Tom Facchine – al-Raghib al-Isfahani #68 – What Makes a Real Prophet

			So Rogal so he was talking about the signs. And so then he starts to talk about, okay, how do we
know that prophet is true? What are the signs that prophet hood revelation is true? How do we know
that A prophet is really a prophet? And of course, it should be said here that you know, many sort
of atheists, they make a logical error, reasoning error when they start to claim that just because
there are false prophets than that means that all prophets are false. That's nonsense, right? Just
because multiple people claim something to be true. And I guess the witty retort would be, well, if
multiple people claim to be your father, that doesn't mean you don't have any father, right? You
		

			still have one real father, right? So we need to actually have an assessment of what is true. How do
we know the true from the false? Just the fact that there are false ones that exist does not mean
that all of them are the same, and all of them are? That's false? That's an error. So how do we tell
how do we tell if a prophet is true, or the revelation that they're bringing his true a lot of us
for HANA, he says that there's two main categories of signs that every prophet comes with. One of
them is is sort of, you can say a lodge logical signs or signs that are sort of more aimed at the
intelligentsia, right that people have intellect, and then some signs that maybe have more mass
		

			appeal. So when it comes to the signs that maybe appeal to our intellect or more to a more refined
audience, he brings up purity. Purity is one of the signs of Prophethood that you will never find a
prophet that used to be worshipping idols or used to be engaged in idolatry or engaged in in
decency, either, right? They they had a certain amount of purity to their character that even
preceded their missions as being prophets, Allah subhanaw taala, would not send somebody as a
prophet who was, you know, known for very, very nasty and heinous and things, right. And this is
sort of part of the fitrah, right? Because even the prophets of Allah Allah said on Prophet
		

			Muhammad, Allah, he said that to Sudan, when it came to ashy, you know, there's well known story
washy, assassinated the prophets, Uncle highside. So that means his uncle Hamza. And so even though
later why she became a Muslim, right, Some reports say that the Prophet Mohammed says Saddam,
although clearly openly accepting his a slam, and his repentance, obviously, that came with that his
sins are wiped clean. Some reports say that he even still had a hard time looking at it because of
that emotional, visceral thing. So that's somebody who murders one of your family members, what
about somebody else who's engaged in sort of heinous acts, and then if they were made a profit, all
		

			of a sudden, it would be difficult for people to accept the message. And so Allah subhanaw taala is
closing the doors, right? He doesn't want anyone to have an excuse. The messengers are pure, they
have a degree of purity that other people don't have, because Allah has found out I would not send
somebody who wasn't pure. So that that wouldn't be an excuse for some people to not accept the
message. The next sign that he says is actually having a pleasant appearance, hygiene, they're nice
to look at and that doesn't mean like some sort of sexualized way, it just means that some people
you just feel a certain affection towards them, right when when you look them because they take care
		

			of their hygiene and they take care of the grooming and then so there's things that they can do
specifically and then Allah is found to Allah made them that way. In addition to that, right, they
have a certain amount of wholesomeness to their appearance. Another sign that he says is that they
have a certain type of knowledge, that special degree of knowledge that exceeds what other people
do, and, you know, leave it to the psychologists to break it down as it you know, social genius, or,
you know, some sort of other what type of genius we're talking about. A lot knows best, but it's
definitely true that the the prophets were gifted something when it came to their intellect, and
		

			their ideas and their abilities that is edging on Supernatural, if not supernatural, right. So if we
look at how the Prophet salallahu alayhi salam, you know, he decided to make brothers of the
emigrants from Mecca and the unsought of Medina, right. That's a genius tactic, right? It's
something that whether it's coming from Revelation or whether it's coming from his own age to had,
it's a brilliant thing to do, right, you have Ibrahim alayhi salam who decides to kind of, you know,
conduct this thing where he's going to destroy, it's almost like a thought experiment destroys all
the idols but he leaves the big one and he ties the acts around the big ones neck, right again, like
		

			a moment strike of genius, like a moment where he's demonstrating his intellect, so he's able to
kind of prove to his people or show them something. The Prophet alayhi salatu salam, when he was
able to speak the dialects of different sorts of people that came from all over Arabia, right? It
wasn't like today, even today, you know, if you go outside of even 20 minutes outside of Medina,
you'll find people who speak a different dialect, right of Arabic. So what have you imagined in the
seventh century? Right? It was even more so on the prophesy. centum would speak to people in their
dialect, that that takes a special kind of special kind of genius, a special kind of intelligence.
		

