Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Prophets and Apostles (Pt. 1)
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Folk Islam on Prophets and Apostles during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents the Folk Islamic views of the prophets and apostles particularly the veneration of the Prophet Muhammad.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Prophets and Apostles (Pt. 1).
Lecture 9 is about, prophets and, I’m I’m sorry. Lecture 8 is what we’re on, not lecture 9. Lecture 8 is about prophets and apostles. Prophets and apostles, you know, the the difference is the apostles have received a scripture, whereas the prophets have not. Prophet word for prophet is nabi, word for apostles is arsul.
So you have, certain apostles in Islam, like Jesus, like, Moses and and David and and others who have received and Mohammed, who have received the scriptures, so they are greater than the than the prophets. You know, these these next couple of lectures might be a little bit boring to you because we’re going to be talking a lot about Muhammad, and so I encourage you to hang in there with me. His prominence is disturbing, and his the focus that he gets, the attention he gets, I I must say, is rising as I understand, the Muslim world. Just, for example, the, the celebration of his birthday in Pakistan when we went there in 1968, it didn’t amount to very much at all. Today, celebration of his birthday, which also was his death day, is a great celebration and even the celebration of that birthday is, something that orthodox Islam does not, should not and and doesn’t like, for instance, not allowed in Saudi Arabia, but that doesn’t shut the shut the Saudis out of folk practices, but it does show you that, the veneration of Mohammed is growing.
And then, we will look at that today. We mentioned yesterday, I think it was, in one of the lectures about Solomon in in Arabic or Urdu, it’s Suleiman, and, we said that that, Solomon is a pretty powerful figure in Islam because of, I guess, because of his, you know, his knowledge of of plants and animals and stuff like that, and so he is considered to be a very important person when it comes, to magic in overcoming, you know, evil forces. I read to you a verse out of the Quran, 2 and 102, I guess it was. They followed what the evil ones gave out falsely against the power of Solomon. The blasphemers were not Solomon, but the evil ones teaching men.
But then we said that, you know, even though the Quran, on the one denies it, yet on the other hand, it acknowledges it. If you could read on, like it says, they learned from them the means to sow discord between a man and his wife, so they acknowledge that. And the truth is is that, one of the, the amulets in the Arabic Muslim world, Arab Muslim world, is Al Subyan, and, that’s the Israeli the it says that only Suleiman had the power over the jinn. He had a brass talisman from heaven to control good and iron to control the bad. And that amulet, I should have said, is the 7 covenants of Solomon.
And if you have access to the book by, Bill Musk, The Unseen Face of Islam, there it is on page 210 where he talks about that. And, Am Al Sabyan is that evil spirit who, he refers to as that lone and loathsome woman who attacks people, primarily women, who are expecting a baby and before she has, you know, pregnant women and and and the newborn, so that’s they’re very, very vulnerable. That’s that woman who travels and, and and, is so fearful, so you need that amulet to protect yourself. Well, the as I mentioned, the topic here is prophets and apostles, and we’ll also be talking a lot about Muhammad. But let’s note one thing about prophets and apostles.
Muslims have the idea that the power the power of the prophets and apostles exceeds angels. We’ve talked about angels before. Why does it is it does it exceed angels? Well, because of this. Angels have some con have contact with God, but we don’t know how much contact they have with people.
Prophets are human. They have contact with God and people. Interesting, isn’t it? You know, they lived on earth, and so if you can get the I guess the point is you can get the the power of a prophet behind you or, can, you know, get them to intercede for you. You have a lot going for you.
That’s what that means. So, here’s a question that we are are just going to just bring to your attention. It’s one of the forums. It says Islam rejects animism. It does in a sense, but doesn’t have the power to defeat it.
So you can think about this. Can Islam meet felt needs? We’ll have discussion about this, and, we will, I think, have some pretty animated discussion about it. And so I’m not gonna talk about it here because it is on the form and you’ll be able to write in, your thoughts on this. Islam does reject animism in a sense, but does it have the power to defeat it?
Can Islam meet felt needs? Be careful with this one because, we want to give you know, reflect on this very, very carefully. Now, then a little bit more about Mohammed. And, he has regular names, and he is greatly venerated in Folk Islam. I would say that he’s venerated in Orthodox Islam as well.
Some of this is going to be sound a little bit tedious, but, you have to know a little bit about Arabic here, and the name Mohammed, the Persians pronounce that a little bit different. They say Mohammed, but, it’s it’s from the Arabic root, and it comes from the, Mohammed comes from the Arabic root hamd, which is to praise. So, Muslims make a lot of that term. For instance, words like Mahmud, to whom praise is due. You see it comes from the it’s the same root here, hamd and, Mahmood.
