Messengership
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speak on their own, and they strictly follow His
commands.” (21:26-27)
From these verses it is clear that there is a difference between
a messenger and other knowledgeable people because the messenger
does not speak on his own. In a sense we can say that he acts as
God’s mouthpiece. He gives us not his doctrine, but that of
God. Isn’t that what the word “messenger” implies?
Now obviously messengers, when acting as men, make mistakes like
all humans. So how do we know if what they tell us is from God,
and thus without question the truth, or if it is their own opinion,
which can be incorrect?
I would like to suggest that we look at the mistakes, which we
know from the Quran that messengers of the past have made. We know
that Abraham prayed for forgiveness for his father (60:4) and Noah
questioned God about his son (11:46). Muhammad feared the people
and did not want to marry the divorced wife of his adopted son (33:37),
and he turned away from the blind man (80:1). All of the mistakes
mentioned in the Quran were corrected by God while the messengers
were alive. We do not have a single example of a messenger who was
sent to correct the mistakes of a previous messenger. The messengers
come to renew the message after the “followers” of a
previous messenger have distorted the message, not because the previous
messenger bungled the job.
The message does not come all at once. We see this with the revelation
of the scriptures. We also experienced it watching the growth of
new understanding and purification as it came through Dr. Rashad
Khalifa. We are an incredibly fortunate generation. For the first
time in human history we have the words of the messenger as he typed
them into the computer. We have the words as he spoke them onto
video and audio tapes. We are blessed with fact that some of the
words we have recorded are from earlier stages, thus documenting
our growth in understanding of the truth. And we are blessed to
have his final work - the revision of his translation of the Quran
which he was working on in the last hours of his life.
Still, there may be those who have doubts. God answers them:
“Are they saying, ‘He (Rashad) has fabricated
lies about God?’ If God willed, He could have sealed your
mind, but God erases the falsehood and affirms the truth with His
words. He is fully aware of the innermost thoughts.” (42:24)
That does not mean that new understandings will not continue to
come. This fact was acknowledged by Dr. Khalifa himself in his February,
1990 issue of the Submitters Perspective: “As stated in 3:81
and 46:9, God’s Messenger of the Covenant does not bring anything
new; everything I receive and pass on to you is already in the Quran.
However, the Quran is full of information that is kept by Almighty
God for revelation at a specific time.”
Our knowledge will continue to grow, Inshallah. But it will do
just that, it will grow and expand. It does not make sense that
that knowledge God gave to us through one of His manifest messengers
would be wrong, and would need to be corrected:
“…can the messengers do anything but
deliver the complete message?” (16:35)
Am I saying that the men who are messengers |
are infallible? Of course not! But
I am saying that God is and He will not allow His messengers to
contaminate the message with falsehood. In their role as messengers
they speak only the truth, the word of God. Remember: “They
never speak on their own, and they strictly follow His commands.”
(21:27)
If we believe that Rashad Khalifa was a messenger, we must believe
in what came through him. If we do not, do we really believe he
was a messenger? Do we really believe he was delivering what God
sent?
If we believe that Rashad Khalifa was a messenger, we must accept
it when he said that his translation was authorized.
We must believe him when he said that the following verses referred
to him:
These are God’s revelations.
We recite them through you, truthfully, for you are one of the messengers.
(2:252)
And:
I solemnly swear by the galaxies.
Precisely running in their orbits.
By the night as it falls.
And the mom as it breathes.
This is the utterance of
an honorable messenger.
Authorized by the Possessor
of the Throne, fully supported.
He shall be obeyed and trusted.
Your friend (Rashad) is not crazy.
He saw him at the high horizon.
He is not holding back any news.
It is not the talk of a rejected devil.
Now then, where will you go?
This is a message to all the people.
For those who wish to go straight.
Whatever you will is in accordance
With the will of God,
Lord of the universe. (81:15-29)
There is, of course, the danger of falling into idol worship of
the messenger, as millions before us have done. This is something
we must all watch out for!
Perhaps it will help to ask ourselves what idol worship is. God
defines it in the Quran as believing that anyone or anything other
than God can help us (see 22:12 and many other verses). Using that
definition, someone might try to argue that we believe Rashad Khalifa
explained points of the Quran for us with his footnotes and subtitles,
and so he helped us.
Actually, God is the one who explains the Quran:
“Once we recite it, you shall follow such a Quran. Then it
is we who will explain it.” (75:18-19)
How does God explain the Quran though? How does He communicate
with us? He tells us:
“No human being can communicate with God except
through inspiration, or from behind a barrier, or by sending a messenger
through whom He reveals what He wills. He is the Most High, Most
Wise.” (42:51)
Did God send a messenger to explain things? If we accept Rashad
Khalifa as a messenger, clearly He did: “O people of the
scripture, our messenger has come to you to explain things to you,
after a period of time without messengers, lest you say, ‘We
did not receive any preacher or warner.’ A preacher and warner
has now come to you. God is Omnipotent.” (5:19). We know
from his footnote, that Rashad Khalifa was the messenger referred
to in this verse.
This whole issue goes back to whether we accept God as the Doer
of everything. If we accept this principle that God is doing
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everything, it follows easily that He explains
the Quran through His messenger. It is not the messenger who is
doing the explaining, it is God. The messenger is just the means
of communication – he is just delivering the message from
God to us.
The danger is in forgetting that the guidance is from God and attributing
it to the messenger. The messenger does not really guide or explain
or purify. Those things happen through him in accordance with God’s
will. God is the One who guides and explains and purifies.
The most important lesson Dr. Khalifa strove to teach us is that
Quran alone should be our source of religious guidance. How does
that fit into the present discussion? Aren’t we talking about
taking information that is in footnotes and appendices, and not
in Quran? No, not actually. Anyone who comes to know the Quran as
well as Dr. Khalifa did will come to the same understanding that
he did because everything he told us is based in the Quran. He was
not speaking on his own; remember 21:27.
God has made things easy for us by consolidating that knowledge
for us and giving it to us through a messenger. Do we want to be
like the people of Sheba who did not accept the comfort and security
that God gave to them, saying:
“Our Lord, we do not care if You increase the
distance of our journeys (without any stations).” They thus
wronged their own souls. (34:19)
God has made this knowledge easily available to us. Will we say,
thank you God, but we do not want your help?
We know that Satan advocates idol worship and pushes it as hard
as he can. He has duped millions upon millions into this trap. We
must be very careful of it.
However that is not his only trap. God uses the Children of Israel
as examples again and again in the Quran. Their problem was not
idolizing their messengers, but minimizing and rejecting them. They
followed their scholars and their own egos rather than what came
through their messengers: “We have taken a covenant from the
Children of Israel, and we sent to them messengers. Whenever a messenger
went to them with anything they disliked, some of them they rejected,
and some they killed.” (5:70)
We must be equally careful of this trap. Satan has been able to
dupe countless intelligent people into worshiping their messenger
without recognizing that is what they are doing. He has also duped
countless others into rejecting their messenger without their realizing
they are doing so.
For the victims of either trap, the result is the same:
Why should God guide people who disbelieved after
believing,
and after witnessing that the messenger is truth,
and after solid proofs have been given to them?
God does not guide the wicked.
These have incurred condemnation by God and the angles,
and all the people.
Eternally they abide therein; the retribution is never commuted
for them, nor will they be reprieved.
Exempted are those who repent thereafter, and reform.
God is Forgiver, Most Merciful.
(3:86-89)
Lisa Spray
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