Blessings of Prayer — Page 32
Barak a tud Du‘ a 32 and is granted all that which was granted to him, with the exception of Prophethood and new com- mandments, and the true teaching is certainly made manifest to him. * That is not all; as a bounty and reward he is given all that which was given to the Perhaps, at this point, Sayyid Sahib may assert that he does believe in verbal revelation, i. e. , he believes the Holy Quran to have been revealed in the form of words. But I am only too aware of Sayyid Sahib’s tactics. The fact is that he does not believe in verbal revelation the way we understand it. It is obvious that there can be no inspiration without words, and the mind cannot conceive of an idea without the association of words. Here we also need to understand the distinction between the Holy Quran and Hadith. The words of Hadith cannot be considered as having originated from the same fountain as the Holy Quran, though they too originate from God in keeping with the general concept of inspiration and revelation. This is testified by the verse: a Let me stress that inspiration, of whatever kind, is always accompanied by words. For example, when a poet who is in need of a line to complete his verse receives some inspiration from God, it will always be in the form of words. It is therefore settled that all philosophers, mystics and poets receive inspiration from God Almighty, and that this inspiration is always accompanied by words, and that good and evil people are granted good and evil qualities respectively, in consonance with which they now and again receive some inspiration. For instance, the same sort of revelation was received by the person who invented the railway; and the person who invented the telegraph was also the recipient of revelation in the same sense. Having ascertained all this, Sayyid Sahib will now be confronted with the above mentioned objection. If he says that, in the matter of inspiration, Prophets, philosophers and even believers and non-believers are all equal, but the distinction of a Prophet’s revelation is that it is always true, then Sayyid Sahib will have to profess that there is no intrinsic difference between the revelation of Prophethood and the inspiration of the Contd… a Nor does He speak out of his own desire. It is nothing but pure revelation that has been revealed by God. — Al-Najm , 53:4-5 [Publishers]