The Great Feud
INTRODUCTION
In the name of God, Most
Gracious, Most Merciful
This is God's final message to humanity. All of
God's prophets have come to this world, and all the
scriptures have been delivered. The time has come to purify and consolidate all
the messages delivered by God's prophets into one message, and to proclaim that
henceforth, there is only one religion acceptable to God,
"Submission" (3:19, 85). "Submission" is the religion
whereby we recognize God's absolute authority, and reach an unshakeable
conviction that God ALONE possesses all power; no other entity possesses any
power that is independent of Him.
The natural result of such a realization is to
devote our lives and our worship absolutely to God ALONE.[A2
- purpose of our life is to worship God alone] This is the First
Commandment in all the scriptures, including the Old Testament, the New
Testament, and this Final Testament.
Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is One God!
Therefore you shall adore the Lord your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, with
all your mind,
and with all your strength. [Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Luke
12:29-30, Quran 3:18]
Let us meditate on God, His glorious attributes, who is the basis of everything
in this universe as its Creator,
who is fit to be worshiped as Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient
and self existent concious being, who removes all
ignorance and impurities from the mind and purifies and sharpens the
intellect. [Gayatri Mantra, Yajur
Veda]
While every religion has
been corrupted by innovations, traditions, and false, idolatrous doctrines,
there may be "Submitters" within every religion. There may be Submitters
who are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or
anything else. These Submitters, collectively, constitute the only religion
acceptable to God [A27 - the right religion is submission to God alone]. As emphasized by the theme
on the front page of this book, all Submitters who are devoted to God ALONE,
[A4 - we pray to develop our real person, the soul] and do not set up any
idols beside God, are redeemed into God's eternal kingdom (2:62). A criterion
of the true submitters is that they will find nothing objectionable in the
Quran.
With the advent of this Testament, God's message to the world is now complete.
We have now received the long awaited answers to our most urgent questions -
who we are, the purpose of our lives, how we came into this world, where do we
go from here, which religion is the right one, was it evolution or creation,
etc.
Some may wonder:
"Why did God wait all this time to perfect and consolidate His message?
What about all the people since Adam who did not receive the complete
scripture?" Bearing in mind that the Quran answers this question in 20:52,
it is a matter of simple statistics that the world's population from the
beginning until now did not exceed 7,000,000,000. From now to the end of the
world, 2280 A.D. (Appendix 25) [A26 - the world will end in 2280 AD, 1710
AH], it is estimated that the total world population will exceed
75,000,000,000. Thus, the vast majority of people are destined to receive God's
purified and consolidated message (see diagram).[A28
-God waited till the majority of humans can receive the purified message]
[ The black section represents the world population
since Adam ]
World population from
now (1990) to the end of the world (2280).
Before Genesis
Before
time immemorial there was God and only God. Then God created countless decillion of creatures to serve in His Kingdom, and perform
tasks that are not befitting of the Almighty or where the presence of the
Almighty is utterly devastating.
It all
began a few billion years ago when one of God's high-ranking creatures, Satan, [A10 – Satan was
one of God’s high ranking creatures] developed a supercilious idea
that he could run a dominion as an independent god besides God. This challenge
to God's absolute authority was not only blasphemous, it was also erroneous.
Satan was ignorant of the fact that God alone possesses the ability to be a
god, [A3a –
God is the Creator and Master of everything] and that there is much
more to godhood than he realized. It was the ego - arrogance augmented by
ignorance - that led Satan to believe that he
could take care of a dominion, as a god, and run it without disease, misery,
war, accidents, and chaos. [A13 – Satan’s incompetence leads of disease, misery, war, accident and
chaos] The vast majority of God's creatures disagreed with Satan.
Yet, the minute egoistic minority that agreed with him in various extents were in the billions. Thus, a profound dispute erupted
within the Heavenly Community (38:69). The rebels' unjustifiable challenge to
God's absolute authority was met and resolved in the most efficient manner.
