The above verse of the Quran makes an extraordinary claim. One that is not to be found in any other text or scripture in the whole of human history.
It clearly proclaims that the signs that prove the the Quran is Divine Truth from the Lord of all creation, will continue to appear in the horizons i.e. new signs will manifest with the passage of time that were previously not understood or acknowledged.
This aspect of the Quran makes it a living and breathing Miracle, and means that even though it’s revelation to the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was completed fourteen centuries ago, it will continue to reveal it’s mysteries to mankind upon the horizons for the rest of time.
This is (Insha’Allah) the first in a series of articles based on the signs of the horizon in the Quran. In forthcoming posts, we will look at the Miracle of Quranic Structure, Language and Internal Coherence, Scientific Evidence for the Quran, Historical Evidence and Biblical Evidence for the Quran and finally True Prophecies of a True Prophet.
Itmam al Hujjah: An Introduction
One of the most significant, yet least understood signs of the truth of Islam and the Quran is a concept known in Arabic as Itmam al Hujjah. The term can be loosely translated as ‘Completion of Proof’.
Whilst some earlier scholars were aware of some aspects of this, the impact of this concept – and its true significance as a sign of God – was not understood until the 20th century when genius Indian Scholar Maulana Hameedudin Farahi and his student Maulana Amin Ehsan Islahi made it a major part of their Quranic studies. It has since been further eloborated by the brilliant Pakistani scholar and student of Maulana Islahi, Allama Javed Ahmad Ghamidi.
You can find detailed descriptions of the concept here and here , however it can be summarised as follows (all verse numbers are from the Quran):
- God has sent Prophets to mankind as guides, to warn them about the day of Judgement and Hell and to give good news of Paradise to believers (2:213). Such guides had come to every nation (35:24) until the point at which progeny of Abraham (peace be upon him) was especially selected for Prophethood and given the onerous responsibility of conveying the truth to mankind (22:78 & 3:33).
- The final Prophet is Muhammad, Peace and Blessings upon him (33:40). The religion of God has been perfected and completed upon him (5:3) and preserved by God in the Quran for all times (15:9).
- In general, Allah has reserved the Day of Judgement for punishing rejectors and rewarding believers. However, to remind people about the truth of that day, he sometimes appoints certain Prophets (anbiya – plural of nabi) as Rasul i.e. Messengers.
- When Messengers are sent they make the truth manifestly and irrefutably plain to all, to the extent that none are left with any excuse to deny it except out of deliberate disbelief i.e. Kufr. The Quran clearly states that no community is punished in this world until a Messenger makes the truth plain to the them (17:15) but once a Rasul is sent divine judgement takes place on earth with full justice (10:47)
- The Quran is explicit that the disbelievers who reject the Messengers , do so knowingly and intentionally out of arrogance and defiance against God:
[We sent] messengers as bringers of good tidings and warners so that mankind will have no argument against Allah after the messengers. And ever is Allah Exalted in Might and Wise.
4:165
And they rejected them (signs) while their [inner] selves were convinced thereof, out of injustice and haughtiness. So see how was the end of the corrupters.
27:14
It is therefore God’s unalterable practice to destroy the community that persists in deliberately opposing God and his Messengers, once Itmam al Hujjah of the Rasul has taken place (35:43) . This can be via capital punishment at the hands of believers or via a natural disaster. At the same time, the followers of the Messenger are protected and given power and authority in the land, as a reward for their belief and made to triumph over the rejectors (24:55) .
This form of reward and punishment acts as a powerful demonstration and empirical evidence of God’s Justice and confirms the reality of the Judgement day, when all will be held accountable for their actions before their Creator.
Itmam Al Hujjah in the Quran
Itmam Al Hujjah is the very purpose of the Quran. Revealed over 23 years, it details the different stages of indhaar (warning), bar’aat (seperation of believers from evildoers) and finally Itmam Al Hujjah of the Messenger (peace be upon him).
The Quran has been arranged by Allah in a special non-chronological order which is miraculous in itself (as the next article will discuss). However a casual reading can lead one to ignore the thematic links or to overlook the main content of the Quran i.e. that it is a record of the Itmam Al Hujjah of the Messenger, interspersed with frequent references to previous nations upon which Itmam Al Hujjah occurred i.e. The people of Prophets Noah, Shu’eyb, Salih, Hud, Lot (on them be peace) and others.
These references were part of the indhaar or warning that came to the Arabs and Israelites of Prophet Muhammad’s time. In other words, God promised believers that they would be victorious over the disbelievers and that the deniers would be subjected to humiliating punishment just as previously occured to the aforementioned and other nations.
