MUHAMMAD IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

MUHAMMAD IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

I.  PREFATORY
REMARKS

     I propose through
this article and the ones which will follow to show that the doctrine of Islam
concerning the Deity and the last great messenger of Allah is perfectly true and
conforms to the teachings of the Bible.

I shall devote the present
article to discussing the first point, and in a few other papers I shall attempt
to show that Prophet Muhammad is the real object of the Covenant and in him, and
him alone, are actually and literally fulfilled all the prophecies in the Old
Testament.

I wish to make it quite
clear that the views set out in this article and those which will follow it are
quite personal, and that I am alone responsible for my personal and un- borrowed
researches in the Hebrew Sacred Scriptures. I do not, however, assume an
authoritative attitude in expound- ing the teachings of Islam, meaning
submission to God.

I have not the slightest
intention nor desire to hurt the religious feelings of Christian friends. I love
Christ, Moses and Abraham, as I do Prophet Muhammad and all other holy prophets
of God.

My writings are not
intended to raise a bitter and therefore useless dispute with the Churches, but
only invite them to a pleasant and friendly investigation of this all-important
question with a spirit of love and impartiality. If the Chris- tians desist from
their vain attempt of defining the essence of the Supreme Being, and confess His
absolute Oneness, then a union between them and the Muslims is not only probable
but extremely possible. For once the Oneness of God is accepted and
acknowledged, the other points of difference between the two faiths can more
easily be settled.

II. ALLAH AND HIS
ATTRIBUTES

There are two fundamental
points between Islam and Christianity which, for the sake of the truth and the
peace of the world, deserved a very serious and deep investigation. As these two
religions claim their origin from one and the same source, it would follow that
no important point of controversy between them should be allowed to exist. Both
these great religions believe in the existence of the Deity and in the covenant
made between God and the Prophet Abraham. On these two principal points a
thoroughly con- scientious and final agreement must be arrived at between the
intelligent adherents of the two faiths. Are we poor and ignorant mortals to
believe in and worship one God, or are we to believe in and fear a plurality of
Gods? Which of the two, Christ or Prophet Muhammad, is the object of the Divine
Covenant? These two questions must be answered once for all.

It would be a mere waste
of time here to refute those who ignorantly or maliciously suppose the God as
mentioned in Islam to be different from the true God and only a fictitious deity
of Prophet Muhammad’s own creation. If the Christian priests and theologians
knew their Scriptures in the original Hebrew instead of in translations as the
Muslims read their Quran in its Arabic text, they would clearly see that Allah
is the same ancient Semitic name of the Supreme Being who revealed and spoke to
Adam and all the prophets.

Allah is the only
Self-Existing, Knowing, Powerful Being. He encompasses, fills every space, being
and thing; and is the source of all life, knowledge and force. Allah is the
Unique Creator, Regulator and Ruler of the universe. He is abso- lutely One. The
essence, the person and nature of Allah are absolutely beyond human
comprehension, and therefore any attempt to define His essence is not only
futile but even dangerous to our spiritual welfare and faith; for it will
certainly lead us into error.

The trinitarian branch of
the Christian Church, for about seventeen centuries, has exhausted all the
brains of her saints and philosophers to define the Essence and the Person of
the Deity; and what have they invented? All that which Athanasiuses, Augustines
and Aquinases have imposed upon the Christians "under the pain of eternal
damnation" to believe in a God who is "the third of three"! Allah, in His Holy
Quran, condemns this belief in these solemn words:-

"Because the unbelivers
are those who say: ‘Allah is one of three.’ There is but One God. If they do not
desist in what they say, a painful punishment will afflict those of them that
disbelieve." (Quran Ch.5 v73).