After giving the rebels sufficient chances to denounce their crime and submit
to Him, God decided to exile the hard core rebels on a space ship called Earth,
and give them yet another chance to redeem themselves.
If you claim that you can fly a plane, the best way to test your claim is to
give you a plane and ask you to fly it. This is precisely what God decided to
do in response to Satan's claim that he could be a god;
[A11 - Satan serves an important purpose
to expose those who do not want to be with God] God appointed him a
temporary god on the tiny speck Earth (2:30, 36:60). [A5a - the universe is so big to show God’s
greatness and also that Satan cannot handle the tiniest dominion] As for those who agreed with Satan, they were given
a chance to kill their egos and submit to God's absolute authority. While the
vast majority of the guilty creatures took advantage of this opportunity,[A19 – the animals,
birds etc.] a miniscule minority consisting of about 150 billion creatures
failed to take advantage of this offer (33:72).
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The white area represents the vast majority that
did not agree with Satan. |
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The grey area represents the vast majority that
repented and submitted. |
The dispute in the Heavenly Community led to the classification of God's
creatures
(1) The Angels
Creatures
who never questioned God's absolute authority were classified as angels;[A22a -Angels are
creatures that never questioned God’s absolute authority] they knew
that God alone possesses the ability and qualifications to be a god. The vast
majority of God's creatures - countless numbers - belong in this category. The
number of angels is so enormous, even the angels do not know how many of them
there are; only God knows their number (74:31).
(2) The Animals
Although
the angels suggested that the rebels and their leader should be exiled from
God's kingdom (2:30), the Most Merciful willed to give the rebels a chance to
denounce their crime, repent, and submit to His
absolute authority (33:72). As represented in the diagram above, the vast
majority of the rebels took advantage of God's gracious offer to re-enter His
kingdom. They agreed to kill their egos, come to this world to perform a
submissive role, as an expiation for their blasphemy.[A19 - the animals, trees etc serve the
humans as expiation for their blasphemy] In return for their
submissive role in this world, these creatures are redeemed back to God's
eternal kingdom (6:38).[A8a - heaven is indescribably joyous with all of God’s provisions] The horse, the dog, the tree, the sun,
the moon, the stars, as well as deformed and retarded children are among the
intelligent creatures who denounced their crime and repented:
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Do you
not realize
that
|
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The
stars and the trees
prostrate.
(55:6) |
The horse has no ego. The horse's owner can be rich or poor, tall or short, fat
or thin, young or old, and the horse will serve them all. The dog has no ego;
it will wag its tail to its owner, no matter how rich or poor the owner might
be. The sun rises and sets every day at precisely the times prescribed by God.
The moon follows its synchronized orbit around the earth, without the slightest
deviation. The human body - a temporary garment - belongs to the Earth; as
such, it is a submitter. The heart, lungs, kidneys, and other organs, perform
their functions without our control.
(3) The Humans
The
hard-core rebels - humans and jinns - refused to
denounce their crime, and opted for witnessing a demonstration of Satan's
claim. These egotistic creatures who failed to submit
to God's absolute authority, even when offered a chance to do so, were divided
in half. The half that were less convinced of Satan's
point of view became classified as humans. Although they harbored doubts about
Satan's claim, they failed to make a firm stand regarding God's absolute
authority. It is the ego that prevented these creatures from appreciating God's
omnipotence, it is the ego that prevented them from submitting when such an
opportunity was offered to them (33:72), and it is the ego that stands between
most of us and redemption to God's kingdom (25:43). This is why "Kill your
ego" is one of the first commandments in the Quran (2:54).
