When the Evan­ge­list Becomes a Shaikh, the Angels Become Wor­ship­pers of Adam

When the Evan­ge­list becomes a Shaikh, the angels become poly­the­ists, wor­ship­ping Adam instead of Allah. When the Evan­ge­list becomes a Shaikh, the Nasikh becomes Man­sukh, the Mut­laq becomes Muqayyad and the ​‘Aammbecomes Makhsus, and vice-ver­sa. Not that it is not hilar­i­ous to read for Evan­ge­lists-turned-Shaikhs. It is at the dis­cov­ery of the lev­el of hor­rif­ic con­fu­sion and plain errors con­tained in the ​“fatawa” of the many Evangelists/​Shaikhs who sprung up in recent years that inten­si­fies one’s amaze­ment and baf­fle­ment, espe­cial­ly not­ing the lev­el of pub­lic­i­ty the writ­ings of the new Shaikhs receive in the West­ern media.

Answer­ing Islam, a neo-con­ser­v­a­tive web­site, prop­a­gates arti­cles of the nature described here that dis­cuss­es spe­cif­ic, knowl­edge-based Islam­ic top­ics, with­out using a knowl­edge-based approach. By appeal­ing to their read­ers’ emo­tions rather than the pur­suit of truth and seri­ous sci­en­tif­ic research, the Neo-Con­s/­Neo-Shaikhs seek to deflect atten­tion away from dis­cussing the core foun­da­tion of their reli­gion in com­par­i­son to the Islam­ic Faith to dis­cussing spe­cif­ic aspects of the Islam­ic Law. How­ev­er, if one does not believe in the tree itself, i.e., Islam and its creed, then dis­cussing the attrib­ut­es of the tree’s branch­es, leaves and fruit becomes irrel­e­vant. Nonethe­less, callers to Islam, who are required to con­vey the Islam­ic Mes­sage in its entire­ty to mankind, should con­sid­er crit­i­cism of the Islam­ic Law and Islam’s con­cepts as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to explain both the core tenets of their reli­gion and the specifics of its Law. This is a type of Jihad of pro­found sig­nif­i­cance that uses the tools of writ­ten and spo­ken words to clar­i­fy Islam to mankind and inform them of its mag­nif­i­cent creed.

“One or Two Adams?”

This is the title of an arti­cle on the top­ic of Sujud (pros­tra­tion) writ­ten by Wail Tagh­li­bi and post­ed by Answer­ing Islam on their web­site. Before we dis­cuss the major points of inter­est in Tagh­li­bi’s arti­cle, we should first explain the top­ic under dis­cus­sion in his arti­cle to sat­is­fy the require­ment of sci­en­tif­ic research in a knowl­edge-based atmosphere.

Lin­guis­tic Def­i­n­i­tion of Sujud

In Ahka­mu al-Qur’an, Imam Ibn al-Ara­bi¹ said that lin­guis­ti­cal­ly, both Sujud and Ruku’ per­tain to in’hi­naa, mean­ing ​“low­er­ing [of the head, or both the head and back]”. Imam Ibn al-‘Arabi added that every ruku’ (bow­ing) is a sujud (pros­tra­tion) and every sujud is a ruku’, say­ing that Ruku’ per­tains more to bow­ing (in’hi­naa), while Sujud per­tains more to bend­ing (Meel). Ibn al-Ara­bi added that both Sujud and Ruku’ are used to describe each oth­er, even though each one of them may exclu­sive­ly describe a cer­tain posi­tion [exam­ple : in the Islam­ic Prayer, Ruku’ per­tains to bow­ing while Sujud per­tains to pros­trat­ing on the ground].

Anoth­er book of fiqh (Islam­ic Jurispru­dence) titled, Ghid­haa al-Albab fi Sharh Mand­hu­mat al-Adaab² also stat­ed that sujud has sev­er­al mean­ings, such as bend­ing, mak­ing In’hi­naa, hum­ble­ness, mod­esty and greet­ing. The same book quotes the lin­guist Abu Yusuf, Ya’qub ibn Ishaq ibn as-Sikkat (died ²⁴⁴⁄₈₅₈), as say­ing that it is said that one has made Sujud if one [at least] low­ered (or nod­ded) his head or went to the extent of plac­ing the face on the ground (pros­trates).

Con­clu­sion : both Ruku’ and Sujud car­ry mean­ings of low­er­ing or nod­ding the head light­ly, bow­ing down, bend­ing both the head and back to the extent of plac­ing the hands, knees, feet and face on the ground in pros­tra­tion, hum­ble­ness, mod­esty, greet­ing, and so forth. The con­text of the sen­tence in which Sujud or Ruku’ appears defines which mean­ing men­tioned here is desired.