This is, you know, Arabic is is, from the root. You know, it’s root stuff, so all the words come out of the root. And, Muslims point out that hamd means praise to God, and in their creed, la ilaha illa ilaha Muhammad Ar Rasoolah, there is, you know, only one there’s no other god but God, and Mohammed is the apostle of God. So, I once wanted to show you something that I brought along. I hope you can see it.
A couple of mottos, and, see if I put them over my face. You can’t see my face. But, the first one is You Allah, o God, which, you know, people will hang on their walls in the Muslim world. I saw them all over Pakistan. You can expect that.
Oh god. This is what means, oh god. But the one that is right beside it all the time is popular Islam and what is that one? You Muhammad. Oh Muhammad.
They are side by side. And, you know, to think about it, Muslims really, by doing this, are showing how they think because it isn’t really right to do so. There is no other god but God, so why put Muhammad up there right next to to God? Well, they do it without batting an eye as I suppose some Muslims would begin it, but by and large, Muslims do this because Muhammad is, so highly revered that he is, up there right with God. Now, another verse that’s used, we just briefly mention this, is from the first sudah, the prayer, really, the the most prayed sudah in the bible in the in the in Islam, and it’s surah 1 and verse 1, and that is, only 7 verses, but it’s it starts by the this way.
In the name of Allah, most gracious, most vers merciful, praise be to Allah. What’s the word? Alhamdulillah. And so Muslims would say, see that? Muhammad is right there in the beginning.
And so on and on and on from the creed and and, and another one here, you know, there’s we go to, 17 in verse 1, and here is a verse, well, no, it’s I’ve, yes. It’s 17 and verse 79, 17 and verse 79, and, it is it says and pray in the small watches of the morning. It would be an an additional prayer, a spiritual prophet for thee. Soon, but will thy lord raise thee to a station of praise and glory. And the word here is Ma’kame Ma’kame Mahmud, a place of praise and glory.
And then if you look at the the footnote here, 2,278, to the prophet to the prophet was to be assigned in the hereafter the highest post of honor and glory. The Maqam the Maqam e Mahmud implying his excellence above all other prophets. The immediate reference may be to the hope that the Makan persecution will soon be over now. This is the trouble with Islam. It’s the, attention given to Mohammed that usurps the place of Christ.
This is, this is the trouble with Islam and on and on and on we can go. Muhammad’s regular names. This seems, boring to us, perhaps, that they will take the very names of his his his his name in Arabic, mem hey, mem dal, and they will build from those letters various words like from m, majid or majeed means glory, h, Rahman, mercy, and the next m. He has 2 m’s, you see. Muhammad, mulk means kingdom, and d, davam, everlasting.
So they’ll take these, things here and make a big case for the importance of Mohammed. Now there are other Koranic names, for Mohammed. I started to read 17 and verse 1 before, but I was a little ahead of myself. 17:1 is a very interesting verse. It says this, if you can follow along in your Quran, glory be to Allah, who did take his servant for a journey by night from the sacred mosque to the farthest mosque whose precincts we did bless in order that we might, show him some of our signs.
Now, the point is this is a little bit off the topic of focus on, but not totally. A point of apologetics here is that it says, who take his servant for a journey by night from the sacred mosque, that’s Mecca, which was in existence, to the farthest mosque, and that is Jerusalem. The trouble is that that mosque that they’re referring to wasn’t even in existence at all at that time. It came into being, quite a few years later. Probably, as my understanding is that it was built in 80 in, Ah after the Hijra, Ah 68, Al Aqsa Mosque was built, or or AD 690.
So, what have we got here? We have another problem in the Quran, which is apparently, just a case of of fraud that was stuck in here, refer to a mosque that wasn’t even in existence. And if you look at the footnote here, 2168, the farthest mosque, says Ali, must refer to the site of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem on the hill of Moriah at or near which stands the Dome of the Rock. This and the mosque known as the farthest mosque, Masjid Al Aqsa, Masjid meaning mosque, and Al Aqsa were completed by Amir Abdul Al Malik in Ah 68, farthest because it was a place of worship, farthest west. Now the the commentator is doing his best to get around this evident fraud or, I guess, really, you know, the Quran, when you come to think of it, has never been has never never never been scrutinized.
Would to God that it would be scrutinized, because these kind of things, if it ever was allowed by Muslims, would reveal, really some of the problems, and this is this is definitely one. But, the point in here is that I wanted to make is, that the the night the night journey and, Muslims are not all agreed on this, but, most of them are. Most of them think that, Muhammad really did make that night journey. It sounds like the apostle Paul, really, who made the journey and, on his animal, al barak, not a horse, not a mule, but he had wings and supposedly went from the mosque in Mecca to the mosque in or the Temple of Solomon and then left footprints there, his horse, and then went on up into, the 7 heavens, one after the other. But, here you see it’s Abdullah, glory be to him who carried his servant by night.
