The Charlatan Prophet

(Some thoughts on claims, attitudes and punishments)

by Sr. Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood

The reason for this ‘article’ is the many letters I get from correspondents who are highly antagonistic towards Islam thanks to the garbled and often offensive notions they have picked up along the way. Sometimes the letters are from those who genuinely do wish to know the truth about Islam, but at other times I get swingeing broadsides from those who regard Islam as not only nonsense but evil, people who are doing their best to discredit Islam and bring it down. I do my best to try to bring some clarity to all who write to me.

The following is taken from one such correspondence. I have omitted the full content of the letters received, but have posted up the bits to which I attempted a reply.

Correspondent: Personally, I do not believe that God talked to Mohammed. Let's face it, anyone could make such a claim - in fact, some people today do it (viz: a certain Chief Constable, some American TV evangelists, the murderer ‘Jack the Ripper’) - you surely don’t believe them?

Me: Personally, I do believe that God spoke to Muhammed, either through voice, thought, or the intermediation of angels – and I believe the same thing also happened in the same way to Moses, Abraham, Solomon, Jesus, and all genuine prophets. There is a huge difference in the call to prophecy and the voices that speak to deranged people. You have quite rightly said that some deranged people, and/or schizophrenics, do indeed hear mysterious voices claiming to be all sorts of things. Some also become obsessed, and some lie. However, in the case of all the prophets there is no evidence whatsoever of their being deranged, or charlatans or liars. On the contrary, their entire lives – especially after their ‘calls’ - were devoted to doing good, being noble, standing up to tyrants and abusers (often facing horrible personal suffering in the process – even to the extent of torture and death of themselves and their loved ones), and changing and directing history in the process. People who believe in God accept all this, and find it hard to put themselves into the mindset of those who do not. The problem for those who do not believe in God, or any sort of what I would call ‘realm of the supernatural,’ is that the very notion of communication with the Divine, whether God Himself or through an intermediary angel, is suspect, to say the least. If they truly believe there is no such possibility, they must wonder how any sane person could really claim to be living a guided life, waiting for messages from some unseen entity, and then claiming to carry out direct orders from this supernatural source.

I used to argue that if anyone made such a claim, and ended up persecuted and suffering for it, the alternatives had to be that they were either mad, genuinely suffering from some delusion, or deliberately behaving fraudulently, in order to create this reputation for themselves for some personal reason, or telling the truth. This is simplistic, but it is still basically my stance.

Correspondent: That is really my point – Muhammad was a cruel tyrant; he must have either been a complete charlatan, or as mad as a hatter.

Me: In fact, just like Jesus before him, Muhammed was indeed accused of being mad, or controlled by evil spirits. St. John’s Gospel 8.48 gives an example of irate and disbelieving antagonists accusing Jesus of ‘having a demon’. Jesus’ response was that the one who ‘was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth because there is no truth in him, who – when he lies speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies’ - is the Devil, or Shaytan.

In Muhammad’s case, when you study his life, you discover how he was (like Jesus) a wonderful, attractive and dearly loved man, and so humble and simple at the same time. Personally I also love him, and I guess the other Muslims do too. From his youth Muhammed had been devout, truthful, reliable, courageous and kind to the point of people commenting on his character and admiring him as he grew to manhood. As a teenager he was a founder member of a famous Order of Chivalry created precisely to prevent injustice towards the weak and abused. His call to prophethood did not come until his 40^th year, after which he devoted his entire life to specifically following the guidance he was given until the messages ceased some 23 years later, a couple of months before he died. Not only he, but his entire family and household had to adjust to living with the phenomenon of a ‘presence’ that they knew could see them, hear them, know their thoughts, and was in constant communication with their Householder. His adoring wife, who had been married to him for 15 years when he was called, did not rush to have him committed in an asylum but was his first and most devoted convert.

