Category: Femi Abbas

By Femi Abbas

For the first few days in Ramadan, every year, there is tendency for some Muslims to forget that they are fasting and thus break their fasts inadvertently during the day.

Naturally, the possibility of eating or drinking accidentally due to sheer forgetfulness in the early days of Ramadan is apt. This often occurs to Muslims who hardly fast outside the month of Ramadan.

If it happens to you, there should be nothing to worry about. As soon as you remember, just recondition yourself to the regulations of Ramadan and continue your fast.

Do not tell anybody. Let it remain a secret between you and your Lord. It does not matter whether you remember while eating and drinking or thereafter.

In Islam, actions are judged according to intentions. And who else judges both actions and intentions other than Allah, the All-seer and All- knower.

Even in the five obligatory Salats observed daily by all genuine Muslims, provisions are made for rectification of errors committed through forgetfulness.

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This is done in terms of ‘Sujudus-Sahwi’. But like in Salat, the forgetfulness in Ramadan involves neither drunkenness nor sexual intercourse nor cheating of any kind.

As a Muslim, you are not supposed to eat any forbidden food or drink any intoxicant in the first place, Ramadan or no Ramadan. To be drunk, therefore, in Ramadan, under the pretext of forgetfulness is a confirmation of hypocrisy or infidelity.

As for sexual intercourse which should only occur legitimately between a husband and his wife, it is impossible to be done out of forgetfulness. At least if the husband cannot remember Ramadan, the wife should. Sexual intercourse cannot be done unconsciously.

But if intercourse occurs in your dream and you suddenly wake up to discover that you are already wet, all you need to do is to clean up with Janabah (purification) bath.

And, then, you continue your fast. Fasting, especially in Ramadan, is a means of rejuvenating spiritual consciousness and renewal of good intention.

Anyone who   breaks his/her fast in error due to forgetfulness should immediately repent and abstain from any situation that can cause its repetition. Allah is forgiving and merciful.

 

By Femi Abbas

Reading any book has a purpose and a method. No good reader will ever read a book without taking note of its author, its publisher and its date of publication. And to read any new book, the very first point of call is its contents page which tells you the topics and the subjects you will read about in it. One of the major purposes of Tarawih is to serve as a reminder of the contents of the Quran.

The word Qur’an means continuous recitation. It is so called because of its inimitable origin which makes it a compelling daily reading throughout the world, across nations and ages. It contains the unsurpassable words of Allah not only in the grandeur of its diction and splendour of its rendition but also in the depth of its meaning, substance and profundity.

The revelation of the Glorious Book called the Qur’an to mankind through an unlettered desert Arab, Muhammad (SAW), the son of Abdullah and Aminah, began in 610 CE. It lasted 22 years and three months (10 years in Makkah and12 years plus three months in Madinah). The book contains 114 chapters and 6236 verses (not 6666 verses often quoted by most Imams and Alfas in Nigeria. Of these 114 chapters, 86 were revealed in Makkah and 28 in Madinah. But the 28 chapters revealed in Madinah constitute two thirds of the entire Book. And this is because the Makkah chapters are short and rhythmically poetic while those of Madinah are long and prose-like.

Although the Qur’an was revealed orally, its writing began almost immediately the revelations started. The writing was however done on primitive materials like planks of wood, animal hides, back of trees and other materials of the like which were then readily available. It was shortly after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), that those writings were collated and rendered into a book form. However, one of the wonders of rendering the Qur’an into a written form is the classification of those revelations into chapters and verses by the Prophet himself despite his illiteracy.

The Qur’an’s main appeal is to man’s intellect, feelings and imagination. But it also gives insight into some natural phenomena like sphericity and revolution of the earth (Q. 39:5), the formation of rain (Q. 30:48); the fertilization of the wind (Q. 15:22); the revolution of the sun, the moon and the planets in their fixed orbit (Q. 36:29-38); the aquatic origin of all creatures (Q. 21:30); the duality of the sex of plants and other creatures (Q. 36:35); the collective life of animals (Q.6:38); the mode of life of the bees (Q. 16:69) and the successive phases of the child in the mother’s womb (Q. 22:5 & 23:14). Yet, the purpose of this Glorious Book is not to teach history, astronomy, philosophy or sciences. That is the Qur’an for you, a book that is incomparably divine through all ages and times. Whoever needs to read the Qur’an must know its features as stated above. Otherwise, just reading the Qur’an may be like swimming in a pool without any knowledge of its deapth. Ramadan Karim!eading any book has a purpose and a method. No good reader will ever read a book without taking note of its author, its publisher and its date of publication. And to read any new book, the very first point of call is its contents page which tells you the topics and the subjects you will read about in it. One of the major purposes of Tarawih is to serve as a reminder of the contents of the Quran.

The word Qur’an means continuous recitation. It is so called because of its inimitable origin which makes it a compelling daily reading throughout the world, across nations and ages. It contains the unsurpassable words of Allah not only in the grandeur of its diction and splendour of its rendition but also in the depth of its meaning, substance and profundity.

The revelation of the Glorious Book called the Qur’an to mankind through an unlettered desert Arab, Muhammad (SAW), the son of Abdullah and Aminah, began in 610 CE. It lasted 22 years and three months (10 years in Makkah and12 years plus three months in Madinah). The book contains 114 chapters and 6236 verses (not 6666 verses often quoted by most Imams and Alfas in Nigeria. Of these 114 chapters, 86 were revealed in Makkah and 28 in Madinah. But the 28 chapters revealed in Madinah constitute two thirds of the entire Book. And this is because the Makkah chapters are short and rhythmically poetic while those of Madinah are long and prose-like.

