Premise
If You Say: You said in the preface that the second part of the profession of faith both testifies to the first and is testified to by it.
The Answer: Yes, indeed! The straightest and firmest of the ways leading to the ka‘ba of perfections known as knowledge of Allah the Most High, is the luminous, felicitous way laid out by the Master of Medina the Illumined (Upon whom be blessings and peace). For the veracious tongue of Muhammad (Upon whom be peace), who was the spirit of guidance, reflected and interpreted his heart, which was a light‑scattering lamp encapsulating the Unseen Worlds, and was the truest living proof of the proofs of the Maker, and the most eloquent and articulate evidence.
Yes, both his self and his tongue were illuminating proofs. The person of Muhammad (UWBP) was a clear proof from the side of creation; his tongue was a truthful witness from the side of reality. Yes, Muhammad (Upon whom be peace) was a decisive proof of both the Maker, and prophethood, and the resurrection of the dead, and truth, and reality. Detailed exposition is coming later.
Note This does not necessitate a circular argument, for proof of truthfulness is not dependent on the Maker’s evidences.
Foreword Our prophet was a proof of the Maker, in which case, the veracity of this proof has to be established, and its consequences, and its validity in form and content. As follows:
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
Allah! Bestow blessings on Muhammad, who proved Your necessary existence
Lover of the truth! If you want to observe true facts by studying my conscience, you must neither justify your misapprehensions, which give rise to the desire to oppose and take the part of the opponent and offer excuses so tarnishing the dominical faculty they call the heart, nor ascribe them to their origin, nor seek the whole’s result from each of the parts. For to do so is weakness and causes inability and rejection of the result. Also, cleanse the mirror of the heart of the childish or inimical propensity to offer pretexts and of such traits as seeing only faults like a customer, and polish it up. Respond to and balance up the truths. Deduce from the burning brand of the truth which appears from the combining of the allusions of the greater part, an illumined conjecture, so that the dark delusions of the lesser may be lit up and repulsed. Listen fairly and attentively, and don’t object until what I have to say is finished. My words form an entirety, a whole statement. If any delusive ideas remain in your mind when they are completed, state them!
Note The minor premise is prophethood generally, the major premise is the prophethood of Muhammad (Upon whom be blessings and peace). We begin:
Indication The Maker’s wisdom and the absence of futility in His actions, and the observance of order in even the lowliest and least thing in the universe and its never being neglected, and the ineluctable need which is humankind’s teacher, most certainly necessitate the existence of prophethood in humankind.
If You Say: I don’t understand so brief a statement. Explain it further.
I Say: Listen! The proof of prophethood generally is humanity’s advancing from animality in respect of three points. For prophethood resembles the centre and mine of the material and spiritual order of humankind and of the order given to the disposition of the numerous species which have been placed under its disposal owing to the power of the human faculty of reason.
The First Point is the strange mystery inferred by the rule ’To think first is to act afterwards; to act first, is to think afterwards.’ It is like this:
humankind’s ability to develop sciences by discovering through the light of speculative thought the sequences and configurations of causes, and by analysing and reducing to elementary substances the compounds that are like the seeds of human attainments; and in respect of its ability to produce art, which it does through copying nature and employing the laws in force in the things they call compound wholes, the human being’s faulty view, thronging anxieties, and inability to arouse humanity, all show the need for a prophet‑guide, so that the balance of the perfect order in the world may be preserved.
The Second are the human potentialities, which are infinite; human beings’ hopes and desires, which are unrestricted; their thoughts and ideas, which are boundless; and their appetitive powers and power of anger, which are unlimited.
Indication Even if a person were to be given a lifetime of millions of years and complete enjoyment of all worldly pleasures in every respect, he would still sigh “if only …” due to the infinity within his innate disposition. It is as though his discontentment suggests and hints that humankind is destined for eternity and is created for everlasting happiness so that the unrestricted innate human capabilities may emerge in fact in infinite time in an unlimited, expansive world.
