In article <4iaada$q70@shellx.best.com>, maalkadh@mailbox.syr.edu
(Misha'al Al-Kadhi) writes:
| In what follows I shall do my best to present only a few of the many
| prophesies of prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in the Bible.
|
| Sincerely
| Misha'al
| *********************************************
|
| First Prophesy:
| --------------
| Habakkuk 3:3 "God (his guidance) came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount
| Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his
| praise."
|
| The wilderness of Paran is where Abraham's wife Hagar and his eldest son Ishmael,
| the father of the Arabs, settled (Genesis 21:21) in the Arabian desert.
| Specifically, Makkah*. Makkah is, of course, the capital of Islam in Arabia
| and the birthplace of Muhammad (pbuh). Indeed, it was Hagar and Ishmael
| themselves who transformed a barren patch of desert into what is now the
| capital of Islam, "Makkah." Mount Paran is the chain of mountains in that same
| region which the Arabs call the "Sarawat mountains."
|
| Muhammad (pbuh) first became the prophet of Islam in the cave of "Hira’a" located
| in the highest part of these mountains. Jesus (pbuh) never in his life
| traveled to Paran nor Teman. Muhammad, however, was born in Paran, he died
| there, and it was the capital of the Islamic religion in that day and this.
| No man from Paran, throughout history, has had his praise sung in so many
| nations throughout creation as has Muhammad (pbuh). The name "Muhammad"
| itself literally means in Arabic "The praised one." Through the teachings of
| Muhammad, God is now being praised by over one billion Muslims around the
| world.
|
| According to J. Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible, Teman is an Oasis just
| North of Madinah in the Arabian Peninsula. Muhammad (pbuh) did indeed come
| from Paran. About 622 AD, he and his followers were forced to migrate from
| Makkah to Madinah where he spent the major portion of his prophetic life
| teaching it's people the guidance of God (the Qur'an). These two cities,
| Makkah and Madinah, are such critical importance to a Muslims faith that every
| single chapter of the Qur’an is classified as either "Makkia" (revealed in
| Makkah) or "Madaniyyah" (revealed in Madinah).
This is your FIRST "prophecy", i.e. should be considered your most important
one. You say you did your BEST to answer it and write it all in a very
confident and "seemingly scholarly" manner.
But you could not be further from the truth than what you made of this verse.
You go utterly wrong because you completely disregard the context.
Had you taken the time to read the whole book of Habakkuk, then you had
seen that Habakkuk is in anguish and he cries out to God about the evil
and suffering he sees:
Habakkuk 1:
2 "How long, O LORD,
must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, "Violence!"
but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
4 Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.
How long will it take until you will revenge
and establish justice again?"
Now let me quote the first few verses of the direct context of the
verse you present as talking about Muhammad.
Habakkuk 3:
1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. On Shigionoth [some musical term].
2 LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.
3 God came from Teman, <===
the Holy One from Mount Paran. <===
His glory covered the heavens and
his praise filled the earth.
4 His splendor was like the sunrise;
rays flashed from his hand, where his power was hidden.
5 Plague went before him;
pestilence followed his steps.
6 He stood, and shook the earth;
he looked, and made the nations tremble.
The ancient mountains crumbled and
the age-old hills collapsed.
His ways are eternal.
7 I saw the tents of Cushan in distress,
the dwellings of Midian in anguish.
8 Were you angry with the rivers, O LORD?
Was your wrath against the streams?
Did you rage against the sea
when you rode with your horses
and your victorious chariots? ...
Am I mistaken to assume that anybody who isn't completely blind will see
the Hebrew poetic structure of synonymous parallelism even if he has never
read about it in a theology book or Bible commentary? Basically every vers
of this prayer consists of one or more of these parallelisms. Each of the
parallelisms consists of two (or rarely three) lines, where the statement
made in the first is repeated in different words in the second one, but
the meaning is essentially the same. The same fact is expressed twice in
different words.
More observations in regard to the "prophecy in verse 3":
(1) You would not have gone astray if you had read the first verse,
where it clearly says this is a PRAYER and not a prophecy.
(2) There is no reason at all to insert (his guidance) after God. The Hebrew
word is "Eloh" and that means God and there is no mentioning of guidance.
(3) Although it seemingly did not bother your conscience to change the text
of the Holy Scripture with this insertion of (his guidance) you obviously
forgot to change the verb "came" into "will come", because this prayer by
Habakkuk was spoken (and written down) about 600 B.C., i.e. around 1200
years before Muhammad and it was about something that was already then
(in 600 B.C.) in the PAST.
(4) The whole of chapter 3 is one prayer and in verse 1 Habakkuk starts out
with "LORD ...., O LORD" [LORD in English representing YHWH, the name
of God in Hebrew] and verse 8 we see him still addressing God and saying
"O LORD". After expressing his anguish in the first chapters, in this
prayer Habakkuk - after his cry to the LORD in verse 2 - starts out with
remembering the great miracles of God in the past, and draws his comfort
from them. That is why the prayer starts out in the past tense.
But he hopes that God will act with the same rescuing power as of old
(verse 2) and that in the midst of his current wrath God may remember
His mercy and be gracious to His people.
(5) The parallelism makes clear that "God" and "the Holy One" are the same.
But actually, you did recognize this since after you substitute "God" by
"his guidance" you proceed to show that Muhammad comes from both places,
Paran and Teman. So, you don't think that Muhammad is only "the holy one"
but even that he qualifies to usurp the place of the word "God" in this
verse.
Muslims consider SHIRK the worst sin that anybody can ever commit. Shouldn't
that make any Muslim extra cautious not to risk doing so and to rather stay
off by a safety distance from the chance of doing so and to not inadvertedly
declaring somebody to be God who is not?
And Muhammad is a mere human. But you say it is Muhammad who is mentioned in
this verse which clearly speaks only about God and nobody else.
You are applying God's Holy name to Muhammad. Is there anything that is
sacred to you and you would NOT (ab)use to promote your agenda?
Let me show you that this name "The Holy One" is a very common one for God.
I hope the following passages are enough to convince you. One of them is
even from the very book you quote just 29 verses before your quoted verse.
Habakkuk 1:
12 O LORD, are you not from everlasting?
My God, my Holy One,
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment;
O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.
13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong....
Ezekiel 39:
7 I will make known my holy name
among my people Israel.
I will no longer let my holy name be profaned,
and the nations will know
that I the LORD am the Holy One in Israel.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hosea 11:
9 I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate
Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man -- the Holy One among you.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^
I will not come in wrath.
10 They will follow the LORD; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his
children will come trembling from the west.
11 They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from
Assyria. I will settle them in their homes," declares the LORD.
12 Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, the house of Israel with deceit.
And Judah is unruly against God, even against the faithful Holy One.
^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^
And though I could give you 20 or 30 more such passages, I don't think
that those would convince you if the ones I have given don't convince you.
Therefore I will leave it with that.
Actually I was very shocked
when I first read this.
The full article of the Muslim claim.
Overview on claimed prophecies about Muhammad.
Bible Commentary Index
Answering Islam Home Page