The Light 2018 03 March issue
English organ of the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam. Presenting Islam as taught by the Holy Prophet Muhammad (s) as a tolerant, peaceful, inclusive, loving, rational religion. To learn more go to www.virtualmosque.co.uk
English organ of the Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam. Presenting Islam as taught by the Holy Prophet Muhammad (s) as a tolerant, peaceful, inclusive, loving, rational religion. To learn more go to www.virtualmosque.co.uk
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ِ ی م الرَّحم<br />
ن<br />
ِ<br />
سب اہللِ الرَّْحم ٰ<br />
ْ م ِ<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Light</strong><br />
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Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam<br />
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Contents<br />
<strong>The</strong> Call of the Messiah 2<br />
Answer_to_allegations 3<br />
by Dr Zahid Aziz<br />
Proof_of_Messengership 9<br />
by Mr Omar Raja<br />
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I Shall Love All Mankind.
<strong>March</strong> <strong>2018</strong> <strong>The</strong><br />
<strong>Light</strong> 2<br />
<strong>The</strong> Call of the<br />
Messiah<br />
by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam<br />
Ahmad<br />
<strong>The</strong> Promised Messiah and Mahdi<br />
(Translator’s note: Although given in quotation<br />
marks, the Quranic references are explanations<br />
rather than literal translation of the verse<br />
quoted.)<br />
Divine revelation in other Religions 1<br />
I will now discuss some of the more important<br />
religions which are showing great missionary<br />
activity, so we can see whether they can<br />
take a human to the stage of perfect certainty<br />
regarding Divine existence. Can their scriptures<br />
contain the noble promise that they can make<br />
their true followers the recipients of a certain<br />
Divine revelation? And whether, if they do so,<br />
this promise is borne out by facts.<br />
First, I take the religion which is named after<br />
Christ. <strong>The</strong> response to the questions asked<br />
above is very easy and simple in its case. <strong>The</strong><br />
Christians are unanimous in the belief that, after<br />
the time of Christ, the fountains of Divine<br />
revelation and inspiration closed to all. <strong>The</strong><br />
blessing of Divine revelation has according to<br />
them been left behind, and it now remains<br />
closed to the day of judgment. <strong>The</strong> door of Divine<br />
grace being shut, by which alone salvation<br />
can be obtained, a new plan of salvation has<br />
been set up. This plan is opposed to the established<br />
principles of the world, and it is contrary<br />
to human reason and Divine Justice and Mercy.<br />
It is said that Jesus Christ bore the sins of the<br />
world and chose to die on the cross. And that, by<br />
his death, others may be delivered, and that Almighty<br />
God killed His innocent son to save the<br />
sinners. We are unable to understand how the<br />
pitiable death of one man can purify the hearts<br />
of others from the impure quality of sin and<br />
how by the murder of one innocent man, others<br />
can be absolved of the sins and crimes which<br />
they have committed.<br />
This course is directly opposed to justice<br />
and mercy. To punish the innocent in place of<br />
the offender is against justice. Causing the son<br />
to be murdered cruelly with no fault on his part<br />
is contrary to Divine Mercy, and the whole affair<br />
is a meaningless transaction.<br />
I have already stated that the real cause of<br />
the prevalence of sin is the absence of true Divine<br />
knowledge. If the cause is not removed, the<br />
effect cannot be annulled, for the cause must<br />
bring about its effect. It is a strange philosophy<br />
that sin is supposed to be made non-existent<br />
while its cause, the lack of Divine knowledge remains,<br />
as strong as ever. Experience shows that<br />
without full knowledge of a thing we cannot<br />
know its true value, nor can we love or fear it.<br />
But love and fear are the only incentives to action<br />
and a person does not do or abstain from<br />
doing a deed, without love or fear motivating<br />
him. <strong>The</strong>refore, it is clear that unless the love or<br />
fear of the Divine Being is generated in the<br />
heart, which depends upon a true and perfect<br />
knowledge of God, it is impossible that one<br />
should be released from the bondage of sin. But<br />
so far as the Christians are concerned, I am<br />
bound to state for the sake of truth that their<br />
knowledge of God is imperfect and ambiguous.<br />
<strong>The</strong> doors of Divine revelation are forever<br />
closed, and miracles ended with Jesus and his<br />
apostles.<br />
What is left then in our hands to judge the<br />
truth of the Christian religion except for the authority<br />
of reason? But the deifying of a man has<br />
already flouted reason. If the old stories of miracles<br />
as narrated in the Gospels are adduced in<br />
support of Christianity, various objections may<br />
be put forth against this evidence by one who<br />
does not admit the truth of the Christian religion.<br />
In the first place, it is impossible to ascertain<br />
how much truth and what reality is contained<br />
in these narratives. <strong>The</strong>re seems to be no<br />
doubt that the evangelists were great exaggerators.<br />
For instance, in one of the Gospels it is<br />
written that if all the things which Jesus did had<br />
been written in books, the world could not have<br />
contained those books. This is a most extravagant<br />
statement. How could the world prove insufficient<br />
for the record of deeds which were<br />
contained in it in an unrecorded state, deeds<br />
1 Excerpt from “Lecture in Sialkot.<br />
I Shall Love All Mankind.
