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