Correspondent: The problem I have with the Qur’an (ie the collection of revelations he claimed had been sent to him through this angel) is that it is not loving or merciful, but full of spiteful, revengeful acts mixed up with the ‘good stuff’. Please don't tell me that it isn’t, or that it has been misinterpreted. I have read many verses which have disturbed me. Worse, I watch a Muslim TV channel on cable. During its ‘recitation’ (you know, that chanting/singing bit), nearly every other passage is some kind of ‘unbelievers will burn in hell-fire’ or similar threat.

Me: If that is so, it is indeed a shame that these are the passages chosen. The person who chose the passages must be one of those Muslims who seem to delight in wishing people to fear God rather than love Him. I am not ducking out of the fact that there are severe passages in the Qur’an, but I would challenge whether they are spiteful or revengeful. It is a very important task for scholars to go through each passage and translate it properly and give the limits of its background. I cannot attempt it in this article, though you may refer to other articles I have written for some of my efforts.

One thing, however, I do have to point out – Christianity has largely dropped its references to Judgement, and the reality or even possibility of a state called Hell in the Life to Come. The fiery torments of Victorian preachers seem so out of date now, and it is not even fashionable to consider a state of punishment in an Afterlife, or it could be a state of mental anguish, or being ‘separated from God’, or even some sort of learning process. The impression is given that no matter how wicked and evil a person may be, God’s mercy is so wonderful that He will forgive everything, and we will all end up in the state of Heaven. All one has to do is to love Jesus, and all will be well. We Muslims find that somewhat difficult to reconcile with what Jesus actually taught, and presumably believed himself. Hell is an uncomfortable thought, and no doubt we would all rather hope the state of Hell did not exist – but we have no knowledge (apart from prophetic revelations) of whether it does or not. It seems logical to me that one either throws out the whole concept of Afterlife it its entirety, or we should accept the logic of both a Heaven and a Hell.

Whenever prophets preach about Hell, they are not doing it out of a perverse desire to get their own back on their enemies, or hoping to see weak sinners brought down or made to suffer eternal tortures, or even just get ‘burned up’ and cease to exist. (The one exception was the Prophet Ibn Nun – Jonah – who was sent to preach the dire consequences of not repenting to the Assyrians, and was so indignant when they accepted the message and did repent that he tried to run away from God and his duties, and ended up ‘in the deep’ if not in the belly of a whale! He had to be saved himself, and learn the lesson of forgiveness of those who repented, like the elder brother in Jesus’ famous parable of the Prodigal Son). Presumably prophets saw glimpses of something that they felt overwhelmingly it was their duty to warn evildoers about, so that the latter could do something about their attitudes and acts before it was too late.

The Prophet Muhammed was indeed ordered to warn – but more than that he was not allowed to do. He was never allowed to try to force people to believe in anything, or to co-erce people into agreeing to say they believed what they patently did not believe in their own minds.

Correspondent: But think about it - according to the criteria of the Qur’an there must be billions of people suffering an eternity of fire, simply for not believing that Muhammed was a prophet of God. What kind of God is this? Does burning someone for eternity really equate with a ‘merciful’ God?  The Muslim lady who gave me a copy of the Qur’an and tried to convert me is convinced that I am going to Hell. And this upsets her since she is a merciful person, and as she said to me, ‘you are a nice person’.

Me: Sadly, you do need to know the backgrounds etc of the verses, and also get a decent translation. Like you, I cannot understand why so many Muslims talk of ‘fearing’ God when the word means ‘have reverence for’. Without meaning to, your lady friend is actually committing a subtle form of shirk – which means assigning partners to the Divinity. The ‘partner’ here is herself, and this failing is commonplace  amongst more ‘extreme’ believers, who are often quite innocent of any wrong intention and are merely coming up with what they themselves have been taught. What I mean is - in assuming that you will be going to Hell, she has unintentionally taken upon herself the role of God as Judge. No-one has the right to judge a human being but God Himself, who alone knows the motives, struggle, brain-capacity, amount of insight, redeeming circumstances and so on that apply to the person they are taking it upon themselves to judge. Like the Prophet, this lady has a right to tell you her opinion and to ‘warn’, but no more.

Correspondent: I am an agnostic, meaning there might/might not be a creator and no one can be 100% sure.