<strong>March</strong> <strong>2018</strong> <strong>The</strong><br />
<strong>Light</strong> 3<br />
done by one man within the limited period of 3<br />
years in a very small province?<br />
Secondly, the miracles stated to have been<br />
performed by Jesus were in no way superior to<br />
the miracles of Moses. Even the miracles of Elijah<br />
display a greater power than those of Jesus.<br />
If the performance of certain miracles can make<br />
a man God, many of the prophets shall be entitled<br />
to Divinity.(Return to contents)<br />
<strong>The</strong> answer to the allegation<br />
that wife-beating is approved<br />
in Bukhari<br />
by Dr Zahid Aziz<br />
Critics of Islam have widely circulated a<br />
hadith report from Bukhari to allege that when<br />
a woman, who had been badly beaten by her<br />
husband, complained to the Prophet<br />
Muhammad, he sided with her husband and<br />
told her to have sexual relations with him, and<br />
said that she could not get divorce from him<br />
despite his beating her. Given below is this hadith<br />
report, from Muhsin Khan’s English translation<br />
of Bukhari from which they quote it:<br />
Narrated Ikrimah:-<br />
Rifa‛a divorced his wife whereupon Abdur<br />
Rahman bin Az-Zubair Al-Qurazi married her.<br />
Aishah said that the lady (came), wearing a<br />
green veil and complained to her (of her husband)<br />
and showed her a green spot on her skin<br />
(caused by beating). It was the habit of ladies to<br />
support each other, so when Allah’s Messenger<br />
came, Aishah said, “I have not seen any woman<br />
suffering as much as the believing women.<br />
Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes!”<br />
When Abdur Rahman heard that his wife had<br />
gone to the Prophet, he came with his two sons<br />
from another wife. She said: “By Allah! I have<br />
done no wrong to him but he is impotent and is<br />
as useless to me as this,” holding and showing<br />
the fringe of her garment. Abdur Rahman said,<br />
“By Allah, O Allah’s Messenger! She has told a<br />
lie! I am very strong and can satisfy her but she<br />
is disobedient and wants to go back to Rifa‛a.”<br />
Allah’s Messenger said, to her, “If that is your intention,<br />
then know that it is unlawful for you to<br />
remarry Rifa‛a unless Abdur Rahman has had<br />
I Shall Love All Mankind.<br />
sexual intercourse with you.” <strong>The</strong>n the Prophet<br />
saw two boys with Abdur Rahman and asked<br />
(him), “Are these your sons?” On that Abdur<br />
Rahman said, “Yes.” <strong>The</strong> Prophet said (to the<br />
wife), “You claim what you claim (i.e. that he is<br />
impotent)? But by Allah, these boys resemble<br />
him as a crow resembles a crow.” (Bukhari,<br />
Book of Dress, hadith 5825)<br />
Direct versions of this report contain<br />
no mention of beating at all<br />
<strong>The</strong> first point to note is that this report is<br />
related here by Ikrimah, but it also occurs directly<br />
related by Aishah in four places in Bukhari<br />
and three places in Sahih Muslim. I quote<br />
below those four occurrences in Bukhari, again<br />
from Muhsin Khan’s translation on the Internet:<br />
1. Narrated Aishah:-<br />
<strong>The</strong> wife of Rifa‛a Al-Qurazi came to Allah’s<br />
Messenger and said, “O Allah’s Messenger!<br />
Rifa‛a divorced me irrevocably. After him I<br />
married Abdur Rahman bin Az-Zubair Al-<br />
Qurazi who proved to be impotent.” Allah’s<br />
Messenger said to her, “Perhaps you want to<br />
return to Rifa‛a? Nay (you cannot return to<br />
Rifa‛a) until you and Abdur Rahman consummate<br />
your marriage.” (Bukhari, Book of<br />
Divorce, hadith 5260)<br />
In the printed edition of Muhsin Khan’s<br />
translation however, the last sentence, beginning<br />
“until you”, appears as follows: “until you<br />
enjoy sexual relations (consummate your marriage)<br />
with Abdur Rahman and he with you”.<br />
This shows that the words translated as “consummate<br />
your marriage”, placed here in brackets<br />
by the translator, actually mean the enjoyment<br />
of each spouse with the other. This literal<br />
meaning makes it clear that by “consummation<br />
of marriage” is meant sexual relations enjoyed<br />
by each spouse with the other.<br />
2. Narrated Aishah:-<br />
<strong>The</strong> wife of Rifa‛a Al-Qurazi came to the<br />
Prophet and said, “I was wife of Rifa‛a, but<br />
he divorced me and it was a final, irrevocable<br />
divorce. <strong>The</strong>n I married Abdur Rahman<br />
bin Az-Zubair but he is impotent.” <strong>The</strong><br />
Prophet asked her “Do you want to remarry
<strong>March</strong> <strong>2018</strong> <strong>The</strong><br />
<strong>Light</strong> 4<br />
Rifa‛a? You cannot unless you had a complete<br />
sexual relation with your present husband.”<br />
Abu Bakr was sitting with Allah’s<br />
Messenger and Khalid bin Sa‛id bin Al-‛As<br />
was at the door waiting to be admitted. He<br />
said: “O Abu Bakr! Do you hear what this<br />
(woman) is revealing frankly before the<br />
Prophet?” (Bukhari, Book of Witnesses,<br />
hadith 2639)<br />
Here also, the Arabic words which have<br />
been translated as “unless you had a complete<br />
sexual relation with your present husband”<br />
have the following literal meaning: “until you<br />
enjoy sexual relations with him (Abdur Rahman)<br />
and he with you”.<br />
3. Narrated Aishah:-<br />
Rifa‛a Al-Qurazi divorced his wife irrevocably<br />
(i.e. that divorce was the final). Later on,<br />
Abdur Rahman bin Az-Zubair married her<br />
after him. She came to the Prophet and said,<br />
“O Allah’s Messenger! I was the wife of<br />
Rifa‛a and he divorced me thrice, and then I<br />
was married to Abdur Rahman bin Az-<br />
Zubair, who, by Allah has nothing with him<br />
except something like this fringe, O Allah’s<br />
Messenger,” showing a fringe she had taken<br />
from her covering sheet. Abu Bakr was sitting<br />
with the Prophet while Khalid Ibn Sa‛id<br />
bin Al-‛As was sitting at the gate of the room<br />
waiting for admission. Khalid started calling<br />
Abu Bakr, “O Abu Bakr! Why don’t you reprove<br />
this lady from what she is openly saying<br />
before Allah’s Apostle?” Allah’s Messenger<br />
did nothing except smiling, and then<br />
said (to the lady), “Perhaps you want to go<br />
back to Rifa‛a? No, (it is not possible), unless<br />
and until you enjoy the sexual relation with<br />
him (Abdur Rahman), and he enjoys the sexual<br />
relation with you.” (Bukhari, Book of<br />
Good Manners, hadith 6084)<br />
4. <strong>The</strong> fourth occurrence below is, like hadith<br />
5825, again in the Book of Dress as follows:<br />
Narrated Aishah:-<br />
<strong>The</strong> wife of Rifa‛a Al-Qurazi came to Allah’s<br />
Messenger while I was sitting, and Abu Bakr<br />
was also there. She said, “O Allah’s Apostle! I<br />