You know, you wonder really where some of this comes from. You really wonder where it is, but, all, you know, Muslims believe this, take this at, at face value. I might mention that, Aisha, his favorite wife, says that his body remained there all night. So, you know, what’s really, what should Muslims think about this? Now development of the names given to Muhammad, there are other names too, all kinds of them.
Ahmed, Surah 616. We can’t go into every verse here. Muhammad, Surah 314, but these, you see, they are linked together. Ahmed is a, comes out of Mohammed, Abduhu, Bashir bringing good news, Nadir Warner in 3345, Sirajan Munir, a light giving lamp, in 3343. There are other names too that he’s given like, Yacine, and that’s Surah 36, that’s the name of the 36th Surah and which is the heart of the Quran, so they give that to Muhammad.
Another one they give you, some of them don’t make sense, but, this mentioned this, that that Surah 36 is used in Iran, one who eats the uterus of barren women, or eats the embryo, so wear charms, maybe the jinn has enmity against that woman, so the woman makes a vow to give her son to the imam. A miscarriage is prevented by a cord around the waist twisted twisted by a small girl, and then one reads, Yassin, that’s the 30 36th chapter, 36th sutra, and then ties 7 knots in accord, each knot being a prayer, and with a tiny padlock over which the mullah, that’s the that’s the guy who leads in the prayer, He says a prayer, cords and the locks are kept, and they’re alone to each other. That story comes from Zwemer. But, you know, that the story coming out of Iran just shows charms and, jinn and how the Quran is used. That’s, in this case, Surah 36 and Mohammed, that’s one of his names too.
And, other names too like Taha. But, many, many Koranic names for Mohammed, and, some of them are derived from the Quran. Habib Mohammed, here we are right here, my dear Mohammed and Habibullah, the beloved of God, Habib ur Rahman, beloved of the merciful, You Ula Muzamil, or enwrapped 1. Remember that Muhammad, and that, by the way, is the name of the 73rd Sura, enrapt 1. Remember perhaps you remember that Muhammad, when he was receiving revelations, at one time, he was cold.
Seemed like he was in a trance, and so he wrapped himself in a blanket, and so that’s what that’s referring to. 74 is the word for the covered one. So you see these are some of the names. You know, all of these names that Mohammed has, they are sort of like the names of God. God has 99 names.
I have a book. I didn’t bring it along, but it’s the 99 names of Muhammad. So Muhammad, in some ways, is far greater today than he ever intended to be. I think he’d turn over in his grave if he was aware of how how he is venerated. And, here are the names for Muhammad.
Abdul Khadu, servant of the holy, Abdul Ghaffar, servant of all forgiving, Abdul Abdulsalam, servant of peace, Rasul e Akram, most noble prophet, Rasalat e Panah, shelter of the prophetic office. What does that mean? That he is the one who protects the prophetic office, greater than all others, greater than every other prophet. These some of these are, blasphemous. Is universe, leader of the universe.
Now, Anne Marie Schimmel, who teaches at Harvard, wrote a book on Muhammad’s divine names and we refer to this book in the course because of its relevance, it’s quite amazing, is it not? And a lot of value and mystery in Muhammad’s names. There is blessing, in, you know, in just repeating his names. Blessing is in repeating his names. So, the more you bless him, the more you will be blessed.
So keep blessing him, and maybe you will have gained advantage somehow by, blessing him. Some, Muslims over and over and over again, they will, bless him, pray for him. You know every time they mention his name, they say may God bless him and grant him salvation. It’s not just peace be upon him, p b u h. It’s more than that: may God bless him and grant him salvation.
So, here you are here. You know, there’s this mystical value in his name, writing Muhammad in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, these beautiful languages. The calligraphy is is something else, and they will take, as I’ve mentioned before, and they’ll take each letter and make a great deal of it. Here is some poetical speculation. One poet says a 1000 times, sorry, a 1000 times I whoops.
I can’t get back there. A 1000 times I wash my mouth with musk and rose water. Yet to speak your name is impudence. I’ve said before that, say it again, that the problem with Islam is, is Mohammed and that they have taken this person and made him, so so important. And here is a prayer, a translation of this is this is a prayer for signs of blessing in the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.
Oh God, I have intended to pray for the prophet. May God bless him and grant him salvation. Obeying your command and believing your prophet, Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him salvation. See? Every time you say his name.
And out of love for him and longing for him and exalting his might and being and worthiness, so accept this prayer from me in your favor and goodness, and remove the veil of negligence from my heart, and make me one of your upright servants. O God, increase him in honor, upon honor with which you have invested him, and in greatness upon greatness which you have given him, and in light upon light which you have created him, and raise his position in the company of those who’ve sent, you have sent, and his rank in the ranks of the prophets.