From maalkadh@mailbox.syr.edu (Misha'al Al-Kadhi) Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam Subject: Where is the coming of Muhammad prophesied in the Bible? Date: Thu Mar 14 18:34:02 EST 1996 Message-ID: <4iaada$q70@shellx.best.com> Organization: Syracuse University In article <4i5mts$e46@shellx.best.com> Steve Walker <skw@skwalker.demon.co.uk> writes: > I have seen reference in articles in this newsgroup to biblical passages > predicting the coming of Muhammad. > I would be grateful if someone could post the biblical references, with > an explanation as to how they refer to Muhammad, since I assume they are > interpreted rather than explicit (or I would not have to ask which they > are). > Thanks. > -- > Steve Walker Hello Steve. You present a valid request. IN what follows I shall do my best to answer it. If one were to read the Old Testament, they would be presented with many prophesies of the comming of Jesus. Both Muslims as well as Christians agree to that. However, if we were to ask a Christian to please show us where the OT mentions Jesus "by name" then we would be unable to find a single such prophesy. All prophesies of Jesus consist of Christians looking at the "descriptions" presented in a given verse and then comparing them Jesus, if they find them to fit then they say it speaks about him. Actually, many Chrsitians have gone much further than that by telling us that they have found evidence of world wars, the Pope, and other matters in the Bible. SO the question becomes, does the Bible have anything to say about prophet Muhammad (pbuh)? Most likely, the answer shall be a resounding NO! So we need to ask, if the Bible has prophesied all of these other matters, then why does it have absolutely nothing to say about the one who would succeed in teaching billions upon billions of people throughout the ages to believe in Jesus, in his miraculous birth, in his piety and chastity, in his truthfulness, in his miracles, in the purity and chastity of his mother Mary (peace be upon them both), end so forth? In truth, the Bible is not silent on this issue, however, just as it requires us to research history and the characteristics of Jesus (pbuh) in order to find the prophesies of Jesus, so too must we research history and the characteristics of prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and the Islamic nation in order to see what the Bible has to say about him. In what follows I shall do my best to present only a few of the many prophesies of prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in the Bible. Sincerely Misha'al ********************************************* First Prophesy: -------------- Habakkuk 3:3 "God (his guidance) came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise." The wilderness of Paran is where Abraham's wife Hagar and his eldest son Ishmael, the father of the Arabs, settled (Genesis 21:21) in the Arabian desert. Specifically, Makkah*. Makkah is, of course, the capital of Islam in Arabia and the birthplace of Muhammad (pbuh). Indeed, it was Hagar and Ishmael themselves who transformed a barren patch of desert into what is now the capital of Islam, "Makkah." Mount Paran is the chain of mountains in that same region which the Arabs call the "Sarawat mountains." Muhammad (pbuh) first became the prophet of Islam in the cave of "Hira’a" located in the highest part of these mountains. Jesus (pbuh) never in his life traveled to Paran nor Teman. Muhammad, however, was born in Paran, he died there, and it was the capital of the Islamic religion in that day and this. No man from Paran, throughout history, has had his praise sung in so many nations throughout creation as has Muhammad (pbuh). The name "Muhammad" itself literally means in Arabic "The praised one." Through the teachings of Muhammad, God is now being praised by over one billion Muslims around the world. According to J. Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible, Teman is an Oasis just North of Madinah in teh Arabian Peninsula. Muhammad (pbuh) did indeed come from Paran. About 622 AD, he and his followers were forced to migrate from Makkah to Madinah where he spent the major portion of his prophetic life teaching it's people the guidance of God (the Qur'an). These two cities, Makkah and Madinah, are such critical importance to a Muslims faith that every single chapter of the Qur’an is classified as either "Makkia" (revealed in Makkah) or "Madaniyyah" (revealed in Madinah). ----------------------------------- *Note: ------ Some difference of opinion has arisen as to where "Paran" actually is with some people mistakenly concluding that it is in Sinai. However, this is resolved very simply by recognizing the following four points: 1) The Bible tells us in Genesis 21:21 that Ishmael, the son of prophet Abraham and the father of the Arabs, settled in "Paran." This is where he would live and die and this is where he raised all of his children. Ishmael was the father of the Arabs. Thus, we would be justified in assuming that the Arabs should be better aquatinted with where their father (and them themselves) lived than any other nation, and it is a well established fact among the Arabs that their father Ishmael was the founder of the city of Makkah, as well as the one who, with the help of prophet Abraham (pbut) built the holy house of God, the Ka’aba, in that city. 2) The Arabs and Jews are Semitic cousins. They descend from the same father, prophet Abraham (pbuh). Their languages, Arabic and Hebrew, are very similar in many respects since they have a common ancestry. However, Arabic never died out as a spoken language for many centuries as Hebrew did. In Arabic, the word Paran is pronounced "Faran" which means "Two who migrated." This word is used in the Qur’an to convey the meaning of "emigrating to your Lord" or "escaping to your Lord". This can be found in the verse of Al-Thariat(51):50. Indeed, Ishmael and his ther, Hagar, did in fact emigrate (as witnessed by the Bible too) to this location which would later become the city of Makkah. 3) The Bible itself distinguishes between the wilderness of Sinai and the wildness of Paran in Numbers 10:12. It is quite clear from this verse that thy are two different locations. 4) The Lebanese Christian, Kamal Salibi, places Paran in close proximity to Makkah. On page 215 of his book ‘The Bible Came from Arabia’ he says: ".. the place in question could have been Faran, in the Zahran highlands, bordering on the basaltic desert of Harrat Al-Buqum. In any case, this Faran was no doubt the Biblical Paran"
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