2. TEN DEGREES OF GUIDANCE (1)

2. TEN DEGREES OF GUIDANCE (1)

          The classical Muslim scholar Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawzillah (691-751/1292-1350) in his book Madārik al-Sālikīn (Mental Faculties of Followers of Spiritual Path) mentions ten degrees of guidance    (مَرَاتِبُ الْهِداَيَة)  endowed by Allah to His servants. The first degree of guidance which is the highest degree is Allah’s direct talking to His servant in his wakefulness but behind a veil, like His direct talking to Prophet Moses a.s. Allah said:

... وَكَلَّمَ اللَّهُ مُوسَى تَكْلِيمًا (النساء:164)

… and to Mūsā (Moses) Allah spoke directly. (Q. 4:164)

The use of maṣdar (verbal noun) تَكْلِيمًا (lit. "speaking") indicates that the speaking is not as a figure of speech or metaphorical, but real speaking. It happened to the Prophet in his mi‘rāj (ascension to heaven).

                 The second degree of guidance is Allah’s waḥy (revelation), “in the form of true dreams which came true like bright daylight”, whereas the third degree is the sending of an angel to them, namely, Gabriel (Jibrīl or Jibrā’īl) a.s. either in the form of a human being or as his own appearance, and reveals to them what Allah wants to reveal to them. These three degrees of guidance are only for prophets and messengers. Allah mentions in the Qur’an as follows:                

وَمَا كَانَ لِبَشَرٍ أَنْ يُكَلِّمَهُ اللَّهُ إِلَّا وَحْيًا أَوْ مِنْ وَرَاءِ حِجَابٍ أَوْ يُرْسِلَ

 رَسُولًا فَيُوحِيَ بِإِذْنِهِ مَا يَشَاءُ إِنَّهُ عَلِيٌّ حَكِيمٌ (الشورى:51)

(Q. 42:51)

It is not given to any human being that Allah should

speak to him unless (it be) by Revelation, or from behind

 a veil, or (that) He sends a Messenger to reveal what

He wills by His Leave. Verily, He is the Most

High, Most Wise. (Q./42:51)

          When the Prophet was asked by al-Ḥarith ibn Hishām how revelation came to him, he replied:

Sometimes it is (revealed) like the ringing of a bell, this

 form of Inspiration is the hardest of all and then this state

 passes off after I have grasped what is inspired. Sometimes

the angel comes in the form of a man and talks to me and

I grasp whatever he says. ‘Ā’ishah r.a. added: Verily, I saw

 the Prophet s.a.w. being inspired (divinely) and (noticed)

the sweat dropping from his forehead on a very cold

 day as he Inspiration was over.

 (Reported by Bukhārī)

The fourth degree of guidance is through taḥdīth (talking), and the person who is endowed with this privilege of being told something is called muḥaddath. Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah cites a ḥadīth narrated by Abū Hurayrah, that the Prophet s.a.w said:  

لَقَدْ كَانَ فِيمَنْ كَانَ قَبْلَكُمْ مِنْ بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ رِجَالٌ يُكَلَّمُونَ مِنْ غَيْر أَنْ

 يَكُونُوا أَنْبِيَاءَ فَإِنْ يَكُنْ مِنْ أُمَّتِي مِنْهُمْ أَحَدٌ فَعُمَرُ (رواه البخاري)

Among the nation of Bani Israel who lived before you,

 there were man who used to be inspired with guidance

though they were not Prophets, and if there is any of

 such persons among my followers, it is ‘Umar

 (Reported by Bukhārī)

           Ibn Taymiyyah’s commentary on the above ḥadīth is that since the message and the prophethood of this nation have been completed, there would be no need for having a muḥaddath. The Prophet said that if there is which means it does not happen, he would be ‘Umar. A muḥaddath is a person who is told something through his inmost and heart, and then it happens as it has been told. The upright person (al-Ṣiddīq, which is also the epithet of Abū Bakr) is in higher position than the muḥaddath, because he does not need any taḥdīth, inspiration, vision, or kashf (unveiling, illumination), because he has surrendered his whole heart and his whole life to the message of the Prophet. Moreover, a muḥaddath has to refer what he receives to the teachings of the Prophet: if it agrees with it he accepts it; otherwise, if it does not agree with it, he has to reject it.

