seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
Quran 18: In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful.
1. Praise be to God, who revealed the Book to His servant, and allowed in it no distortion.
2. Valuable—to warn of severe punishment from Himself; and to deliver good news to the believers who do righteous deeds, that they will have an excellent reward.
3. In which they will abide forever.
4. And to warn those who say, “God has begotten a son.”
5. They have no knowledge of this, nor did their forefathers. Grave is the word that comes out of their mouths. They say nothing but a lie.
6. Perhaps you may destroy yourself with grief, chasing after them, if they do not believe in this information.
7. We made what is upon the earth an ornament for it, to test them as to which of them is best in conduct.
8. And We will turn what is on it into barren waste.
9. Did you know that the People of the Cave and the Inscription were of Our wondrous signs?
10. When the youths took shelter in the cave, they said, “Our Lord, give us mercy from Yourself, and bless our affair with guidance.”
11. Then We sealed their ears in the cave for a number of years.
12. Then We awakened them to know which of the two groups could better calculate the length of their stay.
This is the commentary.
In connection with this chapter, the Holy Prophet is reported to have said: He who remembers the first ten verses of the chapter entitled the “Cave” is protected from the tribulation of Dajjål (Antichrist). Shi‘bah mentions the last ten verses of The Cave instead of the first ten. Now in the first and the last sections of this chapter the Christian doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is condemned. In the first section a warning is given to those who say Allåh has taken to Himself a son, in the last two to those who take My servants to be friends besides Me, and this doctrine, the doctrine of sonship and of the divinity of a servant of God, is the basic doctrine of the Christian religion. Moreover, in the concluding ten verses, a true description of the occupation of Christian nations is given in the words whose effort goes astray in this world’s life. The Holy Qur’ån does not speak of the appearance of Dajjål, or Antichrist, anywhere but the Prophet’s saying quoted above plainly shows that the Dajjål of the Ïadßth is the same as the upholders of the erroneous Christian doctrine of the sonship and divinity of Jesus Christ. Christianity, in its present form, being opposed to the true teachings of Christ, is thus the only Antichrist known to the Qur’ån. It may be added that Dajjål signifies one who conceals the truth with falsehood, or a liar or a great deceiver.
The Qur’ån is here described as possessing two qualifications. The first refers to its own perfection, there is no crookedness in it; and the second speaks of it as a book suited to make others perfect, for it is called qayyim, as meaning one that rightly directs others. Or, it is called qayyim, meaning maintainer, as regulating the affairs of men or as maintaining the spiritual truth, which indeed would have been entirely lost to the world but for its being guarded by the Holy Qur’ån. This verse gives us an insight into the anxiety which the Holy Prophet had on account of a fallen humanity, an anxiety so great that he is spoken of here as almost killing himself with grief. His was a life of absolute devotion to the cause of humanity, his only concern being that man should rise to the true dignity for which God had made him. This anxiety was not only for those who were directly addressed by him, but, as the context shows, it was as deep for another people, who attributed a son to the Divine Being, and whom outward finery was to mislead to such an extent as to make them strangers to spiritual truth. Reading the next verse along with this, no doubt is left that the Prophet was shown the earthly embellishments which are so great a trial for Christendom today. The word ƒadßth means new or recent, and hence is applied to a narration or announcement which is new or which gives some new information. It here refers to the Qur’ån.
Vv. 7 and 8 direct man’s attention to the fact that the finery of this life does not last forever. A dweller in the desert of Arabia, with no sight before his eyes but that of the sands of the desert and bare, rugged hills, could not imagine the earth being embellished. The picture drawn here is evidently of the beautiful cities of the modern age, with all their attractions and luxuries, which so engross men that they neither pay attention to the preaching of truth nor to the pursuit of righteousness. Yet where there is growth there is decay, and those who indulge in luxuries do not escape ruin; it is their ruin that is indicated in the words dust, without herbage. We have already seen how clearly the Qur’ån states that a severe punishment would overtake the world and destroy populous towns: There is not a town but We will destroy it before the day of Resurrection or chastise it with a severe chastisement. The earth will be first beautified to its utmost, we are told here, and then laid waste, by man’s own hands, lofty buildings being reduced to dust and beautiful gardens being turned into bare earth without any herbage on it. All prophecies made known through the righteous servants of God, the prophets of the Old Testament and Jesus Christ, and then through the Qur’ån and the Ïadßth, point to world-wide conflicts in the latter days, of nation rising against nation, of great calamities, of destruction of cities on a vast scale. All these things this generation has seen with its own eyes. Science first embellished the earth and science is now turning it into a waste, by its atom bombs and other diabolic inventions. The powerful hand of God is thus seen clearly working in the history of the world.