(4) The Jinns
The other
half of the guilty creatures, those who leaned closer to Satan's point of view
and exhibited the biggest egos, became classified as jinns.[A16 – jinns are
spirit creatures] It was God's plan to assign one jinn to every human being
from birth to death. The jinn companion represents Satan and constantly
promotes his point of view (50:23, 27).[A23 - negative thoughts
from jinns] Both the jinns
and the humans are given a precious chance in this world to re-educate
themselves, denounce their egoism, and redeem themselves by submitting to God's
absolute authority.[A2- purpose of our
life] Whenever a human being is born, a jinn is born and is assigned to the
new human. We learn from the Quran that the jinns are
Satan's descendants (7:27, 18:50). When a jinn being is born and assigned to a
human being, the jinn remains a constant companion of the human until the human
dies. The jinn is then freed, and lives on for a few
centuries. Both humans and jinns are required to
worship God alone (51:56).
God Does Not Want Robots
The
dispute in the Heavenly Community as stated in 38:69 and described proves that
God's creatures possess the freedom of choice; they have minds of their own.
The rebellion of a miniscule minority among God's creatures has served to
emphasize the wonderful fact that God's creatures serve Him because they
appreciate His infinite magnificence. Without the rebellion, we would have
never known that freedom is God's gift to His creatures. [A9 - freewill for humans]
Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Even in
our worldly dimension, any enterprise expects its employees to be loyal and
devoted to the welfare of the enterprise. If an employee is not totally
dedicated to the enterprise, or is shown to have divided loyalties, he is
immediately dismissed. Since the humans and the jinns
sided with Satan, then turned down God's offer to reconsider their rebellious
acts, the angels expected Satan and his allies to be banished from God's
kingdom (2:30). It was immense mercy from God that He granted us this
additional chance to denounce our crime and redeem ourselves.
To carry out this extremely merciful plan of redemption, God "created
death" (67:1-2).[A6 - death] The divine plan called for
bringing the rebels into another existence, where they have no recollection of
the heavenly feud. Under the circumstances of this life, the humans and the jinns receive both God's messages and Satan's messages, then freely choose either side. [A9 – free choice] Based on their freewill decision, they are
either redeemed into God's kingdom, [A8a
- heaven] or become permanently exiled with Satan.[A8b - hell is absence of God’s provisions]
Satan's Temporary Dominion
To
emphasize the utter insignificance of Satan's projected dominion, God [A3c – God is the Creator of everything] created
a billion galaxies, a billion trillion stars, within a vast universe that spans
billions of light years. [A3b - God’s
greatness] If we travel towards the Sun (93,000,000 miles) at the speed of
light, we will reach it in eight minutes. If we keep going, we will reach the
border of our Milky Way Galaxy after 50-70,000 years at the speed of light. To
reach the nearest galaxy, it will take us 2,000,000 years at the speed of
light, and there are at least 2,000,000,000 galaxies in "our
universe." With the most powerful telescopes, the earth is utterly
invisible from the edge of our own galaxy, let alone from the edge of our universe.
As if our universe were not vast enough, God created six more, even larger
universes surrounding our universe (2:29, 67:3). God then informed Satan that a
tiny mote within the smallest and innermost universe, the planet Earth, shall
be his dominion. God's plan called for placing the humans and jinns in a universe that cannot stand His physical presence
(7:143) . Thus, Satan rules his minute kingdom far
from the physical presence of God, though with God's full knowledge and control.[A18 - we cannot see God] It should also
be noted that the number of rebels who repented was so vast, that the planet
earth could not possibly accommodate all of them. [A5c - universe big and lifeless] As it is, the animals vastly
outnumber the humans on this planet. It would take an unmanageable earth to
accommodate all the repentant rebels. Hence the placement of uncountable decillions of creatures in outer space.[A5b - universe so crowded]
Adam and Eve
The body
of the first human being was shaped on earth by God's angels, in accordance
with God's instructions (7:11). God then assigned the
first person, Adam, to that body. When God informed the angels that they will
be serving the humans throughout the test period - guarding them, driving the
winds, distributing the rain and provisions, etc. [A22b – the angels serve the humans by performing tasks in the
universe]- Satan was the only one who refused to "fall prostrate"
(2:34, 15:31, 38:74). Adam's mate was cloned, with feminine features, from
Adam, and God assigned the second human being to her body. [A15 –The souls of Adam and Eve, the first humans, were sent down to
earth and put in bodies] While the empty (soulless) bodies of Adam and Eve
remained here on earth, their souls, the real persons, resided in Heaven. [A14 - the soul is the real person]
Adam and Eve remained in Heaven for as long as they upheld God's commandments.