The key difference between the fate of the previous nations and the outcome of Prophet Muhammad’s preaching, is that the final Itmam Al Hujjah happened in the full light of history and significantly changed its course. Thus it cannot be denied or explained away as ‘myth’ or legend as has occurred in case of previous messengers.
As we shall see the Quran clearly prophesied the victory of truth, and history bears witness to the Itmam Al Hujjah of the Final Prophet (peace be upon him) and consequently, the truth of the Quran as the word of God Almighty.
The Itmam Al Hujjah of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)
Foreseeing the Unforeseeable Victory
The result of the first thirteen years of preaching of the Prophet, had only been the support of handful of dedicated followers mostly from the ranks of the poorest and least influential. Some of these had been martyred, others cruelly persecuted and even the Messenger had been subject to the vilest of abuse imaginable.
The disbelievers at this time would laugh at the poor state of the Muslims and sarcastically ask for their threatened punishment to be hastened (29:53), so comfortable did they feel in their hubris. Nobody could have possibly conceived of the Prophet and his small band of persecuted followers ever gaining any victory over the disbelievers at this point in time.
It was in such a unpromising context, that the Quran , while recounting the destruction of previous disbelieving peoples made the following bold statement:
ARE, THEN, those of you who [now] deny the truth better than those others – or have you, perchance, [been promised] immunity in the [ancient] books of [divine] wisdom.
Or do they say, “We are a group united, [and therefore] bound to prevail”?…
[Yet] the hosts [of those who deny the truth] shall be routed, and they shall turn their backs [in night]
Al-Quran 54: 43 -45
From a vantage point where it seemed impossible, the Quran foretold the victory of the Muslims over the disbelievers and described it as a foregone conclusion. The Quran announced that people would certainly one day join the faith of Allah in droves:
WHEN GOD’S SUCCOUR comes, and victory, and thou seest people enter God’s religion in hosts, extol thy Sustainer’s limitless glory, and praise Him, and seek His forgiveness: for, behold, He is ever an acceptor of repentance .
Al – Quran 110: 1-3
Similarly the Prophet was confidently assured his rejectors would be destroyed and humiliated just as previous communities had been:
Those who resist Allah and His Messenger will be among those most humiliated. Allah has decreed: “It is I and My Messenger who must prevail”: For Allah is One full of strength able to enforce His Will.
58:20-21
The level of preternatural confidence expressed in the Quran about the wordly success of the Prophet’s mission can be gauged by the following hair-raising verse that challenges the Prophet’s opponents to hang themselves if they cannot bear to see him succeed i.e. his success is so certain that if they wish to avoid being destroyed by God at the hands of the Messenger (at the appointed time), suicide is the only possible solution that might occur to them!
Whoever should think that Allah will not support him [Prophet Muhammad] in this world and the Hereafter – let him extend a rope to the ceiling, then cut off [his breath], and let him see: will his effort remove that which enrages [him]?
22:16
The Punishment Arrives
Within ten years, the Messenger and his followers had indeed fulfilled every word of the above prophecies. The disbelievers, both Pagan Arabs and those from the People of the Book who deliberately opposed God and his Messenger (out of envy, and spared no effort to eliminate the Prophet and the Muslims) were subjected to a humiliating defeat and their punishment that was witnessed by all, in the full light of history.
Allama Ghamidi summarises the stunning victory and details of the Itmam Al Hujjah of the Messenger as follows:
- All the antagonists and adversaries from among the leadership of the
Quraysh were killed in the battle of Badr. It was only Abū Lahab who did not take part in the battle in an effort to save himself from torment. The Qur’ān (111:1-3) had already declared that he would die together with his supporters and comrades. Consequently, this prediction was fulfilled word for word and a week after the defeat at Badr this leader of the Banū Hāshim was killed by plague. And such was the condition of his dead body that no one came near it till three days after his death. Ultimately, his body got decomposed and a stinking smell started to come out from it. Eventually, his corpse was placed besides a wall and covered with stones. - After the battles of Badr and Uhud, once the Muslims had been separated from the ranks of the disbelievers and took the shape of a distinct group, an ultimatum was given to the common masses of the Idolaters of Arabia as well as the ones among them who had adopted a policy of “wait and see”. They were given four months to mend their ways after which they would be humiliated and disgraced and would not be able to find a way out in this world.