For instance, Allah said in the Qur’an, which trans­lat­ed means :

“O, you who have believed ! Bow down, and pros­trate your­selves, and wor­ship your Lord and do good that you may be successful.”[22:77]

In this con­text, Ruku’ per­tains to, while stand­ing, bend­ing the head and back par­al­lel to the ground while plac­ing the hands on the knees, while Sujud per­tains to plac­ing the face, hands, knees and feet on the ground. In this con­text, Ruku’ and Sujud describe dif­fer­ent pil­lars of the Islam­ic Prayer.

Ruku‘ was also men­tioned in the con­text of sujud in this Ayah (Qur’an­ic verse):

“And Dawud [David] guessed that We have tried him and he sought for­give­ness of his Lord, and he fell down in Ruku‘ and turned [to All?h] in repen­tance.” [38:24]

The great Mus­lim Schol­ar, Imam Ahmad Ibn Taimiyyah, stat­ed³ that in this Ayah, Prophet Dawud, peace be upon him, made Sujud. Sujud was men­tioned in the con­text of Ruku’ in the Ayah :

“And (remember)when it was said to them (Chil­dren of Israel): ​“Dwell in this town (Jerusalem) and eat there­from wher­ev­er you wish, and say, ‘(O, All?h) for­give our sins’ and enter the gate Suj­jadan (mak­ing Sujud)’ ”[7:161]

Ibn Taimiyyah said that sev­er­al schol­ars of Tafsir (inter­pre­ta­tion of the Qur’an) stat­ed that the Chil­dren of Israel were ordered to enter the vicin­i­ty of the Masjid (Tem­ple) while mak­ing Ruku‘, i.e., bow­ing down, since enter­ing while pros­trat­ing on the ground is not pos­si­ble.⁴

Per­tain­ing to the Islam­ic Prayer, ​“Sujud”, is gen­er­al­ly in ref­er­ence to the act of pros­tra­tion where one places the face, hands, knees and feet on the ground, as schol­ars al-Bukhari and Mus­lim report­ed from the Prophet, peace be upon him. ​“Ruku’ ”, if used in the con­text of prayer, is gen­er­al­ly in ref­er­ence to the posi­tion where while stand­ing, one bends the back and head par­al­lel to the ground while plac­ing the hands on the knees as if hold­ing to them, extend­ing the hands and bend­ing the elbows to the out­side with the feet apart from each oth­er as wide apart as one’s shoul­ders are.⁵

Hatred vs Sci­en­tif­ic Research to Sup­port Crit­i­cism of Islam : ​“One Adam or Two?”

It is astound­ing as to how Wail Tagh­li­bi and his spon­sors imag­ine they can cir­cum­vent the advance of Islam’s plain creed by writ­ing this type of arti­cle that joins evi­dent error and utter con­fu­sion to the inabil­i­ty to under­stand Islam­ic concepts.

Wail Tagh­li­bi wrote :

The Qur’an tells that God cre­at­ed Adam, then he com­mand­ed the Angels to bow down before Adam?(Sad 38:71 – 72 Pick­thall). This com­mand is con­firmed in oth­er vers­es : (Al-Baqara 2:34 ; Al-Aaraf 7:11 ; Al-Hijr 15:28 – 29 ; Al-Isra’ 17:61 ; Al-Kahf 18:50 ; Ta-ha 20:116).

The Sujud (pros­tra­tion) per­formed by the angles to Adam is an aspect of the Ghaib, or mat­ters of the Unseen, that Mus­lims believe in and do not dis­pute. In his arti­cle, Wail also cor­rect­ly described the con­ver­sa­tion that went between All?h and Iblis (Shai­tan [Satan]), ?The angels, except Satan, obeyed God’s command?God asked Iblis (Satan): ??What hin­dereth thee from falling pros­trate before that which I have cre­at­ed with both My hands?…Iblis (Satan) answered : ??I am bet­ter than him. Thou cre­at­edst me of fire, whilst him Thou didst cre­ate of clay’ (Sad 38:76 ; cf. Al-Hijr 15:33).

Wail added that :

Iblis’ dis­obe­di­ence to God’s com­mand can nev­er be jus­ti­fied, yet it rais­es the ques­tion of what was real­ly meant by ​‘falling down pros­trate to Adam’.

To direct­ly answer Tagh­li­bi’s ques­tion, we here­by tes­ti­fy that the answer is ​“real­ly” found in the Qur’an­ic vers­es that he quot­ed : Allah ​“real­ly” ordered the angels to make Sujud to Adam, and the angels ​“real­ly” made Sujud to Adam. To assert this fact, the Qur’an did not men­tion the word ​‘Ruku(bowing down)' while describing Allah's order to the angels, but always the word, 'Sujud'. Sujud, in this context, means to fully prostrate on the ground as indicated by Allah's statement to the angels, {Fa (so) Qau (fall down) Lahu (to him [Adam]) Sajidin (Pros­trate)} [15:29].

