Jasad and the Method of Study

 

The Qur’an, Dajjal and the Jasad

 

Jasad and the Method of Study

 This book is devoted to a study of that Jasad, and of Solomon’s response to the vision, and our primary objective in writing this book is to demonstrate the application of proper methodology for study of the Qur’an. 

 

Proper methodology in this particular matter concerning the Jasad requires us to ask the question: why did Solomon pbuh respond to the vision in the manner in which he did? Why did he make the prayer that none should inherit his Kingdom after him? Since the Qur’an does not explain who that Jasad was, nor is there any real explanation in the Hadith of Prophet Muhammad pbuh, and since these two primary sources do not truly explain why Solomon pbuh responded to the vision in the manner that he did, commentators of the Qur’an, including classical commentators, have constantly offered their own opinions on the subject. They have also done so in the matter concerning Solomon’s death, of which the Jinn were unaware, in consequence of which they continued to work until Dabbat al-Ard consumed something connected to Solomon’s staff, and only then did the Jinn realize that he was dead.

 

Our learned Assistant, Hasbullah Shafi’iy, has kindly compiled for the benefit of our readers, a summary of views on both subjects found in many of those commentaries. The summaries are included in this book as Appendices 1 and 2.

 

We felt, however, that it would benefit our readers if, in addition to the summaries provided in those two Appendices, we were to provide the views of the Jasad, as well as of Dabbat al-Ard, of four recent Islamic scholars, all of whom wrote commentaries of the Qur’an. Three of those scholars, Abul ‘Ala Maududi, Amin Ahsan Islahi, and Muhammad Ali, resided in the famous Pakistani city of Lahore, and the fourth, Muhammad Asad, was a European Jew who joined the community of believers who followed Prophet Muhammad pbuh. We have included Muhammad Ali since the Ahmadiyah Movement of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, to which he belonged, presented a formidable eschatological challenge to the entire world of Islam; hence it is important for readers to be exposed to Ahmadiyah scholarship on these two supremely important subjects.

 

Proper methodology for study of the Qur’an requires that when Allah and His Messenger have explained any verse of the Qur’an, then such explanation must be recognized as the last word on that subject. 

 

However when neither Allah nor His Messenger have effectively explained a verse of the Qur’an, then opinions expressed even in the classical commentaries of the Qur’an, can never function as the last word in explanation of such a verse of the Holy Book. Rather, each believer must exert himself and herself to study the Qur’an with a view to eventually reach that stage of scholarly effort when he or she can seek to penetrate and understand verses of the Qur’an. It is at that stage of scholarly effort that verses—such as Sad, 38:34-35—can be  studied on the basis of independent effort. 

 

It is not at all proper or correct that a scholarly effort at understanding and explaining verses of the Qur’an should be confined to a word-processing exercise in studying explanations in the books of Tafsir.

 

We intend to demonstrate in this book Insha Allah, that there is knowledge and explanations of the Qur’an which are located beyond the commentaries, and only those who exert themselves to ‘think’ can be blessed to extend the frontiers of knowledge of the Qur’an.

 

The Salafi Muslim is therefore obliged by his methodology of study of the Qur’an and Hadith—which admits of no new interpretative explanation of either the Qur’an or Hadith—to accept that he will never know who, or what, was that Jasad.

 

Our methodology for the study of the Qur’an and Hadith is different. When there is no real explanation, the implication is that we must exert ourselves to think, and to thus seek to penetrate the subject in order to understand it. 

 

We commence our study of the Jasad by first reminding the gentle reader that the Qur’an declares of itself that it has two kinds of verses. Indeed this must also be true of all other revealed scriptures since they all came from the same Divine source:

 

(Qur’an, Ale ‘Imran, 3:7)

[What appear below all verses of the Qur’an quoted in this book are explanations and commentaries, rather than translations, of the verses—since the miraculous Word of Allah Most High cannot be translated to any other language.]

