Proof of Islam by Abdur-Raheem Green

Omar (ex Andrey)

toLive&DieForAllah!
There is a new series of Abdur-Raheem Green called "Proof that Islam is the truth. It consists of 15 parts & leaves no doubt that Islam is from God - please use it as dawah - it's very effective!!! Here is the text of the first 2. Check my posts below for the rest. Insha Allah there'll be a complete series soon :)

1) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9098664317084235735 - Proof of Islam
2) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3585933037095732725 - Preservation of The Quran
3) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6483942827890344130 - Oral Transmission of the Quran
4) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5746859280204476683 - The Preservation of the Sayings of the Prophet (SAAS)
5) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3056185453318958160 - The Miracle of the Arabic Language
6) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=613624689564190559 - Stories of Those Who Heard The Quran
7) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4976682000573333553 - Embryology
8) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4912639541429266312 - Scientific Facts in the Quran (Part 1)
9) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2144617738990716881 - Scientific Facts in the Quran (Part 2)
10) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1701919879500738454 - Historical Facts
11) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1294542048047945656 - Witness of The People of The Book
12) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7536714393355747579 - Muhammad (SAAS) in the Bible (Part 1)
13) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2343887470694906693 - Muhammad (SAAS) in the Bible (Part 2)
14) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8432456966207513103 - Prophecies of the Prophet (SAAS)
15) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3574478999449422685 - Signs of the Last Day
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P.S.: There may be a few mistakes in the text, especially with Arabic words that are said in English. I would be thankful to you if you correct me :)))
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Part 1 - Proof of Islam

Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, all praise is due to Allah, we praise him, we seek his help & we ask for his forgiveness & we take refuge with Allah from the evil of ourselves & from the evil consequence of our evil actions. Whomsoever Allah guides none can misguide & whomsoever Allah leaves to go astray there's none to guide. I testify that Allah alone is worthy of worship & that Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam is the Messenger of Allah & his true worshiper. My dear listeners, brothers & sisters in Islam, brothers & sisters in humanity, today I'm going to be embarking on a journey, a journey to take you through a very amazing a& interesting topic & that is the proof that Islam is the Truth. And that really is what I'm going to be trying to show to you over the next series of programmes that we can prove that Islam truly is the religion that has been revealed by Allah, the creator of the heavens & the Earth for the guidance & the benefit of all the humanity.
Now before of course we actually go into the main topic itself I would like to spend a little bit of time dealing with what may seem to be periphery issues but they are very important. I want to talk about what is proof, what is faith, when I say we can prove that Islam is the truth what do I mean by that? Some people would already look at that as a type of oxymoron. How can you prove a faith to be true? Isn't faith supposed to be something that you believe without proof? Isn't that what the meaning of faith is? So I want to examine that, what is the meaning of faith & what is the meaning of proof. But first of all I would like to mention an ayat of the Quran. The ayat of the Quran is actually, it's not only one ayat, it's something that is repeated again & again in the Quran. So the Quran tells us: Say. If what you claim is true bring your proof, bring your evidence, bring your proof, if you are making a claim about Allah, if you are making a claim about anything in fact, what is upon you & what is an obligation upon you is to bring your "burhan", your proof, your evidence. And this is something that Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah mentions many-many different times in the Quran. In other words it is not enough just to make a claim, you have to prove your claim. And this is something that the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, he also mentioned that the proof is upon the claimant, the person who is making a claim has to prove it, because otherwise we would claim the blood & the property of each other. And this is the reality. So I'm sure that every single one of you is familiar with this in your daily life. For example if someone comes round to check your electricity meter or to check your gas meter if you have such a thing, or your water meter if you have such a thing, then that person would usually be wearing a uniform or they will usually carry an identity card. If that person came knocking at your door dressed like someone from the Hell's angels' motorbike club with you know long hair & I don't know leather jacket & with you know love & hate tattooed on his fist, you, I don't think you would be letting that person in your house. Rather you would say: "You know what you stay right where you are cause you are not coming at my house & checking out my house & seeing what's in there" because what you are thinking: "Oh. this person is now going to come, this person is now going to rob me, this person is going to come in my house & steal everything." So if someone is coming to check the utility bills you want to see an id, you want to see the person wearing a uniform before you let that person in your house. In other words you want some type of evidence that that person is who they claim to be. Similarly in another example if I said today for example all these studios here they don't belong to peace TV, they belong to me, they belong to Abdur-Raheem Green & this is my place & you guys get out, I'm in charge of here now. No one is going to take me seriously. If I go to court & I want to make a claim about something, if I want to claim some place belongs to me, or some property belongs to me, then I have to bring evidence, I have to bring proof, I can't just say: "Well, what's my proof? I believe it, I have faith. You know that's not good enough, no one accepts that type of thing in everyday life. So why should it be any different when it comes to religion? In fact if you think about it, the issues in religion are even more important than these worldly issues. Whether this place belongs to me or belongs to Peace TV, whether someone robs my house or not is very insignificant compared to the consequences of what any religion is saying because religion is talking about the purpose of our whole life, religion is talking not only about the purpose of this life, but about what is going to happen to us in the life to come, the eternity. So therefore is it enough that someone just comes along & makes a claim, someone just says: "Oh, God says this, God says that, you should believe this you should believe that. Surely the logical approach to anyone who makes a claim about God is "bring your evidence if what you say is true" and this is what Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah tells Muslims to say. For example if a Christian comes to us & makes a claim about God that Jesus is God or he is the son of God, or the Bible is from God, well, bring your proof if what you say is true. And this is the same for anybody about anything. It's only a matter of time before a person is going to say: "Well, you know, you Muslims, you claim your religion is from God, you claim your religion is from the Creator, well, you bring your proof if what you say is true. And in fact really that's just what we are waiting for, because we will be more than happy to furnish & to provide the proof to show that Islam is the Truth. And that's what we are going to be hoping to do Insha Allah Wa Ta Allah over with the will of God, over the next few programmes. And that is to really show some & to give a bit of insight into some of the evidences that we can have and that we can show in order to illustrate & to show that Islam really is the religion that has been revealed by Allah the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth. And I say bring evidences because if you open the dictionary & you look at the dictionary "evidence" or the dictionary description of "proof", "proof" actually is a collection of evidences. And when you get enough evidence then you could say that that thing is proven to be true. Because of course on a philosophical level we could say we can't really prove absolutely anything. In an absolute sense you can't prove anything, there is always I suppose a type of room for a little bit of doubt, however small, there's always a potential for some type of doubt. And so what we really mean here when we say "we are going to prove that Islam is the Truth", what we hope to do is to provide so much evidence that a person will not really have any reasonable cause to doubt that thing. It's rather like a court, it's rather like when you go to court for example. Now in the UK for example we have a jury system that means that when a particular case goes before the court the jury makes a decision based upon the evidence in front of them. And that's what they should do. They shouldn't be looking: Oh what is the colour of this person's skin. They shouldn't be looking at whether this person is beautiful or ugly. They shouldn't be looking at whether this person is rich or poor. No. The way that it should be done is that people should look at the evidence, and they should look at it dispassionately & they should look at it clearly from a type of intellectual unbigoted point of view & so based upon the evidence they make a verdict. They have to make a verdict: "Guilty" or "not guilty". Now ultimately that verdict has to be made, ultimately that decision has to be made: Is the person guilty or not guilty. And that in a sense is what I want to move on to is the actual, what we could call faith. What is faith? What do we mean by faith exactly? Because for some people as I've mentioned, isn't it an oxymoron proving faith, isn't faith supposed to be something that you just believe. Well, that's what we are going to look into. Isn't faith something you just believe or is it something that can actually be proven in some way. Ok, brothers & sisters, we are going to take a break, Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi Wa Ta Allah va Barakatu
Assalamaleykum. brothers & sisters. Welcome back to "the proof that Islam is the truth" & today we are talking about what is proof & what is faith, & can we prove a religion to be true. Now let’s go back to the issue of faith. What do we mean by faith? Now let's take an example, one of the things I often ask people is "do you believe the Earth spins on its axes & goes round the Sun in 365 days. And most people I ask this say "yes, we believe that, we do believe that's true". I say "do you believe it 100 % are you absolutely sure, do you really believe it? They say "Yes, we believe it, we are sure it's true, it's a fact". So they call it a fact. Then I say: "Ok, prove it. And it's very interesting how many times I get complete blank expressions. Because although most of us believe that the Earth spins on its axes & goes round the Sun in 365 days, if we were actually asked to prove it then most of us will not be able to do that. That doesn't mean that we don't believe this thing based upon some good reasons, & of course the reasons that we believe that is because well, for example, the scientific community, scientists have examined certain things, they've come up with certain theories & they have made certain observations. So based upon those theories & those observations of those theories in practice & so many scientists have observed these things so many times than they consider it to be a fact they consider it to be something that is proven to be true. But of course most of us ourselves couldn't really prove it, we wouldn't really know what exactly is the evidence we might have some type of idea, but we have faith in the scientific community, we have faith in science because, look at what science has done, look what science has produced, so there are many reasons so that we might have faith in something & this is a type of faith, it is a faith in science, it's a faith in the teachings of science. It's may be not what we are used to in terms of religious faith, but it's still a belief, it's still a type of faith. And therefore when it comes to Islam, when it comes to the teachings of Islam, when it come to our topic here "the proof that Islam is the truth", the evidences that we can accumulate, to know that Islam is the divine revelation from Allah, then what we are really talking about here is this type of faith. It's the same type of faith when you go to a doctor, & you know you put your faith & your trust in a doctor, & you know he examines you, & he looks at you, & you believe that because he is the doctor, you trust him because he's the doctor, because he studied, because he's got knowledge, you trust & you believe that his diagnosis is going to be accurate & is based upon some information. And so this is the type of faith that we are talking about in Islam. We don't mean when we talk about faith in Islam, when we talk about belief, when we talk about Iman we don't mean believing something unbelievable something unbelievable without any evidence. No. What we mean in Islam is we are asking you, Allah is asking you to believe something entirely believable. That there is one God, that this universe has one Creator. And you watch my previous series of programmes about the proof of the existence of God which I do encourage you to refer to as an essential part of this, then you'll be familiar with what I'm talking about. So we are asking you, the Islam is asking you to believe that there is one God & to believe that God has sent guidance to a human being Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him. And that God has given some evidences through which & by which any reasonable rational person can come to know that Islam is truly the religion that has been revealed by the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth for the benefit of all the human beings. And so that is what we are going to be touching upon over this series. These evidences what are they? Now some of these evidences are rational proofs that are connected with what we've already talked about in previous series about the existence of God, but we are not going to be repeating that. What we are going to be going through is some of the miraculous aspects of the Quran, we'll be talking about what exactly is a miracle, what do we mean by a miracle exactly, what place does it have in this process of proving & understanding that something is from God & we'll be going through those things to discuss & to understand these evidences. Finally I would really like to finish with a sura from the Quran & it's sura “tobayana” where Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah says never kullilathina kafiru min ahlil kitab wal mushrikina. So never will those people from the ahlil kitab from the people of the book, or the mushrikina, or the people who are making shirk with Allah, they are making partners with Allah whether it is the idol worshipers or the atheists or the pagans or whoever. They will never leave off their disbelief. They are not going to leave off their disbelieving in Allah and they are not following Allah's guidance until there comes to them aldeyana until it comes to them the clear evidence. So this is Allah is telling us something really about the nature of people. People need evidence, they need proof, they need something to make them realise & understand that this thing or such & such thing is true. And what is that proof? Rassula min Allah. A Prophet, a Messenger from Allah. So this is one thing. The Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam himself is of course one of the clear evidences that Islam is the truth. And actually we talked about this already in a previous series of lectures so we won't be repeating that. Rassula min Allah yaklus suhufam mutahara. And that means that he is bringing purified pages. And this here is a reference to of course the Quran & that is something that we are going to be talking about. We are going to be talking about the Quran. This is of course the great miracle that Allah has given to the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam, the Quran. Thiha kutubun kaima & that means with like the laws that are clear & that are obvious. So this is the other thing. It is the guidance of Islam, the guidance of the Quran that the laws that are there in a religion of Islam. This is another whole topic, my dear brothers & sisters, that we are going to be exploring. Some of the beautiful aspects of the religion of Islam, the Muslim way of life, how we can examine it & how this way of life itself is a type of proof & an evidence that it is from Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah. So these are some of the areas that we are going to be examining. We are going to be talking about the Quran, we are going to be talking about the preservation of the Quran & memorisation of the Quran, some of the miraculous aspects of the Quran, for example the amazing scientific facts that are contained in the Quran, the historical information, the facts that are concerning historical events that no one could have known 1400 years ago. Also the prophesies of the Quran & the prophesies of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam, some things the Quran tells us about the future & things that Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam told us about the future, things that he said were going to happen & they happened exactly how the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam said it would happen. Also we are going to be talking about the miracles of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam, the amazing things that were done by the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam. In addition we'll be talking about the miraculous nature of the Quran, its linguistic miraculous nature, the beauty of the Quran & other amazing facts about the Quran. Also we will be talking about the witnessing of the people of the book. This is some of the very strong evidences that many people from ahlil kitab, from the scholars of the Jews & the Christians have recognised that Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam is the messenger of Allah. So Insha Allah we will be mentioning some of those evidences that have been used from the Bible to show that the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam has been foretold in the scriptures. And also we will be talking about the stories of some of those people like Abdullah Ibn Salam, one of the Jewish Rabbis of Medina & of course the famous story of Salman Al Farsi which is very-very instructive in that regard. So we'll be talking about some of those things which is a very-very interesting aspect, which is another series of evidences. And that's what we say: we are going to bring these evidences together: the miraculous nature of the Quran, and the linguistic miracle of the Quran, the scientific statements, the historical statement, the witnessing of the people of the book, the prophesies of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam. really in fact if we look at any single one of these items on, they would be really unique & amazing. But really when we begin to combine them & when we begin to gather them altogether we can see that really we have so many evidences to amass from so many different angles to show that really our claim is not just a claim. It is not just something we are saying based upon just faith as people understand it. No. Really there are many-many good strong reasons to believe that Islam is exactly what it claims to be - the revelation from Allah the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth for the benefit of all of humanity. And there's something I would like to add, maybe it's not exactly part of our topic but I would like to add it is that evidence is very important for us as Muslims. Whatever you do as a Muslim, whatever you believe as a Muslim, whatever you practice as a Muslim it should be based upon evidence. Our religion is not based upon guesswork, it's not based upon what I think or what I imagine or upon some cultures or some traditions that we may follow. Being a Muslim is supposed to be based upon following the evidence. And the evidence means what the Quran says & what the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Wassalam says. So my brothers & sisters we look forward to you in our next programme to continue with this exciting discussion, Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi wa ta Allah va Barakatu

Part 2 - "Preservation of the Quran"