Wail Tagh­li­bi con­tin­ues, by saying :

The study of Adam’s rela­tion­ship to God and His angels rais­es a bewil­der­ing ques­tion with regards to worship…Another fact to con­sid­er when seek­ing to under­stand the phrase, ​‘falling pros­trate to Adam’ is the role of ​‘falling pros­trate’ in the con­text of wor­ship. The phrase is over­whelm­ing­ly used in the Qur’an in ref­er­ence to wor­ship to God?This is obvi­ous in the fol­low­ing vers­es : ​‘O ye who believe ! Bow down and pros­trate your­selves, and wor­ship your Lord, and do good, that hap­ly ye may pros­per’ (Al-Hajj 22:77 ; cf. 22:18)?(Fussilat 41:37), and ?(An-Najm 53:62).’..These vers­es clear­ly demon­strate that to ​‘fall pros­trate’ is to God alone ? One may find it dif­fi­cult to see how these vers­es could be con­sis­tent with the pre­vi­ous ref­er­ences that call angels to ​‘fall pros­trate to Adam’.

Wail then expound­ed on his ​“fat­wa” by writ­ing this :

To wor­ship any­one oth­er than God is described in the Qur’an as Shirk. Shirk, from the per­spec­tive of Qur’an, is the most griev­ous sin?If God real­ly did com­mand his angels to ​‘fall prostate to Adam’, this would mean that they were com­mand­ed to com­mit Shirk, which He for­bade and imposed the most severe pun­ish­ment on those who com­mit that sin ! God is far above con­tra­dict­ing himself.

We shall deal with this alle­ga­tion in the sub­se­quent passages.

Where Does the Qur’an Say that Allah Ordered the Angels to Wor­ship Adam ?

When one involves one­self in a type of knowl­edge that is far supe­ri­or to one’s intel­lect, one falls into the absurd idea that Allah ordered the angels to wor­ship Adam. There are var­i­ous ways to sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly ana­lyze Wail’s claim that All?h Him­self ordered the angels to com­mit Shirk by mak­ing Sujud to Adam, even though Allah made Shirk the most griev­ous sin. Yet, we should start with the most direct method of sci­en­tif­ic analy­sis of Wail’s state­ment by ask­ing this ques­tion : Where does the Qur’an say that Allah ordered the angles to per­form an act of wor­ship to Adam ?

In his article/​fatwa, Wail men­tioned Allah’s order to the angels to pros­trate in Sujud to Adam and com­ment­ed by saying :

…this would mean that they were com­mand­ed to com­mit Shirk.

How­ev­er, the first ques­tion that one should ask Wail is the most fun­da­men­tal : Where is the Qur’an­ic verse stat­ing that the angels’ Sujud to Adam was an act of Shirk ? To fur­ther con­fuse his read­ers, Wail men­tioned sev­er­al Qur’an­ic ayat (vers­es) that ordain on Mus­lims var­i­ous acts of wor­ship, includ­ing pros­trat­ing to Allah in sujud, but failed to men­tion a sin­gle Qur’an­ic verse stat­ing that in Islam, every type of Sujud is an act of worship.

To explain, Wail Tagh­li­bi right­ful­ly stat­ed that Shirk means to wor­ship oth­ers besides All?h, and he quotes the fol­low­ing verse :

“Ver­i­ly, Allah for­gives not that part­ners should be set up with Him (in wor­ship), but He for­gives except that (any­thing else) to whom He wills ; and who­ev­er sets up part­ners with All?h in wor­ship, he has indeed invent­ed a tremen­dous sin.” [4:48]