Note The absence of futility and the realities of things intimate that the human perfections cannot be contained in this narrow, restricted, and lowly world, which is not free of the conflict and envy arising from the numerous factors hindering every single pleasure. There must be a wide world where there are no obstructions and disorder so that human beings may truly burgeon and blossom, and setting their own circumstances and attainments in order, conform to the order in the world.
Note and Indication The resurrection of the dead has been alluded to indirectly and will anyway be proved conclusively below. The point I want to make here is that the innate human potentialities look to eternity. If you wish, study and ponder over the human essence, the value of man’s rationality, and the requirements of his innate capabilities. Then take a look at his imagination, the least and lowliest servant of the human essence. Approach it and say: “Hey, imagination! You’ll be given sovereignty over the world and all it holds and a lifetime of millions of years, but your end will be demise and extinction never to return.” How would your imagination respond to you, I wonder? Would it reply joyfully and happily, or regretfully and sorrowfully?
Surely, the human essence would cry out woefully from the depths of its conscience, “Alas and alack at the loss of everlasting happiness!” It would reproach the imagination bitterly, saying: “Don’t be content with this fleeting world!”
My brother, if such transient sovereignty does not satisfy the lowliest servant of humanity’s sovereign – the human essence, or its poet, artist, or painter, how could it satisfy the sovereign itself, who has many servants such as the imagination? It could in no way do so! Only eternal happiness could satisfy it, concealed as it is in the shell of bodily resurrection.
The Third are the moderateness and sensitivity of human nature and the wish for fine things. It is humanity’s innate desire for a way of living appropriate to itself.
Yes, human beings should not live like animals; they cannot. They have to live with a completeness that is congruous with human honour.
In consequence, for their dress, food, and dwellings, they need to engage in numerous industries. But because singly, a person’s power is insufficient for these industries, he has to mingle with his fellow‑men, and this requires participating with them, and this, co-operating with them, and this, exchanging the fruits of their labours. Then due to the pertinaciousness and truculence of the human powers, they are in need of justice, and, because the human reason lacks the capacity for justice, of the laying down of universal laws to preserve it. Then in order to perpetuate the laws’ effectiveness, they need a lawgiver to enforce them. Also, the lawgiver has to be superior materially (maddeten) and morally (mânen) so that he may preserve his inward and outward domination. And since he has been assigned certain duties by the world’s Maker, worship is needed since it repeatedly recalls and instils in people’s minds the idea of the Maker’s grandeur, and ensures obedience to the lawgiver’s position and relative power, and to his commands. And worship directs minds towards the Maker, and being directed in this way, induces submission, and such submission leads to the establishment of a perfect order. The perfect order is born of the mystery of wisdom, and the inner meaning of wisdom makes the absence of futility and the Maker’s wisdom and the skilful art in creatures testify to itself.
Thus, if you have been able to understand these three ways in which humankind is privileged over the animals, the necessary conclusion is that prophethood is the pole of humanity; indeed, is its centre and pivot, for all human affairs turn on it. It is like this:
consider carefully the upper aspect, see how the management of humankind and the insufficiency of the human being’s natural inclinations and the faultiness of his views and mixing of doubts in the progress of his reason all make humankind extremely needy for a guide and teacher. Such teachers are the prophets.
Then study the second aspect. It is as follows: man‑made laws are in conformity neither with the stature of the human person’s innate potentialities which have the ability to progress and are like the fruit of a branch of the world’s tendency towards perfection, nor with his desire for infinity and the inclination towards aggression in his nature and the lack of restrictions on his faculties and hopes; man-made laws are lifeless and temporary. They have come into existence gradually through the meeting of minds and their products and experiments. Due to the inadequate training of and assistance for the seeds of those fruits of the human potentialities, there is need for a divine code of laws that will ensure human happiness materially and spiritually in this world and the next, and being living and eternal, will expand together with the development of the stature of the human potentialities. It is the Prophet who brings that code of laws, the Shari‘a.
If You Say: We see that the affairs of the irreligious or of members of false religions are orderly and just.
The Answer: Such order, justice, and virtues are obtained through the warnings and guidance of the religious, since the latter’s principles have been established by the prophets. That is to say, the prophets laid down the principles and matters; they practised the principles and virtues, and the rest followed what they did. Other systems and attainments are temporary. If they are upright and straight in one respect, in many respects they are misshapen and crooked. That is, no matter how orderly they are superficially, materially, and in regard to livelihood, they are corrupt and impaired morally, spiritually, and in meaning.