Although the Qur’an was revealed orally, its writing began almost immediately the revelations started. The writing was however done on primitive materials like planks of wood, animal hides, back of trees and other materials of the like which were then readily available. It was shortly after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), that those writings were collated and rendered into a book form. However, one of the wonders of rendering the Qur’an into a written form is the classification of those revelations into chapters and verses by the Prophet himself despite his illiteracy.

The Qur’an’s main appeal is to man’s intellect, feelings and imagination. But it also gives insight into some natural phenomena like sphericity and revolution of the earth (Q. 39:5), the formation of rain (Q. 30:48); the fertilization of the wind (Q. 15:22); the revolution of the sun, the moon and the planets in their fixed orbit (Q. 36:29-38); the aquatic origin of all creatures (Q. 21:30); the duality of the sex of plants and other creatures (Q. 36:35); the collective life of animals (Q.6:38); the mode of life of the bees (Q. 16:69) and the successive phases of the child in the mother’s womb (Q. 22:5 & 23:14). Yet, the purpose of this Glorious Book is not to teach history, astronomy, philosophy or sciences. That is the Qur’an for you, a book that is incomparably divine through all ages and times. Whoever needs to read the Qur’an must know its features as stated above. Otherwise, just reading the Qur’an may be like swimming in a pool without any knowledge of its deapth.

Ramadan Karim!

By Femi Abbas

When never the month of Ramadan comes around, its first port of call is Tarawih. That is the famous supererogatory Salat that entertains Muslim congregations with special hospitality in virtually all Mosques across nations in the evenings of the month.

Tarawih is a special Salat observed voluntarily, according to Sunnah, only in the month of Ramadan. It contains many genuflexions (raka‘at) ranging from six to twenty depending on the choice of its observers. Despite its significant role in Ramadan, Tarawih was not observed congregationally at the inception of Islam. When Prophet Muhammad (SAW) first introduced it as an attribute of Ramadan in Madinah, he started observing it for the first few days, every evening, after Salatul ‘Isha’i.

But some of his companions soon joined him to observe it congregationally. However, when the Prophet observed that Tarawih, a supererogatory Salat, was gradually being turned into another obligatory, congregational Salat, he stopped observing it in the Mosque to avoid turning it into another Salat of obligatory status.

At that point, his companions wanted to know his reason for stopping the observance of Tarawih in the Mosque and he told them that he did not want it to be misconceived for another obligatory Salat. Thus, the congregational observance of Tarawih came to an end. Thence, it became a Salat for individuals mostly in their private homes.

However, shortly after the demise of Abubakr Siddiq, the first Khalif, Umar Bn Khattab who became the second Caliph   walked into the Mosque one evening and met a crowd of Muslims observing Tarawih. Each of them was reciting the verses of the Qur’an aloud to the disturbance of others. Umar then asked all of them to stop reciting those verses and asked them about the Salat they were observing. When they told them it was Tarawih, he ordered them to queue up as a norm for observing congregational Salat according to Sunnah. He then asked for the most knowledgeable person among them and told him to lead the rest in observing Tarawih congrgationally while he watched with delightful admiration.

After the completion of the Salat, Umar said satisfactorily that “I have established a beautiful tradition”. From thence, congregational observance of Tarawih became a tradition which is today enthusiastically observed throughout the world by Muslims in the month of Ramadan.

Tarawih is one of the two spiritual attributes preceding daily Ramadan fasting. The second is Sahur. But the latter is weightier than the former because of its entailed statutory status. Please read about Sahur tomorrow in sha’Allah. Ramadan Karim!

 

• email: femabbas756@gmail.com Tel: 0811708536 (Text only)

 

“They (the non-believers) want to extinguish the light of Allah with the winds of their mouths (but unknown to them), Allah has perfected His light even though the unbelievers passionately abhor that fact….”Q. 62: 8

 

Monologue

It is a fact of historical reality that Muslims anywhere in the contemporary world are brothers and sisters of other Muslims everywhere. Thus, the plight of American Muslims before the outbreak of the pandemic called coronavirus must be a concerned plight of all Muslims worldwide.

And now that some of those American Muslims who have innocently fallen prey to that pandemic are being buried indiscriminately in the rubbles of mass graves, the concern for their plight must astronomically rise in intensity.

This is because, given their numerical weakness and insignificant amount of wealth, the situation of Muslims in that devil’s own country is hardly better than that of a lily by the mossy stone.  But before we talk of the plight of those Muslims vis a vis the fortressing resilience that sustains the formidability of their faith, let us examine some fundamental questions that need to be fundamentally answered if only for posterity.

For instance, how did Islam find its way into that country despite the pathological hatred of the imperialists therein for the concept of Allah as the Creator and Protector of the universe? And, how have the Muslims in that so-called ‘New World’ been coping with the implacable apartheid against their faith?

 

Preamble

Looking at Islam globally today vis-a-vis the multifarious problems incessantly confronting its adherents, there is tendency for some ignorant and parochial people to think vaingloriously that they have succeeded in plotting the end of Allah’s divine religion.

That tendency is particularly manifest in Nigeria where blind imitation has become the culture of certain lotus eaters who have adopted the lifestyle of vultures that are always looking for the carcasses of preys to devour greedily.

