......obey God and obey the messenger?
God Almighty , the author of the Quran, has told us that every thing in this
universe
is under His control. The Quran, being God's final message to the world has
to be under
His complete control.
Its Suras, verses, words, letters, numbers, the order of revelation, the
order of writing
of the Quran, the unique spelling of some words, the choice of verbs, adjectives,
adverbs,
nouns, the beginning and end of any specific verse or sura, the length of
the individual
verses and suras, their naming, the names of people mentioned in the Quran,
e.g. Mary,
Muhammed, Noah...etc. Everything that has to do with the Quran is deliberately
done by
God Almighty.
The student of the Quran will always learn as permitted by the Most Gracious,
as only He
is the Teacher of the Quran, See 55:1-2.
Obey God and Obey Muhammed.
Any student of the Quran will object right away to this expression that he/she
never heard
before. We always hear, "Obey God and obey the messenger..." but never "Obey
God and
Obey Muhammed ." What is the difference , if any.?
Let us find out first if God mentioned Muhammed by name in the Quran. We
know, He did,
actually four times. In 3:144, 33:40, 47:2 and 48:29. How many times did
God tell us to "Obey
the messenger" ? There are more
than 25 times in the Quran, where God ordered us to obey the messenger. Not
a
single time did God say "Obey Muhammed"
Is this a co-incidnce or a deliberate order?
Only true believers know that everything in God's world is deliberate, nothing
is a co-incidence.
Let us find out what God is teaching us about Muhammed.
"Say, (O Muhammed) "I am no more than a
human being like you...."
18:110
God Almighty knowing that the Prophet Muhammed is a human being like
us, will live his life and run his business like any human being would. He
would make
mistakes, get angry, have fears, ...etc. Muhammed the human being was the
messenger only because of the message given to him, the QURAN.
Muhammed without the Quran is just another human being like us. God wants
it to be very
clear to obey the person that has the message, the Quran, for what he has
not
for who he is.
Obey the messenger is conditional on having the message, the Quran.
Obey the messenger because of the message he has, the QURAN.
Obey the messenger means to follow his message that is given to him, the
QURAN.
Muhammed without the message is just a regular human being, he frowned
and turned away when the blind poor man came to him, (See 80:1-11), he feared
the
people when he was supposed to fear only God, (See 33:37), and he prohibited
what he
should not prohibit, (See 66:1)
That is why there has never been a single order in the Quran from God,the
Most
Cognizant to "Obey Muhammed." If we were to obey Muhammed the human
being,(not the messenger), we were to frown at the poor, fear the people
instead
of God and prohibit what God did not. We are required to obey the messenger,
because it is the message (QURAN) that made the obedience a requirement,
not the
person, Muhammed, that made it a requirement.
Those who know Arabic well know that the word (Rasool) in Arabic means both
the messenger and the message. So, when God says , obey the (Rasool) , He
means both the messenger and the message (QURAN). Both are inseparable. When
the
messenger, the human being is dead, the true messenger among us
becomes the message itself, in this case, the QURAN. God Almighty has called
the
Quran (Rasool) on many occasions, e.g., 5:15, 11:1-3, 14:1, 27:2, 32:3, 34:6,
42:52, &
65:11.
One great example of the distinction between obeying the messenger (For what
he has)
(the Quran) and obeying the human being, is what God told Muhammed's wives;
in Sura 33,
"O wives of the prophet, if any of you
commits gross sin, the
retribution will be doubled for her. This is easy for God to do.
Any one of you who obeys GOD and His MESSENGER, and
leads a righteous life, we will grant her double the recompense,
and we have prepared for her a generous provision."
33:30-31
Notice the order here for the prophet's wives to obey the Messenger, not
their husband
or Muhammed. If God would have said to them to obey their husband, the
unconditional
obedience of the wife to her husband would have been decreed.
If God would have said, obey Muhammed, it would have made the unconditional
obedience of Muhammed a decree. God wants them and wants us to obey the messenger
(for the message he has, the QURAN).
Muhammed the human being was given the great honor of being chosen the final
prophet
of God to deliver the final message, the QURAN, and was described as "blessed
with a great
moral character" in 68:4.
We, however have to remember not to make any distinction between him and
the rest of
God's messengers, See 2:285. We are to make the distinction between obeying
him by
following his message and obeying him by following allegation of what he
did as a human
being in his own personal life.
YES, we should obey the messenger. Those who accept the Quran accept the
order from
God to "obey the messenger" by following his message, the Quran ALONE. When
the prophet
Muhammed died, he left for us ONLY one book, the Quran.
When God told Muhammed in the Quran, "Today I completed your religion for
you",
Muhammed had only one book at that time, the Quran. Muhammed gave us one
kind of
Islam, that we can find in the book of God, the Quran. He did not leave for
us the other
sects of Sunni, Shiite, Ahmaddya, Ismailis…etc. These sects were created
when the Muslims
looked for the books of hadiths and sunna to supplement the book
of God. In doing so, they willingly or unwillingly declared that they do
not trust God in His
own book. The book that God described as complete, perfect, fully detailed
and having
details of everything. See 12:111By doing so, all these sects left God’s
kingdom and joined
the same groups who previously corrupted the other religions of God, Judaism
and Christianity.
It is very interesting to know that God gave us this prophecy in the Quran
and told us the messe
nger will complain to Him on the Last Day that "My people have deserted this
Quran." 25:30
"...this is not a fabricated Hadith, this
(QURAN) confirms all previous scriptures,
provides the details of everything, and is a beacon and mercy for those
who believe."
12:111
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