Ibn al-Qayyim said further that among ignorant people one would claim that his heart has spoken to him from his Lord. He said that if it is true that his heart has spoken to him, from whom? From his Lord or from Satan? If he said it was from his Lord, there would be nobody who would know whether it really came from his Lord, and that would be a lie. A muḥaddath never claimed to be so in the past, because he was not sure of it, whether it was really from Allah or not. ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, when he became caliph, his secretary wrote for him:

هَذاَ مَا أَرَى اللَّهُ أَمِيْرَ الْمُؤْمِنِيْن عُمَرَ بْنَ الْخَطَّاب

This is what Allah has shown to the Prince of the Believers,

 he asked him to erase it and to write instead,

هَذاَ مَا رَأَى عُمَرُ بْنُ الْخَطَّابِ, فَإنْ كاَنَ صَوَابًا فَمِنَ اللّهِ,

 ؤَإنْ كَانَ خَطَأً فَمِنْ عُمَر, وَاللَّهُ وَ رَسُوْلُهُ مِنْهُ بَرِئ

This is the opinion of ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, if it is right

it is from Allah, and if it is wrong it is from ‘Umar,

 and Allah and His Messenger are free from it

        In another occasion ‘Umar r.a. gave his opinion about the kalālah (the man who has neither descendants nor ascendants) and then said,

أَقُوْلُ فِيْهَا بِرَأْيِي. فَإنْ يَكُنْ صَوَابًا فَمِنَ اللّهِ, ؤَإنْ كَانَ خَطَأً فَمِنِّي وَ مِنَ الشَّيْطَان

I say it with my personal opinion; if it is

 right it is from Allah, and if it is wrong,

then it is from me and from Satan.

  Abū ‘Abdullah al-Shaybānī says that there are twenty-one matters where ‘Umar agrees with his Lord in the Qur’an although some of them are not authentic.  Among sound ḥadīths are as follows:

‘Umar r.a. said, “I agree with my Lord (or my Lord

agreed with me) in three matters. I said, ‘O Messenger

 of Allah! I wish you take the Maqām of Ibrāhīm a place

 for prayer.’ Then it was revealed وَاتَّخِذُوا مِنْ مَقَامِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ مُصَلًّى

“And take you (people) the Maqām (place) of Ibrāhīm

a place for prayer”[Q. 2:125] . I also said, ‘O Messenger

 of Allah! The righteous and the wicked enter your house.

 I wish you would command the Mothers of the believers

 (the Prophet’s wives) to wear Ḥijāb. Allah sent down the

verse that required Ḥijāb. And when I knew the Prophet

was angry with some of his wives, I came to them and said,

“Either you stop what you are doing, or Allah will endow

 His Messenger with better women than you are.” I advised

one of his wives and she said to me, ”O ‘Umar! Does the

 Messenger of Allah not know to advise his wives, so that

 you have to do the job instead of him?” The Allah revealed

 عَسَى رَبُّهُ إِنْ طَلَّقَكُنَّ أَنْ يُبَدِّلَهُ أَزْوَاجًا خَيْرًا مِنْكُنَّ… “It may be if he

 divorced you (all) that his Lord will give him instead

 of you, wives better than you….[Q. 66:5]

The verse that required Ḥijāb in the above ḥadīth is as follows:

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ قُلْ لِأَزْوَاجِكَ وَبَنَاتِكَ وَنِسَاءِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ يُدْنِينَ عَلَيْهِنَّ مِنْ جَلَابِيبِهِنَّ

ذَلِكَ أَدْنَى أَنْ يُعْرَفْنَ فَلَا يُؤْذَيْنَ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَحِيمًا (الأحزاب:59) 

O Prophet! Tell thy wives and thy daughters, as well as

all [other] believing women, that they should draw over

 themselves some of their outer garment [when in public]:

this swill be more conducive to their being recognized

 [as decent women] and not annoyed.  But [withal,]

 God is indeed much-forgiving, a dispenser of grace.

(Q. 33:59, Muhammad Asad’s translation).[1]

                In a ḥadīth narrated by Ibn ‘Umar the Prophet s.a.w. insisted to pray funeral prayer for ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Ubayy, the leader of the hypocrites in Madinah, at the request of his son ‘Abdullah, who was one of his companions. ‘Umar reminded him not to do so, as he was a hypocrite. Revelation came later in support of ‘Umar’s view, as follows:

 وَلَا تُصَلِّ عَلَى أَحَدٍ مِنْهُمْ مَاتَ أَبَدًا وَلَا تَقُمْ عَلَى قَبْرِهِ إِنَّهُمْ

كَفَرُوا بِاللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ وَمَاتُوا وَهُمْ فَاسِقُونَ (التوبة:84)

And never (O Muhammad) pray (funeral prayer) to any

 of them (hypocrites) who dies, nor stand at his grave.