From their actions and utterances, the merchants of that obnoxious culture are desperately looking for anything, no matter how devilish, that can pave their ways towards profiting from it.

But because of their untameable avarice and greed, such merchants cannot understand that when a gargantuan institution like Islam is about to take an unprecedented leap towards heightening human   civilization, it must undergo a trying moment. Such a momentary trial is an indication that an arrogant power somewhere in the world is about to fall.

This is not new in history. Those who are adequately familiar with the World History will recall that similar scenarios had occurred to certain arrogant powers like the old Greek and Roman Empires as well as many others in the past centuries, at the peak of their arrogance.

At least, we can still see through the spectacles of history that if the sun of the once so-called Great British Empire did not eclipse unexpectedly, at its prime, an imperialist America would not have emerged as a foremost modern day world power. And, we have not forgotten that the latter was once a colony of the former. More will be said about this, in this column, in the near future in sha’Allah.

 

Essence of Instinct

Instinct is the main cursor of vision. It is the indicator of where today’s cruising ship will anchor tomorrow. A man without instinct can be likened to a blind bull struggling to pass through the hole of a needle.

An example of that assertion is now being exhibited in the United States of America. Without instinct there can be neither projection nor premonition. All visionary prophecies of the past were based on regulated divine instincts.

It was only by divine instinct that Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was able to prophesy the signs of the last days when he said: “One of the signs of the last days is for the sun to rise in the West and set in the East….” This prophecy is heavily pregnant with meanings.

Which sun was Allah’s last Messenger to mankind   talking about? Was it the physical or the hypothetical sun? Before now, only a few people of visionary posture in the West could comprehend that prophecy as much as the celebrated Irish Christian playwright, George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950).

 

His Prediction

Based on his understanding of the contents of the above mentioned divine prophecy, George Bernard Shaw decided to study Islam through deep and comprehensible researches. And consequently, he concluded as follows:

“The Medieval Ecclesiastics, either through ignorance or bigotry, painted Islam, which they renamed Mohammedanism, in the darkest colours. In fact, they were trained both to hate the man (Muhammad) and his religion.

To them he was anti-Christ… I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing face of existence which can make itself appealing to every understanding age.

I have studied him, the wonderful man, and in my opinion, far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the saviour of humanity.

I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness”.

“I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today…”

 

Analysis

America was just emerging as a champion of the modern world when Bernard Shaw made his famous prediction quoted above. Western civilization was then restricted to Europe and Shaw had perceived any emerging civilization from America as an extension of that of Europe.

He had thought that whatever would be acceptable to Europe ought to be automatically acceptable to the emerging power of the New World, the latter being an offshoot of the former. Although, Islam had reached America long before Christopher Columbus arrived in what was then perceived as a New World, very little was known about the Muslims in that country until 1886 when one Moorish immigrant,  by name Noble Drew Ali, of North Carolina started to propagate Islamic faith to the black masses in that country.

However, the fact that Noble D. Ali’s jihad became a prominent feature through the growth of media influence in the United States did not necessarily make him the first American Muslim preacher.

 

 A Valid Question

Today, with a Muslim population of about 4 million and almost 4000 Mosques, who says Bernard Shaw’s prediction of the early 20th century has not become a reality? If there is still any country in the world today where Islam is not rapidly growing, the name of that country must be coded in retardation.

Today, the geometrical growth of Muslim population in the US, despite all odds, has confirmed Islam as an official religion in America.

Today, there are about 2000 Muslim associations and over 400,000 businesses as well as about 310 regular publications under the firm control of American Muslims. These are not only providing jobs for the residents, they are also enhancing America’s social security.

 

The Root of Islam in America

The real historical root of Islam in the US is actually traceable to 1790 when the South Carolina legislative body granted special social status to a community of Moroccans, which gave that community the freedom to practise its religion. And in 1797, President John Adams signed a legal policy declaring that United States had no “character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity of Musulmen (Muslims)”.

And, another American President, Benjamin Franklin’s Position  in his autobiography, published in 1791 stated as follows: “ I did not disapprove of a meeting place in Pennsylvania designed to accommodate preachers of all religions”. He concluded that: “even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach ‘Mohammedanism’ (Islam) to us, he would find a pulpit at his service”.

 

President Thomas Jefferson’s Stand

President Thomas Jefferson, on his own, defended religious freedom in America, including those of Muslims and, he explicitly mentioned Muslims when writing about the movement for religious freedom in Virginia.

And, also, in his own autobiography, Thomas Jefferson wrote: “When the Virginia bill for establishing religious freedom was finally passed,… a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal.

Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word ‘Jesus Christ,’ so that it should read ‘a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.’

The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection for the Jews, the Gentile, the Christians and Mahometans (Muhammedans), the Hindus and the infidels of every denomination”.

Thus, as a confirmation of that policy, President Jefferson also joined the Tunisian Ambassador for an Iftar (Ramadan fast breaking) in 1809 making him the very first American President to break fast officially with Muslims in America.

 

Despite the propaganda through over 60,000 publications by the Western Orientalists between 1800 and 1950, disparaging  Islam and denigrating the personality of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), that divine religion continued to wax stronger even as it has consistently displayed unprecedented dynamism as a religion of all times and all ages.

Today, with a global population of about 1.8 billion adherents around the world, and, with certain mundane ideologies and philosophies crumbling like a pack of cards before its illuminating glow, Islam has remained an unstoppable religion, in spite of implacable hostility to it just for pecuniary reason in blind countries like Nigeria.