All praise is due to Allah, we praise Him, we seek His help & we ask for His forgiveness, we take refuge with Allah from the evil of ourselves & from evil consequence of our evil actions. Whomsoever Allah guides there's none to misguide & whomsoever Allah leaves to go astray there's none to guide. And today over the next series of programmes we are going to be doing our best to prove to you that that is the case, that indeed there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah & that Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam is the Messenger of Allah. And today we are going to be talking about the preservation of the Quran. Now why are we going to be talking about the preservation of the Quran, why is that important & what has that got to do with proving that Islam is the Truth. Well, I think from one angle it's a very important issue, because if we are going to say that one of the evidences that we are going to put forward to show that Islam is indeed from Allah, the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth is the Quran, & the things that the Quran says are a type of or constitute type of evidence. Then a person may quite rightly ask: well, how do we know the Quran is authentic & to be perfectly honest this is one of the issues that Muslims themselves bring up with for example the Bible or the Vedas or the teachings of Buddha or anyone else. One of the issues that we have is that ok, when you claim these things are from this teacher or are from God or whatever, but prove it, how can we be sure that your scriptures are authentic, may be they have been corrupted, may be they have been distorted, may be there is some truth there & some falsehood there. So what we'd like to do today is to do our best to show that the Quran is indeed a book that has been preserved from corruption & from distortion. So this is really a very-very important issue from one angle because then when a person hears that something is from the Quran or indeed for that matter that something is from the Prophet Muhammad & it has been authenticated as being from the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam may God's peace & blessings be upon him, then you then you can be sure that this is something authentic, this is something verified, this is something that has not been changed & corrupted overtime. So this gives us a lot of confidence that what we are mentioning from the Quran is indeed something that is true & something that is correct. So that is what we are going to be dealing with. But Insha Allah before we do that we would just like to recap on something very important that we mentioned in a previous series of programmes. Because ultimately at the end of the day, my dear brothers & sisters, one of the strongest proofs & evidences that Islam is from Allah is what the Quran teaches about Allah. Now we've already mentioned this & we've been through this in another series of programmes. But I want to go through it again very briefly without repeating everything. You see the Quran has a very beautiful teaching about God, & in fact if this was the only thing that the Quran was teaching - the oneness of God, the uniqueness of God, the transcendence of Allah. If this was the only thing the Quran was teaching really for a person who is very logical & rational, & who is really in touch with the nature & the inner selves, then for them that probably would be enough of a proof & evidence that the Quran is from God, because what we find is that nearly every religion in some way or another way distorts the belief in the oneness of God, in some way or another. For example Christianity teaches that there is one God, there's one Creator, who has brought this whole universe into existence in one way or another this idea is corrupted by the idea or the concept that for example as Christianity teaches that God has become man & that somehow Jesus is both human & God. So this is really a corruption & a distortion of the pure teachings of monotheism, because in reality what we find is that this is type of impossibility. How can something be completely human & completely divine at the same time? Because the qualities of true divinity & the quality of true humanity are incompatible. God is eternal whereas human beings are finite, God is self-sufficient whereas human beings are needy. How can something be eternal & be finite at the same time? How can something be self-sufficient & needy at the same time? You see this is t he problem. So any religion that teaches that God is a man or that God is like some created thing, really how can we accept this to be true? Because when its talking about God is already upon a type of corruption & a distortion & a falsehood, whereas Islam is free from this type of thing. The things that Islam teaches about God are really very rational, & very reasonable & this is one of the strongest reasons for believing that the Quran is from Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah. So what we want to emphasise upon today, my dear brothers & sisters, may Allah have mercy upon you, may Allah guide us, all of us closer to the truth, is the issue of the preservation of the Quran. Now one of the things that I want to touch upon is the historical evidence of the preservation of the Quran. But another thing I want to introduce is why this is itself a type of miraculous concept, why it is really a type of amazing thing, why the preservation of the Quran itself is one of the proofs or one of the evidences rather, this is more accurate to say, one of the evidences, 'cause proof is one, evidences are many, one of the evidences that the Quran is from Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth? So lets go into a little bit about the historical preservation of the Quran. Now according to traditional Muslim sources, according to the teachings of the Hadeeth, the teachings of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam & those people who came after him the Sahaba & the tabein. The way that the Quran was preserved, at least in terms of writings, because there are two ways that the Quran has been preserved. It has been preserved partially through writing. Now mostly in Western culture for example a lot of emphasis & a lot of importance is given to the preservation in writing. Whereas in fact it is not necessarily true that something has been written down in a scriptual form & that we have something written down in a scriptural way is necessarily the most authentic thing. Anyway Insha Allah, brothers & sisters we are going to get back to that, that now we are going to have a short break Insha Allah, & I'll be back with you in a few minutes to talk about the historical preservation of the Quran. Salam Alleykum, brothers & sisters, welcome back to the proof that Islam is the truth & today we are talking about the preservation of the Quran. And I just wanted to read an ayat from the Quran: "Verily we have revealed the thikr, the reminder, which is one of the words for the Quran & verily upon us, Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah is saying upon us is the preservation of it". This is a promise in the Quran that Allah will preserve the Quran. And the reality of the preservation of the Quran is without doubt one of the miraculous aspects of the Quran & one of the proof, the proofs & the evidences that this is from Allah. In fact you will find that nearly every type of book & scripture & writing through time goes through many alterations & distortions & corruptions. Now this may not be the case so much today with the invention of the printing press but of course in ancient times when books were largely transcribed by scribes then there was a lot of opportunity for corruptions & distortions & additions & deletions to take place. Yet throughout 1400 years of Islamic history the Quran has remained the same. In fact it is one of the most remarkable things that you could take a copy of the Quran today, you could take a copy of the Quran today. So for example if we took this Quran here, if we took this Quran here & we looked at the Arabics, this is of course an English-Arabic Quran, but if you looked at the Quran today, & you took this Quran & you compare it with the Quran in Saudi Arabia & you compare it with the Quran in Morocco & you compare it with the Quran in China & you compare it with the Quran in Siberia & even if you went back in history 100 years, 500 years, 1000 years, 1200 years, in fact the most ancient manuscripts that we have of the Quran day to a time that is almost contemporious to the time of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. It means we have manuscripts of the Quran dating back, all the way back to the time of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. And that the amazing thing is that if you examined these manuscripts you would find that the actual words of the Quran are exactly the same. Ok, the style of writing may be different, the use of certain diacritical marks may be different, but the actual words remain exactly the same. This is a fact. Actually this is one of the greatest arguments against those people who claim, there are some people who are trying to claim that the Quran has evolved, it's an evolved text, they are trying to make the same claims about the Quran that have been discovered about the Bible. But no one or very few people today take these claims really seriously & part of the reason is, is that the shear weight of evidence against such a claim is there. Because we have these texts of the Quran & we have different manuscripts in places like for example Tashkent, we have manuscripts in Cairo, we have manuscripts in Yemen. We have very-very ancient manuscripts that date really to the time very close to the time very close to the time of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. Let's go very briefly through the history of the written preservation of the Quran. Now of course during a lifetime of Rasulullah Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam the Quran was never actually collected as one book & the reason for that of course is that as long as the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam was alive it was still possible that some more verses of the Quran would be revealed. However the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, he used to recite the Quran from beginning to end every Ramadan & in the Ramadan before he died the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam recited the Quran twice & the angel Gabriel (Jabril) used to come & go through the Quran with the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam in the month of Ramadan. So the Quran was known from Sura Al Fatiha to sura An Nas. It was known by the people who used to memorise the Quran & what was known as the Quran was understood but it was never written down as what is called a Muskaf. They wrote down the Quran in various pieces & fragments but it was never written down as one book. However after the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam died there were what was called the wars of ridda, these are the wars of apostasy when many people began to apostatise & leave the religion of Islam. And there were some wars against those people & those wars many of those people who had memorised the entire Quran who were known as the hufaz, the memorizers or the preservers from "hafith" which means to preserve in Arabic, these people had preserved & memorised the entire Quran in their memory. You will get back to that at a latest age about the oral transmission & memorisation of the Quran but now we are talking about the written preservation of the Quran. So these people many of them were killed in battle so it was said to Abu Bakr, who was the ruler of the Muslims, the first Caliph or the first ruler of the Muslims. Some people said to him: why don't you write down the Quran to make sure that we don't suffer from what the people suffered from who came before us meaning the Jews & Christians from their distortions & their corruptions in the text, because we are afraid if the Hufas are killed in great numbers then may be the preservation of the Quran will not be maintained. Anyway there was some dispute about this because some of them said well how can we do something that the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam never did. But they agreed & Omar & Abu Bakr having discussed it with each other they agreed & the companions had agreed that this was a good idea. So what they did is they got someone called Zeid Ibn Thabit. They got him to organise this collection of the Quran & with the agreement of those people who were the Hafaz who were still living they agreed to collect the Quran & to write it as one Mushaf from the beginning to the end. And they got an unanimous decision about that, in fact they got an agreement on every single ayat, two people, a minimum of two people had to agree. Every single ayat of the Quran they had to agree that this was the right ayat & it was in the right place also. So this was the first Mushaf & it stayed with Abu Bakr & then when Abu Bakr died it was given to Omar, & when Omar died he gave it to his daughter Hafsa. Hafsa was also one of the wives of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. Now after the death of Omar the Islam had spread over many-many different lands. Islam had entered into Persia, it had entered into Egypt, & there were so many people becoming Muslim. Now some of the people began to argue with each other about the reading of the Quran, because the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, & it's very important, he had allowed the Quran to be read in seven different dialects. there were seven different dialects, they were all considered to be the Quran & the Prophet allowed the reading of the Quran in those seven different dialects. However some of the people who read it in one dialect began to argue with those who read it in another dialect and they were saying: "our reading is the right reading & your reading is the wrong reading" & vice versa. And they nearly came to blows over this issue. So one of the generals came to Othman Ibn Athan & said: look, this is a problem. Let us unite the people under one reading, & this way we will avoid deception & controversy." So Othman he said: "Ok, this is a good idea. What we will do is we will unite the people under the reading of the Qurashi dialect." the Qurashi dialect was the dialect that the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam he used to use the most often. Ok, this was the dialect, the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam himself used to use. So once again he ordered a compilation of the Quran. And who did he get? The same Zeid Ibn Thabit, he got the same Zeid Ibn Thabit to make the compilation of the Quran & once again he got a total agreement for each ayat a minimum of two people had to agree about this ayat that it was correct & that its placement in the Quran was correct & once again they made a compilation of the text of the Quran. Then they compared this new compilation with the compilation that had been made by Abu Bakr & they found that the two corresponded exactly. They were both corresponding exactly one with the other. So then Othman ordered that every copy that people had made & every writing that people had made of the Quran should be destroyed & the way that they destroyed it was by burning it. Ok? This was considered to be a clean & pure way to destroy the text of the Quran. Not like in may be in Western culture these days you know when they want to get rid of books they burn the books as a type of protest. No. This was considered to be a clean way to dispose of the Quran. So every Quran they had was either washed as the Mushaf that was given to from Abu Bakr & Omar to Hafsa, it was actually washed clean. And every type of copy of the Quran was destroyed except this what is called as Imam manuscript, that was the Imam Manuscript compiled by Othman under the supervision of Zeid Ibn Thabit. And from that seven copies or may be nine copies were made. So from that Imam Manuscript seven or nine copies were made & these copies were distributed all over the Muslim world at the time. And every Quran therefore had to be an exact replica & exact copy of those Qurans. So we still have according to many experts in the field, we still have two or three of those original manuscripts existing that was compiled in the time of Othman Ibn Athan which is only some twenty years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. And as I said you can go anywhere in the world today & you can take a copy of the Quran & you can compare it with one with Qurans anywhere. And you can go back in history 300, 400, 500 years & you can compare those Qurans then with the Qurans that we have today & you will not find they are different, not by a word, not by a letter. So this is a fact. This is a fact & this is really an astounding miracle of the Quran that Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah he said that "verily we have revealed the Vikr, the reminder & upon us is the preservation of it." So this is the way that Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah in his infinite wisdom has preserved the Quran. What is important here for the rest of our discussions in the series to come is of course that when we are referring to the Quran we are referring to a document that is verified & certified to be authentic. It is something that we do not differ about. All the different Muslim sects, all of us, we agree upon one single text of the Quran. And we have agreed upon one single text of the Quran for 1400 years. So this is a book that is preserved, this is a book that is authentic, this is a book that we can trust in & that we can trust in & that we can believe in, & this is Insha Allah what we will be discussing later in future programmes, the next one is "the oral preservation of the Quran" until then Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, may the peace & blessings of Allah be upon all of you.
 

Abdul Hasib

Student of Knowledge
Proof That Islam is the Truth [Playlist] on YouTube Now (click here)!






33d2eee058fc075f7b1daf781d3dae79.jpg
 

Omar (ex Andrey)

toLive&DieForAllah!

Salam Alleykum, brother :)))
Thanx for trying to help but these are not full episodes - they are cut short after 10 minutes!!! Full episodes are 24-25 minutes each!
If you want the full episodes you need to go to google video (it's where I downloaded them myself)
1) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9098664317084235735
2) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3585933037095732725
3) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6483942827890344130
4) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5746859280204476683
5) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3056185453318958160
6) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=613624689564190559
7) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4976682000573333553
8) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4912639541429266312
9) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2144617738990716881
10) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1701919879500738454
11) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1294542048047945656
12) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7536714393355747579
13) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2343887470694906693
14) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8432456966207513103
15) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3574478999449422685

but the ones that are there are
1) in mp4 format about 80-90Mb each whereas I converted them into flv of about 52 Mb each, &
2) I couldn't find them there a few days ago which means that google already tried to delete them...
so if you have moderator rights on this site please upload them directly into this site without google, easyshare, etc
 

~Ali_

Fixing da foundation
Assalamualaikum

um.. I dont know if this will work because I havnt tried it out myself yet

BUT! if you are going to download the files using EasyShare and you are going to download them 1-by-1. There is somewhat of a "waiting-period" for like 500 seconds.

If you wish to skip it - simply restart your modem - I dont know if this works for EasyShare but it works for Rapidshare and Megaupload and the such.

**INFO is for anyone with a "broadband modem" and I think it only works if you have a "dynamic ip address"**

anyways hope this is beneficial in some way LOL

Walaikumasalam
 

Omar (ex Andrey)

toLive&DieForAllah!
Part 3 - Oral Transmission of the Quran

Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, all the praise is due to Allah, we praise him, we seek his help & we ask for his forgiveness & we take refuge with Allah from the evil of ourselves & from the evil consequence of our evil actions. We are here today to talk about the proof that Islam is the truth. Now in the previous episode we talked about & we discussed the written preservation of the Quran, how the Quran was preserved in writing over a period of the twenty three in which the Quran was revealed. However it's very important to understand that primarily societies in the time of the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him, were in fact oral societies. In other words most of the information that they transmitted from to the other was based upon stories, information that they remembered from generation to generation, passed on from child to son, from father, daughter & so on & so forth in gathering. So this is how information was spread & memorised & stories were attained in the hearts & minds of people. And in that respect the Quran is not really any different. However the degree of the preservation of the Quran in its oral form is really something remarkable. And that is something we want to talk about today. Actually the Quran itself mentions in the seventeenths sura in 106th ayat the meaning of which is: "And it is a Quran we have divided into parts that you may recite it to men at intervals. And we have revealed it in stages." So the Quran is saying that it is a book that has been divided into parts, different chapters & it was revealed at stages & there is a great wisdom behind the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth doing that. And the reason is because this facilitated the memorisation & the retention of the Quran in the memories of people. God would reveal some verses of the Quran at a particular time, concerning a particular incident & people would memorise those verses. The Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, the Messenger of God, Muhammad, he would memorise those verses. Those companions who could write those scribes he would order them to write down the verses of the Quran & they would write it down. But the Prophet himself, it's important to understand, was illiterate. he was ummi, he was a person who was not learned, he couldn't read & write. In fact there were very-very few people in Arabia at that time who were actually capable of reading & writing, very few of them. But some of them who could would write down the verses of the Quran on various bits of parchment or even palm leaves or you know the cured animal skins bits of papyrus for example which was all that was available at the time. But most people they would memorise the verses of the Quran. Not only would they memorise them but then they would try to inculcate & practice what those verses were teaching in their life. So this had a type of dual effect: memorising it in terms of the actual words & then implementing it in terms of their actual actions. So this is one of the great wisdoms of the Quran being revealed in stages. It also meant that the implementation of Islam, the practice of the religion of Islam was allowed to be done gradually. And this is really in concordance & in agreements with the human nature. It's very difficult for the human beings to suddenly change everything all in one go. And that is one of the amazing aspects of the revelation of the Quran: how it was revealed in stages, bit by bit, slowly, so that people were able to practice it in their lives. Now one other things that the Quran tells us that is actually a recitation that has been made easy to memorise, the Quran actually, & in the Quran Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah tells us that He has made the Quran easy to memorise. And this is something that is a really astounding fact: how the Quran has been memorised over the ages. And in order to aid that memorisation amongst the generality of the Muslims of course the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam & the various imams or people who were leading the prayers for the Muslims in different parts of Medina for example at the time. They would recite the Quran out loud in the dawn prayer & the sunset prayer & the night prayer. So they are constantly hearing the recitation of the Quran in the prayers & this is especially more the case in the month of Ramadan. In the month of Ramadan the Prophet Muhammad May God's peace & blessings be upon him would read through the whole of the Quran & this was a habit that the Muslims had & they retained it until today, of reciting the whole of the Quran in the month of Ramadan. And also the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam May God's peace & blessings be upon him, he would also encourage the Muslims to memorise the Quran. In fact it is a very-very virtuous thing in Islam to be the person who has memorised the whole of the Quran. Indeed there was an incident when two companions who were very-very close friends died both at the same time & the Prophet Muhammad gave the first burial & the most honoured position in the grave to the person who had memorised the Quran the most. In fact the person who is the Imam is most entitled to be the Imam because he has memorised the most of the Quran. Also the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam he would encourage memorising certain verses & certain chapters & certain Suras of the Quran, for example before the Friday the Prophet Muhammad used to encourage very much the reading of sura Turkaf. Also the Prophet described, Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, he described, may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him, he described sura Yasin as being the heart of the Quran. he said sura al Bakara & al Imran would be intercessors for the people on the day of Judgement for the people who had memorised it. So all of these things were really an encouragement and a further incentive for people to memorise the verses of the Quran. So with all of these encouragements & the recitation of the Quran during the prayers this is how stage by stage, piece by piece, the Quran came to be memorised in the minds & the hearts of people. So lets look a little bit further into some of the aspects of this memorisation. By the time the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him, had died we find that there many-many different people who had become hufaz or they had become memorizers of the entire Quran. And these people were very-very respected of course in the Muslim community, because they had managed to memorise the entire Quran. And this memorisation of the Quran was passed on generation after generation through all the generations of the Muslims until today. In fact what we have is what is called Mutawatr transmission of the Quran. This concept of Mutawatr, what does it mean? Well, essentially it is an idea or it means that so many different people have narrated a particular story or a particular thing from so many different directions it is impossible, it's inconceivable that these people could have gathered together to invent a falsehood. In other words, imagine you have a thousand people, these thousand people, each of them are teaching another thousand people & each of those thousand people teaching another hundred people. Can you imagine how many hundreds of thousands of people that constitutes? And is it possible that these people could have all gathered together & conspired together to invent something? No. It's not something that is possible. And therefore it is considered in terms of the oral transmission, when something is a Mutawatr, there are so many people that have narrated it, that it's impossible that they could have invented something. And this is the case with the Quran, the entire Quran, every verse of the Quran has come to us throughout the ages a continuous Mutawatr transmission of these verses of the Quran. Also when someone wants to become an expert, a hafiz of the Quran, that they will also have to sit with a teacher & they will have to learn the Quran in a special way. And we are going to discover a little bit more about this & this very important chain of teachers of the Quran all the way back to the Prophet Muhammad after the break, so don't go away, join us after the break to discover more about the amazing Quran & its oral transmission throughout the ages. Assalam Alleykum.
Assalam Alleykum, everybody, welcome back to the proof that Islam is the truth & we are talking today about the oral transmission of the Quran, how the Quran was preserved in the minds & the hearts of the Muslims over the many generations & we talked about the Mutawatr transmission of the Quran, how the Quran was passed on the generation after generation through countless thousands of Muslims who had memorised the entire Quran. But it's not only about memorising of the Quran, there is a science of Tajweed. Tajweed is the exact & precise pronunciation of all the letters & all the words in the Quran. And it is something that in order to know it you have to study it under a teacher. And traditionally these teachers who have specialised in the Tajweed & the recitation & the memorisation of the Quran have acquired students, students have studied withy them for may be three to six years & after may be, it could be anything from three to six years when a student has really reached proficiency in this particular field, then that scholar would give them what is called tazkia, it means they will give them a type of written approval to recite & to transmit the recitation of the Quran. And he only does this after very thoroughly checking that this person can recite the Quran precisely & concisely with the correct accent & with the correct elongation of certain sounds, so it's a science really. And, so this also further ensures that in no way, shape or form is the Quran allowed to be distorted or corrupted. Another thing is very important to realise is that Arabic is a living language, it's a living language, people still speak Arabic today, & people who speak Arabic, they can pick up the Quran, they can pick it up & they can read it & they can understand it even though that this is 1400 years ago people can still understand the Arabic of the Quran, so it is a living language. And this also we have to understand is very important in aiding the memorisation of the Quran. It is the case of the Quran, the literally countless millions of human beings throughout the ages have memorised the entire Quran. In fact in the Mosque where I work, one of the Imams there had memorised the entire Quran by the time he was seven years old. I mean think about that. He'd memorised the entire Quran by the time he was seven years old. This is one of the truly amazing miraculous aspects of the Quran. So this preservation of the Quran through the oral transmission & the memorisation of the Quran in the minds of people is not something only that Muslims claim. It is something that even non-Muslim scholars have recognised & have commented about. So I'm just going to read now a few comment from some orientalist. They are the scholars who expert, there's expertises in this field. So for example A.T. Welch, he writes: "For Muslims the Quran is much more than scripture or sacred literature in the usual Western sense. It's primary significance for the vast majority through the centuries has been in its oral form, the form in which it first appeared as the recitation that was chanted by Muhammad to his followers over a period of about twenty years. The revelations were memorised by some of Muhammad's followers during his lifetime. And the oral tradition that was thus established had a continuous history ever since, in some ways independent of & superior to the written Quran. Through the centuries the oral tradition of the entire Quran has been maintained by the professional reciters, quraah. Until recently the significance of the recited Quran has seldom been fully appreciated in the West." Also a leading orientalist whose name is Kenneth Crag, he said: "The Quran is perhaps the only book, religious or secular, that has been memorised completely by millions of people." Let's repeat that: "The Quran is perhaps the only book, the only book, that has been memorised completely by millions of people." And he goes on to say: "This phenomenon of the Quranic recital means the text has traversed the centuries in an unbroken line of living sequence of devotion. It can not therefore be handled as an antiquarian thing nor a historical document of the distant past. The fact of hith (meaning the Quranic memorisation) has made the Quran a present possession through all the laps of Muslim time & given it a human currency in every generation never allowing its relegation to bear authority & reference alone." This is a very deep & important statement, because it's really-really it further reinforces that the Quran is not merely a reference work, it's not merely a text, it is something that is living, it is something that is vibrant, & the memorisation, & the constant renewal of this memorisation is what makes the Quran so vibrant & so real in the hearts & the minds & the lives of everyday Muslims. "In conclusion we have a book, absolutely unique in its origin & its preservation on the substantial authority of which no one has ever been able to cast a serious doubt." This is what a reverend Boswell Smith quoted in his book "Muhammad & Mohammedanism." And I think it's just worth repeating that again. "It's a book", - he says: "unique in its origin & its preservation the authority of this preservation of the Quran no one has been able to cast a serious doubt." Now there have been people throughout the ages, there have been people who have attempted in various shapes & various forms & some of these people have come forward recently trying to cast aspersions & some doubts on the authenticity of the Quran. But in fact in reality no one has been able to make a serious challenge to the oral transmission of the Quran. And this is the point that we really have to remember. the Quran has been written down, it has been recorded in written form & we do have ancient manuscripts dating back very closely to the time of the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him, they do exist, & we talked about that in the previous episode. But what adds to this indisputable authenticity of the Quran is this truly remarkable system of hiths, of the memorisation of the Quran. And it's quite a remarkable thing that I've experienced myself. In the month of Ramadan Muslims gather for what is called the Tarawih prayers, these are some special prayers in the night time, where Muslims come together & we pray for may be an hour, an hour & a half, & a lot of the Quran is read. Now of course usually we'll be lead by an Imam who has memorised the entire Quran, but almost inevitably there are always two, three, four or five may be ten people, other people in the audience who also either memorise that portion of the Quran that the Imam is reading or may be they themselves are Hufaz, they are people who've memorised the entire Quran. Now people sometimes make mistakes, it's inevitable, human beings are fallible, they make mistakes, they forget things, they may get one verse confused with another, but almost inevitably if the Imam stumbles or if he forgets or he pauses you hear another voice from within the congregation reminding of one hufaz or the other this self-correcting process in the oral memorisation & transmission of the Quran, it is you are witnessing when you hear this a type of living miracle, you are witnessing how God is actively preserving his word in the hearts & the minds of the Muslims. And certainly Allah speaks the truth when he says: Inna nahnu nazalna al vikr wa inna lahu wa hafithun - verily, we have revealed the reminder & upon us is the preservation of it. This is a living miracle. Is there a book in the world like this? Is there anything that can be compared to the Quran in just this aspect alone? Yet this is only the beginning of the wonders of the Quran. In our next episode we are going to deal with the preservation of the Hadeeth, the sayings & the actions & the tacit approvals of the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him. So that's what we are going to be talking about in the next episode, so please don't forget to join us where we will be talking about the preservation of Sunna & the Hadeeth & sayings of the final messenger Muhammad, may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him. And may Allah guide you & may Allah guide me & may Allah guide all of us closer to the truth. It's been a pleasure talking to you & I hope that you've been inspired & motivated by these amazing things that you are hearing & you are going to be hearing more amazing things in episodes to come. So keep on tuning in to the proof that Islam is the Truth. This is your brother Abdur-Raheem Green saying to you Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu.
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Part 4 - The Preservation of the Sayings of the Prophet (PBUH)

Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, All praise is due to Allah, we praise him, we seek his help & we ask for his forgiveness, we take refuge with Allah from the evil in ourselves & from the evil consequence of our evil actions. I'm Abdur-Raheem Green & you are joining me for the proof that Islam is the truth. Now today we are going to be talking about the preservation of the Hadeeth & the saying of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, may God's peace & blessings be upon him. And in the last episode we talked about the remarkable oral transmission & memorisation of the Quran. How children as young as seven years old, even younger than that have memorised the entire Quran & by the way some of them don't even speak Arabic. There's no book in the world like that. But the Quran is not the only source of guidance for Muslims. We also need the Sunna & the living example of the Prophet Muhammad in order to fully comprehend & understand the religion of Islam. And we are going to examine today how the scholars of Islam have painstakingly preserved & authenticated the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. So that's our task for today to talk about that. Just to remind ourselves about the ancient times when the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam & his companions were living, as Michael Zwettler, he notes that: "In ancient times when writing was scarcely used, memory & oral transmission was exercised & strengthened to a degree now almost unknown." It was very common in those day for people to memorise & to transmit the sayings of the ancestors in an oral form much more so than in written form & therefore the ability to memorise accurately was much strongly formed than it is today. Many people today don't really fully comprehend because we are not really used to that method of retaining information & therefore in terms of memory & training our memory it tends to be very weak. We prefer to record things on our hard disk for example or on bits of paper. But in those days people tended to memorise things in their minds. Now first of all sometimes we find that people have not fully comprehended the importance of the Sunna of the Prophet. What is this Sunna of the Prophet? What do we mean by Sunna? Well the word "Sunna" in Arabic means "way", it's the prophetic way, the way that the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam may God's peace & blessings be upon him, the things that he said, the things that he did & the things that he approved of. All of this is called the Sunna. And the Sunna is preserved in what is called the Hadeeth. Hadeeth means literally "story". the Quran is also referred to as a Hadeeth, in fact it is the best Hadeeth, the best story, the best narration. But generally in Islamic law the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, the Sunna of the Prophet Muhammad is recorded in the Hadeeth. So the Hadeeth is the term for those things or those writings in which the actions, the sayings, the approvals of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him, were recorded. Now there are numerous books of Hadeeth. Because of course there are so many things that the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him said & so many things he did. We have to remember that the message, the Messengership & the Prophethood of Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him lasted a period of 23 years. So that's a lot of stuff. 23 years of what the Prophet did, what he said, what he approved of. So there are of course so many narrations, so many Hadeeth of the Prophet Muhammad, & the whole issue of the Hadeeth is compounded by the fact that many people after the death of the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him began to fabricate, began to invent lies about the Prophet. And they began to say that the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him said this, the Prophet Muhammad said that. You can imagine, every person who sold rice for example realised that well you know good way to sell more rice is by saying the Prophet said to eat rice, rice is good for you. So if everyone thinks rice is good for you & that the Prophet said that then more & more people are going to buy rice. So also rulers tried to justify their actions, sometimes their wrong actions by inventing Hadeeth & sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. So what developed in the Muslim world & we are going to talk about that is a science. A very amazing science through which & by which we could distinguish what are the true & what are the false sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. And all of this gives us added conviction that when we talk about the religion of Islam, we are talking about something verifiable, we are talking about something authentic, we are talking about something about which we have a scientific verifiable process through which & by which we can know what the Prophet Muhammad said & what he didn't say. By the way people were able to do this with the Hadeeth or the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad in a way that they were never able to do with the Quran. First of all the Quran was memorised in its entirety by thousands of Muslims from the earliest days of Islam. Also in terms of its text as we've already mentioned it was compiled & collected & collated from the earliest days of Islam. So if anyone wanted to make a different interpretation of Islam, if any deviant sect or group or ruler or individual wanted to justify something by the Quran they were never able to invent a new verse or introduce a new ayat or verse of the Quran. It was impossible to do that because the text of the Quran had been established from the very earliest days of Muslim history & it was agreed upon unanimously by everybody. This was not the case with the Hadeeth or the sayings of the Prophet. And we can say actually it is true until today. We still have numerous books of the Hadeeth of the Prophet & we do not have any single book where all of the authentic Hadeeth of the Prophet have been compiled in one place. We do have a collection of the Hadeeth that is rigorously & highly authenticated & it is considered to be the most authentic textual reference in the religion of Islam after the Quran. And that is known as Sahih Al Buhari. "Sahih" means "good", "sound", "authentic" & Al Bukhari is the name of the Imam or the Scholar who collected these various traditions & saying of the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him. the next most authentic collection of Prophetic traditions after Sahih Al Bukhari is Sahih Muslim. Again that means the authentic & sound collection but this time it was a collection that was compiled by Imam Muslim. He was also a very great scholar. The Quran says many times: "Ya ayuhallatheena aminu Ati Allaha wa ati al Rasul" which means: "Oh, you who believe obey Allah & obey the Messenger. And we are going to talk a little bit more about that after the break. So don't go away, join us for the preservation of the sayings of the Prophet in our series the Proof that Islam is the Truth. Assalamaleykum. Assalamaleykum Arahmatulla, may the peace & blessings of Allah be upon all of you.
Welcome back to the proof that Islam is the truth & today we are talking about the preservation of the Hadeeth or the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad & we were talking about how important the Sunna & the example of the Prophet Muhammad is in understanding the religion of Islam. It's really essential to it. In fact we find that many of the most important & essential basic acts of worship in Islam would not be fully defined just by reference to the Quran. For example lets take the five daily prayers. If you wanted to know how to pray five times a day, what are the times of the prayers? How should we say the prayers? How many units are there for each particular prayer? What do we say for each position in the prayer? What are the positions? What are the orders of the positions in the prayer? These things are not mentioned in the Quran. the only way that we know about these things is through the preservation of the example of the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him. So the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him said "pray as you have seen me pray." So Muslims therefore are trying to emulate & follow the example of the Prophet. the Quran says: "Akki mus Allah" - establish the ritual prayer, but the details of it - it is not given in the Quran. Similarly, there are many things in the Quran that we would not be able to understand it unless the life story, the life history of the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him had been preserved. For example the 80th sura of the Quran in the very first ayat, it says: "Abas sawata wala" which means "he frowned & turned away". Who frowned? Who turned away from who? What is this talking about? Unless we know the sura & the life history of the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him we will be clueless about what it's actually referring to. And I'm only giving one of many-many examples in the Quran. In fact the Quran itself stresses the importance of referring to the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him many-many times. Indeed in one particular verse Allah swears by himself. "Nay, no by Allah, they can have no faith", their faith is not true, it's not real, "unless they make you Muhammad a Judge in all disputes between them, & find no resistance in their hearts & submit with the fullest submission. In this verse Allah is making it very clear that if a person is truly a believer in Allah & a believer in the Last Day they will make the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him a judge in their disputes & they will be happy with his decisions. Also Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah tells us in the Quran that whatever the Prophet gives you - you must take it, whatever the Prophet orders you to leave - you must leave it. The Quran tells us that the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him did not speak from his own desires, it nothing except a revelation that has been revealed. So these references in the Quran make it absolutely clear that the Sunna, the example of the Prophet Muhammad is an intrinsic part of understanding the religion of Islam. Now let’s look at some of the ways in which the Sunna of the Prophet Muhammad has been preserved. First of all the Sunna or the example of the Prophet is a very practical thing. Let’s remember this. For Muslims the Prophet Muhammad is the best example of how to be as a human being. In fact the Quran references that in the thirty third chapter of the Quran in the twenty first ayat the Quran tells us the meaning of which is: "Verily, most certainly, in the Messenger of God is a most excellent example for anyone who believes in God & the Last day." So the Quran is telling us that in the example, in the life, in the pattern of the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him is a good example, a way to follow for anyone who believes in God & the Last Day. So Muslims of course they believe in Allah, & they believe in the Last Day, the Day of Judgement, the accountability, the Hellfire, the Paradise, they believe in that. So therefore they try their best to emulate the example, the manners, the behaviour of the blessed Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. So the Sunna, the example of the Prophet was applied in people's lives. It was not only memorised in the sense that: "I heard the Prophet say this, I saw the Prophet do that", they themselves applied it practically. For example, the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him said: "If it wasn't a burden, if it wasn't going to be such a difficult thing for my nation I would have made the use of the tooth stick, brushing the teeth an obligation upon the Muslim nation." And the Prophet used to frequently use the tooth stick. He used to use it in the morning, in the evening, before he came out of the house, before he prayed, & his companions practically followed that example. And that practical example was followed by their children. And that was followed by their children & so they would say: "Well we saw the Prophet Muhammad do this & we saw the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam do this & this is what he told us to do." So it is not, remember, it is not merely memorising some academic thing, it's an actual practical application in one's everyday life. So this is one of the ways in which the Sunna of the Prophet was preserved. And just in reference to this I remember that my dad always taught me to say, my dad Gavin Green, he taught me to say that his dad taught him & probably his dad taught him & that was a little phrase he uses: "R", "A", "U". R.A.U. is an acronym for "return after use" meaning when you have used something make sure you put it back where you found it in the first place "return after use". So actually what we find is that he is a chain of transmission. I learnt from my father, Gavin Green, who learnt from his father, so actually this chain stretches back over a hundred years, if you count, my father is 86, & you count back to his dad, that is really nearly, you know, 70-80 years. That's quite a long time. And if I inculcate my children with the same thing & then they narrate it to their children, this is what we call a chain of transmission. This has a special term in Islamic terminology. It's called the "Isnad". And the isnad is a very-very important thing in the preservation of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, because the people began to invent things, they began to invent sayings about the Prophet. So some of the companions they said: "Ok. We will not accept anymore anyone coming along & saying "I heard the Prophet said this, I heard the Prophet said that." No. We want to know which companion of the Prophet Muhammad did you hear this from." And then they would go & check from this companion: "Did you say this? Did you hear the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam say that?" And if they discovered that the person was a liar, & they had invented a lie they would tell everybody. They would make it known publicly: "This man lied against the Prophet, don't believe him, he is a liar, he is a kathab, he is an inventor of Hadeeth of the Prophet." And one of the most strong Hadeeth of the Prophet, that is through a Mutawatr transmission, & we mentioned what Mutawatr is previously, is that "whoever lies about me intentionally, let them put their seat in the Hellfire." Whoever intentionally invents a lie against the Prophet - they are going to be destined to be burnt in Hell. It's a very-very severe thing. So nobody should go around inventing things, & saying: "the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam said this & the Prophet Muhammad said that." Well some people did start doing that even to the extent that Aisha was commenting about this: "Fake coins" that she called, the fake coins were not real fake coins they were the Hadeeth of the Prophet that people were inventing, so the companions, they said: "No. We want to know who said it. Where did you learn it from? Give us the isna. In this is where the chain of narrators developed & from that the scholars started to study: "Did this person meet that person? Was he truthful? Was he honest? Did he have a good memory? Was he a pious person?" They began to check the character & the personality of every single person this chain of narrators. And they did this in order to authenticate & make sure that every person in this chain was trustworthy, that either these people in the chain had met each other & had learnt this Hadeeth from each other. And they did all of this to insure that there was a process in place through which & by which we could determine who & what were the things that the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him, what did he really say, & what other things that we have some doubts about whether he said it or not, & what things, you know, have been invented & lies have been attributed to the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. Of course this is really a very huge & extensive subject. It's really a science, it's something that people have dedicated their whole lives to, to studying the science of the transmission, & the accurate & authentic transmission of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. But of course there have been scholars throughout the ages, Muslim scholars who have dedicated their lives to the science, & they have compiled books, authentic books, like those I have already mentioned, like Sahih Al Bukhari & Sahih Al Muslim & the Sunna of Abu Daud & the Sunna of Nasai, there are anyway a number of collection of books. When I say collections, but they are books where the Hadeeth of the Prophet have been collected & they have been authenticated by the scholars of the Hadeeth. So like I say, it is a very extensive subject but all of this is to assure us, that when we say "Hadeeth of the Prophet is authentic, it's Sahih" you can be sure that it is something that the Prophet Muhammad really did say or he really did do. That's it - This episode "the Preservation of the Hadeeth of the Prophet. I hope you are going to join us next time for our "Proof that Islam is the Truth."
 

Omar (ex Andrey)

toLive&DieForAllah!
Part 5 - The Miracle of the Arabic Language

Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, All praise is due to Allah, & we ask Allah to send his peace & blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad. Welcome back to the proof that Islam is the truth. Now today we are going to launch into a really special topic. The miracle of the Quran. The linguistic miracle of the Quran. You see the Prophet Muhammad, Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam told us that every single Messenger was sent with a convincing miracle. A miracle when the people saw it & when they observed it they knew in their hearts even if they did not profess it with their tongues, they knew in their heart that this was the truth, that this man truly was a Prophet of God. So for example Moses was given the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea. And when Pharaoh saw it & when the army of the Pharaoh was crushed he knew that Moses was what he claimed to be. "Now I believe he said in the God of Moses the Beni Israil, the children of Israel. Jesus, he healed the sick, he cured the lepers, he gave sight to the blind, even the dead were raised by the permission of God. These were the convincing miracles that were given to the Prophets who came before. But the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, may God's peace & blessings be upon him said: "I have been given the Quran. I have been given the Quran." That is the convincing miracle of the Prophet & he said: "I hope that because of it more people will enter my religion than any other prophet." So today we are going to be discussing the miracle of the Quran. This is it. I'm holding in my hand here a miracle. Some of you may say: "How is it a miracle?" If you watched the previous series you would have got an inkling into how the Quran in terms of its preservation is a truly amazing thing. But something being amazing doesn't mean it's a miracle. So what do we mean by a miracle exactly? Well a miracle is something that can not normally be achieved by natural processes. And a miracle is something quite different from magic because for example there are things that magicians can do. Like for example when Moses went to Farrow, when the sign that God gave to Moses was his stuff. When he threw the stuff it became like a snake & Pharaoh said: "Well, I have magicians who can do the same thing." So he called his magicians & he organised a competition between the magicians & Moses. And so the magicians they managed through their magic to deceive people that their staffs were snakes. So they threw down the staffs, & they did, they deceived the people into believing that these staffs were snakes & it seems as if they were moving. But then when Moses threw down his stuff it demolished the magic, & the magicians themselves realised that what had taken place was beyond what any magician could accomplish. these magicians were experts. Magic in Egypt at the time had reached a type of an art form, it had reached its peak. And they were in every stratum of society involved with aspects of magic. Even the Egyptian book of the dead is a type of magical incantation. It is supposed to bring the dead farrows & the dead people back to life. But these magicians were astounded, they knew that this was beyond their art, this was beyond their craft, this was beyond their capabilities. What Moses had was from God & they knew it. For them it was a convincing miracle. Similarly in the time of Jesus, the people were very skilled at the time in medicine & the Jews were very proud of their abilities in the field of medicine. But yet when Jesus came giving sight to the blind & curing lepers, even the dead were brought back to life. they knew that this was beyond what any human being could do. This was something that was from God. So how can a book, the Quran, how can this be a miracle on the same level as that? That's what we are going to be examining over the next two episodes of the proof that Islam is the Truth. Because that's what we are trying to bring to you - the evidences that can convince any rational sensible person that Islam is exactly what it claims to be: the divine revelation from Allah the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth for the benefit & the guidance of all of mankind. Now of course what is noticeable is that each miracle is appropriate for each time & for each place. As I mentioned, you see a miracle that was given to Moses when his stuff became a snake & how it was able to destroy the magic of the magicians was suitable to Egypt at that time because that was what they were impressed by. Similarly in the time of Jesus the doctors & the people who were expert in medicine were very impressed, they knew that compared to what their capabilities were at that time there was no way that they could do those things they knew that what Jesus had brought was something that was from God. So it was very suitable to that time, to that place. But the Quran is for all times. The Quran is until the Day of Judgement. And the miracle of the Quran, it's not just one miracle, its aspect is miraculous in many-many different ways. And certainly of the miraculous aspects about the Quran are the statements in the Quran, concerning the natural world, concerning the things that normally is the realm of scientific investigation. Yet the Quran contains information that no person could possibly have known 1400 years ago. These are the scientific miracles of the Quran, because the Quran is guidance for the age of science just as it was guidance for the age of Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him. But our topic today is not the scientific miracles of the Quran. We are going to be dealing with that in some further episodes. Today our topic is the linguistic miracle of the Quran. And in some ways this is a historical investigation, although it is still something that is a challenge that stays until this day because the Arabic language is a living language. People still speak Arabic. People still can pick up the Quran, who speak Arabic & read it & understand it & comprehend it even though this book is 1400 years old. You'd be very hard pressed, in fact I don't even know if there is another book like this in the world today or another language like this in the world today that is so ancient yet people still comprehend it & still people understand its language. So this is something very special about the Quran. But what we are going to be investigating is this linguistic miracle of the Quran, the challenge of the Quran that was laid down to the Arabs 1400 years ago. "If you do not believe that this book, the Quran is from God, then produce one chapter like it. Just produce one chapter like it. And if you can't do it & verily you'll never be able to do it then fear the fire, fear the hellfire whose fuel is men & stones." So this is the challenge of the Quran. The challenge was for the Arabs to produce just a chapter like the Quran. So I want to really spend a little bit of time explaining the significance of this. And in order to do that we need to travel back in time & we need to understand something about Arabia in the time of the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him. We have to understand that this was a time, this was a place with no civilisation that we can speak of, it was a real backwater. There was no real civilisation there, it was in fact a life in Arabia in the time of the Prophet Muhammad was barbaric. We could describe it as barbaric. A common practice was female infanticide. They had no roads, no impressive buildings, no amazing infrastructure, no art forms to think of & to talk about. But what they did have of course, what was in place was the language. They were masters of their language. And if they had a civilisation, their civilisation was in the language itself, & we are going to talk about that in more detail after the break. Don't leave us, stay with us for the proof that Islam is the Truth, the linguistic miracle of the Quran.
Welcome back to the proof that Islam is the truth & today we are talking about the linguistic miracle of the Quran. And we were talking about how the Arabs had no civilisation to speak of in terms of monuments & buildings but they were extremely proud of their language. In fact Arabs use for people who are not Arabs is "ajmi" & "ajmi" means someone who is dumb, someone, it's like someone who can't speak. So they were really proud of their language. It was a pure language, it was a strong language, & they were masters of it. They were masters of the use of language. And they were very-very fond of poetry as well. In fact t hey had a market place for poems. A market place for poetry! It was called "wuhaz". And this is the context in which I need to place the revelation of the word of God, the Quran, because it's in this context that the challenge of the Quran is made. You see, the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him was not a literate man, was not a literate man, he was not a man of letters, he was not known to be a poet or a narrator. That's not what he was known to be. He was known to be honest & truthful & trustworthy, yet he came with this book, outstanding in its qualities. A masterpiece of literature unlike the Arabs had ever heard before. And the proof of it, the proof that it was from God to the Arabs was its eloquence, its mastery of the language, its succinctness. So the Quran made a challenge. The first challenge was because the people were saying: "Muhammad invented the Quran". They were claiming he invented it. So a verse of the Quran was revealed. The 52nd chapter of the Quran from ayat 33 to 35. Or do they say he himself has composed this message. No, but they are not willing to believe. But then if they considered this Quran to be a work of a human being let them produce something like it. If what they say is true. So the Quran is saying: "If what you claim is true, if what you say is true then produce something like the Quran. And they were not able to do that. then Allah said in the 11th chapter of the Quran in ayats 13 to 14. "Again they are claiming he forged it", the Quran says: "So why don't you bring ten chapters like it & call anyone you want to aid." Now this is unheard of by the way. When the poets, they had to, if they were given a challenge they had to respond themselves, they couldn't call other people to come & help them. That was unheard of. How could you prove that you are a great poet if you brought other people to help you? But the Quran says: "Listen. All you have to do is to produce ten chapters & you can call all your helpers, you can all of you get together & try & produce just ten chapters like the Quran if what you say is true." If it's true that Muhammad invented this Quran then you make ten chapters like it & then Allah says: "And if they answer not your call, know you that this revelation is sent down with the knowledge of God, & that there is no God but he. Won't you now submit yourself in Islam? You are still unable to meet this challenge." Then Allah made it really easy for them. In the second chapter of the Quran in the verses 23 to 24: "And if you are in doubt about what we have sent down to our slave, then produce one chapter like it & call all your helpers that you want other than God if you are true. But if you don't & you will never be able to do it then fear the fire whose fuel is men & stones prepared for those people who reject faith." This is the challenge of the Quran. This is what the Quran was saying. If you are not able to produce one chapter, & the smallest chapter of the Quran: "Authubillahi samil alim mina shaitani rajeem. Inna atayna alkauthar. Fasalli li rabika wanhar. Inna shani yaka hu abtar." Three lines. These masters of the language could not make three lines like the Quran. Then Allah foretold that forever people would be unable, ever to match the Quran. In the 17th chapter in the 88th ayat: "If all of mankind & all the jinn were to come together to produce the like of this Quran they could not produce the like of it even though they were to exert all of their strength in aiding one another." Now someone may say: "How is that? What does that mean?" Lets examine it. How is it possible from unlettered unlearned man not versed n poetry to be able to produce a work of unrivalled eloquence & perfect rhetoric so that even the assembled experts & masters of all the forms of poetry in Arabic language were unable to produce the like of its smallest chapter. Indeed they preferred to fight the Prophet Muhammad, the flower of their nobility were killed, their trade was devastated, their reputation was destroyed. How could they choose to do all of this rather than just meet that simple challenge make one chapter like the Quran? But they couldn't. They couldn't do it. And its Az Attabori who was a famous person who explained the Quran, this is what he said, the very beautiful words: "There can be no doubt that the highest & most resplendent degree of eloquence is that which expresses itself with the greatest clarity making the intention of the speaker evident & facilitating the hearers' understanding. But when it rises beyond this level of eloquence & transcends what man is capable of so that none of the servants of God is able to match it, it becomes a proof & a sign of the Messengers of the One the All-powerful, it is then the counterpart of raising the dead & curing the lepers & the blind, themselves proves & signs for the Messengers, because they transcend the realm of the highest attainment of man's medicine & therapy". And he goes on to say: "It is obvious. It is obvious that there is no discourse more eloquent, no wisdom more profound, no speech more sublime, no form of expression more noble than this clear discourse & speech with which a single man challenged a people at a time when they were acknowledged masters of the art of oratory & rhetoric & poetry & prose & rhymed prose & Sufi saying. He reduced their fancy to folly & demonstrated the inadequacy of their logic. He disassociated himself from their religion & summoned them all to follow him, accept his mission, testify to its truth & affirm that he was the Messenger sent to them by their Lord. He let them know that the demonstration of the truth of what he said was the proof of the genuineness of his Prophethood the "beyan". Al Beyan which is a name of the Quran, the clear discourse, Al hikma - the wisdom, the Furkan - the criterion between right & wrong with which he conveyed to them in a language, like their language in a speech whose meaning is confirmed the meaning of their speech. Then he told them they were incapable of bringing anything comparable to even a part of what he brought & that they lacked the power to do this. They all confessed their inability voluntarily acknowledging the truth of what he had brought & bore witness to their own insufficiency. Look at this remarkable event, this Quran, this challenge. These people were never able to meet & until today they are not able to meet. Now someone may say: "Well, may be someone did write something, may be you know but it wasn't recorded because after all history is written by the victors. But that would not be possible. If anyone had written something comparable to the Quran, then the message of the Prophet Muhammad would have been destroyed, he would have been humiliated & no one would even listen to him. Can we really say that they proffered to fight battles as we described rather than produce a single chapter like the Quran? Now in the next episode we are going to mention some of the historical incidents about those people who heard the Quran at the time of the Prophet & how they reacted to it. But until that time, until next time lets listen to the words of some orientalist who has recognised this inimitability of the Quran. So E.H.Parmer he said in his book "The Quran": "The best of Arab writers have never succeeded in producing anything in equal merit to the Quran." That's what he said. he admits it. H.A.R Gibb he says in his book "Islam. A historical survey.": "No man in 1500 years has ever played on that deep toned instrument with such power, such boldness & such range of emotional effect as Muhammad did. As a literary monument the Quran stands by itself. A production unique to Arab literature & having neither forerunners nor successors, even those people who are non-Muslim have recognised that truth. I ask you, my dear listeners, my dear viewers, what is your explanation for this? How did this unlettered man produce such eloquence that until today the Arabs have never been able to challenge it? Don't you think that this miracle, this fact, this truth should make you realise that there is indeed only one God worthy of worship, that indeed the Quran is the word of God, that indeed Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him, is the Messenger of God? Isn't it about time my dear viewers that you said: Ashhadu anla illaha illala wa ashadu anna Muhamedan abduhu wa rassulu", that there is nothing worthy of worship except Allah & that Muhammad is truly the Messenger of Allah? But this is not the end of the wonders of the Quran & in future episodes we will be dealing with more of the miracles of the Quran & the proof that Islam is the Truth. Join us for more of those episodes. Until then Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu.