The reason why the
orthodox Muslim scholars have always refrained from defining God’s Essence is
because His Essence transcends all attributes in which it could only be defined.
Allah has many Names which in reality are only adjectives derived from His
essence through its various mani- festations in the universe which He alone has
formed. We call Allah by the appellations Almighty, Eternal, Omnipresent,
Omniscient, Merciful, and so forth, because we conceived the eternity,
omnipresence, universal knowledge, mercifulness, as emanating from His essence
and belonging to Him alone and absolutely. He is alone the infinitely Knowing,
Powerful, Living, Holy, Beautiful, Good, Loving, Glorious, Terrible Avenger,
because it is from Him alone that emanate and flow the qualities of knowledge,
power, life, holiness, beauty and the rest. God has no attributes in the sense
we understand them. With us an attribute or a property is common to many
individuals of a species, but what is God’s is His alone, and there is none
other to share it with Him. When we say, "Solomon is wise, powerful, just and
beautiful," we do not ascribe exclusively to him all wisdom, power, justice and
beauty. We only mean to say that he is relatively wise as compared with others
of his species, and that wisdom too is relatively his attribute in common with
the individuals belong- ing to his class.

To make it more clear, a
divine attribute is an emana- tion of God, and therefore an activity. Now every
divine action is nothing more or less than a creation.

It is also to be admitted
that the divine attributes, inas- much as they are emanations, posit time and a
beginning; consequently when Allah said: "Be, and it was" – or He uttered, His
word in time and in the beginning of the creation. This is what the Sufis term "aql-kull",
or universal intelligence, as the emana- tion of the "aql awwal", namely, the
"first intelligence." Then the "nafs-kull", or the "universal soul" that was the
first to hear and obey this divine order, emanated from the "first soul" and
transformed the universe.

This reasoning would lead
us to conclude that each act of God displays a divine emanation as His
manifestation and particular attribute, but it is not His Essence or Being. God
is Creator, because He created in the beginning of time, and always creates. God
spoke in the beginning of time just as He speaks in His own way always. But as
His creation is not eternal or a divine person, so His Word cannot be consi-
dered eternal and a divine Person. The Christians proceed further, and make the
Creator a divine father and His Word a divine son; and also, because He breathed
life into His creatures, He is surnamed a divine Spirit, forgetting that
logically He could not be father before creation, nor "son" before He spoke, and
neither "Holy Ghost" before He gave life. I can conceive the attributes of God
through His works at manifestations a posteriori, but of his eternal and a prior
attributes posses no conception whatever, nor do I ima- gine any human
intelligence to be able to comprehend the nature of an eternal attribute and its
relationship to the essence of God. In fact, God has not revealed to us the
nature of His Being in the Holy Scriptures nor in the human intellect.

The attributes of God are
not to be considered as distinct and separate divine entities or personalities,
other- wise we shall have, not one trinity of persons in the Godhead, but
several dozen of trinities. An attribute until it actually emanates from its
subject has no existence. We cannot qualify the subject by a particular
attribute before that at- tribute has actually proceeded from it and is seen.
Hence we say "God is Good" when we enjoy His good and kind action; but we cannot
describe Him – properly speaking – as "God is Goodness," because goodness is not
God, but His action and work. It is for this reason that the Quran always
attributes to Allah the adjectival appellations, such as the Wise, the Knowing,
the Merciful, but never with such descriptions as "God is love, knowledge,
word," and so forth; for love is the action of the lover and not the lover
himself, just as knowledge or word is the action of the knowing person and not
himself.

I particularly insist on
this point because of the error into which have fallen those who maintain the
eternity and distinct personality of certain attributes of God. The Verb or the
Word of God has been held to be a distinct person of the Deity; whereas the word
of God can have no other signification than an expression of His Knowledge and
Will. The Quran, too, is called "the Word of God," and some early Muslim doctors
of law asserted that it was eternal and un- created. The same appellation is
also given to Jesus Christ in the Quran – Kalimatun minho, i.e. "a Word from
Him" (Ch.3 v45). But it would be very irreligious to assert that the Word or
Logos of God is a distinct person, and that it as- sumed flesh and became
incarnate in the shape of a man of Nazareth or in the form of a book, the former
called "the Christ" and the latter "the Quran"!