 Certainly they disbelieved in Allah and His Messenger,

and died while they were rebellious (Q. 9:84)

(Reported by Muslim)

          When the following verse was revealed:

وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنْسَانَ مِنْ سُلَالَةٍ مِنْ طِينٍ. ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَاهُ نُطْفَةً فِي قَرَارٍ مَكِينٍ .

ثُمَّ خَلَقْنَا النُّطْفَةَ عَلَقَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْعَلَقَةَ مُضْغَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْمُضْغَةَ عِظَامًا

 فَكَسَوْنَا الْعِظَامَ لَحْمًا ثُمَّ أَنْشَأْنَاهُ خَلْقًا آخَر...(المؤمنون:12-14)

And indeed We created man (Adam) out of an extract

of clay (water and earth). Thereafter We made him (the offspring of Adam as a Nutfah (mixed drops of male and

female sexual discharge and lodged it) in a safe lodging

 (womb of the woman). Then We made the Nutfah into

a clot (a piece of thick coagulated blood), then We made

out of that little lump of flesh bones, then We clothed

the bones with flesh, and then We brought it forth

 as another creation… (Q.23:12-14)

‘Umar said فَتَبَارَكَ اللَّهُ أَحْسَنُ الْخَالِقِينَ   “So blessed is Allah, the Best of creators”, and the verse ended like what he had said.

          After the battle of Badr the Prophet asked the opinion of his companion what to do with the captives. ‘Umar said that they should be executed. Abū Bakr said they should pay ransom, or teach the Muslims reading and writing. The Prophet took Abū Bakr’s opinion, and therefore, some of their relatives who were forced to join the enemy in the battlefield, like the Prophet’s uncle al-‘Abbās were saved. Later on, revelation came agreeing with ‘Umar’s opinion, as follows:

مَا كَانَ لِنَبِيٍّ أَنْ يَكُونَ لَهُ أَسْرَى حَتَّى يُثْخِنَ فِي الأَرْضِ تُرِيدُونَ

عَرَضَ الدُّنْيَا وَاللهُ يُرِيدُ الآَخِرَةَ وَاللهُ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمٌ) الأنفال: 67(

It is not for a Prophet that he should have prisoners of war

 (and free them with ransom) until he had made a great

 slaughter (among his enemies) in the land. You desire the

 good of this world (i.e., the money of ransom for freeing

 the captives), but Allah desires (for you) the Hereafter.

 And Allah is All-Mighty, All-Wise (Q. 8:67)

          These are some examples where revelation came agreeing what ‘Umar had said. He had reached the level of a muḥaddath, but he did not claim it, as there is no longer any muḥaddath among the followers of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w., who said that if there was any muḥaddath, he would have been ‘Umar. Based on the above statement of the Prophet any person who claimes to be a muḥaddath among Muslims, let alone to be a prophet, his claim should not be accepted.

                   (CIVIC, 15 January, 2016)

المراجع:

المكتبة الشاملة

تفسير الطبري (ت. 310 هـ(

تفسير القرطبى (ت. 671 هـ(

تفسير ابن كثير (ت. 774 هـ(

Muhsin Khan, Dr. Muhammad. Summarized Sahih Al-Bukhari. Riyadh: Darussalam, 1996

Asad, Muhammad. The Message of the Qur’an. Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1984.

http://www.alzakera.eu/music/Turas/Turas-0127.htm

http://al-ershaad.net/vb4/showthread.php?t=1343

http://fatwa.islamweb.net/fatwa/index.php?page=showfatwa&Option=FatwaId&Id=62984

http://www.traidnt.net/vb/traidnt1012266/    

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[1] Muhammad Asad’s commentary on this verse is as follows: “The specific, time-bound formulation of the above verse (evident in the reference to the wives and daughters of the Prophet), as well as the deliberate vagueness of the recommendation that women ‘should draw upon themselves some of their outer garments (min jalābibihinna)’ when in public, makes it clear that the verse was not meant to be an injunction (ḥukm) in the general, timeless sense of this term but, rather, a moral guideline to be observed against the ever-changing background of time and social environment. This finding is reinforced by the concluding referenced of God’s forgiveness and grace.” Muhammad Asad, The Message of the Qur’an, p.  651, n. 75.

1. DR LAWRENCE B. BROWN

 1. DR LAWRENCE B. BROWN

After the September 11, Islam in the world in general and the United States in particular has become known notoriously as an aggressive religion, because it had been associated with the disaster. It was claimed that Muslims did it out of their religious fanaticism. Since then, some people have started learning about Islam and either they become Muslims, or they hate Islam, because of their misunderstanding of it. Another group of people have no concern about religion. They are atheists who disbelieve our doubt in the existence of God, among them was Dr. Lawrence Brown.

