Contents

Chapter I

The Universality of Islam in the Holy Quran and the Noble Hadith

The Holy Quran repeatedly affirms that every one among God’s messengers had been sent to his people alone, except for Muhammad -peace be upon him. Noah was sent to his people to invite them to worship God and adhere to piety, as mentioned at the start of the sura bearing his name (Sura 71). So was Abraham, as related in Sura 29: “And Remember Abraham: behold, he said to his people: ‘Serve Allah and fear Him’” (Al-‘Ankabut: 16). Lot as well as the Almighty related in Sura 26: “The people of Lot gave the lie to the Messengers” (Al-Shu’ara’: 160). And similarly Hud as mentioned in Sura 11: “And to the Ad People [We sent] Hud, one of their own brethren. He said: ‘O my people! Worship Allah! ye have no other god but Him’” (Hud: 50). And Salih was also sent to his people, as in Sura 7: “To the Thamud people (We sent) Salih, one of their own brethren” (Al-A’raf: 72). Shu’ayb was dispatched to the people of Madyan, as related in the same sura, “To the Madyan people (We sent) Shu’ayb, one of their own brethren” (Al-A’raf: 85). Jesus was similarly sent to the Israelites as related in Sura 61: “And remember Jesus the son of Mary said : O Children of Israel, I am the messenger of Allah (sent) to you” (Al-Saff: 6).

Muhammad (peace be upon him) was, however, sent to all mankind. God Almighty says in Sura 7, addressing His Prophet: “Say: ‘O men, I am sent unto you all, as the Messenger of Allah” (Al-A’raf: 158). It was mentioned in books of tafsir (commentaries on the Quran) that this verse had been revealed on an occasion when a group of Jews admitted that Muhammad was a prophet, but argued that he was a prophet sent to the Arabs only. God thus rebuked these people on account of this claim and command in the same verse that they should believe in Him and in His Messenger, saying: “So believe in Allah and His Messenger, the unlettered Prophet who believes in Allah and His Words; follow him that (so) you may be guided.” In this verse, God bears witness to the fact that His messenger had been sent to all mankind, Arab and non-Arab. The Almighty also says in suras (Yusuf, Sad and Al-Takwir): Describing Qur’an : “It is no less than a message (dhikr) for all creatures (al-’alamin)” (Yusuf: 104). And in Sura 68: “But it is nothing less than a message to all the worlds” (Al-Qalam: 52). Ibn Manzur explained the term dhikr (reminder) as referring to the fact that the Quran contains a detailed elaboration of religion. It is thus as if God -hallowed be His name- is saying that the Quran is but a law to the worlds. The term al-’alamin is plural of ‘alam (world), and thus the meaning is that the Quran is a law for the world with all its peoples and races. The use of the plural is an indication of an all-inclusive intent, meaning that this law is for the whole world, East and West, North and South.

This verse has been repeated as a rejoinder to the polytheists who alleged that the Quran is but a collection of ancient myths, as related in Sura 6: “The unbelievers say: ‘These are nothing but tales of the ancients’” (Al-An’am: 25), (meaning their myths and stories which they used to relate for their nightly entertainment). They also claimed that the Quran was a work of magic, as related in Sura 37: “And they say: ‘this is nothing but evident sorcery” (Al-Saffat: 15). They also claimed it to be poetry, as related in this verse of Sura 69 which refutes their claim: “It is not the word of a poet” (Al-Haqqah: 41). They also said that it was lies and fabrication. “But the misbelievers say: ‘Naught is this but a lie which he has forged’” (Al Furqan: 4). But God replies to all these claims by affirming that the Quran is a reminder and a law to the worlds and the whole of mankind.

God addresses His Prophet in Sura 21 saying: “We sent thee not, but as a mercy for all creatures” (Al Anbiya’: 107). He is thus a mercy sent as a gift to mankind, as related in a prophetic saying (hadith): mercy in his temperament and all his characteristics and conduct; and mercy through his Shari’a which was presented as a gift to the world, since it was built on benevolence and easiness for people. The Prophet (peace be upon him) always manifested a tendency towards mercy, leniency and a concern to lighten the burden on people when legislating, inspired in this by the Almighty’s assertion in Sura 2: “Allah intends every facility for you; He does not want to put you to difficulties” (Al-Baqarah: 185). Some of the Companions used to shun the lighter provisions indicated by the Prophet hoping, by taking the harder option, to better please God. But the Prophet was not happy with this, and used to preach to them, counselling them not to refrain from taking the easy options provided for them, since Shari’a was based on the principles of mercy and kindness towards people. God addressed the Prophet in Sura 34: “And we have not sent thee but as a universal (Messenger) to men, giving them glad tidings and warning them” (Saba’: 28). God did not thus send Muhammad to Quraysh only, nor to the Arabs alone, but to the whole of mankind in all the corners of the earth, to deliver to them his universal message. He was to give good tidings to those who believed in it, worshipped God alone, embraced His Islamic Shari’a and observed its provisions, that they will be admitted to paradise where they would encounter everlasting happiness; he was also to warn to those worshipped deities other than the One True God and rejected His message and law that they will be condemned to hell and its everlasting torment on the Day of Judgement.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) reaffirms repeatedly that he had been sent to the whole of mankind. Ibn Kathir mentions in his Tafsir that the prophetic sayings reported to this effect were too numerous to count, and that this tenet is one of the basic principles of Islam. Muslim relates in his Sahih (compendium of authentic traditions) on the authority of Abu Hurayrah that the Prophet had said: “I have been favoured over other prophets with six [favours].” Among these he enumerates: “that I have been sent to the whole of mankind.” Muslim also relates on the authority of Jabir ibn Abdillah that the Prophet (peace be upon him) had said: “I was given five things no one before me had been given,” and he mentions as one of them: “Every prophet was sent to his people specifically, but I have been sent to every black and red [person].” (This is Arabic idiom for saying that he had been sent to everybody, since “red” is used in Arabic speech to denote “white”.)

The Prophet (peace be upon him) was keenly aware of this universal mission, to the extent that he sent epistles to all tribes urging them to embrace God’s religion. Biographers of the Prophet write chapters about these missions since the first year of hijrah, usually calling them ghazawat (expeditions or raids), but in truth they were missions to deliver the Islamic message to these tribes. The Prophet continued to send emissaries in this manner until the eighth year of hijrah, when Makkah was conquered and the influential tribe of Thaqif embraced Islam. From then on, delegations from every Arab tribe started arriving in Madinah, declaring their intention to embrace Islam. It is due to the belief in the universal nature of his mission that the Prophet sent an army to Mu’atah in Northern Arabia to apprise the Byzantines of his mission. The Muslim army was met by a Byzantine army and could not attain victory. In the ninth year of hijrah, missives sent by him to princes and kings inviting them to embrace Islam followed each other in close succession. He invited the Negus, the Christian monarch of Abyssinia, and Khosrau, the pagan King of Persia and his governors in Eastern Arabia, as well as Heraclius, the Christian Emperor of Byzantium, to embrace Islam. He also invited the princes and bishops of Syria and the ruler of Egypt. In all of this, he had been inspired by the Quranic revelation which instructed him to convey his religious message to all the world. He travelled to Syria at the head of an expedition he led personally, reaching as far as Tabuk, from whence he chose to go back. He died soon after that, but his successors, Abu Bakr and Omar completed the mission of propagating Islam far and wide. In their reign, Islam reached Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt and parts of the Maghreb as far as Tunisia.

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