To sum up this subject, I
insistently declare that the Word or any other imaginable attribute of God, not
only is it not a distinct Divine entity or individuality, but also it could have
no actual (in actu) existence prior to the be- ginning of time and creation.

The first verse with which
St. Johns Gospel commences was often refuted by the early Unitarian writers, who
rendered its true reading as follows: "In the beginning was the Word; and the
Word was with God; and the Word was God’s."

It will be noticed that
the Greek form of the genitive case "Theou" i.e. "God’s" (1) was corrupted into
"Theos"; that is, "God," in the nominative form of the name! It is also to be
observed that the clause "In the beginning was the word" expressly indicates the
origin of the word which was not before the beginning! By the "word of God" is
not meant a separate and distinct substance, coeval and coexistent

______________

(1) Footnote: Concerning the Logos, ever since the the "Gospels"
and "Commentaries" as well as the controversial writings belonging to the
Unitarians, except what has been quoted from them in the writings of their
opponents, such as the learned Greek Patriarch Photius and those before him.

Among the "Fathers" of the Eastern Christians, one of the most
distinguished is St. Ephraim the Syrian. He is the author of many works, chiefly
of a commentary on the Bible which is published both in Syriac and in Latin,
which latter edition I had carefully read in Rome. He has also homilies,
dissertations called "midrishi" and "contra Haeretici," etc. Then there is a
famous Syrian, author Bir Disin (generally written Bardisanes) who flourished in
the latter end of the second and the first of the third century A.D. From the
writings of Bir Disin nothing in the Syriac is extant except what Ephraim, Jacob
of Nesibin and other Nestorians and Jacobites have quoted for refutation, and
except what most of the Greek Fathers employed in their own language. Bir Disin
maintained that Jesus Christ was the seat of the temple of the Word of God, but
both he and the Word were created. St. Ephraim, in combating the "heresy" of Bir
Disin, says: -
( Syriac ): "Wai lakh O, dovya at Bir Disin Dagreit l'Milta eithrov d'AIIihi.
Baram kthabha la kthabh d'akh hikhin Illa d'Miltha eithov Allihi,"

(Arabic) "Wailu 'I-laka yi anta' s-Safil Bir Disin Li-anna
fara'aita kina 'I-kalimo li 'I-Lihi Li-kina 'I-Kitibo mi Kataba Kazi Illa 'I-Kalimo
Kina 'I-Lih."

(English translation): "Woe unto thee O miserable Bir Disin That
thou didst read the "word was God's"! But the Book [Gospel] did not write
likewise, Except that "the Word was God."

Almost in all the controversies on the Logos the Unitarians are
"branded" with the heresy of denying the eternality and divine personality of it
by having "corrupted" the Gospel of John, etc. These imputations were returned
to the Trinitarians by the true Nasira - Unitarians. So one can deduct from the
patristic lite- rature that the Trinitarians were always reproached with having
corrupted the Scriptures.
______________end footnote

with the Almighty, but
saying of His Knowledge and Will when He uttered the word Kun, namely, "Be."
When God said Kun, the worlds became; when He said Kun for His Words to be
recorded in the Protected Tablets by the pen it became again.

By His saying: "Be," Jesus
was created in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and so on – whenever He
wills to create a thing He but only says "Be," to it and it becomes.

The Christian auspicatory
formula: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,"
does not even mention the name of God! And this is the Christian God! The
Nestorian and Jacobite formula, which consists of ten syllables exactly like the
Muslim "Bismillahi," is thus to be transliterated: Bshim Abha wo-Bhra ou-Ruha d-Qudsha,
which has the same meaning as that contained in all other Christian formulas.
The Quranic formula, on the other hand, which expresses the foundation of the
Islamic truth is a great contrast to the Trinitarians’ formula: Bis- millahi ‘r-Rahmani
‘r-Rahim; that is: "In the Name of the Most Merciful and Compassionate Allah."