 

African American Muslims

The African Americans’ involvement in the propagation of a religion of immigrants though began in 1960s/70s in the American society, Islam had actually made its way into that country in the sixteenth century when Muslims were brought as slaves from Africa but were forced to convert to Christianity.

Those Muslims were followed by a new wave of immigrants who came in the late nineteenth century as labourers from the Middle Eastern countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

In the second half of the twentieth century, a large number of Muslims came from virtually every country of the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia who were more sophisticated than their predecessors in Islamic understanding and propagation.

As those immigrants settled in large cities and small towns, they built Mosques, Islamic Cultural Centres, and Schools. Today, indigenous American Muslims, who have grown in number to well over a million, have succeeded in transforming Islam into an American religion.

 

A Track Master   

In 1888, the American Ambassador in Philippines, Alexander Russell Webb, surprisingly became a track master by embracing Islam and by becoming the first prominent Anglo-American Muslim in history. Thus, given his status, he became the only person that represented Islam from the US at the first Parliament for the World’s Religions in 1893. That shows how long it has taken the American Muslims to take Islam through a tortuous path in its journey to success.

 

New York Times

In an article once published in the New York Times and entitled: ‘Muslim Schools in the U.S.: A Voice for Identity’, one Susan Sachs wrote on the rising demands for Islamic schools in the U.S. thus: “across the country, Islamic schools…that offer religion and Arabic classes…are expanding and flourishing, with many becoming oversubscribed so quickly that principals are scrambling for money to build more.

Thus, the surge in the number of Islamic schools may be attributed to the success and determination of a Muslim community that strives “to define itself as a cohesive religious minority in the secular American society”. That was a testimony by an indigenous American to the rapid growth of Islam in a secular America.

 

The World Street Journal

Before the referred article, an article had earlier appeared in ‘The World Street Journal’ on August 7, 1887, which reported thus: “At a time when Marxism is so debilitated and is being shored up by capitalism; when Christianity lacks much of the missionary fire that once drove it; when Maoism is all but entombed with its founder and when democracy sounds only a muted appeal to much of the world, Islamic fundamentalism stands out as the movement on the march”.

By and large today, not only is Islam formally recognized as the third official religion after Christianity and Judaism in the US, it has also become a tradition for the President and his cabinet to host Muslim leaders in that country to Iftar (fast breaking) during the month of Ramadan.

Today, with technology virtually reaching its climax, and backed up by over 60% of the world’s oil reserve in the Islamic world, the rising of the sun from the West as prophesied by Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is becoming an undeniably vivid reality.

Were George Bernard Shaw alive today he would have nodded with delight to this axiomatic fact.

 

Conclusion

Given the above historical account, it is unimaginable that a 21st century American President like Donald Trump, who also has personal businesses in many other countries of the world, will want to rubbish his predecessors by destroying the solid foundation which those predecessors had laid for America’s greatness.

But, if, on the other hand, he goes ahead to play a bull in the china shop it will still not be strange. After all, not every child who bears a father’s name can be truly legitimate. With an erratic executive order being signed frequently by fiat, President Donald Trump who has been seeking to ban about 134 million Muslims across seven nations with a view to banishing Islam from America may inadvertently end up being the greatest promoter of Islam in American history.

Meanwhile, for the benefit of doubt, America and other antagonistic countries should know that Islam is like the sun in its full regalia. Any blind person who claims not to recognize its presence is only playing an ostrich. With or without recognition, the sun will always dwell majestically in the orbit with its photosynthesizing rays aglow.

Today is today. Tomorrow is tomorrow. None can take the place of the other. That is a food for thought. When the time comes, history will automatically open up its relevant pages for reading by seekers of the truth. RAMADAN KARIM!

By Femi Abbas

 

Monologue

AT At a gloomy time like this, when an invisible virus called Coronavirus and codenamed COVID-19 turns itself into a merciless biological ‘hurricane’ foraging the lives of humans and   threatening those lives with death, famine and poverty even as it changes hopes into forlorn, taking a retrospective view of the past and borrowing a formidable garland of experience that may serve as an armour of safety should be a matter of necessity.

Now that the global focus is mainly on COVID-19, we can jointly seize the opportunity of the current global helplessness to share thoughts and ideas, through this forum, about the causes and effects of ailments generally as well as their possible prevention and cure.

It is a fact, universally   acknowledged, that without ailments there would have been no need for medicaments. Incidentally, however, it is the combination of both   ailments and medicaments that prompted the idea of establishing certain healing institutions, in the primordial time, that came to be named hospitals in the contemporary time.

 

Origin of Hospital

The word hospital itself is a mediaeval English coinage that originated from the Latin word ‘hospes’ or ‘hospice’

(meaning  guest) while the word ‘patient’, used to describe a health seeker, also came from the Latin word ‘Patior’ which means suffering. Thus, philologically, hospital means a place where suffering guests are given proper care for normal comfort of body system.

Ironically, today, however, despite the ubiquity of hospitals in all nations and communities around the world, pandemics like COVID-19 randomly perch on the earth to, stubbornly, prove resistant to any synthetic antidote while rendering those hospitals helpless even as humanity grows incredibly restive with no cute assurance for rescue.

In such a bewildering situation where this virus has become like a stormy rain   showering the entire world indiscriminately with acid water, will it not be effectively meaningful and rewarding to people of reason and foresight to seek a permanent solution than to keep scampering for temporary cover? That is what motivated yours sincerely to write this article for the benefit of today’s generation and that of tomorrow.