Once they listened to Satan instead, they reflected a flawed human nature in
all of us (this was the original sin), and they immediately belonged to Satan's
dominion down on Earth - "their bodies became visible to them" (7:20,
20:121). The rest is history.
Satan: Father of All the Jinns
Putting
the jinns and the humans to the test stipulated that
Satan shall reproduce whenever a human being is born. As mentioned above, every
time a human being is born, a jinn being is born to serve as a constant
companion of the human person. Every human being is subjected to the incessant
persuasions of Satan's representative who lives in the same body from birth to
death. Satan's representative tries to convince the human companion of Satan's
point of view: that God alone is not enough. [A23 - negative thoughts from jinns] On
the Day of Judgment, the jinn companion serves as a witness against the human
counterpart (43:38; 50:23, 27). Many jinn companions are converted to God's
point of view by the human companions.
God did not leave the human being without preparation. To help the humans in
their final chance to reconsider their blasphemy, every person is born with
instinctive knowledge that God ALONE, and no one else, is our Lord and Master
(7:172-173). The jinns were not given this
instinctive knowledge, but they are given a much longer life span and greater
abilities to study God's signs throughout the innermost universe. Since they
represent Satan's point of view, their instinctive nature leans strongly in favour of polytheism. In addition to our built-in instinct
to worship God alone, God sent messengers to help us redeem ourselves[A17- scriptures] [A25 -prophets] With all these elements in view,
we can appreciate the fact that the only unforgivable offense (if maintained
until death) is idol worship: believing that anyone besides God possesses any
power.
Forty Years Grace Period
The human
being is given forty years to study, look around, reflect, and examine all
points of view before making this most important decision - to uphold Satan's
point of view, or God's absolute authority. [A21 - age of responsibility] Anyone who dies before the age of
forty is chosen by God for redemption due to circumstances known only to God.
Anyone who dies before the age of 40 goes to Heaven (46:15, Appendix 32). God's
immense mercy is evident from the fact that even those who believe in the Quran
find it difficult to accept such a compassionate divine law.
God's messengers delivered the good news of our God-given chance to redeem
ourselves, and they were supported by formidable signs. When Moses went to
Pharaoh, he was supported by such miracles as the turning of his staff into a
serpent. Jesus created live birds from clay by God's leave, healed the leprous
and the blind by God's leave, and revived the dead by God's leave. The prophet
Muhammad, God's messenger who delivered this Final Testament, did not exhibit
such miracles (10:20). The Quran itself was the miracle supporting Muhammad's
mission (29:50-51). It was divine wisdom that separated the Miracle of the
Quran from Muhammad by 14 centuries. [A28
- why God waited all this time] Now that we understand the momentous
dimensions of the Quran's mathematical miracle (Appendix 1), we realize that
millions of people would have worshiped Muhammad as God incarnate if this
Miracle were revealed through him.
Proof of Authenticity:
Physical,
Tangible, Irrefutable.
With the
advent of the computer age, we discover that the Quran's mathematical code is
"One of the great miracles" as stated in 74:30-35. While the miracles
given to previous messengers were limited in time and place, the Quran's
miracle is perpetual. Only a few people witnessed the miracles of Moses and
Jesus, but the Quran's miracle can be witnessed by anyone at any time.
Furthermore, the Quran's miracle documents and proves all the previous miracles
(5:48).
As detailed in Appendix 1, the Quran's mathematical miracle is based on the
number "19." To share this awesome miracle with the reader, the word
"GOD" is printed throughout the English text in bold capital letters,
and the cumulative number of occurrences is shown at the lower left corner of
every page. The total occurrence of this most important word is shown at the
end of the Quran to be 2698. This total is a multiple of 19. Additionally, when
we add the numbers assigned to every verse where the word "God"
occurs, the total comes to 118123, also a multiple of 19 (19x6217). The
cumulative sum of verse numbers where the word "God" occurs is shown
on the lower right corner of every page. These simple physical facts are easily
verifiable by the reader, and they suffice to prove the super-human nature of
the Quran's mathematical composition.
