Haqiqatul-Wahi (The Philosophy of Divine Revelation) — Page 682
682 HAQIQATUL-WAḤI-THE PHILOSOPHY OF DIVINE REVELATION فَانْزَلْنَا عَلَى الَّذِينَ ظَلَمُوا رِجَزًا مِنَ السَّمَاءِ بِمَا كَانُوا يَفْسُقُونَ ) Meaning that, so We sent down upon the transgressors the plague as punishment because they were disobedient. أَنْزَلْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ رِجْزًا مِّنَ السَّمَاءِ بِمَا كَانُوا But nowhere has Allah the Exalted said Meaning that, We sent down the plague upon them because they were believers. Thus, a believer can never become deserving of being punished by the plague. On the contrary, it is specifically reserved for the disbeliever and the transgressor. This is why ever since the creation of this world, no Prophet of God has ever died of the plague. True, such believers who are not totally cleansed of sin, do sometimes contract the plague and die from it. This kind of death serves as an atonement for their sins and it is a kind of martyrdom, but nobody would have ever heard that, being Mūsā, someone contracted the plague. Only a person who is extremely wicked, filthy, and depraved could dare hold the belief that a Prophet or Vicegerent of God ever died of the plague. Therefore, if this kind of death by the plague had been a laudable type of martyr- dom, upon which there could be no kind of criticism, then the Prophets and Messengers of God would have been the first to merit it. But as I have just stated, no one can prove that any Prophet or Messenger or a holy person of the highest order, who held the distinction of converse and discourse with God, ever suffered from this evil disease since the inception of the world and then died of it. On the contrary the pri- mary targets of this disease have, from the very beginning, been those very people who were guilty of a variety of sins and transgressions or who were disbelievers and faithless. Reason does not at all permit that Allah's Prophets, Messengers, and recipients of His revelation should similarly suffer from the disease which God has prescribed to punish the disbelievers since the earliest of times. The Torah, the Gospel, and the Holy Quran-all three unanimously declare that the plague has always been sent down to punish the disbelievers. Moreover, as is borne 1. Surah al-Baqarah, 2:60 [Publisher]