 

Invention of Hospital

The healing   institution   called hospital is not, in anyway, an invention of the modern time. It is rather as old as human ailments for which it was established even if it was crude primordially.  Whether for the purpose of prevention or that of cure, this institution had been in existence since the creation of man.

As a mortal being, man was not created with freedom from ailments. And in a deeper philosophical understanding, it must be noted that ailments may not necessarily be an issue of mental or physical disturbance in human biological system.

On the contrary, an ailment   may be of the mind as prompted by sheer imagination or postulation. For instance, the greatest ailment ever, in human life, is ignorance which requires sound and appropriate application of knowledge as a  potent antidote.

One of the natural characteristics of mortal beings is to be ignorant of certain things at certain times. And that is what actually warrants the search for knowledge in various ways, by various means and at various times . But for that major factor in the nature of man, no reference to him as a mortal being   would have arisen.

Thus, like in the primordial time, the contemporary   time is passing through mental, physical and psychological traumas for which a soothing balm of an appropriate medicament is a sine qua non.

 

Classification of Medicaments

Whether in the olden days or modern time, medicaments have had to be classified into natural and artificial segments. But because of the sophistication of the modern time, the one is said to be conventional while the other is known as synthetic.

However, none of them enjoys the permanency of time and space in the absence of knowledge. It is with knowledge that ailments are diagnosed. It is also with knowledge that medicaments for their prevention or cure are prescribed. In other words, ailments of any type can only gain access to man in the absence of knowledge.

 

Prophetic Medicament

Incidentally, the most potent medicaments of all times, for all ailments, including contagious pandemics like COVID- 19, are the ones prescribed by the unlettered Prophet from Arabia, Muhammad (SAW) the son of Abdullah and Aminah over 1,440 years ago.

And those medicaments remain as validly potent today as they were when they were prescribed in the 7th century AD. And, they will continue to be as much potent throughout the remaining period of human existence on earth because they are unalterably backed up by divine authority.

 

From Adam to Muhammad

Prophet Muhammad’s prescription of medicament for ailment was a confirmation of the coded remedy primordially prescribed by the first human being called Adam.

That primogenitor of mankind was the first human being divinely designated as a Prophet. From the Qur’anic historical record, Muslims came to learn that Adam was hardly one hour old as a creature when he started prescribing medicaments with which to heal ailments.

He was commanded by Allah to teach the Angels the names of all creatures, which the Angels had confessed not to know when Allah asked them to name those creatures. Thus, by teaching the Angels those names, Adam became not only the teacher of Angels but also their Doctor and this was to spark off a fierce controversy, later in life, among intellectuals and certain professionals on what should be called the first human profession.

While some scholars regard teaching as the very first profession of man, some professionals, especially those in the Information/Communication sector called journalists, believe that what Adam actually did by teaching the Angels the names of creatures, which they (the Angels) did not know, was more of information dissemination through communication than actual teaching.

And, in fairness to the proponents of that argument, there can be no effective teaching without adequate information disseminated through communication. That is why nobody can claim to be a teacher or even a Doctor without strong ability to communicate effectively.

 

Adam as a Doctor

By teaching the Angels the names of all creatures through the guidance of Allah, what Prophet Adam really did was to cure the worst disease (ignorance) in those Angels. If Adam had not taught the Angels the names of all things on earth, by the grace of Allah, those Angels would have remained permanently ignorant.

And if he had not healed the Angels of the disease called ignorance,  Allah’s subsequent messages to mankind, through His appointed Messengers and Prophets, would not have come to mankind through them.

 

Natural and Artificial Medicaments

In ordinary man’s view, medicament is the substance required to cure an ailment. Such substance may be natural or artificial. It may also be as crude as raw herbs or as sophisticated as surgery. Meanwhile, it is generally believed that a person does not need medication unless he is ill.

That is why the Western conventional medicine of the cotemporary time is rather considered to be curative than preventive. As a norm, physical human illness resides in human body just as an abstract illness like ignorance makes man’s mind its abode. Today, in most cases, people neither go to the hospitals nor take medicine unless they fall sick or feel ill.

 

Observer’s Analysis

A person is said to be poor-sighted when he cannot see well without artificial aid. He is deemed poor in memory when his remembering ability becomes weak. He is also pronounced poor in health when some of his body organs malfunction or when he loses some active enzymes or minerals or vitamins. Thus, man may be poor, not in terms of money or material needs but despite his possession of both.

As an antidote for ignorance, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) prescribed constant recitation and thorough understanding of the Qur’an. And, for body ailment, he prescribed honey and black seed.

 

Prophetic Foresight

Though unlettered, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had known, by divine intuition, the different types of ailments and their required medicaments before he diagnosed two basic ailments and prescribed two fundamental medicaments for them.

The first of those ailments is ignorance for which he prescribed thorough understanding of the Qur’an and obedience to the rules and regulations therein in one’s own interest. The second ailment is poverty. And, poverty in this case, is not lack of material wealth alone as many people erroneously believe. It is also lack of many things including health and conscience. Many people are victims of one of these ailments. Many more are victims of both.

 

Prophetic Medicament

As an antidote for the ailment of the mind which is ignorance, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) prescribed constant recitation and   thorough understanding of Allah’s rules and regulations for mankind which is called the Qur’an. And, for body ailments, he (Prophet Muhammad) prescribed     two different medicaments. One is Han (ie honey) which is a product of an insect called ‘Bee’.