The Christian Trinity –
inasmuch as it admits a plurality of persons in the Deity, attributes distinct
personal properties to each person; and makes use of family names similar to
those in the pagan mythology – cannot be accepted as a true conception of the
Deity. Allah is neither the father of a son nor the son of a father. He has no
mother, nor is He self- made. The belief in "God the Father and God the Son and
God the Holy Ghost" is a flagrant denial of the Oneness of God, and an audacious
confession in three imperfect beings who, unitedly or separately, cannot be the
true God.

Mathematics as a positive
science teaches us that a unit is no more nor less than one; that one is never
equal to one plus one plus one; in other words, one cannot be equal to three,
because one is the third of the three. In the same way, one is not equal to a
third. And vice versa, three are not equal to one, nor can a third be equal to a
unit. The unit is the basis of all numbers, and a standard for the measurements
and weights of all dimensions, distances, quan- tities and time. In fact, all
numbers are aggregates of the unit 1. Ten is an aggregate of so many equal units
of the same kind.

Those who maintain the
unity of God in the trinity of persons tell us that "each person is omnipotent,
omnipresent, eternal and perfect God; yet there are not three omnipotent,
omnipresent, eternal and perfect Gods, but one omnipotent . . . God!" If there
is no sophistry in the above reasoning then we shall present this "mystery" of
the churches by an equation:- .

God = 1 God + 1 God + 1
God; therefore: 1 God = 3 Gods. In the first place, one god cannot equal three
gods, but only one of them. Secondly, since you admit each person to be perfect
God like His two associates, your conclusion that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 is not
mathematical, but an absurdity!

You are either too
arrogant when you attempt to prove that three units equal one unit; or too
cowardly to admit that three ones equal three ones. In the former case you can
never prove a wrong solution of a problem by a false pro- cess; and in the
second you have not the courage to confess your belief in three gods.

Besides, we all – Muslims
and Christians – believe that God is Omnipresent, that He fills and encompasses
every space and particle. Is it conceivable that all the three persons of the
Deity at the same time and separately encompass the universe, or is it only one
of them at the time? To say "the Deity does this" would be no answer at all. For
Deity is not God, but the state of being God, and therefore a quality.

Godhead is the quality of
one God; it is not susceptible of plurality nor of diminution. There are no
godheads but one Godhead, which is the attribute of one God alone.

Then we are told that each
person of the trinity has some particular attributes which are not proper to the
other two. And these attributes indicate – according to human reasoning and
language – priority and posteriority among them. The Father always holds the
first rank, and is prior to the Son. The Holy Ghost is not only posterior as the
third in the order of counting but even inferior to those from whom he proceeds.
Would it not be considered a sin of heresy if the names of the three persons
were conversely repeated? Will not the signing of the cross upon the coun-
tenance or over the elements of the Eucharist be considered impious by the
Churches if the formula be reversed thus: "In the name of the Holy Ghost, and of
the Son, and of the Father"? For if they are absolutely equal and coeval, the
order of precedence need not be so scrupulously observed.

The fact is that the Popes
and the General Councils have always condemned the Sabelian doctrine which main-
tained that God is one but that He manifested Himself as the Father or as the
Son or as the Holy Spirit, being always one and the same person. Of course, the
religion of Islam does not endorse or sanction the Sabelian views. God mani-
fested Jamal or beauty in Christ, Jelal or Glory and Majesty in Prophet
Muhammad, and Wisdom in Solomon, and so on in many other objects of nature, but
none of those pro- phets are gods neither the beautiful scenery of nature are
gods.

