Haqiqatul-Wahi (The Philosophy of Divine Revelation) — Page 544
544 HAQIQATUL-WAḤI—THE PHILOSOPHY OF DIVINE REVELATION [abtar] does not indicate that someone having children should die in a situation that all his children die in his lifetime. The actual indica- tion of the term is the termination of the lineage. In the Arabic lexicon [batr بث ,meaning that - اَلْبَتْرُ : اِسْتِنْصَالُ الشَّيْءِ قَطعًا batr] means] بثر the term is said of something that is cut down to the very root, to eradicate something completely. Thus, it is clear that this prophecy was about the future generation; that is to say, that lineal descent would terminate with the present boy and no future progeny would come from the existing boy as we shall discuss in detail in the following pages. In short, anyone possessing a nature endowed with the slightest of sense and shame would understand that when Allah the Exalted prophesies with respect to a particular person that his lineal succession would be cut off, the prophecy does not necessarily require that all his progeny should die in his very lifetime. Were it so, how would one designate the abolition of lineal succession when a person dies leaving behind one or two sons and sometime later these two boys also die, leaving no progeny behind? Is there any word in the Arabic lexicon to describe such a situation other than [abtar]? And would it be permissible to say that such a person is not issueless and the meaning ‘total eradication' does not apply to him? Obviously this kind of thinking is nothing short of senseless stupidity. And in the Arabic language there is no other word except [abtar] to describe the condition of this kind of end to lineal succession. In fact, Arabs call a person [abtar] whose offspring die during his lifetime or after his death, leaving him with the title of having no sons and his succession is cut off. In any case, in every country a person is invariably described as [abtar] who happens to be issueless and whose line of succes- sion has been terminated. No renowned scholar of the Arabic lexicon has ever stipulated that the binding condition precedent to being [abtar] is that a person's offspring should also die in his own lifetime. Furthermore, if a person's offspring do not die in his own lifetime but do so after his death and cut off his bloodline, does the Arabic language describe him by a name other than [abtar]? Indeed, as stated before,