			And then the prophesy said, I'm selecting certain messengers, right, we see that he always picked
the right person for the job. And we see later in history after the Clutha Rashid Dean how, how
consequential it could be if if somebody in authority picked the wrong messenger and sent the wrong
person. It would develop resentment and the people that people wouldn't
		

			except him and then it would actually reflect poorly on a slap. But the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
salam would always pick the right person for the job, the right person that was going to find
acceptance and have influence on the people that he was sent to. So another sign that he mentions is
this sort of his manners, right. And a lot of testifies this in the Quran is that, that the province
has said I'm gonna add a hook in Aleem is that he's, he's on superior manners and the Prophet alayhi
salatu salam would look at people directly turn his full attention to them as something I'm guilty
of how many of us are constantly distracted at you know, hopefully, we're not looking at the phone
		

			when other people are talking to us. That's the worst level, right? And I've done that before. And
it's embarrassing, right? But then even to be looking at something else or to not be, you know,
turning your full attention to somebody. Now the Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam had such excellent
manners, you know, when to invite people into his home and sharing what he had, and making people
feel, you know, the Companions, they would feel as if he loved them the most, like every single one
of them would feel that way. That's just a level of etiquette and manners that it's hard to even
fathom. And that's how he was like, He's salatu salam. And then the final sort of criteria or sign
		

			within this sort of broader category of maybe more more logical signs or more logical sort of
criteria is convincing rationale of the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wasallam. And part of it, you
know, obviously, with the Koran it was from exactly the speech of Allah. But even in the
explanations, the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi, wasallam had to give towards certain questions that
came, he would have superior reasoning skills and the ability to convince other people, all right,
we have this famous story, someone comes to him, and they're disturbed because their child is a
different color than he is. Right. And so you can tell he's kind of doubting, like, as to the
		

			lineage of this child. He's suspecting his wife that she can commit some sort of heinous and
morality and the province I sent a response to him and he says, Do you have camels? It doesn't seem
like it has any relationship to the issue at hand. He says, yes, he's like, once in a while, does it
does one come out like, like an odd color? And he's like, Yeah, that happens. You know, if you herd
animals, you find this had happened. There's a recessive gene somewhere. And so then the prophesy
said, I'm asked, and I was like, What do you think he puts it in his hands? Like, what do you think
this comes from? He's like, Yeah, there's probably some sort of recessive gene or recessive trait
		

			that's back, you know, like, whatever. And it just popped up now. I promise it so so there you go.
That's exactly what's happening. And so the province I said, I was able to reason with people like
that on the fly, and convince people and give people satisfactory answers. You know, we these days
have a problem where we're like, you know, oh, you just have to believe don't ask that question.
Just believe stuck for a lot. You're asking that question that prophesy said unless it like that,
you know, even Allah spelled out in the Quran wasn't like that convincing, convincing, convincing.
And the final sort of, okay, so that's category one, when it comes to sort of like we could say,
		

			logical signs or intellectual signs or something like that. Then we have signs that have mass appeal
signs that everybody recognizes in those the miracles a splitting of the moon and water flowing from
his fingers, and the bowls of milk that were inexhaustible, and all these sorts of things, that we
have the knight journey, the predictions that came true, you know, where the Byzantine Empire
overtaking the assassin is, and all these sorts of things. So all these different types of signs,
right, or how you assess whether a prophet is true or not, and whether a revelation is true or not
an after all of this, whoever denies a prophet after all of this, they're not being honest. They're
		

			not being sincere. They're being disingenuous sign upon sign upon sign and then even the court
analyst Bansal criticizes the kurage because he says and sort of that and I'm if you showed them
every sign, if you gave them every single sign, they asked for a sign. They're bluffing. It's
disingenuous. It's not really true. If you gave them every single sign, some of them still wouldn't
believe