The Reality of Khilafah — Page 156
SIRRUL-KHILAFAH— 156 man, in the verse ۡ فَلَمَّا تَوَفَّیۡتَنِی [ fa lamm a tawaffaitan i —‘but since You did cause me to die’]. 1 Would it be fair to say that the true connotation of the words applied to Jesus but not to the Holy Prophet, may peace and bless- ings of Allah be upon him,2 and that the Holy Prophet s as did not partake in the true meaning of the word tawaff i that was in accord with God’s will, viz. ‘being physically raised to heaven’; and that the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, changed its meaning so that when it applied to him it had 1. S a hih al-Bukh a r i , Kit a b A ha d i th al-Anbiy a ’ Hadith 3349. [Publisher] 2. Some ignorant people say that the word کما [ kam a , meaning, like or sim- ilar to] in the statement of the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, indicates that there should be some difference in the application of the word توفی [ tawaff i —death] depending on wheth- er it applies to the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, or to Jesus as. Unfortunately, these ignorant people do not realize that while there may be some dissimilarity in the events that are likened to one another, there can be no difference in the actual meaning of the words. For example, someone may say, ‘I ate bread just like Zaid ate bread. ’ Although there may be differences in the way the bread was eaten or in its quality, there can be no difference regarding the word ‘bread’ which is the particular object in this sentence. Bread cannot be taken to mean bread in one instance and stone in another. There can be no disparity when it comes to the meaning of words. There is a sim- ilar saying of the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, recorded by Ibn Taymiyyah in Z a d al-Ma‘ a d , on page 415, and it is as follows: The Holy Prophet said, َ ْش ٍ مَا تَرَوْن ی َ َا مَعْشَر َ قُر ی [‘O people of Quraish, what do you expect from me?’] They said, ‘Only goodness, O honourable brother and honourable nephew. ’] He said, ‘I say to you as Y u suf said to his brothers, ‘No blame shall lie on you this day. ’ Go, for you are free. ’ You can see that the word tathr i b has the same connota- tion in the statement of the Holy Prophet s as as in that of Hadrat Y u suf [Joseph]. —Author