was the wife of Rifa‛a and he divorced me irrevocably.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n I married Abdur Rahman bin Az-<br />
Zubair who, by Allah, O Allah’s Messenger, has<br />
only something like a fringe of a garment, showing<br />
the fringe of her veil. Khalid bin Sa`id, who<br />
was standing at the door, for he had not been<br />
admitted, heard her statement and said, “O Abu<br />
Bakr! Why do you not stop this lady from saying<br />
such things openly before Allah’s Messenger?”<br />
No, by Allah, Allah’s Messenger did nothing but<br />
smiled. <strong>The</strong>n he said to the lady, “Perhaps you<br />
want to return to Rifa‛a? That is impossible unless<br />
Abdur Rahman consummates his marriage<br />
with you.” (Bukhari, Book of Dress, hadith<br />
5792)<br />
Here again, the words “consummates his<br />
marriage with you” are in the original Arabic:<br />
“he enjoys sexual relations with you and you enjoy<br />
sexual relations with him”.<br />
In Sahih Muslim the three reports occur together<br />
in the Book of Marriage, each being similar<br />
to the above-quoted reports 1–4 from Bukhari.<br />
Thus, the reports which can be traced to<br />
Aishah contain no mention of any mark of beating<br />
on the woman’s body. <strong>The</strong> report cited by<br />
the critics of Islam is from Ikrimah who does<br />
not say that Aishah related this incident to him,<br />
nor does he mention how he came to know of it.<br />
So the report of the wife-beating incident cannot<br />
be traced to Aishah.<br />
What conclusion did Bukhari draw<br />
from the “wife-beating” hadith?<br />
An important point is: What conclusion did<br />
Bukhari draw from this hadith about the wife<br />
being beaten? <strong>The</strong>se critics of Islam think that<br />
the early Muslims were ignorant savages devoid<br />
of all literary and scholarly skills. As a result,<br />
these critics seem to be unaware that compilers<br />
of Hadith such as Bukhari classified reports into<br />
‘books’ whose titles indicate what subject a report<br />
falls under, and they divided each book into<br />
chapters with headings to show what conclusions<br />
may be drawn from the reports included<br />
in them. (It may be added, by the way, that they<br />
also looked into the lives of all the reporters to<br />
judge their credibility.)<br />
I Shall Love All Mankind.
<strong>March</strong> <strong>2018</strong> <strong>The</strong><br />
<strong>Light</strong> 5<br />
This report in Bukhari falls in his books of<br />
Divorce, Witnesses, Good Manners and Dress. It<br />
is easy to see why it would be included in the<br />
book of Divorce. In the book of Witnesses, it<br />
comes under the chapter heading “<strong>The</strong> witness<br />
of one who listens while hidden” and this is because<br />
Khalid bin Sa‛id bin Al-‛As could overhear<br />
what was being said by the woman while he was<br />
waiting outside to be admitted to see the Holy<br />
Prophet, and Bukhari infers from this that one<br />
who overhears, without being seen, is a witness<br />
to what he hears. In the book of Good Manners,<br />
it occurs under the chapter heading “Smiling<br />
and laughing” and this is in reference to the<br />
Holy Prophet smiling at Khalid’s statement that<br />
the woman should not talk so frankly on such a<br />
personal matter to the Prophet.<br />
This leaves the two occurrences of this report<br />
in the book of Dress, hadith 5792 and hadith<br />
5825, the latter being the hadith mentioning<br />
the marks of beating on the woman’s body. Hadith<br />
5792 is given a heading by Bukhari relating<br />
to the wearing of a sheet with a fringe (i.e., a<br />
border) because the woman was wearing such<br />
a sheet when she described her husband as impotent<br />
by saying: He has nothing more than the<br />
fringe of a garment. Hadith 5825, the one under<br />
objection, is given the heading: “Green Clothes”.<br />
<strong>The</strong>refore, from this hadith, Bukhari only concludes<br />
that a woman may wear green clothes.<br />
Had Bukhari concluded that this hadith<br />
5825 approves of wife-beating, he would have<br />
repeated it in some more relevant book of his<br />
collection, other than the book of Dress, and<br />
given it a heading such as “One who beats his<br />
wife”.<br />
In Sahih Muslim this report occurs in three<br />
forms in the book of Marriage in a chapter the<br />
title of which relates to the remarriage of a<br />
woman to a former husband after “irrevocable”<br />
divorce from him. <strong>The</strong>re is no mention of beating<br />
in them.<br />
Hadith 5825 examined<br />
Even assuming that hadith 5825 can be<br />
relied upon, it is clear that this woman did not<br />
mention to the Prophet Muhammad that her<br />
I Shall Love All Mankind.<br />
husband was beating her. According to the Muhsin<br />
Khan translation what she said to him was<br />
as follows:<br />
“By Allah! I have done no wrong to him but<br />
he is impotent and is as useless to me as this,”<br />
holding and showing the fringe of her garment.<br />
Moreover, if we look at the original Arabic<br />
words for “I have done no wrong to him”, these<br />
words are translated in two Urdu translations of<br />
Bukhari in the following way:<br />
…ا ن یک ویبی ےن اہک: اہلل یک مسق، ےھجم ا ن ےس وکیئ ا ور اکشتی ںیہن اہتبل<br />
“By Allah! I have no complaint about him except<br />
that [he is impotent] …” (Translation by<br />
Maulana Muhammad Daud Raz, published<br />
2004, India, v. 7, p. 355)<br />
رافہع یک ویبی ےن اہک: واہلل، ا ن اک ا ور وکیئ انگہ ںیہن )ینعی ےھجم ا ن ےس ا ور<br />
وکیئ اکشتی ںیہن( رگم …<br />
“By Allah! He has committed no other sin<br />
but…” (Translation by Maulana Usman Ghani in<br />
his commentary of Bukhari entitled Nasr-ul-<br />
Bari, Karachi, v. 11, p. 34)<br />
<strong>The</strong> second Urdu translator has added in<br />
parentheses an alternative translation: “(I have<br />
no other complaint about him) but”. <strong>The</strong>se Urdu<br />
translations, “I have no complaint about him except…”<br />
or “he has committed no other sin but…”,<br />
suit the context better than “I have done no<br />
wrong to him” because she then mentions the<br />
only complaint she has about him.<br />
This clearly shows that even in the sole report<br />
where “beating” is mentioned, the report is<br />
not only untraceable to those present at the occasion,<br />
but the woman put no complaint about<br />
her husband to the Holy Prophet except his impotence,<br />
and she made no mention to him that<br />
her husband was beating her.<br />
Irrevocable divorce<br />
What is meant by their “irrevocable divorce”<br />
in the above reports? It is that a divorce<br />
had taken place between the couple, after which<br />
that couple came together again (either during<br />
the period of separation or after it by remarriage),<br />
then there was a second divorce
<strong>March</strong> <strong>2018</strong> <strong>The</strong><br />