Dr. Brown was graduated from Cornell University, Brown University Medical School and George Washington University Hospital residency program. He is an ophthalmic surgeon, a retired Air Force officer, and the medical director and chief ophthalmologist of a major eye centre. He also obtained a PhD in religion. He was married with three daughters. He converted to Islam in April 1994. Before his conversion Allah had sent him a message which we called  a test twice: once with blessing, but he did not listen to  it, and therefore he failed; the second one with affliction, and feeling helpless, he prayed to Allah for the first time, and miraculously his prayer was answered. This led him to Islam.

When his first daughter Katrina was born he said that:

“… she did something I have never seen any child

do before, and that is that she was able to stand from

the first day of life. From the first day if I put her on her

feet, she would stand up  herself. Now I am a doctor. I am

a medical doctor. I understand that there is something

in that a new born  baby is not supposed to be able to do.

But I did not see that as a miracle, I saw it as something interesting, something charming about this child, but

I guess I did not get the message.”

          The second message which we call a test is when his second daughter Hanna was born ten months later in October 1990. When this baby was born she was brought straight to the intensive care unit. Although he himself was a doctor he was not told what happened to his daughter. He found out her body turned dusky blue, because it was not getting oxygen. He said:

To my great dismay, she was a dusky, gunmetal

blue from the chest to the toes. Her body was not

getting enough blood, and the cause was found to

be a coarctation of the aorta -- a critical narrowing

in the major artery from the heart. Needless to say,

I was shattered. Being a doctor, I understood she

needed emergency surgery, with a poor chance of

long-term survival. A consultant paediatric cardio-

thoracic surgeon was called from across town,

and I left him in the neonatal intensive care

unit to examine my daughter.

He knew that his daughter was not getting oxygen she needed, that she was starving, and part of her body was suffocating and dying. Even if the doctor opened her chest and  replaced her blood vessel with graft, and if she survived a few years, given the technology of that time, she would need to have a surgery again to replace the graft as she grew,  and eventually the graft would fail, and then she would die.

          Dr. Brown was very sad. He related his sorrow, as follows:

And when I saw that I felt sad. The first time in my life

 I needed to turn to some greater power. I was  atheist

until then; I have been raised in a family that  was basically Quaker, one of the Protestant’s sect, but not practicing.

And I myself did not practice any religion. So, I have to

 leave the intensive care unit because they brought on

 a team of doctors, a team of specialist in their fields, and

while they were doing their things, I just went to the prayer room and for the first time in my life I really prayed.

          Dr. Brown prayed in the hospital prayer room and fell to his knees. It was the first time that he even partially recognized God. He prayed the prayer of a skeptic,

“Oh God, if You are there, and if You save my

daughter, and then guide me to the religion most

pleasing to You, that religion I will follow.”

          About fifteen minutes later Dr. Brown returned to the neonatal ICU. He was shocked when the consultant told him that his daughter would be fine. His assessment was true, as within the next two days her condition improved miraculously, without medicine or surgery. She grew perfectly normal even when she was approaching her eighteenth birthday in July 2008. Being a doctor himself, the medical explanation of his daughter’s miraculous recovery provided by the consultant, he believed that her salvation was a divine miracle rather than a medical one. He could have accepted the doctor’s explanation rather than a miracle from God, but faith had entered his heart, and it would remain there. He had taken cardiac ultrasounds showing the stricture, and the next day, the other cardiac ultrasounds showed that the stricture had gone. All he could think was that God had made good on His part of the deal, and he had to make good on his. Even if there was a medical explanation, he claimed that it was nothing more than the pathway by which Almighty God chose to answer his prayer and affect His decree. He strongly asserted that he would not accept any other explanation.

          Dr. Brown remembered his promise to God, and said that   a similar situation happened to a woman in the hospital, but she did not fulfil her promise and therefore she did not receive guidance. He said that many people who made promises to God in moments of panic, but once God relieved them of their distress, and then they invented excuses to escape their part of the bargain. This reminds us of Allah’s statement in the Qur’an about people who were sailing in the ships, they were happy when they got a favourable wind. But, “then comes a stormy wind and the waves come to them from all sides, and they think that they are encircled therein. Then they invoke Allah, making their Faith pure for Him Alone, (saying): ‘If You (Allah) deliver us from this, we shall truly, be of the grateful.’ But when He delivered them, behold! They rebel (disobey Allah) in the earth wrongfully…” (Q. 10:22-23). In other words, when Allah delivered them from the disaster, they forgot their promise to obey Allah; instead, they rebelled against Him.