- At the hajj-i akbar offered in the 9th hijrah, it was declared that once the sacred months passed, Muslims would kill these Idolaters wherever they find them except if they accept faith, adhere to the prayer and pay the zakāh. Only those people would be an exception to this declaration who had treaties with the Prophet Muhammad (sws). Muslims were told that they should honour these treaties till they expire. It was obvious from this that once these expire, these people too would have to meet the same fate as had been destined and declared for the Idolaters.
- It was directed that all the groups of the People of the Book would pay jizyah and live in subjugation to the Muslims. They were further told that if this decision of God and His Prophet Muhammad (sws) was not acceptable to them, they would also be massacred by Muhammad (sws) and his Companions (rta). The Hypocrites were warned that it would be better for them if they repented, otherwise they too would have to encounter the fate which was destined for the rejecters.
- Those among the followers of the Prophet Muhammad (sws) who were sincere but were guilty of some blemishes were forgiven after some punishment, and the weak among these followers were given the glad tidings that if they repent and reform themselves and remain on this commitment, then hopefully the Almighty would forgive them too. The reins of political leadership of Arabia and the custodianship of the Baytullāh were given in the hands of the Muslims who had taken lead in accepting Islam. (Mizaan, Itmam Al Hujjah)
Itmam Al Hujjah is the very reason why stern punishment was declared for deliberate rejectors of the truth in Surah At-Tawba. However these verses —-which relate only to those who recognised and rejected the Messenger of God and fought against him- are wrongly taken out of all context and distorted beyond recognition and seen as applying to all Non-Muslims. This is one of the reasons why understanding the concept of Itmam Al Hujjah is so crucial to countering mistaken interpretations of the Quran by Non-Muslim opponents and so called ‘Muslim’ Extremists.
The Itmam Al Hujjah of Prophet Muhammad (sws) extended well beyond present day Saudi Arabia. The Prophet had sent letters in his lifetime to neighbouring powers, which together with the evident overwhelming victory in Arabia of Islam, sufficed as Itmam Al Hujjah for them (see this article for details). Thus the Muslims having established the Kingdom of God in the Hejaz, next turned their attention to other lands.
Allah had promised the Muslims not only victory and domination in Arabia, but clearly predicted that they would succeed the Global Empires of the time as rulers of the world. This would make Islam the prevailing religious force, above all others. It also promised that the believers would inherit the earth (i.e. Islamic rule would spread across much of the globe) as the Prophet Muhammad had been sent by Allah, as Mercy to all the peoples of the world:
Allah has promised those who have believed among you and done righteous deeds that He will surely grant them succession [to authority] upon the earth just as He granted it to those before them and that He will surely establish for them [therein] their religion which He has preferred for them and that He will surely substitute for them, after their fear, security, [for] they worship Me, not associating anything with Me. But whoever disbelieves after that – then those are the defiantly disobedient.
24:55
He it is Who hath sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all religion. And Allah sufficeth as a Witness.
48:28
21:105 -7
And verily we have written in the Scripture, after the Reminder: My righteous slaves will inherit the earth. Lo! there is a plain statement for folk who are devout. We sent thee not (O Muhammad) save as a mercy for the peoples.
These promises were fulfilled in the most dramatic way possible and , within a few decades of the first revelation, Muslims ruled much of the world with an Empire that stretched from the borders of China to Spain. Over the next millennium one Muslim Empire followed another. Islam remained the pre-eminent world power during all of this time, making stunning advances in the sciences and mathematics never seen before and setting new standards of knowledge, justice, tolerance, welfare and hygiene that were not seen elsewhere until recent times.
The Itmam al Hujjah of the Prophet is indeed a wondrous sign of the truth of the Quran. There is no other example comparable to it in recorded history. The rise of Islam against all the odds was miraculous and unprecedented itself. For the Quran to have successfully predicted that the Muslims would eliminate polytheism from Arabia and succeed the great Empires of the time, when Muslims were a weak and tiny minority cannot be explained – except as being due to divine foreknowledge.
British Historian Thomas Carlyle described this great miracle of history – in these memorable words:
(Muhammad PBUH) elevated his people into torch-bearers of light and learning. To the Arab nation it was a birth from darkness into light. Arabia first became alive by means of it. A poor shepherd people, roaming unnoticed in its deserts since the creation of the world. See, the unnoticed becomes world notable, the small has grown world-great. Within one century afterwards Arabia was at Granada one the one hand and at Delhi on the other. Glancing in valor and splendor, and the light of genius, Arabia shines over a great section of the world.’
‘Hero As A Prophet’