The truth is that there is
no mathematical exactitude, no absolute equality between the three persons of
the Trinity. If the Father were in every respect equal to the Son or the Holy
Spirit, as the unit 1 is positively equal to another figure 1, then there would
necessarily be only one person of God and not three, because a unit is not a
fragment or fraction nor a multiple of itself. The very difference and
relationship that is admitted to exist between the persons of the Trinity leaves
no shadow of doubt that they are neither equal to each other nor are they to be
identified with one another. The Father begets and is not begotten; the Son is
begotten and not a father; the Holy Ghost is the issue of the other two persons;
the first person is described as creator and destroyer; the second as savior or
redeemer, and the third as life-giver. Consequently none of the three is alone
the Creator, the Redeemer and the Life-giver. Then we are told that the second
person is the Word of the first Person, becomes man and is sacrificed on the
cross to satisfy the justice of his father, and that his incarnation and
resurrection are operated and accomplished by the third person.

In conclusion, I must
remind Christians that unless they believe in the absolute Oneness of God, and
renounce the belief in the three persons, they are certainly unbelievers in the
true God. Strictly speaking, Christians are polytheists, only with this
exception, that the gods of the heathen are false and imaginary, whereas the
three gods of the Churches have a distinct character, of whom the Father – as
another epithet for Creator – is the One true God, but the son is only a pro-
phet and worshiper of God, and the third person one of the innumerable holy
spirits in the service of the Almighty God.

In the Old Testament, God
is called Father because of His being a loving Creator and Protector, but as the
Churches abused this Name, the Quran has justly refrained from using it.

The Old Testament and the
Quran condemn the doctrine of three persons in God; the New Testament does not
expressly hold or defend it, but even if it contains hints and traces concerning
the Trinity, it is no authority at all, because it was neither seen nor written
by Christ himself, nor in the language he spoke, nor did it exist in its present
form and contents for – at least – the first two centuries after him.

It might with advantage be
added that in the East the Unitarian Christians always combated and protested
against the Trinitarians, and that when they beheld the utter destruc- tion of
the "Fourth Beast" by the Great Prophet of Allah, they accepted and followed
him. The Devil, who spoke through the mouth of the serpent to Eve, uttered
blasphemies against the Most High through the mouth of the "Little Horn" which
sprang up among the "Ten Horns" upon the head of the "Fourth Beast" (Dan.
viii.), was none other than Cons- tantine the Great, who officially and
violently proclaimed the Nicene Creed. But, Prophet Muhammad has destroyed the "Iblis"
or the Devil from the Promised Land for ever, by establishing Islam there as the
religion of the One true God.

I

"AND THE
AHMED OF ALL NATIONS WILL COME." – HAGGAI, ii.7.

      Some two centuries
after the idolatrous and impenitent Kingdom of Israel was overthrown, and the
whole population of the ten tribes deported into Assyria, Jerusalem and the
glorious temple of Solomon were razed to the ground by the Chaldeans, and the
unmassacred remnant of Judah and Ben- jamin was transported into Babylonia.
After a period of seventy years’ captivity, the Jews were permitted to return to
their country with full authority to build again their ruined city and the
temple. When the foundations of the new house of God were being laid, there
arose a tremendous uproar of joy and acclamation from the assembly; while the
old men and women who had seen the gorgeous temple of Solomon before, burst into
a bitter weeping. It was on this solemn occasion that the Almighty sent His
worshiper the Prophet Haggai to console the sad assembly with this important
message: –

"And I will shake all
nations, and the Himdah all the nations will come; and I will fill this house
with glory, says the Lord of hosts. Mine is the silver, mine is the gold, says
the Lord of hosts, the glory of my last house shall be greater than that of the
first one, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give Shalom, says
the Lord of hosts" (Haggai, ii. 7-9).

I have translated the
above paragraph from the only copy of the Bible at my disposal, lent to me by an
Assyrian lady cousin in her own vernacular language. But let us consult the
English versions of the Bible, which we find have rendered the original Hebrew
words himda and shalom into "desire" and "peace" respectively.