Part 6 - Stories of Those Who Heard The Quran

Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, All praise is due to Allah, I'm Abdur-Raheem Green, you are joining me for the Proof that Islam is the Truth. And today I'm going to be talking to you about the stories about those people who heard the Quran. The age of Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him was a time when Arabs were at the peak of their linguistic abilities. Indeed one of the finest poems ever composed in the Arabic language was done at the time of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam by a man who was conteprorious to the Prophet. His name was Labeid ibn Rabia. And his poem when it was recited at the market place at wuhaz caused the Arabs to prostrate before him in admiration. And when the same Labeid began to hear the verses of the Quran he embraced Islam & gave up poetry altogether. When he was once asked to recite some poetry he said: "What? Poetry? After the Quran?" Indeed many of the Arabs entered Islam just from hearing the Quran because they knew that it was conclusive proof of its divine origin. They knew no man could produce the like of the Quran & its eloquence. You see the challenge of the Quran was not to produce, as some people might suppose an amazing piece of literature like Shakespeare or Shelly or Keats or Homer or any of these great literists. No. The challenge of the Quran was something much more fundamental. Because the Quran differed in its very structure. The very structure of the Quran was different from anything that had preceded it before it in the Arabic language. You see, in the Arabic language poetry falls into 16 different beharr. The word "beharr" means "sea". Why? Because each poem moves according to a different rhythmic pattern. And then of course they have the speech of the Sufi sayers, & they have prose & they have rhymed prose & normal speech. So these are the forms of the Arabic language. Yet the Quran although it seemed to reflect some of those forms it was none of them, it was unique. It was not like anything the Arabs had ever heard before, it did not fit into any of those categories, yet at the same time it made sense, more than sense, it was the peak of eloquence. And this is what made the Quran inimitable. And so the Arabs, the pagan Arabs who, when they heard this message of the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him, the message that they should give up the worship of all the created things. They should not worship idols, they should not worship people, they should not worship each other, rather they should pray to & worship only the one God. This was the message of Muhammad & this was the message of all of the Prophets. When they heard this message many of them did not like what they were hearing. They started to rebel, mostly the rich & the powerful people, because in their mind it was challenging their self interest. The Kaaba was the centre of pilgrimage for all the people in Arabia. They used to come to the Kaaba & the tribe that was in charge of the sacred precincts around the masjid al Haraa, the sacred Mosque, the Kaaba, & its surroundings was known as Quraish. And they were the most respected tribe in Arabia at the time. Indeed the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, may God's peace & blessings be upon him himself was from the Quraish. The Quraish was a large tribe & the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam was from beni Hashem which was a sub-tribe of the tribe of Quraish. However the Quraish collectively were in a state of despair about this message of the Prophet Muhammad. How can he make all the idols into one God? How can he make all of these into the worship of one God. They imagined that if this happen & the idols were removed & the Kaaba was only to worship one God who would come to the Kaaba? Who would come to Mecca? Who would perform pilgrimage? Actually really what they had in their mind was their own material self-interest, not truth, not the reality of whether Muhammad was a Prophet or not. This was not what they were interested in. In fact one of the uncles of the Prophet Muhammad, he said: "Look, your tribe has looked after the pilgrims & our tribe looked after the pilgrims. Your tribe did this good action & our tribe did this good action. Now you say you are a Prophet, how can we compete with this? In other words he was admitting that his refusal to follow Islam was based purely upon his tribal allegiance. What a stumbling block to truth, what a disastrous path they were following. So, they got together: "What are we going to do? How are we going to combat this Quran, this amazing speech, that enticed, that enchanted its listeners?" So, Alkamar Ibn Abdul Manaf, he said in the gathering of the Quraish leaders: "Oh, Quraish, a new calamity has befall on you. When Muhammad was a young man, he was the most liked among you, the most truthful in speech & the most trustworthy, until when you saw the grey hairs on his temple. He brought you this message. You said: "He is a sorcerer, he is a magician." But he is not. For we have seen such people & their spitting & their knots. You said: He was a suff sayer." But we have seen those people & their behaviour. And we have heard their rhymes. And you said: "He is a poet." But he is not a poet, for oh, we know every type of poetry. You said: "He was possessed." No but he is not possessed. We've seen the possessed people. And he shows no signs of their gasping & whispering & delirium. Oh men of Quraish, look to your affairs, for by Allah a serious thing has befall on you." Well the Quraish didn't know what to say. They tried all types of different things. They called the Prophet a suff sayer, they called him a magician, they called him a poet, they called him possessed. But none of these things was sticking. People didn't believe it because when they met the Prophet Muhammad they knew that he wasn't like any of those things. So what they decided was that they were going to tell the people: "The magic of his speech turned a man away from his father, wife, brother, family & tribe." This is what the said. And of course in a sense that was true. In a sense the message that there is nothing worthy of worship except the one God was something very revolutionary, very different. It was something that separated the people who worshiped the one God from the people who worshiped others than the one God. So this is their claim, this is what they decided to say: "The magic of his speech turned a man away from his father, his brother, his wife, his family." And then Abu Lahab, Abu Lahab was one of the uncles of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, & Abu Lahab would wait on the roadways into Mekka in the Hajj season. Now the Hajj is the pilgrimage, the annual pilgrimage & that Hajj is going on for thousands of years, even before the time of the Prophet Muhammad the Arabs used to make the Hajj to Mecca. But the Hajj, it became corrupted with idol worship over the years. But the people still used to come from all over Arabia for the Hajj & this was the source of the wealth of the Quraish that of course they were so frightened that the Message of Islam was going to destroy it. I mean as a side point look how many people are going to Mecca today, they didn't suffer because of it, did they? Anyway, he went, Abu Lahab & he used to go & warn people, he used to say: "Watch out. Be careful of this man Muhammad. Well, he is my nephew, I know, don't listen to him. He's got this speech that if you listen to it, if you, even if you listen to it you'll be fallen under its spell." Now there was a man. His name was Tufayl ibn Amr. Now Tufayl was the chief of the Douse tribe. He was the chief of the whole tribe. And he himself was a very distinguished poet. So he was an important man in society, the chief of this tribe, he was a poet & he was on his way to Hajj & as he arrived in Mecca he was accosted by one of these Meccans telling him all these stories, warning him, said: "Muhammad this, Muhammad that. Watch out for this man! He is so dangerous. You have to watch out for him." So this is what they were saying. Now I'm going to tell you the rest of this story after the break. Don't go away. Come back. Listen to us. Listen to this amazing story of Tufayl ibn Amr & how he became Muslim by listening to the Quran.
Assalamaleykum everyone. Welcome back to the proof that Islam is the Truth. And today we are talking about the stories of those people who heard the Quran & how it influenced them & affected them. And today we are talking about Tufayl ibn Amr, the chief of the Douse tribe. He was on his way to make Hajj, pilgrimage to Mecca & the Quraish, the leaders of the Quraish were waiting for him. They were waiting telling the people: "Don't listen to Muhammad. His magic of his speech is going to make you go mad & turn you away from everything that you know & you love. So this is his story. He says: "I approach Mecca." As soon as the Quraish leaders saw me they came up to me & gave me a most hearty welcome & accommodated me in a grand house, sure knew how to look after people. The leaders & notables then gathered & said: "Oh, Tufayl, you have come to our town & this man - he claims he is a Prophet - has ruined our authority." Notice: "He's ruined our authority". "And shattered our community. We are afraid that he would succeed in undermining you & your authority & your community just as he has done with us. Don't speak to the man. On no account listen to anything he has to say. He has the speech of a wizard causing division between father & son, between brother & brother, between husband & wife. And they kept on telling me the most fantastic stories & scared me by recounting tales of his incredible deeds. I made up my mind then not to approach this man or speak to him or listen to anything he had to say. The following morning I went to the place of worship, I went to the Kaaba & made Towaf around the Kaaba as an act of worship to the idols that we made pilgrimage to & glorified. I put cotton in my ears out of fear that something of the speech of Muhammad might affect me. As soon as I entered the place of worship I saw him standing near the Kaaba." He saw the Prophet Muhammad standing near the Kaaba. "He was praying in a fashion which was different from our prayer. His whole manner of worship was different. The scene captivated me. His worship made me tremble & I felt drawn to him despite myself until I was quite close to him. Not withstanding the precaution I had taken God willed that some of what he was saying reached my hearing & I said to myself: "What are you doing to fail? You are a perceptive poet. You can distinguish between the good & the bad in the poetry. What prevents you from listening to what this man is saying? If what comes from him is good - accept it. And if it's bad - reject it." I remained there until the Prophet left for his home. I followed him & he entered his home & I entered also. And I said: "Oh, Muhammad, your people have said certain things about you to me. By God they kept frightening me with these things & keeping away from your message until I blocked my ears to keep out your words. Despite this God caused me to hear something of it & I found it good. So tell me more about your mission." The Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam told Tufayl about the mission & Tufayl said: "And then he recited to me sura Al Falaq." And he said: "I swear by God I have never heard such beautiful words before. I had never heard such beautiful words before. Neither was a more noble mission ever described to me. Thereupon I stretched out my hand to him in allegiance & testified that there was none worthy of worship except the one God & that Muhammad was truly the Messenger of God. And that's how I enetered the religion of Islam." Even the leaders of Quraish were unable to desist themselves from hearing the Quran. Tufayl heard the Quran & as I said: he heard it & he became a Muslim. But actually even the leaders of Quraish, they were unable to desist & to resist, in fact according to the Syra or the biography of ibn Isha. He mentions one incident when Abu Sufia was one of the leaders of the Quraish, & Abu Jahal & Abu Ahnas, they sneaked out of their houses in the night to listen to the Prophet reciting the Quran, hiding in their places until dawn. They sneaked out of them & they stayed listening to the Quran until the dawn, hiding. And on the way home they bumped into each other & they reproached one another saying: "Don't you ever do that again. For if one of the weak-minded fools sees you it would arouse suspicion in their minds. So they all promised. But this happened three nights in a row. Three nights in a row they snuck out to listen to the Prophet reciting the Quran, & again they bumped into each other. Until they took a totally solemn oath, they swore that they would never do it again. This is the question, my dear listeners, that I want you to put to yourself: How is it possible from unlettered & unlearned man, not versed in poetry to be able to produce a work of unrivalled eloquence & perfect rhetoric so that even the assembled experts & masters of all the forms of poetry & the Arabic language were unable to produce the like of its smallest chapter? Indeed they chose to fight the Prophet rather than meet this challenge. The flower of the nobility were killed, the trade & reputation destroyed. How could they chose this than count the verses of the Quran? Let us look at another story. This is the story of Omar ibn Al Hattab. He became one of the strongest defenders of Islam, but before that he was one of the most violent enemies against the Muslims. He tool it upon himself to physically abuse & attack the Muslims. And things became so bad for the Muslims that they were forced to flee. And this was something unheard of. That people should flee their own tribes, that they should flee their own people because the Arabian society was held together by tribalism. But the Muslims were fleeing their own tribes. And they fled to go & live in Abyssinia. When this happened Omar really began to think about things, & he was really unhappy about it. And the more he thought about it - the more unhappy he got. Until one day he decided: I'm going to kill Muhammad. I've had enough. He took his sword & he was on his way to kill the Prophet Muhammad. But on the way he met one of the people who had become Muslim secretly. And he said: "Where are you going Omar with your sword drawn like that?" He said: "I'm on my way to kill Muhammad." So he started to think: "What can I do. And then he remembered that in fact the sister of Omar had already become Muslim. He said: "You know what, before you deal with Muhammad, may be you should deal with your own family first?" He said: "What do you mean?" He said: "Your sister. She has become Muslim." So Omar was so infuriated, he was so mad! He changed direction, still with his sword drawn he headed off to his sister's house. He arrived. And when he got to the door, he heard a noise he had not heard before. He smashed down the door & there he found his sister & her husband reading something. She jumped up & he hit his sister & she fell on the floor & started to bleed. The sister of Omar said: "Ok. I have become Muslim. Do what you like with me. Kill me. I don't care. I have become Muslim, so what?" And when Omar saw his sister lying there, bleeding & so vigorous & defending herself & not even afraid to die he became, he calmed down. He said: "My sister, what is that that you are reading?" She said: "They are the verses of the Quran. The speech of God. The words of Allah." He said: "Let me see it." She said: "No. Not until you wash yourself first." So she made Omar wash his hands, so he could not touch the paper of the Quran without washing himself. And then he sat down & he began to read. And as he read, & as he read & as he read the Quran began to enter his heart. He put the Quran down & then he went off. he went to the place where the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam was. "Where is Muhammad?" - he said. The people were saying: "Muhammad, it is Omar, he has come." the Prophet said: "Let him in." Omar came. He said: "Oh, Muhammad, I testify & bear witness that there is nothing worthy of worship except the one God Allah & I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah." And this is how one of the strongest & most vigorous opponents of Islam, Omar, became one of the most strongest & vigorous defenders of Islam. And he is famous until today for his justice & for his piety & for his standing up for the truth. It's another story of another person who embraced Islam just from hearing the beautiful words of the Quran. How much more do you need in order to be convinced that Islam is the truth? You need to hear more stuff? Well there is more. Join us in our next episode for more amazing evidences of the divine origin of the Quran & for the proof that Islam is the truth. Until then, Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu.
 

~Ali_

Fixing da foundation
Assalamualaikum - beautiful work brother! keep it up! May Allah reward you for your hard work!
 