<strong>Light</strong> 6<br />
after which the couple came together again, and<br />
this was followed by divorce a third time, which<br />
is then irrevocable and prevents remarriage<br />
between them.<br />
Before Islam, wives in Arabia had little right<br />
of divorce and their husbands had the absolute<br />
right. Divorce was followed by a period of separation<br />
(or “waiting”), during which the wife<br />
could not marry someone else, and during<br />
which the husband could take her back. Aishah<br />
says in a hadith report that “a man could divorce<br />
his wife whenever he wanted and take her back<br />
as wife during the period of separation, and he<br />
could do so a hundred times or more”. She adds<br />
that in this way a man could keep his wife permanently<br />
in the state of separation by saying to<br />
her: “I will divorce you, and whenever your period<br />
of separation is just about to end I will take<br />
you back”. So the wife would forever be in a state<br />
in which she could neither marry elsewhere nor<br />
have conjugal rights from this husband due to<br />
being in the period of separation. <strong>The</strong> hadith<br />
continues:<br />
‘So a woman went to Aishah to inform her<br />
about that (custom), and Aishah was silent until<br />
the Prophet came. So she told him, and the<br />
Prophet was silent…’<br />
Now, reading this report up to this point, the<br />
critics of Islam might object that the Prophet<br />
Muhammad remained unmoved on hearing this<br />
woman’s plight. But the account continues:<br />
‘…until it was revealed in the Quran: “Divorce<br />
may be (pronounced) twice; then keep<br />
(them) in good fellowship or let (them) go with<br />
kindness” (2:229). So Aishah said: “So the people<br />
could carry on with divorce in the future,<br />
(knowing) who was divorced, and who was not<br />
divorced”. ’ (Tirmidhi, Book of Divorce, hadith<br />
1192)<br />
<strong>The</strong> Quran restricted a husband to divorcing<br />
his wife, and then taking her back, to just two<br />
occasions. If he divorced her a third time, he<br />
could not take her back during the period of<br />
separation nor remarry her after that. So this<br />
cycle of separating her and then taking her<br />
back, just to keep her in suspension, and reducing<br />
marriage to a farce, cannot take place.<br />
I Shall Love All Mankind.<br />
As the Quran repeats that in divorce the<br />
wife must be let go, or parted from, “with kindness”<br />
(2:229, 2:231, 65:2), it means that at this<br />
third, irrevocable divorce the husband must<br />
wish his wife well in a future marriage. Hence<br />
her marriage to someone else must be a genuine<br />
one. If, unfortunately, that future marriage<br />
fails, then the first husband is allowed to remarry<br />
her. To remarry her after she married<br />
someone else would show the first husband’s<br />
true love and concern for her. It must be very<br />
rare for a man to be prepared to remarry his<br />
wife after she had come out of a full marital relationship<br />
with someone else.<br />
<strong>The</strong> ruling of the Holy Prophet in hadith<br />
5825<br />
In the hadith that is being objected to, the<br />
ruling which the Holy Prophet gave was that, as<br />
the woman had been divorced “irrevocably” by<br />
her first husband (Rifa‛a), this couple cannot remarry<br />
unless she were to marry a second husband<br />
and then that were to end in divorce. However,<br />
a woman’s marriage after an irrevocable<br />
divorce to another man must be a genuine marriage.<br />
What the Holy Prophet has indicated here<br />
is that the genuineness of the marriage is<br />
defined by its consummation, but the woman<br />
was claiming that the husband was not capable<br />
of consummating it.<br />
A marriage of convenience, entered into<br />
with the intention of ending it in divorce, is prohibited<br />
in Islam. In such a case, both the former<br />
and the latter husband have been cursed by the<br />
Holy Prophet who said:<br />
“Curse be upon the one who marries a divorced<br />
woman with the intention of making her<br />
lawful for her former husband and upon the one<br />
for whom she is made lawful.” (Abu Dawud,<br />
Book of Marriage, ch. ‘Regarding Tahlil’, hadith<br />
2076)<br />
Note that it is both the men who are cursed<br />
here, and the woman is not mentioned.<br />
<strong>The</strong> critics of Islam have jumped to the conclusion<br />
that by this ruling of the Holy Prophet<br />
this woman is now trapped in a marriage with<br />
an impotent man. But in Islam she is immediately<br />
entitled to a divorce on the grounds of lack
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of satisfaction with the marriage. <strong>The</strong> <strong>issue</strong> here<br />
is not divorce but remarriage to the first husband<br />
after divorce. She can get a divorce and marry<br />
any other man, so she is hardly trapped in this<br />
marriage.<br />
<strong>The</strong> critics of Islam are making contradictory<br />
claims. <strong>The</strong>y allege that the Holy Prophet<br />
accepted the second husband’s claim that he is<br />
not impotent, and thereby he ruled against the<br />
wife’s claim that he is impotent, trapping her in<br />
marriage with him. But by applying even the<br />
least amount of intelligence, it can be seen that if<br />
the husband’s claim is accepted, then it proves<br />
that the marriage was consummated and thus if<br />
the woman were to get a divorce (on grounds<br />
such as ill-treatment) she could remarry the<br />
first husband! And the second husband did<br />
claim that he had had full sexual relations with<br />
her because, although according to Muhsin<br />
Khan’s translation he says “I am very strong and<br />
can satisfy her”, what he said, in rather a graphic<br />
language, was that he has full and vigorous intercourse<br />
with her.<br />
It is interesting to note that there is another<br />
version of this incident in the Hadith collection<br />
known as the Muwatta of Imam Ma lik as follows:<br />
prohibition for the two of them to remarry (unless<br />
she had a proper marriage with someone<br />
else which ended genuinely in divorce). <strong>The</strong> restriction<br />
on their remarriage is a restriction for<br />
the first husband also, and not only for the<br />
woman. And, as can be seen, there is no mention<br />
here of the woman having been beaten by the<br />
second husband.<br />
Islam does not allow women to be<br />
trapped unwillingly in marriages<br />
As to trapping a woman in marriage, this is<br />
contrary to the teachings of Islam. Our critics<br />
have failed to see a basic hadith in Bukhari in<br />
the book on Divorce, which is repeated five<br />
times in the same chapter. It tells us that Jamila,<br />
wife of Thabit ibn Qais, went to the Holy<br />
Prophet and said:<br />
“I do not blame Thabit for any defects in his<br />