The other is ‘Habbatus-Sauda’u’ otherwise known as Black Seed from a plant called ‘Nigella Sativa’. Honey is just one of the seven products of the Bee.

But it is the most popular of them all. Black Seed, on the other hand, is a wonderful natural seed of a plant that is native to the Middle East, South Western Asia, North Africa   and some parts of Eastern Europe. This seed can come in three different forms: raw seed, powder and liquid.

 

The Role of the Qur’an

Qur’an is the encyclopedia of life which embodies and personifies knowledge in all its ramifications. There is nothing spiritual or mundane about knowledge that is not comprehensively contained in the Qur’an either in explanatory or coded form.

Thus, by recommending the Qur’an as the medicament for ignorance, the Prophet simply provided a permanent cure for the ailment of the mind. And by prescribing Honey and Black Seed as antidotes for body ailments, he encouraged longevity through the strengthening of human immune system.

It is, therefore, not by accident that Suratun-Nahl chapter 16 of the Qur’an, is named after the insect called Bee which heals human ailments with its products. The contents of Verse 68 in that chapter of the Qur’an read thus:

“And your Lord revealed to the Bee (saying): Build your homes in the mountains, in the trees and in the hives which men shall make for you. Feed on every kind of fruit and follow the trodden path of your Lord’. From its belly comes forth a fluid of many hues as a healing substance for mankind. Surely in this, there is a sign for those who can reason….”

 

Other Products of the Bee

Contrary to general belief, honey is not the only product of the Bee. There are six others so far known to man. These are: Propolis; Pollen; Royal Jelly; Bees wax; Bee Venom and Bee Bread. More can still be discovered as research continues along this line in accordance with the Qur’anic challenge.

Each of these products has specific functions in maintaining, sanitizing and immunizing the human hormone system. And each of them has tremendous health maintenance value in the life of man. But there is neither time nor space here to discuss them in full details now. A better chance may come in the near future.

 

Composition of Honey

Pure honey in its raw form contains about 80 different substances that are most important for human nutrition. Besides glucose and fructose, honey contains all of the B-complex minerals and vitamins such as A, C, D, E and K as well as trace elements such as magnesium, sulphur, phosphorus, iron, calcium, chlorine, potassium, iodine, sodium, copper and manganese. The enzyme content of honey is one of the highest of all existing foods on earth. Honey also contains an antimicrobial, as well as antiviral and   antibacterial factors.

Other ailments for which honey may be found appropriate as an antidote include staphylococcus, respiration, constipation, whitlow, burns and wounds.

 

Comment

After many centuries of disputing the above facts ignorantly, conventional Doctors finally came to realize that no medicine is as effective in sealing up surgical wounds and healing sores as honey.

Thus, today, at the instance of the World Health Organization (WHO), honey is globally used for these purposes in most public hospitals in various parts of the world, Nigeria inclusive.

 

Types of Black Seed

Ordinarily, there are three ways in which Black Seed can be put to use for effective cure or prevention. One way is the chewing of raw Black Seed. Another is grinding it (Black Seed) into powder while the third is turning it into a lotion. But the three are not dissimilar in potency or efficacy. They are all the same.

 

Governor Seyi Makinde’s Rescue

While the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who tested positive to COVID-19 recently, was still writhing hopelessly in untold agony at the intensive care unit of a London hospital, Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Nigeria was easily rescued from the claw of Coronavirus in Ibadan after about nine days in the isolation gulag of that deadly virus.

It was a Muslim brother, Dr. Muyideen Olatunji that was said to have introduced the medicament to him at that precarious moment of his life after almost one and a half millennium that Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had prescribed Honey and Black Seed as potent medicaments.

But, in fairness to Governor Makinde, he 0penly confessed to that effect and gave a public testimony in appreciation of that unique gesture. That is one of the contributions of Islam to the continuity of human life and the civilization of mankind.

 

Rental Criers

In another clime,  the marvelous gesture from Islamic spiritual foundation that rescued a COVID-19 infected Governor  would have been turned upside down as  some marauding  self-appointed ‘miracle merchants’ claiming to be prophets would have renamed the honey as ‘Anointing Lotion’ and the Black Seed as ‘Miracle Seed’ even when Prophet Muhammad who prescribed those medicaments did not attribute them to deceptive  miracle or false anointing.

 

Conclusion

That Prophet Muhammad (SAW) knew that much even as an unlettered person at a time when the world was evidently assailed by blatant ignorance and primitivism is a further confirmation of Michael Hart’s classification of him as the greatest human being that ever lived. What else will Nigerian charlatans who are parochially claiming to be prophets say to counter this axiomatic fact? God bless the readers of this column.

FEMI ABBAS

 

Monologue

The title of this article is a question which only conscientiously guided readers can answer scrupulously. For decades, some Nigerian charlatans with feeble but foxy minds have been duping innocent masses by presenting religion to them, not only as a profession but also as a commodity meant for sale to gullible buyers in the name of evangelism.

 

Preamble

Judging the above mentioned charlatans   (males and females) by their fraudulent claim to be prophets/prophetesses and seers of tomorrow, one cannot but conclude that they are the modern day hoaxers living like vampires on the blood of fools.

By their unbridled mode of operation, it is apparent that those charlatans are not for God but for Satan through money. And, the richer they get in their deceptive trade the poorer the members of their congregations become and the more Nigeria is afflicted by un-foretold calamities.

