of transmiss in his
message of Revelation yes he had
multiple marriages are they an example
of
Lous no let us remember that he married
for practical reasons through his
marriages he cemented inter triable ties
he sheltered orphaned widows and
divorcees and he demonstrated Islamic
marital limits he did not do what you
would expect a leader to do he did not
handpick the choicest maidens of the
realm and assemble a Haram of the most
beautiful uh women of his time no only
one of his wives Aisha was a virgin the
remainder were either divorced or older
or a combination thereof Muna was 51
years old when he married her but she
was young enough to be um salma's child
because
Muhammad s. wasam married um Sal Z was
divorced from a freed slave which was a
social stigma that was almost
Unthinkable of at the time and yet
Muhammad sallallah alai wasam married
her in a time when other leaders were
setting up rules such as the right of
the Lord the Dr de Senor which allowed
the Lord of a feudal realm to bed the
wives of his vassals on their wedding
night at a time when people were running
a muck in licentiousness Muhammad
sallallah alai wasam did the exact
opposite he exemplified Temperance yes
he had multiple wives but for practical
reasons is that in the Bible we find he
had fewer wives than Solomon less
transgression than David who was
recorded as having arranged the death of
baath sheba's husband out of love for
bath Sheba more restraint than Judah who
is recorded as having had an incestuous
affair with Tamar why because he thought
she was a prostitute which in and of
itself would have been bad enough better
than all of these examples is the
example of Muhammad sallallah alai wasam
not to speak poorly of Solomon or David
or Judah but rather to suggest that if
you take those examples as the example
examples of prophets or Patriarchs you
have to recognize the example of
Muhammad s. wasam to have been superior
to the example of the polygamy of
Solomon the Lous or the Lous story
whether true or not of David and that of
Judah who according to the
story was willing to contract
prostitute so I will conclude by saying
that yes Islam permits polygamy within
limits as polygamy was permitted in the
Old Testament and we know that although
it was not
expressedly permitted in the New
Testament most certainly it was not
forbidden with that I will conclude this
episode I thank you for being with me
and we'll look forward to next time
peace I feel the feel the