Omar (ex Andrey)

toLive&DieForAllah!
Part 7 - Embryology

Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, may the peace & blessings & the mercy of God be upon all of you. Welcome back to the next episode of the proof that Islam is the Truth. And today we are going to be talking about the scientific miracles of the Quran, those statements in the Quran & the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, the Hadeeth of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, may God's peace & blessings be upon him, that are truly remarkable, that beg the question: "How could such information be in a book 1400 years old?" You see, scientific knowledge depends upon the gradual advancement of information. We can only know a certain thing in scientific terms when something has been studied & observed & examined. And of course the ability to study & observe & examine something depends largely upon what is available to us in order to be able to do that. So for example how much can we know about the stars & cosmology if we don't have access to powerful telescopes & different ways of interpreting & gathering & then interpreting data from the Universe around us? How for example can we know about the Earth, the Earth's crust, the formation of the Earth without sophisticated instruments able to measure it? How can we know for example about the details of human embryonic development without the sophisticated processes available to us today in order to be able to acquire that information. This is something concerning how scientific knowledge comes to us. What if we were to come across a book, an ancient book, 1400 years old, & this book was going to give us information, it was going to reveal facts that we have only discovered recently through our hard-earned scientific method of investigation. And that now after continued observation & gathering of information. Now we know, yes, these are facts, these are things that are true, but no one knew those things 1400 years ago. No one even had a possibility of knowing those things 1400 years ago. Then surely this begs the question. Where could such information come from? Where could a book, so ancient have received such knowledge that is so modern? This is the question we are going to be exploring in the next few episodes of the proof that Islam is the Truth. And what we want to remember is that the Quran is a miracle for all times. It was not only a miracle for the Arabs living in Arabia 1400 years old. For them the language of the Quran, its structure, its rhythm, its whole meaning, was a miracle for them. They would hear the Quran, as we've shown, & they would embrace Islam. It was enough for them. They knew that no human being could produce a work like this. We are not Arabs. We may hear the Quran, we may find it beautiful, we may not find it beautiful. So the linguistic miracle of the Quran, the miracle of the Quran's language, it doesn't mean that much to us. But we do believe that the Quran is a miracle for all times. It is just as much miraculous for you today as it was for those people living 1400 years ago. But the way it is miracle, the aspect in which it is miraculous is obviously going to change. Because the things that we consider to be important today are not necessarily the things that the Arabs considered to be important 1400 years ago. And just as poetry & language was what the Arabs living in the time of the Prophet Muhammad were so proud of. They were so proud of their linguistic abilities. Today I think we can safely agree that it is scientific knowledge that we are proud of. We are so proud of the ability & the achievements of science. In fact many people will hold up the achievements of science is one of the defining characteristics of the superiority of Western civilisation. In fact there is no doubt that the achievements of science have by & large in recent times been a product of western civilisation. And there is no doubt for that reason that many people today are in awe of the West & the power & the ability of the West. We study, in universities based upon the patterns of western institutions. English is the Lingua Franco, the international language that is spoken all over the world & in which many different studies are performed. And all this is really connected with science & the advancement in science & technology. So the Quran is a miracle to the scientists. The Quran is a miracle to the people of the XX & the XXIst century just as it was a miracle to those people living in a desert 1400 years ago. Now what we plan to do over the next few episodes is to introduce to you some of the statements & explain some of the statements in the Quran that are of a scientific nature & that have proven to be in accordance with modern scientific knowledge. Now before we go into it I do want to mention a very important matter. And that matter is that the Quran is not a scientific textbook. The Quran is a book of guidance. In the Quran Allah says: "Alif lya mim, thalikal kitabu la raybafi huddalil muttakim. Alif lya mim. This is the book without doubt. In it is the guidance for the pious people." So the Quran is fundamentally essentially before anything else, it is a book of guidance. It is a book that teaches us who is Allah, who is the Creator, that there is only one God that is worthy of worship. It tells us also that Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him is the Messenger of God. It teaches us morals. What is right & what is wrong. How we should behave with each other. How we should behave with the world around us. It teaches us the stories of those pious people who have come before us so that their lives & their examples could be an encouragement for us so that we could further better ourselves & the Quran also warns us of those people who have disobeyed God, who have sinned against God, who have transgressed the limits that God has laid down & the Quran warns us & tells us about the fate of what has happened to those people. The Quran is a book of law. It teaches us the laws through which & by which we should govern ourselves according to the wisdom & the knowledge of the mighty the wise Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah. So the Quran is not a book of science but without doubt we believe, we know that it is from Allah the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth. And therefore it is not unreasonable to expect that the information that is contained in the Quran should reflect the perfect & absolute wisdom & knowledge that is from God. We should expect of course that a book that is from God to be consistent with the reality of the Universe around us. Since God is the Creator of the Universe & God is the Creator of all things, & God is the One who knows everything. Surely a book that is from God should be consistent with what we can observe to be facts. Now importantly we are talking here about facts. And so what I have tried to confine myself to are those aspects that are very clear & that are very obvious & then are not ambiguous. We are not talking here about so much scientific theory although of course in a philosophical sense every statement in science is a theory. Everything is a theory. It's only in the eyes of scientists a theory that is very-very strongly proven with very-very strong evidence as supposed to a theory that may have very little evidence or perhaps even no evidence at all. So scientists put their faith, as you could say, they put their faith in those theories which simply offer the best explanation & has the strongest degree of evidence. However we have only tried to select those statements in the Quran that are supported by the strongest degree of scientific evidence. And again we only say this because the Quran is not a scientific textbook, it's not a book of science. It's a book of guidance. But we should expect that it does not contradict the reality of the world around us. So I have chosen some of those statements in the Quran that have also amazed & fascinated me personally. And I remember that when I first read the Quran for myself, one of the things that astounded me about the Quran was that it lacked the fables & the fairytales & a type of fantastic statements that you would expect from a book that was revealed 1400 years ago. In fact what I discovered was that its statements were truly amazing. We will be talking about some of those things after the break. Don't go away. Stay there for the proof that Islam is the truth.
Welcome back to the proof that Islam is the Truth. I'm Abdur-Raheem Green & I'm going to be talking today about some of the amazing statements in the Quran concerning the natural world. Some of the amazing findings that we find in the Quran that agree with present scientific observations amongst most ot among one of the most remarkable of them are without doubt the statements in the Quran dealing with the development of the human foetus. Now it's interesting as a comparison to see what was the state of knowledge at the time of the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him. Because you would expect a work that has been made by human beings to reflect the ideas & the concepts that were prevalent at the time. If Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him had invented the Quran, had authored the Quran himself most certainly he would have picked up the ideas that are normal amongst the Arabs & the Greeks & the Romans & the Egyptians & so on & so forth. So one of the prevalent theories was of course the Aristotelian theory. And Aristotle was one of the people, one of the first people to really begin to make scientific investigations & theories as to the origin of human life. When I say one of the first people certainly in the Western world he was one of the first people. And also he is one of the people whose statements have been recorded & preserved for posterity than may of course have been others. But his theory was very-very common. And his idea was that the male sperm acted as rennet in cheese to congeal the female menstrual blood. And from the congealing of the female menstrual blood the human embryo was formed. Now he based this upon his observation that when women became pregnant their monthly periods ceased & so he theorised that therefore something must happen to that monthly period & what happened to it was that it congealed in order to form a human life. Now of course we realise at this time that such a theory is completely false. Even as late as the 18th century a man called Hartsoeker claimed to have seen through a primitive microscope various sperms of different animals. And so looking through this primitive microscope he claimed that he could see inside the actual sperm a preformed human being, a little child crouched up. Similarly he claimed that in the giraffe sperm he could see a long neck & in the rabbit's sperm there were the big ears & stuff life that. And this was known as the preformation theory. Of course again today we know that that is false. And it's an example of course that those type of theories that sometimes float around in science that later show to be false & even quite laughable. And that's the case with both Aristotle & the ideas that were prevalent in the 18th century. And it's not really until the 19th century that we began to develop an accurate description of the stages of human embryonic development. Now whet we want to examine is: What does the Quran say? If the Quran was a forgery, if the Quran was invented & written by the Prophet Muhammad as people claim, then surely it would reflect the ignorant beliefs of the time. However it does not. Let us read the 23rd chapter of the Quran, verses 12 to 16. The meaning of it is this: "We created a man from quintessence of clay." this by the way is referring to the creation of Adam. Muslims believe that God created Adam miraculously, not like the rest of the creation. He took clay, Allah took clay from different places in the Earth, & He formed from this clay the shape of a man & he gave life to this form & thus Adam was created. And from the rib of Adam Eve was created. So this is what Muslims believe & when Allah says: "He create man from quintessence of clay", - this is talking about the creation of Adam. But the Quran goes on to say: "He placed him as a drop", - & the word in the Arabic is "nootfa". "Nootfa" means a drop: "in a place of rest firmly fixed. Then we made a drop into an alaq", & I will tell you what these words mean in a moment. So first: "We placed him as a nutfa, then we made a drop into alaq & then we changed an alaq into a mudra & then we made out of that mudra bones. And then we clothed the bones with flesh. Then we caused him to grow & come into being & attain definitive form." So Allah is mentioning the stages: nutfa, alaq, mudra, laham. Ok? So this is the stages & then we begin to look like human beings & Allah goes on to say: "Blessed be Allah the perfect Creator. After that you will die. Again on the day of judgement you will be raised up." It's very important my dear listeners, that Allah at the same time as he is mentioning these amazing & astounding facts that science has only discovered recently, immediately afterward Allah is reminding us that you will die, & you will be rased up on the day of Judgement. Just like Allah created you in stages, from a thing that clings, from an alaq & a mudra & from laham, from all of these things Allah most certainly will create you again on the day of Judgement. Now the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, nutfa means a small drop that is emitted, & the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam referred to this nutfa as both belonging to the male & female, in fact he mentioned that these nutfa are mixed in the creation, this is what he mentioned in the authentic Hadeeth. The nutfa, the drop from a man, which is the semen & from a women which is of course the ovum, the nutfa the small drops, they are mixed. This is very important, because the Prophet is mentioning that the human being comes from both the man & from the women. This already goes against the theories that were prevalent at the time. Secondly the word alaq in Arabic, what does it mean? It has three meanings. A thing that clings, a blood clot & a leech-like object. In fact all of these three things accurately describe the first stage of human embryonic development. After the fertilisation of the egg a blastosis develops, which has on its exterior villous sites which literally cling to the wall of the uterus, so they are little, it's rather like a Velcro, they cling to the inside of the uterus in the womb. This is what happens to this alaq, a thing that clings. And then it goes on to resemble exactly a leech-like object. The similarity is absolutely remarkable, not only in appearance but also in behaviour, because a leech also takes blood from its host similarly the alaq stage also takes nutrition & blood from inside the mother. So this is, it goes on & it also resembles at a latest stage after that a blood clot. So this is the first thing. The word alaq describes exactly the first state of human embryonic development. This is not something that could have been known 1400 years ago. It is impossible because this stage of embryonic development is something that only can be observed with powerful microscopes. Yet the description is accurately mentioned in the Quran 1400 years ago. So it mentions then from the alaq stage it becomes a mudra, a mudra means like a chewed piece of flesh. And this is exactly what it's like. The Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, the Quran also said "partly formed & unformed." So it has bits that are slightly formed, bits that are not. And if you again, you look at this stage it looks exactly like a piece of meet that has been chewed. Then the amazing thing is that the bones precede the development of the flesh. The bones come & then on the bones the flesh grow, although the time between the growing of the bones & the flesh is very-very close. And it's very interesting that the word that is used, the term that is used in Arabic, the word indicates speed: one thing following another very-very closely even the structure of the words on Arabic is consistent with the development of the human embryo. And then the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam said: when 42 nights have passed over the conceptus Allah sends an Angel to it, who shapes it & makes its ears & its eyes & skin & flesh & bones & then he says: "Oh, Lord, is it a male or a female?" And your Lord decides what He wishes & then the angel records it." It is also true that you can not determine the sex of the foetus until just after 42 nights. How did this information come to a man living in a desert 1400 years ago? Most certainly this is the evidence that the Quran is from Allah & that Muhammad is his Messenger. Join us for the next episode of the proof that Islam is the Truth. And until then Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu.

Part 8 - Scientific Facts in the Quran (Part 1)

Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, may the peace & blessings of Allah be upon all of you. Welcome back to the proof that Islam is the Truth. And we've been talking about some of the amazing miracles of the Quran & the scientific miracles, those facts that can be found in the Quran, that leave us awe-struck. How could this information be in a book 1400 years old? And we were looking at those verses in the Quran concerning the development of the human foetus in the womb & we were also reading a Hadeeth of the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him. When the Prophet Muhammad mentioned that the 42 nights have passed over the conceptus Allah sends an angel to it who shapes it, makes it ears & eyes & skin & flesh & bones & then he says: "Oh, Lord, is it a male or a female?" And your Lord decides what he wishes & an angel records it. So it is at the 42nd day or just after the 40th day that it only then becomes identifiable. And this is a fact. This is a scientific fact. And it's very interesting, it's true also that the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him mentioned that there are some things that the knowledge of it is only known to Allah Subhana Wa Ta Allah. And one of the things that Prophet mentioned is what is the sex of the child in the womb. As one of the Muslim scholars pointed out is that this is only up until the 40th day. Because after the 40th day according to this authentic Hadeeth of the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam, may God's peace & blessings be upon him, the angels know , the angel was in the womb shaping the conseptus, shaping the embryo, asks: "Is it a male or a female?" And so from that time of course the angel knows & if the angel knows, as the scholar pointed out, anyone can know. So this is also a truly amazing statement of scientific accuracy & this is information that in reality we have only begun to discover recently. We also find that the Hdeeth mentions the correct time for the recognisable growth of the features described & the sex of the foetus can only definitely be determined after 42 days. Now this piece of information was only known after the invention of powerful microscopes only decades ago. Now I've only mentioned the subject of the developing human being in the Quran & the Hdeeth of the Prophet Muhammad briefly. There is of course a vast amount of literature available if you would like to study this subject more & it's very easily available on the internet & indeed Dr Zakir Nike has produced a very nice book called "Modern science in the light of the Quran & Sunnah" So you can get hold of that from the Islamic research foundation Isha Allah if you want to explore that area more. But what I thought I would do is mention a quote from Keith Moore who is the professor & chairman of the department of anatomy from the University of Toronto in Canada. And Keith Moore is one of the acknowledged experts in the field of the developing human being in its embryonic form. And his book "the developing human" is & has been for many years a standard textbook in universities & colleges all over the world. It's been translated into numerous different languages. And he was shown some of these statements in the Quran & the Hadeeth or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad concerning the development of the human embryo, & having studied them he came to a conclusion. And this is what he said: "Until the 19th century nothing was known about the classification of the stages of human development. A system of staging human embryos was developed around the end of the 19th century based upon alphabetical symbols. And during the 20th century numerals were used to describe 23 stages of embryonic development. This system of numbering the stages is not easy to follow & a better system would be based on the morphological changes. In recent years the study of the Quran revealed another basis for the classification of the stages of developing embryo, which is based on easily understood actions and changes in shape. It utilizes terms that were used and sent by God to Prophet Muhammad by the Angel Gabriel and recorded in the Quran" And he goes on to say: "It is clear to me that these statements must have come to Muhammad from God because almost all of this knowledge was not discovered until many centuries later. This proves to me that Muhammad must have been a Messenger of God or Allah." Dear viewers, you need to think about this. He is one of the experts, perhaps the expert in the field, examining the information that is in the Quran & that has been mentioned on the tongue of the Prophet Muhammad. And he is saying that not only is it impossible for the information to have been known by anyone 1400 years ago. He also suggests that modern embryology should follow the system of development that has been mentioned in the Quranic verses. In other words the Quran has described the developments of the human embryo so beautifully & so effectively that this should be the basis upon which scientific textbooks are founded from now on. This is what Keith Moore is saying. So this is really a truly remarkable statement from a truly remarkable scientist who by the way has become a Muslim. How did the Prophet Muhammad developed this information? From where did a man living in a desert 1400 years ago know, from where did he get the knowledge? this is the question that you have to ask. This is the question that you have to examine. The next theme we want to look at is the water cycle. The water cycle. That is the cycle of water where the Sun heats the sea & causes evaporation & from that evaporation we have clouds forming & how the winds move those clouds & from that rain falls. Now the Quran accurately describes water cycle & the origin of underground springs. And we are going to be talking about that after the break, so whatever you do don't go away, because we have some more amazing facts for you in the proof that Islam is the Truth. Salam Allaeykum, welcome back to the proof that Islam is the Truth. And we are going through some of the amazing scientific statements in the Quran. Things that was impossible for Prophet Muhammad to have known 1400 years ago. Now one of the things we want to talk about is the water cycle. Now it may seem very obvious to us today about the water cycle. And for example the origin of underground springs. But the ancient Greeks for example didn't seem to get it right despite all of their philosophy & their knowledge & their ability they actually theorised that underground springs were a product of spray that came off the sea & collected in caves. And then the spray that came off the sea & collected in cave dripped down into the underground reservoirs through a great sea called the "abyss". In fact it was not until the 18th century that the water cycle was really accurately described. Yet the Quran says 1400 years ago in the 39th sura in the 21st ayat: "have you not seen that Allah sent water down from the sky & led it through sources into the ground." This is a simple but in fact highly accurate description of the water cycle. Another amazing fact that is mentioned in the Quran we find in the 24th sura of the Quran in the 40th verse. And it's talking about the states of those people who disbelieve & reject faith in God. The Quran describes the state of the disbeliever, the person who has rejected faith. "Like a darkness, a darkness that is so dark it is like the deep depths of darkness in a vast deep ocean overwhelmed with wave upon wave topped by a cloud, if a man stretches out his hand - he can hardly see it. For any to whom Allah gives no light there is no light." Now on the surface here Allah is giving a simple description. A person who does not believe in God & does not follow the guidance that Allah has sent down is a person who is in darkness. They are lost. Their life is a confusion. In fact their life is so confusing they can hardly see what is in front of them. This is how Allah is describing it: "Darkness upon darkness", confusion upon confusion. He can hardly see or understand what is happening. If God does not give a person light - there is no light. So it is describing a type of absence of light, of being able to see or know really what is truly going on. And so this is the case that is described. So on the surface we have a very poetic, we have a very strong & vigorous & amazing description of this darkness & the state of being lost. Yet when we examine it in more detail there is something else going on here as well. There is a clue to some scientific truths. First of all the Quran describes the vast deep ocean & it describes waves upon waves. Now of course most of us are familiar with the waves that are on top of the ocean. But what does it mean "waves upon waves"? Are there other waves in the ocean? Well, we are going to find out. Also the Quran about a person being deprived of light that they can hardly see. Now a ray of light is composed of seven colours: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange & red. And light when it hits water goes through what is called refraction. That mean that for example in the upper 10 to 15 meters the water absorbs the red colour & as you go deeper each of the colours in the spectrum become absorbed by the water until you get to a depth of below about 1000 meters there is complete darkness. Now what is amazing is that we also find in modern scientific discoveries that internal waves cover the deep waters of the seas & oceans. Because the deep waters have a higher density than the waters above them. So "waves upon waves": we have the internal waves in the deep-deep ocean & then we have the waves on top of the ocean & then the clouds & so on & so forth. They add to the darkness & disparity & the breaking up & the refracting of light. Now what is interesting is the deep darkness, remember what the Quran says: "they stretch out their hand they can hardly see it". This deep darkness begins below the internal waves in the ocean. In fact there are certain fish down at those depths which need their own lights in order to be able to see. And amazingly Allah has created these creatures that can actually generate their own lights. Now this is really amazing because of course very recently no one has been able to penetrate & to reach those deep parts of the ocean. It is only with extremely sophisticated modern machinery & submarines & diving suits that someone has been able to go down to that depth. Yet we have the Quran 1400 years ago describing the internal waves of the oceans & the darkness that is there at the depths of the oceans. How on Earth, how in the heavens could a man living in the desert 1400 years ago have known about such detailed information about a science like oceanography? Well, professor Rao who is an expert in
marine biology at the king Abdul Aziz university in Jeddah says: "1400 years ago a normal human being could not explain this phenomenon in so much detail. This information must have been coming from a supernatural source." My dear viewers, this even is not the end of the amazing scientific statements in the Quran. Because the next thing I'm going to deal with is cosmology, the statements in the Quran concerning the universe. Now until recently, or we could say up until the 1960s there was a major controversy between scientists concerning the state of the Universe. Some scientists believe & have begun to develop the idea that the Universe is in the state of flux, that the Universe was in fact expanding. And from this theory of expanding Universe also came another theory which is commonly known today as the Big Bang theory. This is the idea that the Universe had a common origin in a singularity, in a dense, condensed type of matter. The Universe was infinitely small we could say part of dense matter & this infinitely small dense matter then exploded into what is the Universe that we know today. Now this was opposed by the static state theory, the static state theory. And this was very much preferred theory of atheists, that the Universe was the way it was eternally in the past & will keep on being that way eternally in the future. And this was a theory that was really largely based at least initially & was believed in by Albert Einstein. And many people therefore followed on from that, with this idea of the static state theory. And so this idea of the Big Bang theory which was you know really held by Fred Hoyle. He was the person who supported this theory & Lemaitre who was opposing it with the idea of the Big Bang theory. Now evidence came to light that showed that variations in the light spectrum that were being emitted from galaxies & stars, which is called "Red shift" showed in fact that the Universe is expanding. And it's amazing that this scientific fact, that has now been confirmed, & it is agreed upon by almost unanimously all scientists in the field, that we live in an expanding universe. And the evidence very-very clearly & strongly suggest that. What does the Quran said 1400 years ago? Before there were telescopes & all the means to discover this information the Quran says in the 51st sura in the 47th ayat: "The Heaven, We have built it with power & we are expanding it." Lets just repeat that again: "The Heaven, We have built it with power & we are expanding it." 1400 years ago the Quran is mentioning how the Universe is expanding. The next most important observational evidence was the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964 by a powerful telescope. And this had been predicted in the Big Bang theory as a relic of the hot-ionised plasma of the early Universe when it first cooled sufficiently to form neutral hydrogen & allowed space to become transparent to light. And its discovery led to the general acceptance among physicists that the Big Bang is the best model for the origin & evolution of the Universe. What does the Quran say in the 21st sura in the 30th ayat? "Have not those who disbelieved known that the Heavens & the Earth were joined together as one united piece, then We parted them. And we have made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?" The common origin of the Universe or the singularity that scientists believe today the Universe originated from & which lead to the Big Bang. It is considered that the conditions of this singularity were so precise it is almost inconceivable that it could be in that way except that it has been made by an All-wise & powerful Creator. These are some of the amazing things that the Quran is telling us about the origin of the Universe. The Quran also mentions that Allah turned to the Heavens when it was Dukhan. And the word dukhan in Arabic means smoke. This also accurately describes the hot gaseous mass of the Universe before the galaxies & the stars began to be formed. So here we have the Quran 1400 years ago talking about the expanding Universe, talking about the common origin of the Universe, that the Heavens & the Earth were one, talking about the gaseous state the smoke-like state of the early Universe. This is in a book 1400 years old. Mentioning facts that scientists have only began to discover today & we have created from every living thing water. It's a fact that every living thing has its basis in & is fundamentally composed of water. You & me are about 70 to 80 % water. We are made of about 70 to 80 % water. The fact that has been mentioned in the Quran 1400 years ago. Will you not believe? Will you now not believe? What will it take to make you realise & to understand that the Quran is the Truth? That Muhammad is the Messenger of God? This is more evidence, the proof that Islam is the Truth. Join us for the next episode when we will be going through some more amazing facts from the Quran. Until then Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, may the peace & blessings of Allah & his guidance be with all of you.
 