character or his (observance of) religion, but I<br />
cannot endure to live with him.”<br />
She said she feared that by remaining married<br />
to him she might do something un-Islamic<br />
(i.e., not behave as a wife should). <strong>The</strong> Holy<br />
Prophet asked her, “Will you give back to him<br />
the garden” which he had given her as the nuptial<br />
gift. <strong>The</strong> result was:<br />
Rifa‛a ibn Simwal divorced his wife, Tamima<br />
bint Wahb, in the time of the Messenger of Allah,<br />
may Allah bless him and grant him peace, three<br />
times. <strong>The</strong>n she married Abdur Rahman ibn<br />
az−Zubayr and he turned from her and could<br />
not consummate the marriage and so he parted<br />
from her. Rifa‛a wanted to marry her again and<br />
it was mentioned to the Messenger of Allah,<br />
may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and<br />
he forbade him to marry her. He said, “She is not<br />
lawful for you until she has enjoyed sexual relations.”<br />
(Muwatta of Imam Ma lik, Book 28: Marriage,<br />
section 7; see for example: www.sunnah.com/malik/28)<br />
According to this account, the woman had<br />
already been divorced by the second husband<br />
before the matter was brought to the Holy<br />
Prophet. It was the first husband who came to<br />
the Holy Prophet, and it was to him, and not to<br />
the woman, that the Holy Prophet conveyed the<br />
I Shall Love All Mankind.<br />
She said, “Yes.” So she returned his garden<br />
to him, and the Prophet told him to divorce her.<br />
(Bukhari, Book of Divorce, hadith 5273–5277)<br />
<strong>The</strong>n, in the book of Marriage, there is the<br />
chapter headed: “If a man gives his daughter in<br />
marriage while she is averse to it, then such<br />
marriage is invalid”. Under it there is a report<br />
by a woman by the name of Khansa daughter of<br />
Khidam, who was previously married, saying<br />
that her father gave her in another marriage<br />
and she disliked the marriage:<br />
“So she went to the Messenger of Allah and<br />
he declared the marriage invalid.” (hadith<br />
5138)<br />
This report occurs again in Bukhari in the<br />
book on “Coercion” in a chapter entitled: “Marriage<br />
is not permitted under coercion” (hadith<br />
6945).<br />
This incident was also cited as follows in
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Bukhari as having set a precedent:<br />
A woman from the offspring of Ja‛far was<br />
afraid lest her guardian marry her (to somebody)<br />
against her will. So she sent for two elderly<br />
men from the Ansar, Abdur Rahman and<br />
Mujammi, the two sons of Jariya, and they said<br />
to her: “Don’t be afraid, for Khansa daughter of<br />
Khidam was given by her father in marriage<br />
against her will, then the Prophet cancelled that<br />
marriage.” (Book of Tricks or Stratagems, h.<br />
6969)<br />
We find from this hadith that the action of<br />
the Holy Prophet in cancelling that forced marriage<br />
became a precedent to be followed in future<br />
such cases.<br />
A girl even went to the Holy Prophet, intentionally,<br />
to get a judgment that would apply to<br />
all Muslim women. It is reported in the Hadith<br />
collection of Ibn Majah:<br />
A girl came to the Prophet and said: “My father<br />
married me to his brother’s son so that he<br />
might raise his status thereby.” <strong>The</strong> Prophet<br />
gave her the choice, and she said: “I approve of<br />
what my father did, but I wanted women to<br />
know that their fathers have no right to do that.”<br />
(Ibn Majah, Chapters on Marriage, ch. ‘He who<br />
gives his daughter in marriage and she is unwilling’,<br />
hadith 1874).<br />
<strong>The</strong> words translated here as “gave her the<br />
choice” are literally: “He left the matter up to<br />
her”. <strong>The</strong> next report (hadith 1875) is similar:<br />
A virgin girl came to the Prophet and told<br />
him that her father arranged a marriage that<br />
she did not like, and the Prophet gave her a<br />
choice.<br />
<strong>The</strong> words for “gave her the choice” here<br />
mean literally: “gave her discretion”. <strong>The</strong> Holy<br />
Prophet Muhammad thus handed to the girl the<br />
power to accept or reject the marriage proposal<br />
that was agreed between her father and the<br />
prospective husband.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Prophet Muhammad did not regard<br />
himself as even entitled to command a freed<br />
slave woman as to where to marry. It is reported<br />
in Bukhari that a slave woman called Barira was<br />
I Shall Love All Mankind.<br />
freed, but she was, during slavery, married to a<br />
slave called Mughees who was still a slave. In<br />
such cases, Islam gives the freed slave woman<br />
the choice to remain with her still enslaved husband<br />
or to divorce him. She divorced him, but he<br />
loved her. <strong>The</strong> Holy Prophet said to someone:<br />
“Are you not astonished at the love of Mughees<br />
for Barira and the hatred of Barira for<br />
Mughees?” <strong>The</strong> Prophet then said to Barira:<br />
“Why don’t you return to him?”. She said: “O<br />
Messenger of Allah, do you order me to do so?”<br />
He replied: “No, I am only mediating.” She said:<br />
“I am not in need of him” (Bukhari, Book of Divorce,<br />
hadith 5283).<br />
It is clear that the Holy Prophet Muhammad<br />
respected this freed slave woman’s rights of<br />
marriage and he did not order her but merely<br />
mediated, and he gave her a choice to return to<br />
her husband or not.<br />
Summary<br />
In this article, the following points have<br />
been established regarding the hadith which<br />
the critics of Islam have put forward as a matter<br />
of objection (namely, hadith 5825):<br />
1. Wherever this hadith is directly reported<br />
from Aishah, who was the observer when<br />
the woman came to the Prophet, there is no<br />
mention of the wife having been beaten. <strong>The</strong><br />
reporter of hadith 5825, who mentions the<br />
marks of beating, does not report from<br />
Aishah herself and his source of information<br />
is unknown.<br />
2. <strong>The</strong> only conclusion Bukhari draws from<br />
this hadith is that a woman may wear a<br />
green dress. He does not classify this hadith<br />
under treatment of wives.<br />
3. In hadith 5825 itself, the wife does not complain<br />
to the Holy Prophet that her second<br />
husband is beating her. In fact, she says she<br />
has no complaint against him except that he<br />
is impotent.<br />
4. <strong>The</strong> <strong>issue</strong> is not whether she can obtain a<br />
divorce from this second husband. She can<br />
certainly do so in Islam. <strong>The</strong> <strong>issue</strong> is whether<br />
she is allowed to remarry her first husband<br />
after their relationship had previously<br />
ended in divorce three times.