Jewish and Christian
commentators alike have given the utmost importance to the double promise
contained in the above prophecy. They both understand a messianic predic- tion
in the word Himda. Indeed, here is a wonderful pro- phecy confirmed by the usual
biblical formula of the divine oath, "says the Lord Sabaoth," four times
repeated. If this prophecy be taken in the abstract sense of the words himda and
shalom as "desire" and "peace," then the prophecy becomes nothing more than an
unintelligible aspiration. But if we understand by the term himda a concrete
idea, a person and reality, and in the word shalom, not a condition, but a
living and active force and a definitely established religion, then this
prophecy must be admittedly true and fulfilled in the person of Ahmed and the
establishment of Islam. For himda and shalom – or shlama have precisely the same
significance respectively as Ahmed and Islam.

Before endeavoring to
prove the fulfillment of this pro- phecy, it will be well to explain the
etymology of the two words as briefly as possible: –

(a) Himda. The clause in
the original Hebrew text reads thus: "ve yavu himdath kol haggoyim," which
literally rendered into English would be "and will come the Himda of all
nations." The final hi in Hebrew, as in Arabic, is changed into th, or t when in
the genitive case. The word is derived from an archaic Hebrew – or rather
Aramaic – root hmd (consonants pronounced hemed). In Hebrew hemed is generally
used in the sense of great desire, covet, appetite and lust. The ninth command
of the Decalogue is: "Lo tahmod ish reikha" ("Thou shalt not covet the wife of
thy neighbor"). In Arabic the verb hemida, from the same consonants hmd, means
"to praise," and so on. What is more praised and illustrious than that which is
most craved for, coveted, and desired? Whichever of the two meanings be adopted,
the fact that Ahmed is the Arabic form of Himda remains indisputable and
decisive. The Holy Quran (ch.61:6 ) declares that Jesus announced unto the
people of Israel the coming of Ahmad: "And when Jesus, the son of Mary said:
‘Children of Israel, I am sent to you by Allah to confirm the Torah that is
before me, and to give news of a Messenger who will come after me whose name
shall be Ahmad.’ Yet when he came to them with clear proofs, they said: ‘This is
clear sorcery.’"

The Gospel of St. John,
being written in Greek, uses the name Paracletos, a barbarous form unknown to
classical Greek literature. But Periclytos, which corresponds exactly with Ahmed
in its signification of "illustrious," "glorious" and "praised," in its
superlative degree, must have been the translation into Greek of Himda or
probably Hemida of the Aramaic form, as uttered by Jesus Christ. Alas! there is
no Gospel extant in the original language spoken by Jesus!

(b) As to the etymology
and signification of the words shalom, shlama, and the Arabic salam, Islam, I
need not detain the reader by dragging him into linguistic details. Any Semitic
scholar knows that Shalom and Islam are derived from one and the same root and
that both mean peace, sub- mission, and resignation.

This being made clear, I
propose to give a short exposi- tion of this prophecy of Haggai. In order to
understand it better, let me quote another prophecy from the last book of the
Old Testament called Mallachai, or Mallakhi, or in the Authorized Version,
Malachi (chap. iii. I):

"Behold I will send my
messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: suddenly he will come to his
temple. He is the Adonai (i.e. the Lord) whom you desire, and the Messenger of
the Covenant with whom you are pleased. Lo he is coming, says the Lord of
hosts."