Omar (ex Andrey)

toLive&DieForAllah!
Part 9 - Scientific Facts in the Quran (Part 2)

Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu. Welcome back to the proof that Islam is the Truth. Where in these episodes we've been discussing some of the amazing scientific miracles of the Quran. Information in a book 1400 years old & every Muslim believes is the uncreated word of Allah the creator of the heavens & the Earth revealed for the benefit & the guidance of all humanity. But it's not just the claim that we make. It's something that we can back up with evidence & we believe that for any rational human being, any thinking person who takes the time & takes the energy & takes the effort to look at these evidences & examine them dispassionately will come to know that truly Islam is what it claims to be: the religion that has been revealed by God, the Creator for the guidance & the benefit of all the mankind. And in our last episode we were talking about some amazing facts in the Quran concerning the Universe, how the Quran had described the Universe as expanding, that the Universe has a common origin & that the Universe that we know it a as today was formed out of a gaseous mass. And how all of this information was only discovered recently. Lets look at some more verses of the Quran concerning cosmology. One of the verses we want to mention is that Allah is the one who created the night & the day, the Sun & Moon. Each one is travelling in an orbit with its own motion. Now it's interesting that the Arabic word referring to movement with self-propelled motion is the verb "sabaha" & "yeswaboona" is what the actual text mentions. Now this implies the motion that comes from body in question itself. So if it takes place in water it means to swim, if it means on land it means to walk. So the implication is the movement is coming from the body itself. So if it was talking about something in space it would mean to rotate, it would itself rotate. Now this is amazing. The Quran is talking 1400 years ago about the Earth & the Moon & the Sun rotating. If you are perhaps thinking that the Sun is static - it's not. The Sun as does the Earth, as does the Moon they all rotate. Of course the Earth however rotates around the Sun, the Sun rotates around its own axes. So it is quite correct a saying & of course the Earth is in orbit round the Sun, & also by the way the Sun is also in orbit. But it is in orbit round the centre of the galaxy. In fact it is believed that ultimately if the Sun keeps going in its orbit it would ultimately end in what is known as the solar apex, a sort of position that it would end up in the centre of the galaxy. So what we find here is that the Quran is talking about things that no one could really know this information 1400 years ago, it is scientifically accurate. the idea of the alternation of the night & the day, & of the spherical nature of the Earth is actually implied in the 31st sura & the 29th ayat of the Quran: "How you not seen how Allah merges the night into the day & the day into the night?" And in another verse the 39th chapter in the 5th ayat or the 5th verse the Quran mentions: "He coils the night upon the day & he coils the day upon the night. And this word is used in the Quran, in the original Arabic is "kowarra". Kowarra in its original meaning means the action of coiling a turban around your head. Coiling a turban, so it describes kowarra, how the night & the day coils one round the other. And you can find that description of coiling a turban around your head. Turning a turban, so it describes kowarra how the night & the day coils one round the other. And you can find that description of the interpenetration of one sector by another is expressed in the Quran just as if the concept of the Earth's roundness had already been conceived at the time. Which is except for a few, there were a few philosophers who had theorised that the Earth was round but it was not really a generally accepted idea. But it is something that is implied in the Quran, & certainly we can gather this today from our present day knowledge. It's a very another interesting aspect that in one place in the Quran the word that is used to describe the shape of the Earth is the same word that is used to describe the egg of the ostrich. Now looking at this globe for example you may imagine that the Earth is completely spherical. But in reality that is not the case. The Earth is slightly misshaped, it is not a perfect sphere, & in fact slightly elongated, rather like an ostrich egg. So that it is incredible also that the Quran is describing that shape of the Earth. At least this is a possible interpretation of those verses. Certainly we can say that none of these things actually contradict present modern scientific knowledge. In fact if you think about it, if we were only to bring a book 1400 years old & you were to find absolutely no contradictions, & I don't mean here to say that the Quran affirms anything. Let’s say it doesn't affirm any scientific knowledge, let’s say it didn't even pre-empt any scientific knowledge. Lets say there was nothing special in the Quran, which of course is not the case because I have spent a couple of episodes showing you exactly how amazing the Quran is when it talks about aspects of the Universe & the world in which we live. But let’s just say those things were not there. Let’s just say there was nothing that contradicted present day knowledge. That itself alone would be remarkable. Because the superstitions & the beliefs that people had 1400 years ago were remarkable. For example the ancient Greeks believed that the Milky Way, the Milky Way is the band of stars that you can see in the sky, in fact it constitutes our Galaxy. They believed that the Milky Way was produced when a particular Greek Goddess was breastfeeding her child, & the child bit her breast & the milk spilled out & that's how the Milky Way got to be in the Universe. That's their legend of how the Milky Way came to be there. Of course today you'll probably will have a good laugh at that & how totally ridiculous it is. How come the Quran does not have any stories like that? How come the Quran does not have any fantastical descriptions of the origin of the Universe & the Earth? We find it doesn't. We find that what it says can be perfectly, easily & sensibly reconciled with modern scientific knowledge. No. Indeed many of the verses pre-empt what scientists have discovered today. Don't go away. We've got more for you in the next part of the proof that Islam is the Truth after the break.
Salam Alleykum, welcome back to the proof that Islam is the Truth. We were talking about some of the amazing scientific facts in the Quran that have been only discovered recently with modern scientific knowledge. Yet these things were mentioned in a book 1400 years old. Let’s look at some more of the amazing statements in the Quran. In the tenth sura in the fifth ayat, the fifth verse it's said: "It is He", meaning God, Allah, "who made the Sun a shining lamp & the moon as a light & measured out their stages." Now the Quran describes the Sun as "siradge". Now the word "siradge " means torch, means, it's something that generates its own heat & light, whereas the Moon is described as "anoor". Now "anoor" means a light that is originating from another source. And of course this is the correct understanding. The Moon reflects the light of the Sun. It's common knowledge today but not necessarily so in the time of the Prophet Muhammad. Let’s see what one of the respected cosmologists & scientists in the field of astronomy had to say when he was shown some of the statements in the Quran concerning his field of expertise. Yushidi Kusa who is a director of the Tokyo observatory in Tokyo in Japan. And this is what he said: "I say, I am very much impressed by finding true astronomical facts in the Quran, and for us modern astronomers who have been studying a very small piece of the universe. We have concentrated our efforts for understanding that very small part. Because by using telescopes, we can only see a very few parts of the sky without thinking about the whole universe. So by reading the Quran and by answering to questions, I think I can find my future way for investigating of the universe." What he is saying is that the one who is writing the Quran, the one who is revealing the Quran, the one who is speaking the words of the Quran is talking as if he is looking at the whole Universe together. as opposed to the scientists who concentrate on observing this bit or that bit of the Universe which is what most astronomers do. Who is it that sees the whole Universe altogether? Who is it who sees all things in all places in all times except Allah, the mighty, the wise? So these are some of the amazing scientific facts & we are going to move on also to another area that particularly interested me, because when I was at school one of the subjects that I studied was geography & a sub subject of that was of course geology. And I do remember when I first read the Quran twenty years ago, and it was reading the Quran that motivated me to embrace Islam, one of the things that stuck in my head & I remember it until today was coming across the descriptions in the Quran of mountains. So let’s go through some of the things the Quran says about mountains. For example in the 78th sura in verses six to seven Allah says: "Have We not made the Earth an expanse & the mountains stakes?" The word that is used here is "otad", "otad" meaning stake is like the peg of the tent. So the peg of the tent goes into the ground, it holds the rope that holds the tent, so you have a small part of the peg sticking up from the ground but the majority of the peg is inside the ground. The Quran also says in the 31st sura or the 31st chapter in the 10th verse: "And Allah has cast into the mountains standing firm so that it does not shake with you." Now today with modern sonar technology they have been able to bounce sound waves down through the Earth's crust. And according to different rates according to which the sound waves are reflected back & are measured they can tell the different density in the Earth's crust as supposed to what is hard & what is soft. What is from the crust & what is from the magna? And what they have discovered with this technology is exactly what the Quran was saying 1400 years ago. That the mountains have roots, the mountains like the peg of the tent, not only do they go up, go above the Earth surface, the mountains go deeply into the Earth core. And they act it has been theorised as stabilisers; they help to stabilise the Earth surface. And there are two ways in which they do that. Number one because the Earth is composed of tectonic plates. The crust of the Earth is actually made of different plates. And it is the movement of these plates that causes earthquakes. When these plates move against each other the friction of that movement causes earthquakes. And that's also what they think how continental drift has happened; originally they believe all the continents were one continent & that because of plate tectonics it moved. But the Quran is saying is that mountains act as stabilisers, they help to stabilise the Earth's crust & this is something that has actually been theorised by modern geologists. There is another way in which the mountains may act as a stabilising factor. That is to do with the rotation. May be if you try & spin something you will find that if it is not really spherical it will not, it will start to rotate & then it will start to wobble out of shape. And it is possible that the mountains actually act as a counterbalance to keep the Earth's rotation smooth. i do stress of course that these are theories but it is very interesting what the Quran is saying 1400 years ago & that it seems to be pre-empting the ideas & the knowledge that is being produced by modern day science. Certainly it is a fact that is established that the mountains have roots & the Quran is saying that mountains are like "otad", the pegs of a tent. So this is a remarkable scientific fact. It's one I remember sticking in my mind when I first read the Quran about 20 years ago. So these are one of the remarkable things. Also the Quran mentions some aspects of animal or plant life. For example the 16th chapter of the Quran is called sura an-Nahl which means the sura of the bee. And one of the aspects of the Quran, in this sura it is talking about the bee. And it's very interesting that the word that is used in the Quran for the bee that flies around gathering honey or gathering the nectar for the honey it is used in the female form. The gender that is used is feminine. Although until recently it was believed that the bees were actually soldiers, they were males, & the ruler of the hive was a king. But as it happens in fact we know that the bees are indeed female & they are owned or they are headed by a queen. That's why we are saying the queen bee. It's also true that the Quran mentions that plants have different genders & the winds are a means of fertilisation for the plants. So in the 15th chapter of the Quran in the 22nd verse it says that "We", meaning the Allah, the Creator, this is the We of nobility, it does not mean that there is more than one God of course, it is We in the sense that Royalty uses the term "we" it's a sense of honour & nobility, so the "Royal We" they call it, "We sent forth the winds that fesantei" that means that they fertilise things. These are all recently discovered things. Also we find the Greek philosopher Democritus who lived from 460 to 361 BC. He advanced the theory that matter was composed of tiny indivisible particles called atoms. And they believed that this was the base upon which all of things were made & there was nothing smaller than the atom. However modern science has discovered that atom is in fact devisable & the atom has been split & the atom itself is composed of smaller elements. The Quran says 1400 years ago in the 34th chapter & the 3rd ayat or the 3rd verse: "He is aware of an atoms weight in the Heavens & on the Earth & even anything smaller than that." Meaning there is something smaller than atom, & Allah, God is aware of it, every single thing. There is another thing I want to mention. God mentions in the Quran some amazing things about the human beings, & one of the things is about our nerves. Here is a very frightening & teriffying passage of the Quran. It's mentioned of the 75th chapter in ayats 3 to 4: "Does not Mankind think that we can not assemble his bones. Nay we are able to put together in perfect order the very tips of his fingers." God is telling us he can recreate us on this day, this terrifying day, this frightening day the Day of Judgement. he is able to recreate you even if you are dust, even your bones to the very tip of your finger. Why "the very tip of your finger"? Of course you've all heard of fingerprinting, haven't you? Every single human being’s fingerprint is unique. Why did God mention the fingerprint? Why did God mention the tip of the finger? This is the uniqueness of the human being. God is telling us: "Look! I can recreate you even to this fingertip, that is the power that I have. Even to your most unique attribute - I can create you to that. Be mindful, be careful. I will create you again on the Day of Judgement & I will judge you & ask you about every single thing that you have done. This is not common knowledge. How did anyone 1400 years ago know about fingerprinting? And Allah warns us in the 4th chapter of the Quran in the 56th verse: "Those who reject our signs, We shall soon cast them into the hellfire & as often as their skin is roasted through We shall change them for fresh skins, so they may truly taste the penalty, for Allah is exalted in power, the Wise." This is a very frightening description of the Hellfire. God is going to burn the skin & recreate the skin & burn the skin, so that people in the hellfire will taste the punishment. Why is the Quran saying that? It's only recently been known & discovered that when the skin is burnt a person does not feel any pain. That's why when a person suffers severe burns a doctor will prick the skin to see if the person can feel the pain. If he feels pain there are still nerve receptors left if he does not that means he skin has been so badly burnt he can not feel pain. So if God put people in the hellfire & the hell burnt their skins after that they will not feel the pain. so Allah is going to recreate the skin again so that they keep on tasting the punishment. It is a very severe warning from the One who has created you. He knows you better than you know yourself & He is warning you in His book of His knowledge & His ability that if you do not believe in Him & follow His guidance, see what is waiting for those people who reject the faith. My dear listeners, we have only one more theme we want to mention. The tree of Zakoon which will be the food of sinners & it will be like boiling oil that will boil in their bellies like the boiling of scalding water. "Taste this" Allah says in the Quran, "verily you are pretending to be the Mighty, the generous." Look at those Arabic people pretending to be mighty, pretending to be generous, but taste the zee tree of Zakoon that will boil in your belly. And it says they will drink water that cuts their bowel to pieces. It is very interesting. The thermal receptors are not present in the intestines but it is in the bowels. And the contents & the receptors in the bowels are highly sensitive. It's a very-very sensitive area & that is where pain is initiated. It's not a common knowledge 1400 years ago but it is a fact that is mentioned in the Quran as a stark warning to all those people who reject faith in God. God has combined the scientific facts with the severe warnings of those who disbelieve in Him. Our invitation is to invite you to His mercy, to His guidance & His forgiveness by accepting these truths, the proof that Islam is the Truth. Join us in the next episode for some amazing prophesies of the Prophet Muhammad in the Quran. Until then may God's peace & blessings & guidance be with you, Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu.