          Dr. Brown started his religious search with Judaism, then Christianity with its sects. He studied various sects of Christianity: Seventh Day Adventist, Mormon, Quakers, Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic, and Greek Orthodox. When he came to the tenet he liked some parts of it, but he had problems with others. He kept asking the preachers, “how about this, how about that,” and they could not explain it, and they just shrug their shoulders.

          Dr. Brown contends that there is no foundation of the teaching of the “trinity” in Christianity, as it is not mentioned in the Bible. Jesus himself never spoke about it explicitly. The quotation about “the father, the son and the holy spirit” was not written in the original manuscript. It was only a marginal note written by the scribes in the margin on one of the manuscripts, but was later copied into the scripture.  It was then an illegitimate insertion, and he wonders why the priests are teaching it as if it is the truth. He states further that Jesus Christ described himself in the Bible as “the son of man” 88 times, but nowhere does he call himself “the Son of God”. This doctrine of Trinity was introduced three hundred years after the time of Jesus. 

          Dr. Brown encountered the Jewish scriptures’ reference to three prophets to follow Prophet Moses. He assumes that John the Baptist and Jesus Christ were the two, and in the New Testament Jesus Christ spoke of a final prophet to follow him. He found in the         Qur’an the teaching of Oneness of God, and Muhammad as the final prophet.  He also read the Biography of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. by Martin Ling based on the earliest sources which increased his belief in Islam. He found peace entered his heart, and that in Islam all his questions were answered, that “all puzzles came together.”

Dr. Brown admits that it is not a matter of intelligence that he found Islam, as there are more intelligent people who have not found the truth of Islam. It is a matter of what he calls “enlightenment” which we used to call hidāyah, “guidance” without which a person will remain disbelieve. He cites the translation of the following verse:

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا سَوَاءٌ عَلَيْهِمْ أَأَنْذَرْتَهُمْ أَمْ لَمْ تُنْذِرْهُمْ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ. خَتَمَ اللَّهُ

عَلَى قُلُوبِهِمْ وَعَلَى سَمْعِهِمْ وَعَلَى أَبْصَارِهِمْ غِشَاوَةٌ ..(البقرة:6-7)

Indeed, those who disbelieve – it is all the same

for them whether you warn them or do not warn

them – they will not believe.  God has set a seal

upon their hearts and upon their hearing, and

over their vision is a veil…  (Quran 2:6-7)

He also cites the translations Qur’anic verses as evidence that this “enlightenment” is only from Allah, as follows:  

... وَمَنْ يُؤْمِنْ بِاللَّهِ يَهْدِ قَلْبَهُ... (التغابن:11(

…whoever believes in Allah He will guide his

heart … (Q 64:11),

... اللَّهُ يَجْتَبِي إِلَيْهِ مَنْ يَشَاءُ وَيَهْدِي إِلَيْهِ مَنْ يُنِيبُ (الشورى:13(

… Allah chooses for Himself whom He wills and

guides to Himself whoever turns back

[to Him]”  ( Q. 42:13)

 and

... وَاللَّهُ يَهْدِي مَنْ يَشَاءُ إِلَى صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ (النور:46(

… and Allah guides whom He wills

to a straight path.  (Q. 24:46)

          At the end of his discourse Dr. Brown said:

“So I thank Allah that He chose to guide me, and I attribute that guidance to one simple formula: recognizing our Creator, praying to Him and to Him alone, and sincerely seeking His guidance. And whom He guides, none can lead astray.”

          Following the chain of revelation through the Abrahamic religions from Judaism to Christianity Dr. Brown eventually came to Islam. He relates the result of that study in his books, among which are as follows:

The First & Final Commandment: A Search for Truth in Revelation within the Abrahamic Religion – September 1, 2004

The Eighth Scroll – February 22, 2008

God'ed?: The Case for Islam as the Completion of Revelation - Feb 22, 2008

MisGod'ed: A Roadmap of Guidance and Misguidance in the Abrahamic Religions – February 22, 2008

Bearing True Witness: "Now that I Found Islam, What do I do with it?"  -  July 14, 2010

The Returned - November 15, 2011

The Zion Deception   – May 11, 2012

          Miracles happen to us many times, but we do not notice them, until we realize that they are beyond reason. Staunch advocates of atheism like the English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and the American neuroscientist Sam Harris, if Allah wills, could be easily “enlightened.”

(Civic, 8 January, 2016)

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/503/laurence-brown-medical-doctor-usa-part-2/

http://negativity-sucks.blogspot.com/2009/02/dr-laurence-b-browns-conversi

https://archive.org/details/Are.you.sick.of.Religion

ttps://wechooseislam.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/how-i-came-to-