He it is Who has bestowed upon you O Muhammad, from on high, this Book or scripture containing Ayat Muhkamat, i.e., verses that are clear, in and by themselves, and these verses constitute the heart or essence of the Book—as well as other verses known as Ayat Mutashabihat, which are allegorical, and hence have to be interpreted in order to be understood.  Those whose hearts are crooked and corrupted go after that part of the Book which has been expressed in allegory while seeking to misguide and to confuse. In the process they create sectarian movements with which they corrupt the beliefs of the believers. It is because of the crookedness in their hearts that they seek to locate the interpretation of the allegorical verses in an arbitrary manner. Since none but Allah knows their meaning, it follows that only Allah can confirm that an interpretation of such verses is correct. Those who are deeply rooted in knowledge behave differently. They do not engage these verses in an arbitrary manner; rather, they say: “We believe in the allegorical verses and we study them with a methodology which recognizes that all verses in the Qur’an—both those which are allegorical as well as those which are plain and clear—have come from the Divine presence. Hence if the allegorical verses are to be interpreted, the Qur’an has to be studied as a harmonious integrated whole and not in disparate disjointed parts. But none will study the allegorical verses in the proper way save those who are endowed with clarity of thought and with insight.

 

Since neither the Qur’an nor the Hadith has clearly explained who or what is the Jasad, the implication is that we have to recognize these verses of the Qur’an as Ayat Mutashabihat, or verses which have to be studied and interpreted in order to be understood.

 

Our readers are reminded that Allah Most High has repeatedly declared that He sent the Qur’an to people who think, ponder and reflect: 

(Qur’an, al-Baqarah, 2:219)

In this way does Allah make clear unto you His verses, so that you might think and reflect over them.

 

(Qur’an, al-Nisa’, 4:82)

Will they not, then, think, ponder and reflect over this Qur’an? Had it issued from any but Allah, they would surely have found in it many an inner contradiction!

 

(Qur’an, Yunus,10:24)

Thus clearly do We spell out these messages of knowledge and of guidance unto people who think!

 

(Qur’an, Sad, 38:29)

All this have We expounded in this blessed divine writ which We have revealed unto thee, O Muhammad, so that men may ponder and reflect over its verses, and that those who are endowed with insight may so penetrate their meaning that they may take them to heart.

 

(Qur’an, Muhammad, 47:24)

What is wrong with them? Why do they not ponder and reflect over this Qur’an?—or are there locks upon their hearts?

 

The Qur’an warns that those who do not think have a terrible status with Allah: 

(Qur’an, al-Anfal, 8:22)

Verily, the most despicable of all creatures in the sight of Allah are those deaf and dumb ones who do not use their rational faculty.

 

People have to think in order to study the Qur’an precisely because there is knowledge in the Qur’an which cannot be accessed by any except those who think. The art of thinking requires that both the rational faculty, as well as internal intuitive insight, must be employed, harmoniously so, to reach what the Qur’an describes as Majma’ul Bahrain, i.e., the place where the two oceans of knowledge (i.e., the internal and the external) meet. Only thus can the Ayat Mutashabihat of the Qur’an be penetrated and understood.

 

It is precisely because today’s Dar al-‘Ulum no longer invites students to think and ponder over the Qur’an, while studying it, that the graduates of the Dar al-‘Ulum do not have a clue of what the Qur’an has offered that explains the strange and mysterious reality of the world today. In fact, if a student dares to think, he might be expelled from the Dar al-‘Ulum!  

 

This dangerous Dar al-‘Ulum defect in the methodology for the study of the Qur’an must be recognized as the greatest obstacle that now prevents the world of Islamic scholarship from emerging from the stagnant intellectual abyss into which it fell many moons ago. 

 

The Salafi Methodology, on the other hand, insists that all knowledge of the Qur’an has already been explained by the blessed Prophet and the early Muslims (i.e., the Aslaf) and that no new knowledge from the Qur’an is possible. Why then, we ask our Salafi brothers, should Allah Most High declare that He sent the Qur’an to people who think? How then, we ask, will we ever be able to find in the Qur’an, that which explains the reality of a modern world dominated by a mysterious and godless modern Western civilization which emerged from the corrupted bosom of that part of the Christian world which broke away from Constantinople? 

 

Those Christians who headed westwards, were tested by Allah Most High and they failed the test when they abandoned the Sacred Law and went fishing on the Sabbath Day in violation of the Law of the Sabbath! Allah Most High then sent against them both Dajjal the false Messiah, as well as Gog and Magog:

 

(Qur’an, al-‘Araf, 7:167)

And lo! Your Lord-God has declared that He is now going to send against them, i.e., a people who abandon the Sacred Law in the Torah, those who will afflict them, continuously until the Last Day with cruel suffering: verily, your Lord God is swift in retribution—yet, verily, He is also much forgiving, a dispenser of grace.

 

Source