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Proof of Authenticity to be Verified by the Reader
In
addition to the Quran's extraordinary mathematical composition, we
find a large number of Quranic facts which are proven
or theorized by
modern science. Here are a few examples of such advance scientific
information:
- The earth is egg-shaped
(39:5, 79:30).
- The earth is not standing
still; it moves constantly (27:88).
- The sun is a source of
light, while the moon reflects it (10:5, 25:61, 71:16).
- The proportion of oxygen
diminishes as we climb towards the sky (6:125).
- The "Big Bang
Theory" is confirmed (21:30).
- The "Expansion of the
Universe Theory" is confirmed (51:47).
- The universe started out as
a gaseous mass (41:11).
- Evolution is a fact; within
a given species, evolution is a divinely guided process (21:30, 24:45,
32:7-9, 18:37, 15:28-29, 7:11, 71:13-14, Appendix 31).
- The man's seminal fluid
decides the baby's gender (53:45-46).
No Nonsense
Equally
miraculous is the absence of any nonsense in the Quran. This is particularly
significant in view of the dominance of ignorance and superstition at the time
of revelation of the Quran. For example, the most respected exegesis among the
traditional Muslims is that of Ibn Kathir. In this famous reference, written centuries after
the Prophet, we read that the earth is carried on 40,000 horns of a giant bull,
who stands on top of a giant whale (see Ibn Kathir's interpretation of Verse 68:1).
As recently as 1975, and in the same location where the Quran was revealed, the
president of the Islamic University of Medina, Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz
Ben Baz, declared that the earth is flat and standing
still (see insert)!!
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Perfect Happiness: Now and Forever
One of
the most elusive objectives of every human being is "Happiness." The
Quran reveals the secret of attaining perfect happiness in this life and
forever. We learn from the Quran that happiness is an exclusive quality of the
soul. [A24 - secret of perfect happiness
is to develop the soul] Thus, a body that attains all the material
successes it longs for - money, power, fame, etc. - often belongs to an unhappy
person. Happiness depends totally on the degree of growth and development
attained by the soul, [A4 – we pray to
develop the soul] the real person. The Quran provides a detailed map
towards perfect happiness for both body and soul, both in this world and in the
eternal Hereafter (Appendix 15). [A8a -
heaven]
In the numerous verses throughout this proven Testament, God personally
guarantees the believers' happiness, now and forever:
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Absolutely, God's allies will have nothing to
fear, |
All Believers Constitute the One Acceptable Religion
As
expected from the Creator's final message, one of the prominent themes in the
Quran is the call for unity among all believers, and the repeated prohibition
of making any distinction among God's messengers. [A25 - Adam, Noah, Abraham etc] If the object of worship is one and
the same, there will be absolute unity among all believers. It is the human
factor, i.e., devotion and prejudice to such powerless humans as Jesus,
Muhammad, and the saints that causes division, hatred, and bitter wars among
the misguided believers. A guided believer is devoted to God ALONE, and
rejoices in seeing any other believer who is devoted to God ALONE, regardless
of the name such a believer calls his or her religion.
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Surely,
those who
believe,
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God's Messenger of the Covenant
As
detailed in Appendix 2, the publication of this book marks the advent of a new
era - the era where God's messages, delivered by all His prophets, are
consolidated into one. God's one and only religion, "Submission,"
shall dominate all other religions (9:33, 48:28, and 61:9). Today's corrupted
religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, will
simply die out, and "Submission" will prevail. This is not the
wishful thinking of a human being or a collection of humans; this is God's
inviolable law (3:19, 9:33, 41:53, 48:28, 61:9,
110:1).
Rashad Khalifa, Tucson