 

The Furry of a Virus

The current global furry of an invisible virus codenamed COVID 19 is a typical example of the above cited calamities.

Within just three months or thereabout, that virus has taken the lives of humans in thousands across nations and regions and the count keeps rising.

Yet, the regular advertising slogan with which those charlatans lure innocent people into their satanic dragnets is MIRACLE.

Now, where is that constantly and lousily advertised MIRACLE?

 

Reminder

It will be recalled that before the adoption of the deceptive word ‘MIRACLE’ by some demonic merchants as a magnetic slogan, Nigeria was never known to be a hub of calamities as she is today.

And, even, at this precarious time, when the country is fiercely confronted by the globally pandemic disease called COVID 19, those disciples of the Lucifer continue to regale in chanting the usual obnoxious slogan of MIRACLE for the purpose of self-enrichment.

Is the so-called MIRACLE in any way dissimilar from the word MAGIC which some vagabonds do audaciously display as a gimmick with which to dupe foolish people? What else is called fraud? And who does not know that only the agents of devil can commit fraud with such unbridled audacity as those Nigerian charlatans do in the name of God?

 

The Antics of Fraudsters

Fraud, in all its characteristics, is like lightening in the life of a night marauder. Whenever it flashes its dazzling flare from the sky, the marauder feels delighted in self-deception and believes that the needed illumination with which to move ahead has been provided. Thus, the similitude of fraud, especially in the religious sphere, is like that of a spider’s cobweb which provides security for the spider that weaves it but serves as a trap for other mobile objects that want to pass through it.

 

Like Miracle like Magic

Unknown to   many people, miracle without divinity, is to the religious sphere what Magic is to mundane life. In other words, it is a religious hobby for certain greedy and avaricious elements, especially in today’s Nigeria, to masquerade in the cloak of religion and hide behind one finger to dupe gullible people.

 

 Functions of Conscience

Conscience, according to Nigeria’s great scholar of the 19th century, Sheikh Usman Dan Fodio, is an open wound which only the truth can heal. It is also the compass of human life through which the soul of man can find its way towards Allah’s mercy. Whoever loses his conscience to Satan on the journey to Allah’s mercy has automatically lost that divine mercy at a point where it may not be retrievable.

 

Season of Distinction

This is a season of clear distinction between satanic predictions and fake prophecies in Nigeria. This is one of the seasons in which some obvious fraudsters who are known for basking in an empty euphoria of delusion do parade themselves as prophets in the midst of idiots.

This is the season when such fraudsters give the false impression that prediction and prophecy are one and the same and therefore take undue advantage of some people’s blatant ignorance and fanatical gullibility to dupe them in the name of MIRACLE.

Whereas prediction is about mere imagination sometimes influenced by Satan just as foresight is about intuition based on experience, both are evidently human while prophecy is divine.

 

The Puzzling Angle of Prophecy

There is something strange about prophecy which continues to puzzle the rightly guided human beings. It is like the night that is invisibly pregnant but which surprisingly delivers wonders in the day. Genuine prophecy is neither by wishful fabrication nor by devilish pretext.

Its roots are firmly planted in the rich soil of divinity while its genuine envoys were divinely chosen and called Messengers of Allah. The last of such messengers was Prophet Muhammad (SAW) who left this world over 1400 years ago. Anybody whoever claimed or is claiming to be a prophet after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is surely a fraudster and an agent of the Lucifer.

 

Wealthy Prophets

Ordinarily, religion is a mode of showing gratitude to the immortal Creator and a means of ventilating decency in the society via the rule of law. On the contrary, it is not, an instrument of deceit and self- enrichment.

Except for King Daud (David) and his son, King Sulayman (Solomon), who were divinely guided to show the world how wealth should be legitimately acquired and managed, no Prophet of Allah was ever stupendously rich. This can be compared to the situation of today in which the quality of prophecy is foolishly measured in terms of the material wealth possessed by the fraudsters who are parading themselves as prophets and seers.

Today, mere expression of wishes and satanic prediction have deliberately been tagged prophecy, which in turn, have become a major platform for preaching prosperity rather than posterity at the expense of godliness and humanitarianism.

 

Genuine Prophecy

It is not by clandestinely predicting the number of Kings or politicians who will die in a locality in the coming year or the governors who will regain or lose their seats to opponents or even occurrences of accidents on the roads that makes a person a prophet. Genuine prophets are known not by fabrication and the amount of wealth accruing from such fabrications but by the exemplary actions that may serve humanity in good stead for many centuries or even millennia after their demise.

Prophets Isa (Jesus) and Muhammad (SAW) are good examples of such genuine Prophets. Both of them had no material wealth while alive and they left no material wealth behind as heritage. Yet, no names compare with theirs today in terms of universal acknowledgement and   spiritual glory.

Prophecy, therefore, is not to be judged by certain fraudsters’ annual fraudulent predictions who satanically claim to be ‘prophets’. It is rather a matter of divine guidance towards future events that are genuinely backed up by divine rules of law.

 

Today’s Fake ‘Prophets’

In contrast to the above definition of genuine prophecy, however, fake prophecy is, today, a fabricated commodity which finds a large market in Nigeria for which gullible people queue up in multitudes before fraudsters with the intention of gaining illegitimately from those fraudsters, through the back door, what they are not divinely destined to gain in life legitimately.

And, in the process, they are forced to carry out satanic instructions that may eventually bring ruins to them and pave ways for those fraudsters to zoom stupendously into material fortune without any regard for conscience.