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5. Sexual enjoyment in marriage is not onesided<br />
but is described by the Holy Prophet in<br />
these very reports as: “you (the wife) enjoying<br />
sexual relations with him (the husband)<br />
and he with you.”<br />
Islam does not trap women in marriages<br />
against their will. On the contrary, Islam accepts<br />
their will in matters of their marriage and divorce.<br />
Link to HTML version of the article<br />
How did the<br />
Prophet<br />
Muhammad (s)<br />
prove his<br />
Messengership?<br />
by Omar Raja<br />
(Return_to content)<br />
When we look at the life of the Holy Prophet<br />
Muhammad we find that the first thirteen years<br />
of his prophethood were spent in Makkah, at a<br />
time when Muslims were being tortured and<br />
butchered shamelessly, only because they professed<br />
their faith in Islam and the Holy Prophet.<br />
Within those first few years, when persecution<br />
was severe, the Holy Prophet had advised the<br />
weaker of his companions to advance towards<br />
Abyssinia. Jafar ibn Abi Talib, the head of the refugees,<br />
upon entering Abyssinia addressed the<br />
then King in the following words, which painted<br />
a true picture of what was being taught and endured<br />
by the Muslims in Makkah:<br />
“O King! We were an ignorant people, given<br />
to idolatry. We used to eat corpses even of a<br />
dead animal, and do all kinds of disgraceful<br />
things. We did not make good our obligations to<br />
our relations and ill-treated our neighbours.<br />
<strong>The</strong> strong among us would thrive at the expense<br />
of the weak, till, at last, God sent a<br />
prophet for our reformation. His descent, his<br />
righteousness, his integrity and his piety are<br />
well-known to us. He called us to the worship of<br />
God and exhorted us to give up idolatry and<br />
stone worship. He enjoined us to speak the<br />
truth, to make good our trusts, to respect ties of<br />
kinship, and to do good to our neighbours. He<br />
taught us to shun everything foul and to avoid<br />
I Shall Love All Mankind.<br />
bloodshed. He forbade all manner of indecent<br />
things – telling lies, misappropriating orphans’<br />
belongings, and bring a false accusation against<br />
the chastity of women. So we believed in him,<br />
and followed him and acted upon his teachings.<br />
<strong>The</strong>reupon our people began to wrong us, to<br />
subject us to tortures, thinking that we might<br />
thus abjure our faith and revert to idolatry.<br />
When, however, their cruelties exceeded all<br />
bounds, we came out to seek asylum in your<br />
country, where we hope shall come to us no<br />
harm” [Living Thoughts of the Prophet<br />
Muhammad by Maulana Muhammad Ali, pp 5–<br />
6; referring to Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah; also<br />
see A. Guillaume’s translation of Sirat Rasul<br />
Allah, pp. 151-152].<br />
At one point, the Quraish, a leading tribe in<br />
Makkah, hostile towards the Muslims had tried<br />
to compromise the Holy Prophet’s character<br />
through bribery, by sending deputations with<br />
the offer:<br />
“If your ambition is to possess wealth, we<br />
will amass for you as much of it as you wish; if<br />
you aspire to win honour and power, we are<br />
prepared to swear allegiance to you as our<br />
overlord and king; if you have a fancy for beauty,<br />
you shall have the hand of the finest maiden of<br />
your own choice.” [Muhammad the Prophet by<br />
Maulana Muhammad Ali, p. 60]<br />
But to their surprise, the Holy Prophet replied:<br />
“I want neither riches nor political power. I<br />
have been commissioned by Allah as a warner<br />
to humanity. I deliver His message to you.<br />
Should you accept it, you shall have felicity in<br />
this life as well as in the life to come; should you<br />
reject the word of Allah, surely Allah will decide<br />
between you and me.” [Muhammad the Prophet<br />
by Maulana Muhammad Ali, p. 60]<br />
<strong>The</strong> Prophet spoke these words at very difficult<br />
times when persecution was very severe.<br />
This speaks volumes about the Holy Prophet’s<br />
character. Had he truly craved lust or power, he<br />
would have accepted this offer in his great moment<br />
of trial and a life and death struggle. <strong>The</strong><br />
Prophet was made to stand firm as Allah tells us<br />
in the Quran:<br />
“And if We had not made thee firm, thou<br />
mightest have indeed inclined to them a little.”<br />
(Quran, chapter 17, verse 74).