Part 10 - Historical Facts

Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu. Welcome back to the proof that Islam is the Truth. And here over these series we've been trying to show you the evidences through which & by which a rational intelligent human being could know that Islam truly is the revelation from Allah the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth for the benefit & for the mercy of all of humanity. And today we are going to be talking about some of the amazing historical facts that we can find in the Quran. Let's remind ourselves of course that the Quran is a book 1400 years old. Muslims believe it was revealed by God, the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth, Allah. It's the Arabic name for God. The one God, the Creator, the All-knowing, the All-wise. So it's not surprising to us as Muslims that the Quran should be accurate & should be consistent because it is revealed by the one who is the most All-knowing, who is the All-knowing & who is the wise. So of course it's natural, it's normal for us, we would expect it to be accurate & be consistent. But of course for people today, & many people are claiming they don't believe that there is a God or they don't believe that God sends us guidance & revelation. It remains a challenge to you & it remains a sign, a great sign, a proof, an evidence that every Muslim through it & by gets more certainty & gets more sure that the Quran is indeed what it claims to be - the revelation from the Mighty, the Wise. And so let’s talk about some of those historical facts in the Quran. Now first of all there is a story in the Quran about a great Prophet of God called Noah. And this Prophet of course is also mentioned in the Bible. I'm sure you all know the story of Noah, how God sent Noah to his people, 7 the people of Noah refused to believe in him & because of that God sent upon them a flood. Now before that flood God told Noah to build an ark. Now there are a few things about the story of Noah in the Quran. One of the things that is worth mentioning is in the 11th sura, or 11th chapter of the Quran in the 44th ayat. The Quran mentions that the ark, that's the boat that Noah built, came to rest upon mount Judi, "istawa Judi", istawa came to rest upon the mountain of Judi. Now the Quran is mentioning a specific name of the mountain where the ark of Noah came to rest. And it's very interesting that recent archaeological research around the area of mount Judi, in fact there is a mount Judi in Turkey in present day Turkey. And on this mouth Judi there is a boat-shaped object with exactly the same dimensions as the ark of Noah. Now the Bible claims that the Ark came to rest on Mount Ararat which is in fact 20 miles away from mount of Judi. And there are a few problems with the Biblical description. The first problem is that the mountains of Ararat, or the Mount Ararat itself is a relatively recent geological formation. When we look at the time scale when the ark of Noah was supposed to be around, the Mount Ararat did not actually exist at that time. It is very recent geological formation. So that's one problem. And also the dates & the times of it in the Bible flood & also the claim that the flood was a universal cataclysm. They don't fit the present day archaeological & scientific findings. First of all in scientific terms the idea that it could rain for 40 days & 40 nights constantly upon the Earth's surface is scientifically not viable. Of course anyone could explain that by saying "it was a miracle of God", "it was an exception". Of course we can not argue that God has the ability & the power to do that. But what we are saying is that in scientific terms for it to rain for 40 days & 40 nights is not possible. As anybody who knows how the water cycle works, the Sun heats up the Earth surface, heats up the sea, & the vapour from the sea is what is transformed into clouds & the clouds are then transformed into rain. Now of course if it is cloudy all over the Earth surface because of the rain then how can the Sun heat up the sea in order to produce more rain? All I'm pointing out here is that scientifically it's not viable. Also there is simply not enough water on this planet in order to raise sea level so high that as according to the Bible every single mountain peak was covered. Since Everest is the highest mountain peak today & it still was then, the amount of water that would be needed in order to raise the sea level above the level of Mount Everest is more than there is water on this planet in order to do that. Again we are not denying that God could do that if he wants to, all we are saying is that in scientific terms it's very difficult to verify such claim that the Bible makes. However the Quran does not claim that the flood of Noah was a universal or world-wide cataclysm. In fact the Quran merely refers to the punishment that is bestowed upon Noah & his people, as being something that is specific to Noah & his people. And so although we don't have any geological evidence for a universal cataclysm we do of course have plenty of geological evidence for local cataclysmic floods. So this is very interesting that the Quran first of all accurately points out that the ark came to rest on mount Judi & it seems that there is a very-very high probability that the boat-shaped object & surveys have been done there is the remnants of the massive boat. And where is it found? On mount Judi as Quran says. As for looking for the ark on Mount Ararat people have searched in vain for years & years & found nothing. The Bible describes a cataclysmic universal world-wide event whereas the Quran describes it as a local event. Again what we find here is that the Quran is in agreement with archaeological & scientific data. It's perfectly settable & it's viable & verifiable according to that. Let’s go to Egypt & look for some more amazing historical facts. The Quran mentions the story of Joseph & Noah & the Beni Israel, the children of Israel. Of course Muslims believe that Joseph or Yusuf as he is mentioned in the Quran was a prophet of God. Muslims also believe that Musa or Moses, may God's peace & blessings be upon both of them, was also a prophet of God. And their stories are mentioned in the Quran by way of a reminder, by way of a teaching to us. And that is of course the main purpose of the Quran, is to be a moral guideline, is to show us how we should live & how we should behave in our lives. But yet when the Quran is talking about historical data what we find again & again that it proves to be accurate. And there are some accuracies telling little accuracies that actually if one thinks about it are truly remarkable. And it stands as a challenge to the human intellect. How does this information come to be so remarkably accurate in the Quran? From where was the Prophet Muhammad gathering this information? A man who was himself illiterate, who could not read, who could not write. He didn't go to university. They didn't have Egyptology as a field of study at that time. The knowledge of hieroglyphs was lost hundreds & hundreds of years before the time of the Prophet Muhammad. So how come? When the Quran mentions about Joseph. Joseph refers to the leader of the Egyptian people at the time as king. The term "pharaoh" or "Farraun" is not mentioned in relation to Joseph & the ruler of Egypt. It is mentioned in relation to Moses. And the ruler of Egypt & Moses calls the ruler of Egypt Farraun. But Joseph does not call the ruler with whom he is interacting & who he acts as an advisor & a guide. He doesn't call him Farraun. He calls him king. And we are going to talk about why & how that is a remarkable historical accuracy after the break. Don't go away. Join us for the next part of the proof that Islam is the Truth, amazing historical statements in the Quran.
Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu. Welcome back to the proof that Islam is the Truth. And we are talking about amazing historical facts in the Quran. We were mentioning before the break how Joseph, or Prophet Yusuf, as he is mentioned in the Quran, Alleykim salam, may God's Peace & blessings be upon him, he talks to the ruler of Egypt & uses the term "king" he never uses the term "pharaoh". Now if we examine the date timeline of when Joseph, or Prophet Yusuf was in Egypt we find that the dynasty ruling Egypt at the time was in fact the dynasty called the "hicos". Now the hicos dynasty was actually a Semitic dynasty & they did not use the normal native Egyptian terms. In other words they did not think of themselves or refer to themselves as "pharaohs". However the hicos dynasty by the time of Moses was replaced also. By the time it came to the time of Moses the Semite hicos dynasty was removed & was replaced by a native Egyptian ruler. And the native Egyptians called their rulers "pharaoh" or "pharraun" as it's mentioned in the Quran. Now this is a very-very telling but amazing detail accuracy. It's amazing because you will not find that Bible is making such a distinction. Now in terms of a historical document or sort of diary of events of, you know your ancestors who lived thousands of years ago, well, writing down what they did, of course it, it might be perfectly acceptable in those type of terms to become confused between king & pharaoh for example. However for it to be the word of God we should expect it to be accurate & that's exactly what we find. And it also by the way belies any claim that the Quran was copied from the Bible. If the Quran was copied from the Bible & if the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him, took his information from the Bible, how come he didn't copy that mistake? How come Joseph does not refer to the ruler of Egypt as pharaoh? And how come he refers to him as king? Historically accurate but not according to the Bible. So this shows us two things. Number one, it begs the question again: How did the prophet Muhammad get this information so accurate? Number two: There is no way he could have copied it from the Bible, because he would have copied the mistakes of the Bible. And lets move on now to the time of Moses for another amazing historical accuracy. In the confrontation between the great prophet of God - Moses, & pharaoh. When Moses comes to pharaoh & he shows him the miracles & the signs that God has given him: the staff which when Moses throws it, it turns into a snake & he draws his hand out & it comes shining white. In the dialogue & the discussion & the debate we could say between Moses & pharaoh one of the things that pharaoh says very arrogantly is: "Oh, Hamad, build me a lofty tower that I may look upon this God of Moses. Now lets examine, this is very interesting. Pharaoh is saying: "Oh, Haman", he is talking to somebody, to a particular individual Haman. And he says to this Haman that I want you to build me a lofty building. And the reason is so he claims I can look upon this God of Moses. See, he understood that God was the most high, God was above the heavens & in his arrogance he thought, & how arrogant that is in respect of modern knowledge that we have that he could build a tower & look upon the God of Moses. Now some Christians & some Christian orientalists had pointed out that the word Haman or the term "Haman" is a name that is given to a Persian ruler or a Persian courtier in the Bible some 1200 years after the time of Moses. So they said that: Look, Muhammad could even copy the Bible properly. He took some name from some native time in the Bible & then plonked it in the time of Moses. Well, I mean there is a problem with that first of all. And one of the big problems is there was no Bible in Arabic in the time of the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him. And the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him also was illiterate, he couldn't read & write. From where was he receiving this knowledge? Who was the Rabbi or the Priest that was feeding him all of this information? It's very hard to explain such a thing in rational terms & certainly from all the accounts that we have of the life of the Prophet & all the information that we have with us we don't find any such individual who could have been supplying such detailed information. And then this individual, how come he managed to get this information wrong? Again these are not really viable hypothesis. However it is only recently that we have been able to discover a truly amazing fact. When Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt he sent out various scholars in order to do research & one of them came across a truly remarkable thing. It is called the Rosetta stone. The Rosetta stone allowed for the first time in thousands of years hieroglyphs to be deciphered. And the reason is, it's because the Rosetta stone had a particular inscription, a quite lengthy inscription in hieroglyphs in more modern form of hieroglyphs & then in Greek. So by comparing the inscriptions they were able to begin to translate & decipher the hieroglyphs. Now scholars have been working of course on translating the hieroglyphs & I myself remember personally when a group of students in Cambridge University who were trying to go through some of the plains of the orientalist that the Quran had been copied from the Bible & their intention of course was to refute that. And so they went to one of these dictionary of hieroglyphical terms in order to try & find out if there was such a person as Haman in ancient Egypt. Now although there was a lack of information in English they did find a book in German. And looking through this book they came across a truly remarkable discovery. Surely enough there was indeed a particular title of a person. And this title was exactly that "Haman". Now when we look at who was Haman, what was this title, what did this Haman do, in other words it was a position, it wasn't the name of the particular individual necessarily, it was the name of a position in Egyptian society. Now what was this position? Haman is the master of the quarry of those people who build the stone. Now isn't that truly remarkable that pharaoh is saying: Oh, Master of the Quarry, oh master of the people who build the stone, build for me a lofty tower that I may look upon this God of pharaoh. You will not find this anywhere in the Bible, you will only find this in the Quran. The knowledge of reading hieroglyphs as I have mentioned was lost hundreds of years before the time of Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him, yet in the Quran pharaoh is using an exactly accurate historical term. The question you have to answer is from did the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him, get this information? From where did he get such amazing knowledge? I think, you know by now the penny must be starting to drop, surely the clogs must be starting to line up in place, surely the realisation must be dawning upon you, if it has not already, that indeed the Quran is the revelation from Allah, the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth for the benefit & the mercy of all of mankind. Now the next subject that we want to deal with is a truly fascinating subject, & it will take a couple of episodes for us to go through it. And that is called the witnessing of the people of the book, that's what I've called it. And it's also dealing with the prophesies of the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him, in the Bible. Now, who are the people of the book? The people of the book according to the Quran, as they are called, it is as they are called "ahlel kitab", it means essentially the Jews & the Christians, first & foremost it means the Jews & the Christians, they are "ahlel kitab". Why? Because they have a scripture. The Jews have the Torah, the Christians have the Injil or combined together it's what we know as the Bible. Now there are other scriptures of course. For example the Jews do have other scriptures called the Talmud. And for the Jews that is a very important collection of documents. And ancient Christians before the time of the council of Nicea which is, was held about 345 years after the time of Jesus when the Gospels we know today as Mathew, Mark, Luke & John were canonised & formalised as being part of the Bible. In fact it's important to understand what does the Quran teach about the Bible. The Quran teaches us that the Jews & Christians have scripture with them & they have enough scripture with them in order for them to be able to know the truth. However the scriptures they have been altered & corrupted. Either things have been added, or things have been deleted, or things have been adjusted in one way or another. So this is what the Quran says for example in the second chapter of the Quran. The Quran tells us: "Woe to those who write the book with their own hands, & they say this is from Allah & it is not from Allah & they know that well." So the Quran says that there are people who are saying: "Our book is from God." "Our Bible is from God", but it is a book that they have changed. And they have changed it with their hands & by the way they are doing that until this day. And they claim it is from God & they know perfectly well that it is not from God. So woe to them for what their hands write & woe to them for the small gain that they get thereby. However that doesn't mean that we can't find information in the Bible, it doesn't mean that we can't clean some information out there. We believe as Muslims that there is enough Truth left in those scriptures through which & by which a sincere & honest Christian or a sincere & honest Jew could come to know the Truth of monotheism, that indeed there is only one God. And this is what we believe was the message of Jesus. We do not believe that Jesus called people to worship himself. No. He called people to worship the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth, just like Moses called people to worship the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth alone & to submit themselves to his divinely revealed guidance. This is what we call Islam - sincere submission to the will of the Creator of the Heavens & the Earth. So we are going to be talking about some of those people in the past, from the people of the book, Jew & Christians, who themselves have recognised the prophethood of Prophet Muhammad & testified to that. So join us in the next exciting episode of the proof that Islam is the Truth. Until then, Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu. May the peace & blessings of God & his guidance be with all of you.
 

Omar (ex Andrey)

toLive&DieForAllah!
Part 11 - Witness of The People of The Book

Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu. It's Abdur-Raheem Green & you are joining me for the proof that Islam is the Truth. And today we are going to be dealing with a really truly fascinating subject - the witnessing of the people of the book. Now I'm going to be reading a couple of long stories over these episodes so my hope I make it interesting for you. And I'm going to be interjecting it also with some references from the Bible & the Quran to show how the people of the book - the Jews & Christians from amongst their scholars & leaders & kings recognised that Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him, was what he claimed to be - the final Messenger from Allah. Now I'm going to start with a famous story that has been collected by Imam Bukhari & his Sahib. And we talked in one of the earliest episodes about the authentic nature of the verified Hadeeth of the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah's blessings be upon him. And this Hadeeth or this saying is taken from one of the most authentic collections after of teachings in Islam after the Quran & which is in Sahib Bukhari. And it's telling about how when the Prophet Muhammad at a certain time in his Messengership in Medina sent letters to various rulers & dignitaries throughout the world at the time including the Persian Roman Emperor for example, the Pope in Rome, Negus of Abyssinia, the Caucus the leader of the Kots in Egypt. And one of these letters reached Heraclius. Heraclius was the Roman Emperor at the time. And when Heraclius received this letter he called for his translator & he gathered together some of the Arabs who were there at the time, & one of them happened to be Abu Sufian. Abu Sufian was the cousin of the Prophet & he was the leader of Mecca & the leader in a sense in fact of the opposition to the Prophet Muhammad & the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia. He was therefore the leader of the pagans at the time & he happened to be in Jerusalem when Heraclius received this letter. So I'm going to read you that story. "He called for his translator who, translating Heraclius’s question said to them: Who amongst you is closely related to that man who claims to be a prophet. And Abu Sufyan replied: I am the nearest relative to him. And Heraclius said: bring him close to me & make his companions stand behind him. Heraclius told his translator to tell Abu Sufyan's companions that he wanted to put some questions to me regarding that man and that if I told a lie they should contradict me.’ - By the way it's Abu Sufyian who is actually telling the story, because at a latest age Abu Sufyan himself of course became Muslim. So he is telling the story in fact to Abdullah Ibn Abas, who was an early companion of the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him, & he is telling him the story & Abdullah Ibn Abas requoting. So there we are that when the court of Heraclius, & Heraclius is saying: "Ok, your companions stand behind you & if he tells a lie you must tell me that he is lying." Now Abu Sufyan said: ‘By Allah! Had I not been afraid that my companions were going to label me a lair, I would not have spoken the truth about the Prophet." So the first question Heraclius asked Abu Sufian was this. ‘What family status has he amongst you?’ I replied (Abu Sufian replied): ‘He belongs to a noble family amongst us.’ And Heraclius asked: ‘Has anybody else amongst you ever claimed the same before him?’ I replied: ‘No’. ‘Was anybody amongst his ancestors a king?’, - Heraclius asked. Again Abu Sufian replied "No." Heraclius asked: ‘Do the nobles or the poor follow him?’ Abu Sufian replied: ‘It is the poor who follow him.’ And then Heraclius asked: ‘Are his followers increasing or decreasing?’ Abu Sufian replied: ‘They are increasing’. Then he asked: ‘Does anybody amongst those who embrace his religion become displeased and renounce the religion afterwards?’ Abu Sufian replied: "No." Heraclius then said: ‘Have you ever accused him of telling lies before his claim?’ Again Abu Sufian says: "No." Heraclius says: "Does he break his truce?" Abu Sufian replied: "No. We are at truce with him now & we do not know what he is going to do with it.’ And Abu Sufian said: "I could not find opportunity to say anything against the Prophet except that time." Then Heraclius asked: ‘Have you ever had a war with him?’ And Abu Sufian said: ‘Yes’. ‘What was the outcome of the battles?’ "Well, sometimes we were victorious & sometimes he was victorious." And then Heraclius asked: ‘What does he order you to do?’ And Abu Sufian replied: ‘He tells us to worship Allah and Allah alone and not to worship anything along with Him, and to renounce all that our ancestors had said. He orders us to pray, to speak the truth, to be chaste and to keep good relations with our kith and kin’. Heraclius asked the translator to convey the following:
‘I asked you about his family and your reply was that he belonged to a very noble family. In fact all the Prophets come from noble families amongst their respective peoples. I questioned you whether anybody else among you claimed such a thing, your reply was in the negative. If the answer had been in the affirmative, I would have suspected this man was following the previous man’s statement - meaning if the Prophet, if there had been someone before him saying he was a Prophet, then the Prophet Muhammad might have just been imitating what the other guy was saying but no one amongst them had ever said that before. - Then I asked you whether any of his ancestors was a king. And you said "no." If you had said "Yes", I would have thought that this man was trying to take back his kingdom. - in other words used the mantle of prophethood to try & take back the kingdom. - Then I asked you if he was ever accused of telling lies before this - before his claim to prophethood - & you said "no". And then I wondered how can a person who never lies to people lie about Allah? How could a person who never lies to people lie about Allah? And then I asked you whether the rich people or the poor people follow him & you said that the poor people follow him. And so it is with all the Prophets, they have always been followed by that type of people. - The prophets are always followed by the poor & the weak & the oppressed - Then I asked you whether his followers were increasing or decreasing. You said they were increasing, and that is the way of true faith until it is complete in all respects. I further asked you if there was anybody, who, after embracing his religion, became displeased and discarded his religion. And you said "No." In fact this is the sign of true faith, when its delight enters the hearts and mixes with them completely. I asked you whether he had ever betrayed. You said "No." And so the Prophets never betray. I asked you what he ordered you to do. And you told me that he ordered you to worship Allah and Allah alone and not to worship anything else along with Him and forbade you from worshiping idols and told you to pray, & to speak the truth and not commit illegal fornication. If what you said is true, he will very soon occupy this place underneath my feet and I knew it from the scriptures that he was going to appear but I did not know that he would be from you, and if I could reach him definitely, I would go immediately to meet him and if I was with him, I would wash his feet.’ Heraclius then asked for the letter of the Prophet which was delivered by Dihya to the Governor of Busra, & then it was forwarded to Heraclius to read. And this is what the letter said.
"In the name of Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful. From Muhammad the slave of God & his Messenger to Heraclius the ruler of the Byzantines. Peace be upon him, who follows the right path. Furthermore I invite you to Islam, and if you become a Muslim you will be safe, and Allah will double your reward, and if you reject this invitation you will be committing a sin by misguiding your peasants: "O people of the scripture! Come to a word common between you and us that we worship none but Allah and that we associate nothing in worship with Him, and that none of us should take Lords beside Allah. Then, if they turn away, say: Bear witness that we are Muslims" (3:64). - This is of course the translation of a verse of the Quran. - And Abu Sufyan added, "When Heraclius had finished his speech and had read the letter, there was a great hue and cry in the Royal Court. And we were turned out of the court. I said to my companions surely the issue of Ibn-Abi-Kabsha - & that was a type of derogatory term, they used a nickname, they used for the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam - His affair has become so prominent that even the King of the Byzantines is afraid of him. And then I started to become sure that he would be the conqueror in the near future until I embraced Islam." Now this is really a truly remarkable story for two reasons. First of all as we mentioned & that's the topic that we are dealing with. How Heraclius knew that there was a Prophet still to come? From where did he know this? How did he know this? We are going to talk about it later. There are some things in the gospels that indicate that a Prophet is going to come after Jesus. And we are going to see from the Bible how that Prophet is almost certainly the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him. The second thing that is really amazing about that story is how Heraclius, this wise & intelligent Roman Emperor analysed the life of the Prophet, asked certain questions to be sure in his mind was he a fake or was he truthful. Did he have the characteristics of a person who was truly a Prophet of God or was he someone who could be not what he claimed to be & he found along every single count. Indeed the Prophet Muhammad matched the descriptions & the attributes of how a Prophet should be. We are going to be talking about some more people from the people of the book who witnessed the truth of Muhammad's prophethood after the break. Don't go away. Join us for more of the proof that Islam is the Truth.
Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu. May the peace & blessings of Allah be upon all of you & may he guide all of us closer to the right path. And today we are talking about the witnessing of the people of the book. Some truly remarkable stories from the Jews & the Christians, those people who lived in the time of the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him, who were expecting the arrival of a Prophet. And indeed Heraclius the Roman Emperor himself, or the Emperor rather of the Byzantines himself recognized that he was expecting a Prophet. He did not know how that, this Prophet was going to be from the Arabs but he recognised the description of the prophethood & the attributes & the qualities of prophethood when he questioned Abu Sufian who was the cousin of the Prophet & in fact was the leader of the opposition to the Prophet Muhammad may God's peace & blessings be upon him at the time. But I'd like to move a little bit earlier into an earlier time in the life of the prophet, & let’s talk about another great ruler at the time, & his name was Negus & he was in fact the king of Abyssinia. Now it so happened that in the early days in Mecca the Muslims were suffering a huge amount of oppression. In fact the pagan Meccans were really persecuting the Muslims terribly. A lot of them of course were very poor people & many of them were even slaves & women & they were the people in society that nobody really cared if you attack them or beat them or even kill them. In fact some of the Muslims had even been killed due to torture & terrible things by the leaders of Mecca. And things became so bad that they decided they had to leave. So the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him he told his followers to go to Abyssinia & he said there is a king who will never do you injustice. So anyway they migrated to Abyssinia. Now it happened that Quraish had very good relationships with the Abyssinians & knew personally the king of Abyssinia. And they sent a delegation, their object was to try & retrieve the Meccans who had escaped & bring them back with them. So the Quraish went to the king, they sent a delegation & they went to the king & they complained to the king that we have these fugitives, they have escaped their country, they have been insulting the religion of our ancestors & kept on telling him stories & so on & so forth. So anyway Negus ordered the emigrants who had come to his country to his court & he asked them about their religion & what was this claim. And Jafar ibn Abu Taalib who was the leader of the Muslims in Abyssinia gave this very beautiful little speech. And this is how he explained their condition to the King. He said: "O king, we were an ignorant people, worshipping idols, eating carrion and indulging in sexual pleasures. We ridiculed our neighbours, a brother oppressed his brother, and the strong devoured the weak. At this time a man rose amongst us, who had already been known to be truthful, noble and honest. This man called us to Islam. And he taught us to give up worshipping stones, to speak the truth, to refrain from bloodshed, and not to defraud the orphans of their property. He taught us to provide comfort to our neighbours and not to bring slander against chaste women. He enjoined on us to offer prayers, observe fasts and give charity. We followed him, gave up polytheism and idolatry and refrained from all evil deeds. It is for this new way that our people have become hostile to us and compel us to return to our old misguided life." Now when the king of Abyssinia heard that there is no way that I will return these people to you, there is nothing that they have done wrong & they are free to stay & live in my kingdom. So anyway the Muslims left thinking that was the end of it, but no, the delegation of Quraish were not going to give up so easily. One of them thought to himself: I know. Lets tell Negus what they say about Jesus, so they went to Negus & they said, & he said to him: "You know the Muslims, they don't say that Jesus is God or the son of god, they say he's only a Prophet of God. Ask them what they believe about Jesus & you'll see they even insult your own religion. Anyway Negus called t hen back to the court the other day & Jafar ibn Abu Taalib he was very worried, he didn't really know what to say but he determined to speak the truth, & to tell him exactly what was in the Quran. So Negus asked him: "What do you say about Jesus?" So Jafar said: "We say what our Prophet says, that he is a Messenger from Allah & his word which he bestowed upon Mary & a spirit from him. So this is what we believe concerning Jesus & that he was given the Injil." And when Negus heard this he said: "Truly Jesus said nothing more than that about himself. What is this book that you read", - Negus asked. And Jafar ibn Abu Taalib he read the first few verses of sura al Mariam, which are very-very beautiful verses talking about Jesus. And when he read these verses Negus began to cry & so did all, many of the assembled courtiers, even the Bishops they began to cry because of these beautiful words about Jesus in the Quran. And then Negus said: "Verily what your Prophet has brought & what Jesus said are two things from the same source. You are free to stay & live in my kingdom." In fact the same Negus of Abyssinia himself converted to Islam. He most certainly recognised the Truth that Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him was a Prophet of God. There was in Arabia one Christian. There were not many Christians at all in pagan Arabia, but there was one & his name was Waraka & he was a very distant cousin of the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him. In fact he was more closely related to Khadija who was the first wife of the Prophet & for many-many years of course his only wife. And when the Prophet Muhammad first received the first verses of the Quran he came down terrified running, he did not know what this experience was, it was a frightening experience to him, & he came running to his wife & his wife suggested (Khadija) that they should go & visit Waraka & see what he had to say about this. Now Waraka, when he heard about what the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam had experienced said that this is the holy spirit, this is the Angel Gabriel, the spirit that comes with the revelation that has been sent to you. And then he went on to say: "Surely, by him in whose hand is Waraka's soul, if you are the Prophet of these people, & there has come to you the greatest angel who came to Moses, you will be called a liar & they will use you despitefully & cast you out & fight you." So this is what Waraka said. And he said: "By Allah if Allah gives me life I will most certainly follow you." In fact Waraka died very soon after that. But we also want to talk about the Jewish community. There was a Jewish community, quite a large Jewish community that lived in Arabia & some of those people had specifically emigrated because they were expecting in Arabia the coming of the last Prophet. In fact out of the Rabbis of Medina half of them actually became Muslim. And one of the very famous & most learned of the Rabbis of Medina was Abdullah ibn Salam. In fact he said concerning the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him: We knew your name & we knew the time & the place of your coming. And he accepted Islam. In fact when he accepted Islam he said to the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam: "Oh, Messenger of Allah, the Jews are a very tricky people so let us test them before we announce of my embracing Islam. So what he did is, he gathered all the Jews & he got the Prophet Muhammad to talk to them. And the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him asked the Jews, he said to them: "What would you say if Abdullah Ibn Salam became Muslim?" They said: "May Allah protect us from that, he will never become Muslim." "So, well, what do you think of him?" He said: "He is the best of us & the most knowledgeable person amongst us & he is the wisest amongst us. He would never become Muslim." And again the Prophet said: "What would you say if he became Muslim?" They said: "No he will never become Muslim, may Allah protect us from that." And when they said that the third time then Abdullah Ibn Salam stepped out from where he was hiding, he said: "Ash-Hadu A-La ILAHA ILA-LLAH. Ash-Hadu Ana Mohamadan Abduhu wo rassulu." And when he said that then the Jews started say: "He is the most ignorant amongst us & he is the worst amongst us & he is the least on two know anything amongst us." So they completely changed their tune once he had become Muslim. But Abdullah Ibn Salam was one of the very famous Jews & the Jewish Rabbis who converted to Islam in the time of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. Because he recognised that Muhammad was the person that had been foretold in his scriptures. We are going to have some more fantastic stories & amazing histories of those people of the book who converted to Islam based on their knowledge of the prophesies of the Prophet Muhammad in the Bible & we are going to be detailing some of those in our next episode. So don't forget to join us for the proof that Islam is the Truth. Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu.