Kahf signifies a cave as well as a place of refuge, and raqßm means an inscription or a tablet with a writing upon it. Now The Cave, as I have already stated, stands for that peculiar aspect of the Christian religion which finds manifestation in its institution of monkery, this being the distinctive characteristic which it assumed soon after its birth. But what about the Inscription? This word contains a prophetical reference to another aspect of the Christian religion, quite opposed to its first aspect of growth in the Cave. Inscription (or Advertisement) is, in fact, as prominent a feature of the business activities of the Christian nations of today as the Cave was a feature of their religious activities in the early days. The Holy Qur’ån seems to have chosen the epithets to designate the Christian nations by thus indicating their most prominent characteristics in their early and their latter days. The first and the last conditions of Christianity thus seem to be hinted at in the Cave and the Inscription respectively, a religion of monkery turned into a religion of business. As for the story of the dwellers in the Cave, see 13a.
The words ˙arabnå ‘alå ådhån-i-him are explained as mana‘nå hum al-sam‘a, i.e., we prevented them from hearing. This is Dk’s explanation, and it is nearest the original sense of the words, for one significance of ˙araba is ©adda, i.e., he prevented (T, LL). The preventing from hearing is then understood to be equivalent to causing to sleep, but the original meaning is favoured by the context, the significance being that these people remained cut off from the rest of the world for a number of years. Thus the Holy Qur’ån neither supports the story of these men remaining in the cave for hundreds of years, nor of their being actually in a condition of continuous sleep all this while.
These verses go against the very soul of Christianity. In these verses.... Jesus is only a prophet... a human... not divine. And it's all our fault.
The virgin birth.... that's the issue that stops Muslims from accepting Jesus as Messiah. In these days of #metoo.... when a governor can be jailed for groping a girl.... the rise of a young girl to goddess status by humans... is ludicrous.
We've read a lot this morning.... eleven verses and a lot of gobbledeegoop about how the Christians have destroyed the truth by saying Jesus is the only Begotten Son of the One True Living God.
Sure they had their reasons for saying so. After all... it's the same rich guys who are running the church... who are also the same rich men who are running the towns.... like Rome. No wonder the Muslims see big problems with the Christian Church as it was back in the 650's and especially now.
Here's how I see it.... it's what I figured out...
God created everything.... He created women.... from a thought... from a notion.... "I'll give Adam a helper".
God put a seed in women.... that way they could help populate the world. Yep... helping to populate the world is fun!!!!
God put His seed in one woman..... one of His angels had gone rogue and introduced death. Humans began to die... so God had to deal with death.
So.... in order to beat death.... God put His seed in one woman..... and she gave birth.... then God allowed the rich egomaniacs who were running things to hang His only Begotten Son.... on a cross so He would die... and they were so sure that wasn't the end... the rich egomaniacs planted a guard on the body.
But... God's Seed would die.... sure the human part died... or went into a deep sleep apparently... because Jesus got up.... He slid right out of the burial cloth.
He also met with several humans before leaving earth. He even had a fish dinner with His apostles before He left earth.
The problem is... narrow minded humans put God in a Box..... and they won't give Him the credit He deserves.
Instead of giving God the credit for exposing death and conquering it.... by coming to earth and experiencing both temptation and death..... they raised the value of a woman... a little girl... to goddess.
This is where I part from the Quran... until now the Quran was making sense.... but now... I have to say... I Believe Jesus is God's Son and He sits on God's Right Hand. I can understand how the Muslims got this wrong... and I blame this disaster on the fake preachers and priests and the rich men who bought them.
Satan couldn't keep Jesus from Rising.... so Satan went to the church and destroyed it.
Muslims say... if the church couldn't survive a fallen angel... maybe the church has the Gospel wrong.
It's all our fault!