Brother! It is the turn of the third aspect. Think about it! It is like this: both extremes in morality, that is, excess and negligence, corrupt man’s innate capabilities, and such corruption results in futility. Futility is contrary to the divine wisdom which governs in the world and is self‑evident in the benefits and purposes followed in even the smallest and least important things in the universe.
Misapprehension and Note The conceptions of the irreligious and their rejection of the divine Shari‘a concerning the matters they call “knowledge of the law,” which they instil by continually bruiting the harms of every sort of wrong, and “conforming to the law,” which is achieved by informing public opinion, are false delusions. For the world has grown old. And the premises of such a thing are not clear. On the contrary, evils progress together with good things and assume a more fearsome and deceptive form.
Indeed, just as the laws of wisdom are not unrelated to the principles of government, so too they have intense need for the laws of the Shari‘a and virtue. The above‑mentioned mistaken moral training is insufficient to preserve the mean of the three powers – wisdom, chastity, and courage. In consequence, of necessity man is in need of a prophet who will uphold the balance of divine justice, that it might be thoroughly effective on his conscience and disposition.
Indication Thousands of prophets have claimed prophethood and supported their claims with thousands of miracles. All their miracles proclaim in unison prophethood generally. This is a decisive proof of our minor premise too. You can call this tevâtür (Ar. tawātur) in meaning or anything you like, it is firm evidence.
Note The points of similarity in these reasoned arguments (muhâkemat) are these: if one considers all the sciences, and if one observes the good order and harmony the sciences have disclosed by reason of the universality of their laws; and if one studies from the point of view of divine providence how such disorderly matters and acts as eating and marriage become connected and linked by adding a pleasure or affection or some other thing, which are the vitalising leaven of various useful things; and if one dwells upon the absence of futility and of neglect in things, which is testified to by the wisdom and purpose they display; one will conclude through induction that as the pole and pivot of universal uses and benefits and the source of their life, prophethood is necessary for humankind.
If it were not so and one believes that wretched humanity fell into this well‑ordered world from a chaotic world, so spoiling the balance and harmony of the general course of things, how could we human beings face the other beings in the universe?
Note Brother! If the minor premise of the proof of the Maker has been engraved on the page of your mind, prepare yourself, for we are moving on to discussion of Muhammad’s (UWBP) prophethood, the major premise.
Indication and Guidance The major premise is true, for if you study the works of the prophets which are inscribed on the instructive page of the world, and if you listen to their exploits recounted by the tongue of history, and if you are able to divest the truth of the various forms it has assumed due to the effects of time and place, you will see that
the prophets acted in accordance with the principles of public law (hukûkullah) and private law (hukûk‑u ibad), which are a flame of sheer virtue and a light of divine providence, and they taught how people should be regarded by humanity and how they should act towards other peoples and renounce personal interests, and other matters. The principles that were the pivot of prophethood were found in Muhammad (UWBP) in clearer and more perfect form, since he is the master of the sons of man at the age of their maturity and elderliness, and the source of the high sciences in the medrese of the Arabian Peninsula and their teacher.
That is, in addition to pointing to the conclusion of Muhammad’s (UWBP) prophethood through induction, particularly with the assistance of the hidden syllogism in one type based on the regular order [in the universe] and corroborated by the analogy known as evlevi, through the tongue of their miracles and in respect of the procedure of discarding extraneous matters called tenkih‑ül menât, the prophets testified to the veracity of Muhammad (UWBP), who was a clear proof of the Maker’s existence.
Apology I can’t express this in short sentences and it becomes unclear. For these truths have sent out deep roots in every direction and the discussion has become protracted. I don’t want to spoil the form of the question, or to break it up and injure the truth. I want also to draw a circle around the truth so that it is hemmed in and can’t escape. If I can’t capture it, others should do so. If you excuse me, so be it. Anyway, there is liberty and no oppression, so it’s up to you!