 

Read Also: COVID 19: FG creates Digital Platforms for interaction among MDAs

 

How Charlatans aid Crimes

Most criminal activities in Nigeria today, particularly, corruption and other social crimes are products of fake prophecies and insensitive display of wealth by some fraudsters called religious leaders. It is evident that most stolen funds by bank Executives and Public Servants end up in the pockets of some the so-called overseers of certain religious denominations who are desperately competing to be listed among the richest people in the world. At least we have not forgotten the episode of a $15 million ammunition contract involving the private jet of a so-called religious leader which was seized in South Africa in 2014. Is that a duty of an evangelist?

 

Ownership of Sanctuaries

Perhaps, one of the most satanic crimes in Nigeria today emanates from heartless preaching of prosperity at all costs by some so called religious leaders who are so desperate to be rich at all costs. It is a well-known fact that the common bragging in vogue among those charlatans in Nigeria today is about the number of sanctuaries that each of them owns in the country as well as the number of branches their sanctuaries have in outside the country.

Thus, the richer those overseers become, the deeper the members of their congregations sink into the abyss of poverty. And the reason for this is not far-fetched. The poor worshippers are cajoled or hypnotized into paying the pittance in their pockets into the ever demanding purses of their satanic preachers called ‘prophets’.

 

A Prophetic Warning

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) had forewarned the Muslim Ummah, over 1400 years ago, against the calamity that false prophecy could bring to mankind. Addressing his companions on a particular occasion at that time, he said:

“There will be calamity!” He repeated this three times. But rather than asking him of its cause, his Companions simply asked for the solution. They had no cause to doubt him. And he told them to look for the solution in the legacy he was leaving behind. That legacy is the rule of law as contained in the Qur’an and Sunnah.

 

Rule of Law

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) emphasized to his Companions that nothing besides the rule of law would ever bring the needed harmony to the world. He described the Qur’an as the all-time permanent solution to the various problems of all people and concluded that only individuals, groups or nations that hold it (the Qur’an) tenaciously would escape the mentioned calamity.

The Qur’an, according to Prophet Muhammad (SAW), is the mirror with which to view the past retrospectively and draw a lesson from its experience. It is the effective compass with which to find the way in the hazy wilderness of the present. It is also the impeccable telescope with which to view the future and escape its satanic dragnet. In other words, the Qur’an is an everlasting prophecy recalling the occurrences of the past, serving as the guiding law of the present and turning focus on the future expectations with a view to clearing the way for the pious ones.

 

The Prophet’s Objective

By asking the world to follow the rule of law in all their actions, the Prophet never thought of rising from his grave one day to usurp the governance of any particular nation or region of the world. Neither did he leave any heir behind who could inherit the governance of this ephemeral world. His objective, according to the mission he bore, was for the world to be in harmony through divine guidance.

And, it is only in the interest of mankind to uphold the rule of law for the sake of their harmonious co-existence. Today, is there any individual, group or nation not affected negatively by discarding the rule of law as divinely provided? Every aspect of life has its rule of law.

We work in the day and rest in the night not by our own volition but in accordance with the natural rule of law that guide our existence as human beings. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West to obey the rule of law that controls its operations. Fishes live in water.

Plants grow generically from the soil and are fed through their roots in accordance with the natural rule of law that governs them. Disharmony prevails only when deviation from the rule of law occurs. And such is often caused by human beings.

Carnivores like lions, vipers and eagles never voluntarily feed on plants. Herbivores like elephants, camels and goats never feed on flesh. To force them to do otherwise, in the name of experiment, is to cause disharmony in the animal kingdom.

 

Causes of Disharmony

The world is in total   disharmony today not because of innocent mistakes but because of deliberate deviation from the rule of law by those who are supposed to uphold it. Stronger nations want to usurp or dominate weaker nations as in the case of America in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

Governments want to enslave the governed as in the case of Nigeria since independence in 1960. It is all an evidence of dogs eating dogs in the stable of greed. Why won’t disharmony prevail?

But Allah so much loves mankind that He does not leave them permanently in the hands of devilish predators. From time to time, Allah sends conscientious individuals either as rulers or as counselors to rescue the oppressed.

Rule of law is the first sign of sanity in a society. It is an evidence of decency in a people. It is a thorn on the way of certain fraudsters who claim to be Prophets.

What the Qur’an teaches which Prophet Muhammad (SAW) emphasized is for everybody to follow the rule of law by which he or she is governed. To do this is to follow the guidance of the Qur’an   (as Muslims) or that of the Bible (as Christians).

 

Authenticity

Prophet Muhammad (SAW) never spoke in a vacuum. His utterances were divinely guided. And the Qur’an confirms this as follows: “He (Muhammad) never speaks out of sheer whim; his expressions are no other than inspired revelations; he is taught by the One who is mighty in power…” Q. 15:3-4

 

Warning

The fraudsters of today who are parading themselves as ‘Prophets’ and Custodians of MIRACLE should repent and refrain from fraudulent act. Otherwise, they will end up like those of the past who were eventually consigned to  a rubles of historical oblivion. Let those who have ears heed this axiomatic warning. Materialism is a mere vanity which has a limited time.

“Allah does not change a people’s lot unless they change the evil conception in their hearts. If He seeks to afflict them with a misfortune, no one else can ward it off. Besides Him, there is no protector (for any rational being).” Q.13:11.

God save Nigeria from the evil antics of fraudsters who are masquerading deceptively in the cloak of religion. Amin!