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When the Muslims had found refuge in<br />
Madinah, a city 200 miles to the north of Makkah,<br />
a thirteen days journey, here too were they<br />
not left alone. It was then revealed to the Holy<br />
Prophet:<br />
“Permission to fight is given to those upon<br />
whom was war is made, because they have been<br />
wronged — and God is well able to help them.<br />
Those who have been expelled from their<br />
homes unjustly, only for saying, ‘Allah is our<br />
Lord’. And if God had not allowed one group of<br />
people to repel another, then there would have<br />
been pulled down cloisters and synagogues and<br />
churches and mosques, in which God's name is<br />
remembered.” (Quran, 22:39-40).<br />
It would thus be in the 53rd year of the Holy<br />
Prophet's life in old age that he would first take<br />
up arms to fight in self-defence. Had the Holy<br />
Prophet Muhammad ever had any inclination<br />
for warfare, then he would most certainly have<br />
taken part in the tribal warfare's that were the<br />
order of the day in the society in which he grew<br />
up. But the fact that he did not, shows he was<br />
never a man of war, but a man of peace, and it<br />
was when only such strenuous, life-threatening<br />
circumstances were presented to him and the<br />
welfare of the Muslims was at stake, did he take<br />
up arms, but in the noblest of causes.<br />
It would be for another near seven years<br />
that the Quraish would put up greater numbers<br />
in the battlefield and wage aggressive warfare<br />
against the Muslims. Finally, after almost two<br />
decades of Makkan tyranny, a peace treaty was<br />
concluded at Hudaibiyah, in which it was stated<br />
there would be absolutely no war for ten years.<br />
This peace treaty belies the allegations against<br />
the Holy Prophet and shows that he was compelled<br />
to use force. <strong>The</strong> Holy Prophet was acting<br />
upon the Quranic teaching:<br />
“And if they incline to peace, do thou incline<br />
to it and trust in Allah; He is the Hearing, the<br />
Knowing. And if they intend to deceive thee,<br />
then surely Allah is sufficient for thee.” (Quran<br />
8:61-62).<br />
At that time the Muslims who accompanied<br />
the Holy Prophet Muhammad at the signing of<br />
the truce numbered fifteen hundred. And yet it<br />
was only two years later, that the terms of the<br />
truce were violated when a tribe in alliance with<br />
I Shall Love All Mankind.<br />
the Quraish slaughtered many innocent Muslims.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Quraish refused to dissociate themselves<br />
with this tribe in alliance with them and<br />
refused to renew the terms of the Truce. It was<br />
then the Holy Prophet prepared to march on<br />
Makkah, the city from which he had been exiled<br />
seven years earlier.<br />
But with how many men did the Prophet<br />
Muhammad march to Makkah? Was it with the<br />
fifteen hundred from two years ago? No, this<br />
time, they numbered ten thousand! Within<br />
those two years of peace, something remarkable<br />
happened; thousands upon thousand voluntarily<br />
joined Islam, such that the prophecy of<br />
the Truce being a “great victory” (see Quran<br />
48:1) would be fulfilled, even at a time the<br />
terms seemed quite humiliating to the Muslims.<br />
One must ask what the reason for this<br />
remarkable wave of conversion was? Before the<br />
Truce his enemies, as they do to this day, had<br />
been trying to create this dark, sinister, and<br />
grim picture of him. But when the saw the Holy<br />
Prophet for whom he was, they saw him not to<br />
be the man of terror as they had once imagined.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y saw the great moral and spiritual transformation<br />
that he had brought about in his people.<br />
In effect, their hearts were conquered. How true<br />
we read in the Quran:<br />
“Repel evil with what is best, when lo! he<br />
between whom and you there is enmity will be<br />
like a warm friend.” (Quran 41:34)<br />
<strong>The</strong> Holy Prophet did not conquer by way of<br />
aggressive warfare; he was conquering people’s<br />
hearts and minds.<br />
Not too long before had God had consoled<br />
the Holy Prophet when he was being expelled<br />
from Makkah:<br />
“He Who has made the Quran binding on<br />
thee will surely bring thee back to the Place of<br />
Return.” (Quran 28:85)<br />
“And surely they purposed to unsettle you<br />
from the land that they might expel you from it,<br />
and then they will not remain after you but a little<br />
while.” (Quran 17:76)<br />
True enough, within a short seven to eight<br />
years, he was brought back to the “place of Return”<br />
(Makkah) and in the most dignified manner<br />
despite all odds!
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When the Holy Prophet Muhammad re-entered<br />
Makkah after suffering from years of persecution<br />
along with his followers, it would most<br />
certainly have been justified to take firm action<br />
towards his persecutors, but did he? Did the<br />
Holy Prophet return to Makkah with the mindset<br />
of revenge or vengeance? No! He forgave<br />
them! <strong>The</strong> Holy Prophet provided a general amnesty<br />
stating: I say as my brother Joseph said:<br />
“No reproof be against you this day; Allah<br />
may forgive you, and He is the most Merciful of<br />
those who show mercy.” (Quran 12:92)<br />
This was indeed the greatest act of forgiveness<br />
ever witnessed in all of history, an act<br />
that would ultimately unite all of Arabia! Maulana<br />
Muhammad Ali writes in his biography of<br />
the Holy Prophet, Muhammad the Prophet:<br />
“World history fails to produce the like of<br />
the Holy Prophet’s generous forgiveness of such<br />
arch-enemies. No example of such magnanimous<br />
forgiveness is found in the life of any other<br />
Prophet. Christ indeed preached forgiveness to<br />
enemies, but he had no occasion to exercise the<br />
quality of forgiveness for he never acquired the<br />
authority to deal with his persecutors.” (p. 132)<br />
This long on-going struggle was well known<br />
throughout Arabia, and now that they had seen<br />
the remarkable triumph against all the odds,<br />
tribe after tribe began to declare their allegiance<br />
to Islam; such tribes that had been in a<br />
constant feud with one another for countless of<br />
years. And so truly the impossible became possible.<br />
“A more disunited people it would be hard<br />
to find, till, suddenly, the miracle took place. A<br />
man arose who, by his personality and by his<br />
claim to direct Divine guidance, actually<br />
brought about the impossible, namely, the union<br />
of all these warring factions.” (<strong>The</strong> Ins and<br />
Outs of Mesopotamia, p. 99).<br />
It was only two years after the peaceful conquest<br />
of Makkah that not 10,000, but 124,000<br />