Part 12 - Muhammad PBUH in the Bible (Part 1)
 

Omar (ex Andrey)

toLive&DieForAllah!
Part 15 - Signs of the last days

Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, may the peace and blessing of Allah be among all of you & may He guide all of us to the right path & to the truth. Today it’s our last & final episode of the proof that Islam is the Truth. We’ve been through many different amazing things. But the last thing we are going to finish with today are some of the signs of the last day. Things that the Prophet Muhammad said that would happen before the end of time and of course the first thing the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam said, the first thing that he said would be the first thing of the signs of the last days is his death & the last day is soon upon us. & that’s what the prophet said then 1400 years ago, how close must it be now. Let’s look at some other things the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah’s peace & blessings be upon him said in various narrations.
First of all the Prophet Muhammad mentioned that amongst the signs of the last day is that you would see the barefooted Bedouins compete with each other in building tall buildings. This is remarkable because I invite anybody to look & go & visit Dubai & Waldabi, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain. These are places where 60 years ago I remember when I was in Kenya and they were complaining how there was no more money coming from Saudi Arabia after 9/11 & so on & so forth. & they were saying well you know 60 years ago we used to send money to Saudi Arabia to help the orphans & the Madrasas there. Now you will find the people who only 60 years ago were barefooted Bedouins competing with each other in who can build the tallest building in the world in fact it’s said there’s going to be six of the tallest buildings in the world in Dubai in the years to come. This is something the Prophet Muhammad was predicting 1400 years ago. It is truly a sign of the last days.
The Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam also mentioned that the Mosques would become like palaces. And this is the case even though the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam ordered simplicity in the houses of Allah the fact is that they’ve become more & more fantastic & more & more money is being spent on these Mosques with domes & floors & golden domes & floors & everything to match with so much lavish chandeliers, & carpets, like palaces as the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam said would happen.
Also the Prophet mentioned that trustworthiness would disappear so much so that the person would be able to say “I know a trustworthy person in such & such town.” Are you asking yourself if maybe that is not the case today?

Also the Prophet mentioned that there will be increase in killing, the Prophet called it “Hardge” to the extent that the one who is being killed & the one who is killing they don’t even know. The one who is being killed doesn’t know why he is being killed, the one who is killing doesn’t know why he is doing the killing. I think this is describing the condition of some cities today where kids are shooting people. The person has no idea why he was shot, in fact people are being shot merely just to prove themselves or for any type of madness that you can imagine. Not even to mention the massacres of so many people that is taking place due to terrorism whether it is the terrorism of countries or the terrorism of organisations & individuals. We shouldn’t really make a difference – it’s all terror when women & children & innocents get killed – it’s terror by the hands of whoever it is. People do not know why they are killing or why they are being killed to such an extent that it is unimaginable just as the Prophet Muhammad predicted 1400 years ago.

Also the Prophet mentioned that there will be the increase in the use of ribba which means usually interest, credit cards, mortgages, things like that. In fact to the extent that no one would be able to escape the dust of it. Everybody will be affected by it. And this is without doubt the truth of the world economy today, the whole world economy is affected & controlled by banks & the use of interest money even though in Islam it is totally prohibited, even though in Christianity up until the 16th – 17th century ribba was forbidden, in Christendom as well but yet today it is something that controls the world economy to the extent that no one can escape it just as the Prophet Muhammad predicted 1400 years ago.

The Prophet also said that there will be an increase in literacy in fact so many people will be able to read & write that actually knowledge will decrease. Isn’t that a type of paradox? More people will read & what do we end up reading most of us we read rubbish, we read rubbish stuff but we can read, but knowledge, especially knowledge of the religion despite of the fact that more people can read, ignorance has become prevailing. And this is what the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam said: “That religious knowledge would decrease not by the books disappearing, not by you know knowledge being taken from the minds of the people. No, the knowledge in the sense of the books will be there but the scholars, so that only the ignorant people will remain. And people will ask them for religious verdicts and they will give it even though they are ignorant, and they will misguide themselves & misguide others. Anyone acquainted with the Muslim world today will be familiar with this. And the Prophet mentioned: “The speakers will be many & the scholars will be few.” And this is what we can find exactly. There are many speakers, many thinkers, many intellectuals, many people Alhamdullilah giving Davah, maybe not enough people but to scholars they are so few and this is a type of sign of the last day when the scholars will be taken away & this is exactly what we find happening.

Also the Prophet Muhammad SAAS said that there'll be going to be such an increase in musical instruments & Muslims will make it lawful even though it is forbidden, the use of musical instruments it has been forbidden by the Prophet some Muslims people will make it lawful & there are many people who are saying it's allowed even though it is very clearly mentioned in Sahih Al Buhari, the most authentic collection of hadith & this is mentioned here, this hadith where the Prophet predicted that the people will make it lawful even though the Prophet made it unlawful. And it's come true just as the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him said.

Also he mentioned there'll be an increase in sexual promiscuity even though Islam is a religion that teaches chastity that a man and a woman should confine themselves to marriage. The Prophet said there'll be an increase in sexual promiscuity & I don't think anyone can deny that that is the state of the world today with highly sexualized images & even traditional societies that normally had good traditional moral values. For example like India, even in India for example promiscuity is becoming more & more common, hardly than it ever was before. Even in Muslim countries where the whole idea of sexual promiscuity is so against the teachings of Islam it is unfortunately becoming more & more common, & the Prophet Muhammad said that because of these diseases would appear that people had never heard of before. Isn't that the case? Aids for example, diseases that people had never heard of before will arise due to sexual promiscuity. And this has taken place just as the Prophet Muhammad predicted Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam. He mentioned that women will be naked although they are dressed. I don't think this is a better way of describing the dress of some women today which in all but means is nakedness, with the clothes that are so tight they describe every shape of the body which this technology did not exist to make those type of clothes in the time of the Prophet, yet the Prophet Muhammad is describing how this nakedness among the women will become prevalent.

And also the Prophet mentioned that there will be shouting in the Mosque, something that is prohibited in Islam & it's something I have witnessed myself.

And also the Prophet said the worst & the most ignorant people will become the leaders & really I have to say if we look at some of the world leaders today even at some of the superpowers it seems as if what the Prophet said about the worst & most ignorant people becoming leaders seems to have taken place exactly as the Prophet Muhammad said.

Also he mentioned that a man will obey his wife & disobey his mother, something really contrary to the teachings of Islam. He will rather listen to his friends than listen to his father. And this is something that we have found happening in the Muslim World even though this is so against the teachings of Islam.

Men will wear gold & silk & they will make it lawful even though the Prophet has made it unlawful.
People will abandon the religion of Islam for a small worldly gain & keeping on to the religion will be like holding two hot coals. I'm mentioning all of these things & there are many-many more things that the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam mentioned. But these are some of the small signs concerning the events that will take place before the last day. And as we can see these things that I have gone through almost without exception they have come true in a way that is so-so clear & so-so obvious & so-so apparent.

I want to spend a little bit of time talking about some of the authenticated miracles of the Prophet Muhammad, I mean of course the greatest miracle that was given to the prophet Muhammad was the Quran. But there are many authenticated miracles & it is not often known & mentioned that were done through the Prophet Muhammad by the power of God. For example even at the birth of the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him when he was taken by the witness Halima & she was the only one willing to take him, even though he was an orphan. Because he was an orphan no one was really expecting that they would get any reward & they will get well-paid, but Halima, his witness, & that was the tradition of the Arabs, they used to send their babies out into the desert where it is more healthy to be nursed by the Bedouin women & Halima, she took this responsibility even though she was not really expecting much reward. And from the moment she did this she found that everything changed, even the goats in her tribe started to get fatter, wherever they went there was grass for them to feed, she herself became stronger & more healthy & was producing more milk & as long as the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam was with her she found these blessings happen in fact she commented to her husband & to the tribe that surely we had been given a blessed child.

When the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam before he was a Prophet, one of the things that would happen was the stones would speak to him & they would say to him Muhammad you are the Messenger of Allah & this is the type of things that would happen these are some miracles & true & authentic miracles that happened to the Prophet. Don't go away we are going to talk of about some more of those after the break in the proof that Islam is the Truth.
Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu welcome back to the proof that Islam is the truth & we are talking about the authenticated miracles of the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him, things that were witnessed by his companions who lived with him & saw these things & recorded them & we have these things until today. And we are only mentioning a few because we don't have too much time we can't go thoroughly into every single one, so we are just mentioning a few of them.

There's one famous incident. When the Prophet Muhammad when he used to deliver the sermon, the Friday sermon, in the mosque in Medina. There is a certain post which he used to lean against. But then he decided it would be better if he stood on a type of pulpit & so they had constructed some steps & the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam would walk up & climb & stand on those steps & he would deliver his sermon from there. & when he walked up & climbed on the steps the post that he used to lean on began, a sound came out of it like a crying sound & the Prophet went & stroke this, the post was crying because the Prophet Muhammad was not leaning on it any more. And this is how the sadness that post felt because the Prophet had left it is amazing thing how this crying noise was heard coming out of the post.

There are many narrations that are reported where animals used to come & complain to the Prophet Muhammad. There's one example when some companions had stolen the eggs from the nest of a bird & this bird was seen flapping round the head of the Prophet Muhammad. & the Prophet said who are those people who have stolen the eggs from the nest of the bird & he told them to return it that his mama is distressed because of whet you have done. Also a camel complained to the Prophet Muhammad that its owner was overloading it, & from this the Prophet Muhammad warned us & told us not even to oppress the animals under our care, & that we should be careful not to overburden them with more than that they are able to take.

There is a famous & beautiful story how Abu Hureira who was one of the companions of the Prophet used to feel so hungry sometimes used to faint at the door of the mosque & people used to tread on him because they thought he was mad. And one day he went to Abu Bakr & he didn't want to tell anyone that he was really almost dying of hunger. So he went & he asked Abu Bakr a question about the Quran, hoping that Abu Bakr would recognise his weakness, but he didn't, & he went to Omar & the same thing happened. But when he went to the Prophet straight away the Prophet Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam said come with me. He told Abu Hureira to come with him & he went to his house and he asked his wives: "What do we have in the house to eat?" They had nothing except a bowl of milk. This is the house of the Messenger of God. In the house of the messenger of God among all his wives all they had to drink between them is a bowl of milk. & he said give it to me. Then he said to Abu Huraira: "Go & get the people of the bench". Now the people of the bench were all the poor people who use to sleep next to the Mosque. And Abu Hureira was thinking: "If I call them there's not going to be enough milk for me. There's hardly enough milk for me let alone to feed all the people of the bench." But then he thought: "I must obey the order of the Prophet Muhammad". So he said: "Ok I would do it because even, because this is what the Prophet said." So he called them. And the Prophet got Abu Hureira to sit on his left. And now in Islam when we pass something we pass it from the right & so the Prophet passed his bowl of milk from the right went around all the people. And every time Aby Hureira was thinking: "There's not going to be enough milk left for me, there's not going to be enough milk left for me." And eventually when the milk got to him he drank from the milk & then the Prophet Muhammad said: "Drink again." And he drank again. And then the third time the Prophet said: "Drink again." And Abu Hureira said: "I can't drink I am full." This is a miracle of course how the small amount of milk was so much to feed so many people. And this is not the only time such an event happened.

Also the Prophet made a miraculous night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem & up from Jerusalem through the heavens where Allah gave him the five prayers & he saw many wonderful signs in the heavens. Now many people when they heard this they actually started to disbelief in Islam. They came to Abu Bakr, they said: "Oh, Abu Bakr, you know what your friend is saying now? He said he went on a journey to Jerusalem in one night & then went up through the heavens. Abu Bakr said: "If that's what the Prophet said he did - it happened because he never lies." Anyway people started saying: "Prove to us that this is the case." So the Prophet Muhammad he described a caravan that he had seen on the way, meaning a caravan, you know, of camels, and a trade caravan. He described this caravan & what it looked like & he also described to the people Jerusalem & what it was like. Two days later the caravan arrived & it was exactly how the Prophet Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him had described it. And then when the people asked the caravan they had come from Jerusalem & they described to the people how was Jerusalem & it matched exactly their description of the Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu Alleyhem Va Salam.

Of course another great miracle that was given to the Prophet Muhammad was the splitting of the moon. The pagan Arabs kept asking the Prophet for a sign, kept asking him for a sign, so he, eventually Allah gave him this sign & the moon was split in two, where the two parts of the moon were on each side of the horizon. Of course the pagan Arabs did still not believe in spite of all of that.

Anyway those are just some of the miracles of the Prophet Muhammad which Allah gave to him. And I'm only mentioning them by way of completeness because of course really for those of you who are thinking, for those of you who are thinking deeply out whole series has been about something really miraculous. Those proofs & evidences that we have presented you through which & by which you might know that the Quran is truly what it claims to be - the word of God, that Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him is what he claimed to be - the final Messenger of God, of Allah, sent for the benefit (блага) and the mercy of all of mankind. We have discussed matters rational & matters mysterious, we have talked about all sorts of wonderful things, but the question I need to ask you now. What is preventing you from accepting the truth that there's nothing worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad may Allah's peace & blessings be upon him is indeed the final messenger of Allah? Is it fear? Are you afraid? What will the people say if I become Muslim? What will people say about me? What will happen to me at work? What will happen to me at school? What will happen to me at my home with my parents? Is this what is preventing you from accepting the truth? Oh my dear people! You should be more afraid of Allah. You should be more afraid of your Lord. You should be more afraid of the punishment of the hellfire that awaits those people who reject truth. A fire where Allah will burn the skin & recreate the skin so that people can taste the punishment, a place where water, boiling water will be poured on people's faces that will burn the faces & burn out the insides. This is the punishment saved for those people who reject truth. Is it not more appropriate & worthy that you should be afraid of that? Are you not afraid that Allah will send a punishment upon you that he did sent the punishment upon Noah & his people, about the people of Sodom & Gomorra, the people of Lot, the Prophet Lot? Are you not afraid of the chastisement will come from your Lord in this life? Maybe it is arrogance. Maybe it is pride. Maybe you think that the virtue of belonging to a certain tribe or a certain nation or a certain country. Maybe you think you are so powerful, but Allah is more powerful. Have you not travelled the Earth & see what has happened to those people before? Civilisations, strong & power & might. And what is left of them? Ruins. Where did all their science & their technology & their wisdom & their intelligence lead them, if it did not take them to the belief & the acceptance of the truth, that Allah is the true object of worship, that Muhammad is the true Messenger? Maybe it is my dear people that you are not sincere, you do not care about truth. You only care about the things of this world. But you should care. You should care about the things of this world because the true happiness of this world is in obeying your Lord & knowing your Lord & worshiping your Lord. How many people of this world leave it & they never taste it, the sweetest thing in life, the sweetest thing in this life is to know Allah & to follow his religion & his guidance that he sent down. All I can say ultimately is that Allah has guided me to Islam & it is the happiest & the best & the most complete way of life a human being could ever live. I just ask you to do one thing. Pray. With your heart, with your soul, with your mind. Ask & pray God in humility, in sincerity. Raise your hands & say & beg: "Oh, God! Guide me to the Truth, open my heart to the truth, if Islam is the truth guide me to it & make me happy with it & help me to follow it & help me to be a sincere Muslim if it is the truth, oh God, Creator of the Heavens & the Earth!" May Allah guide me, you always to the truth, Assalamaleykum Arahmatullahi va Barakatu, may the peace & blessings of Allah be with you always.
 

Robab

daughter of Adam
jazakallah for ur effort

Asalam o alicom.
this is very interesting and informatic article.May allah bless u and give u best reward for ur hard work.it is very admirable thing that brother u have keen interest in deen.so we feel lucky that u join this community.and u r doing very hard work for Allah sake.May allah love u.so i expect u shall write more and more for us.
i appreciate ur work and struggle which u r doing with full devotion.
inshallah u will find reward from Allah.
we are very thankful to u.
ur sister in islam
robab:tti_sister:
 

OneSquared

Ya Elahi!
:salam2:

Thank you for posting this. NO OTHER religion have these solid proofs....and of course they can't because they are all false anyway.:SMILY335:

:wasalam:
 

Robab

daughter of Adam
jazakallah for this link

Asalam o alicom.
thanks brother for ur telling this useful link.
 
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