Me: This is so important. You are not wrong to be an agnostic. What you are is a very honest person, a seeker after truth, spending your own time asking and searching and trying to guide others. None of us can know anything much about God or the Life to Come until we leave this one. During our time here, we are just like caterpillars munching our way around a leaf, and the awareness of what it must be like to experience being a butterfly is beyond our comprehension. You have a good sound brain and you are absolutely right to use it, and to reason, and study and search until you come to the conclusions that are right for you. You could not possibly do more than that.

It may be that you will pass the whole of your lifetime and never come across anything that convinces you of the reality of the Great Unseen; or it could be that something happens to bring you an insight this very day. You do not know, and neither do I. God does not send signs to everyone, and I do not know why that is so either. And, as you said, there are many who think they have contacted God who are really suffering from a mental problem. I think this is why Jesus insisted that ‘by their fruits you shall know them’ – so if you feel you must attempt judgement on a person, don’t it by what he/she believes or says, but by what he/she DOES, and take note of the effects shown in that person’s life and because of that person’s life. I think this was the message taught by Jesus in St.Matthew’s Gospel chapter 25, the parable of the Sheep and the Goats. They were divided up at judgement time not by what they had believed (which could have been misguided, or wrong) but by straightforward good living – ‘I was hungry and you fed me; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me, in prison and you did not abandon me.’ I am certain that God is the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful, and when the time comes for you to face whatever is to come, it will be your honest efforts, your quest, your kindness to others and so on that will be your judgement.

So, I disagree with your lady Muslim - I think you have nothing whatsoever to fear; you are honest and searching, and could possibly be nearer the truth that she is. But which of you is the kindest and most caring? But in any case, it is not proper to compete and try to be ‘the best’. Islam teaches that it is the niyyah or intention/motive that is so vital, rather than the success of otherwise of our acts.’

Correspondent: Sorry, I am 100% sure Mohammad was a charlatan and not a messenger of God (likewise, John Smith was a charlatan - see my point? Where did the Book of Mormon come from?).  And yet, for some crazy reason, over a billion people have fallen for his tricks/delusions.

Me: I cannot comment on John Smith or the Book of Mormon. I am 100% sure Muhammed was no charlatan, did no tricks, and had no delusions. The billion people who love him have probably studied his life and example, as I have.

As for ‘According to the Qur’an’s criteria there must be billions of people suffering an eternity of fire, simply for not believing that Mohammed was a prophet of God. What kind of God is this? Does burning someone for eternity really equate with a ‘merciful’ God?’ - the answer is ‘Of course not.’ If you have followed my answers, you will see why I do not believe this. The compassion of God is so far above our own. One of His revelations in the Qur’an stated that ‘if He punished us according to what we deserved, there would be left on earth no living thing.’ (Surah 35:45). The point is, He does not punish us as we deserve at all. He understands all the circumstances, weaknesses, struggles of our lives.

Your questions and challenges are very similar to those put forward in the past who had to face up to the teaching of Christians that all those who did not accept Jesus as their personal saviour would go to Hell, and burn for eternity. I don’t think many Christians preach like that these days, although the Bible is still full of texts that they could use if they wished to. Throughout history there have been religious people perfectly content to slaughter and burn (on earth) those who disagreed with them, although they might have been just as pious and saintly.

As it happens, whenever there are problems of faith, it is always wise to go back to the text and study what it actually says. In the Qur’an we are taught that the things of Heaven or Hell are beyond our powers of comprehension, so any descriptions are presumably figurative and not literal. Surah 11.106-7, for example, tells us that: ‘Those who are damned shall be in the fire; in there, they will have only sighs and sobs. They will dwell therein as long as the heavens and the earth shall last, unless your Rabb (Lord God) ordains otherwise.’ I doubt we would spend long sighing and sobbing in a burning fire. And more important, this passage also suggests that Hell may not necessarily be a permanent state, but something certain souls have to go through ‘for as long as God wills.’

 I hope my few thoughts have given you something to ponder. May God bless you and guide you to a ‘straight’ path through life.

God bless you, Wasalaam, Ruqaiyyah.