Muslims would witness the Prophet’s farewell<br />
pilgrimage, a day to which he was destined to<br />
live, to have these words revealed to him from<br />
God.<br />
“This day have those who reject faith given<br />
up all hope of your religion: Yet fear them not<br />
I Shall Love All Mankind.<br />
But fear Me. This day have I Perfected your religion<br />
for you, completed My favour upon you,<br />
And have chosen for you Islam as your religion.”<br />
(Quran 5:3)<br />
Why was it named Islam? <strong>The</strong> reason is that<br />
Islam incorporates the same basic universal<br />
principles as taught and preached by all the<br />
Prophets, and is not limited to one geographic<br />
location. Each of the Prophets had brought part<br />
of Islam with them. Islam (‘entering into peace’<br />
and ‘surrender’ to the will of God) was now<br />
perfected and completed with the last of the<br />
Prophets.<br />
Unfortunately, today certain sections of<br />
Muslims have regressed from the potential that<br />
could be achieved if they truly did abide by the<br />
teachings of the Quran. Cultural narrow intolerant<br />
and cruel practices have replaced the most<br />
elegant and noble teachings of Islam. Little<br />
wonder is it then, of the state of affairs we see<br />
in the Muslim world today. We find amongst<br />
Muslims today rank prejudice and hatred for<br />
one another simply due to the country, or<br />
organisation, party, etc. with which they have<br />
associated themselves. <strong>The</strong> open hostility and<br />
animosity present in our times amongst ourselves<br />
have sadly made us our own worst enemies.<br />
It is this outright hostility that has caused<br />
sectarianism, and not so much of the names<br />
with which one has come to associate him or<br />
herself. This very lack of tolerance and understanding<br />
and narrow-mindedness has put us on<br />
a halt to any progress in the modern world. It is<br />
also true some false teachings amongst Muslims<br />
lend support to the view of Islam being inherently<br />
violent. (i.e., blasphemy, stoning, and<br />
apostasy laws present in Muslim countries that<br />
stem from the Old Testament of the Bible). <strong>The</strong><br />
lessons to be learnt from the peaceful example<br />
of the Holy Prophet Muhammad have become<br />
void in many of the Muslim governments of today.<br />
As the Quran says about real reform: “Allah<br />
changes not the condition of a people until they<br />
change their own condition” (Quran 13:11).<br />
And that condition is of the inner-self; the<br />
heart! <strong>The</strong>re must be real reform from within<br />
before there can be reform from without.<br />
Addendum:<br />
While the Arabs went on blindly accepting
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the traditions of their forefathers, the Quran repeatedly<br />
spoke of them blindly rejecting the<br />
Holy Prophet Muhammad.<br />
“And some of them look at you. But can you<br />
show the way to the blind, though they will not<br />
see?” (Quran 10:43)<br />
But the Holy Prophet Muhammad who had<br />
unshakable faith, being annihilated in the love<br />
and worship of God, and who was a living embodiment<br />
of the teachings of the Quran, brought<br />
about an unparalleled transformation in Arabia.<br />
Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad writes in his<br />
book, Barakat-ud-dua, about the efficacy of<br />
prayer:<br />
“That strange event which took place in the<br />
desert land of Arabia, by which millions of<br />
people who were spiritually dead were resuscitated<br />
in a very short time, and people who<br />
had remained corrupted for generations became<br />
imbued with Divine attributes and the<br />
blind regained their power of vision, and the<br />
dumb became eloquent in respect of the<br />
knowledge of God. A revolution took place in<br />
the world in such a sudden manner that the like<br />
of it no eye had seen before and no ear had<br />
heard — what was it after all?<br />
“At bottom was the silent prayers in the<br />
darkness of the night of a lonely man who had<br />
annihilated himself in God that created this<br />
huge tumult in the world and produced those<br />
strange phenomena which seem almost<br />
impossible to have been affected by that<br />
unlettered, helpless man.” [Barakat-ud-Dua, a<br />
quotation from Does God Hear Man’s Prayers:<br />
From the writings of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam<br />
Ahmad, translated by Maulvi Aftab-ud-Din<br />
Ahmad, pp. 13–14]<br />
Western writers too, with all their bias, have<br />
acknowledged the convincing effect the message<br />
and eloquence of the Quran had on transforming<br />
Arabia in less than a quarter-century.<br />
Hartwig Hirschfeld, PhD, wrote in his publication<br />
of 1902, New Researches Into <strong>The</strong> Composition<br />
And Exegesis Of <strong>The</strong> Qoran:<br />
“Never has a people been led more rapidly<br />
to civilization, such as it was, than were the Arabs<br />
through Islam.” (p. 5)<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Quran is unapproachable as regards<br />
convincing power, eloquence, and even<br />
composition” (p. 8)<br />
“We must not be surprised to find the Qoran<br />
regarded as the fountain-head of all the sciences.<br />
Every subject connected with heaven or<br />
earth, human life, commerce and various trades<br />
are occasionally touched upon, and this gave<br />
rise to the production of numerous monographs<br />
forming commentaries on parts of the<br />
holy book. In this way, the Qoran was responsible<br />
for great discussions. And, to it was also<br />
indirectly due the marvellous development of<br />
all branches of science in the Moslim world.” (p.<br />
9).<br />
Thomas Patrick Hughes wrote in his publication<br />
of 1885, A Dictionary of Islam: Being a cyclopaedia<br />
of the doctrines, rites, ceremonies, and<br />
customs, together with the technical and theological<br />
terms, of the Muhammadan religion:<br />
“Here, therefore, its merits as a literary production<br />
should perhaps not be measured by<br />
some preconceived maxims of subjective and<br />
aesthetic taste, but by the effects which it produced<br />
in Muhammad's contemporaries and fellow<br />
countrymen. If it spoke so powerfully<br />
and convincingly to the hearts of his hearers as<br />
to weld hitherto centrifugal and antagonistic<br />
elements into one compact and well-organised<br />
body, animated by ideas far beyond those which<br />
had until now ruled the Arabian mind, then its<br />
eloquence was perfect, simply because it created<br />
a civilised nation out of savage tribes, and<br />
shot a fresh woof into the old warp of history.”<br />
(p. 528; also see Kindle Edition, Locations<br />
27795-27797). (Return_to content)<br />
Ahmadiyya Anjuman Isha‘at Islam Lahore (UK)<br />
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