Then compare these
mysterious oracles with the wisdom embodied in the sacred verse of the Quran:
"Exalted is He who caused His worshiper (Prophet Muhammad) to travel in the
night from the sacred Mosque (Mecca) to the farthest Mosque (Jerusalem) which We
have blessed around it that We might show him of Our signs. He is the Hearer,
the Seer." Ch.17:1 Quran

That by the person coming
suddenly to the temple, as foretold in the two biblical documents above
mentioned, Prophet Muhammad, and not Prophet Jesus, is intended the following
arguments must surely suffice to convince every impartial observer:-

1. The kinship, the
   relation and resemblance between the two tetrograms Himda and Ahmd, and the
   identity of the root hmd from which both substantives are derived, leave not a
   single particle of doubt that the subject in the sentence "and the Himda of
   all nations will come" is Ahmed; that is to say, Muhammad. There is not the
   remotest etymological connection between himda and any other names of "Jesus,"
   "Christ," "Savior," not even a single consonant in common between them.
2. Even if it be argued
   that the Hebrew form Hmdh (read himdah) is an abstract substantive meaning
   "desire, lust, covetousness, and praise," the argument would be again in favor
   of our thesis; for then the Hebrew form would, in etymology, be exactly
   equivalent in meaning and in similarity to, or rather identity with, the
   Arabic form Himdah. In whatever sense you wish to take the tetrogram Hmdh, its
   relation to Ahmed and Ahmedism is decisive, and has nothing to do with Jesus
   and Jesuism! If St. Jerome, and before him the authors of the Septuagint, had
   preserved intact the Hebrew form Hmdh, instead of putting down the Latin "cupi-
   ditas" or the Seek "euthymia," probably the translators appointed by King
   James I would have also reproduced the original form in the Authorized
   Version, and the Bible Society have followed suit in their translations into
   Islamic languages.
3. The temple of Zorobabel
   was to be more glorious than that of Solomon because, as Mallakhi prophesied,
   the great Prophet or Messenger of the Covenant, the "Adonai" or the Seyid of
   the messengers was to visit it suddenly, as indeed Prophet Muhammad did during
   his miraculous night journey, as stated in the Quran! The temple of Zorobabel
   was repaired or rebuilt by Herod the Great. And Jesus, certainly on every
   occasion of his frequent visits to that temple, honored it by his holy person
   and presence. Indeed, the presence of every prophet in the House of God had
   added to the dignity and sanctity of the sanctuary. But this much must at
   least be admitted, that the Gospels which record the visitations of Christ to
   the temple and his teachings therein fail to make mention of a single
   conversion among his audience. All his visits to the temple are reported as
   end- ing in bitter disputes with the unbelieving priests and Pharisees! It
   must also be concluded that Jesus not only did not bring "peace’ to the world
   as he deliberately declared (Matt. xxiv. Mark xiii., Luke xxi.), but he even
   predicted the total destruction of the temple (Matt. x. 34, etc.), which was
   fulfilled some forty years afterwards by the Romans, when the final dispersion
   of the Jews was completed.
4. Ahmad, which is another
   form of the name Muhammad and of the same root and signification, namely, the
   "praised," during his night journey visited the sacred spot of the ruined
   temple, as stated in the Holy Quran, and there and then, according to the
   sacred tradition uttered repeatedly by himself to his companions, officiated
   the divine service of prayer and adoration to Allah in the presence of all the
   Prophets; and it was then that Allah "to travel in the night from the sacred
   Mosque to the farthest Mosque which We have blessed around it that We might
   show him of Our Signs." (Ch 17:1 Quran) to the Last Prophet. If Moses and
   Elias could appear in bodily presence on the mount of transfiguration, they
   and all the thousands of Prophets could also appear in the arena of the temple
   at Jerusalem; and it was during that "sudden coming" of Prophet Muhammad to
   "his temple" (Mal. iii. 1 ) that God did actually fill it "with glory" (Hag.
   ii.).

That Amina, the widow of
Abdullah, both of whom died before the advent of Islam, should name her orphan
son "Ahmed," the first proper noun in the history of mankind, is, according to
my humble belief, the greatest miracle in favor of Islam. The second Caliph,
Hazrat Omar, rebuilt the temple, and the majestic Mosque at Jerusalem remains,
and will remain to the end of the world, a perpetual monument of the truth of
the covenant which Allah made with Abraham and Ishmael (Gen. xv.-xvii).