How­ev­er, Wail made every Sujud an act of wor­ship as is clear from his ​‘deci­sion’ that All?h’s order to the angels to make Sujud to Adam is the Shirk that He for­bade for cre­ation. Wail also said, ​“These vers­es clear­ly demon­strate that to ​‘fall pros­trate’ is to God alone”, in ref­er­ence to the sev­er­al Qur’an­ic Vers­es he men­tioned about ded­i­cat­ing ?acts of wor­ship’ to All?h Alone, includ­ing Sujud. Thus, it seems clear that to Wail, ​“acts of wor­ship”, and, ​‘Sujud’, are some­how syn­onyms. How­ev­er, the vers­es that Wail men­tioned did not state that every Sujud is an act of wor­ship, but men­tioned Sujud in the con­text of wor­ship, and indeed, all acts of wor­ship are only direct­ed at Allah Alone ; both the angels and mankind are pro­hib­it­ed from mak­ing this type of Sujud to oth­er than Allah, as Imam Ibn Taimiyyah stat­ed⁶. Then again, Wail used the word, ​“Sujud”, then the word, ​‘con­text’, thus indi­cat­ing that ​‘Sujud’ alone is not suf­fi­cient to explain the mean­ing desired behind using it in a sen­tence with­out a ​“con­text” to define it. Yet, he decid­ed that the Sujud of the angels to Adam was in the con­text of wor­ship, with­out bring­ing a ​‘con­text’ to estab­lish that the Sujud under dis­cus­sion was ​“real­ly” an act of wor­ship. To get out of this utter con­fu­sion, one needs to acquire knowl­edge on how the mind of an Evan­ge­list ​“real­ly” works.

These are two dis­tinct­ly dif­fer­ent top­ics that Wail has com­bined, two dif­fer­ent con­cepts he has made one and the same : the con­cept of ded­i­cat­ing all acts of wor­ship to Allah, Alone with­out part­ners, which is the Tauheed (Monothe­ism) that is the foun­da­tion of Islam, and the act that is called Sujud, mak­ing every act of Sujud an act of worship.

To explain, the Qur’an nev­er stat­ed that the angels were direct­ing an act of wor­ship to Adam ; it is Wail who made up this con­clu­sion on his own with­out a shred of evi­dence to sup­port his stance. He then tried to cov­er his error by first say­ing that, the phrase ?Sujud’ is ?over­whelm­ing­ly’ used in the Qur’an in ref­er­ence to wor­ship to God. Then, he stat­ed that Mus­lim Schol­ars, mean­ing, the schol­ars of Islam who know what Islam is about and are qual­i­fied to explain the mean­ing con­tained in the Qur’an and Sun­nah, “ ​‘sim­ply explain this phrase as mean­ing ​‘greet­ing and exal­ta­tion.’ ” Amaz­ing­ly, Wail then dis­missed the expla­na­tion giv­en by Mus­lim Schol­ars on their own Qur’an and act­ed as if they are bound by his expla­na­tion on it, even though he is nei­ther a Mus­lim nor a schol­ar on Islam.

Is It ​“Exclu­sive­ly” or ​“Over­whelm­ing­ly”?

If the Qur’an ​“over­whelm­ing­ly” men­tioned Sujud in the con­text of wor­ship, then it is log­i­cal to state that rarely, the Qur’an would men­tion Sujud in a con­text oth­er than wor­ship. There­fore, why would Wail dis­miss the expla­na­tion giv­en by the schol­ars of Islam that the angels’ Sujud to Adam was in a con­text oth­er than wor­ship if the schol­ars did not devi­ate from the fact that ​“over­whelm­ing­ly”, the Qur’an men­tioned the Sujud in the con­text of wor­ship ? It is clear that Wail believes that the term, ​“Sujud”, was men­tioned ​“exclu­sive­ly” in the con­text of wor­ship in the Qur’an. Oth­er­wise, why would he write his arti­cle if he only meant ​“over­whelm­ing­ly” instead of ​“exclu­sive­ly”?

Types of Sujud in the Qur’an

Unlike the method that Wail used, here is sci­en­tif­ic research on the types or ​‘var­i­ous con­texts’ of Sujud men­tioned in the Qur’an and the evi­dence estab­lish­ing each type from the Qur’an and Hadith (Prophet­ic Tra­di­tion). We start by nar­rat­ing one of the major foun­da­tions of Islam that is of great rel­e­vance to the top­ic of this arti­cle : the Prophet’s Hadith, ​“Actions are tied to the inten­tions behind them.” This Hadith is found in the authen­tic Hadith col­lec­tions of Imams al-Bukhari and Muslim.

There are sev­er­al types — or con­texts — of Sujud men­tioned in the Qur’an and Prophet­ic Tra­di­tion dis­tin­guished from each oth­er by their lin­guis­tic impli­ca­tion and the inten­tion behind per­form­ing each type.

First : Sujud As An Act of Worship

Sujud, in the con­text of wor­ship, is only ded­i­cat­ed to Allah, Alone with­out part­ners. This type of Sujud is of two cat­e­gories clas­si­fied either under Shirk (Poly­the­ism) or Tauhid (Islam­ic Monothe­ism), as follows.

Surat an-Naml, chap­ter 27 in the Qur’an, nar­rat­ed the sto­ry of Prophet Sulaiman (Solomon), peace be upon him, with the Hud­hud (hoopoe). The Hud­hud said this to Prophet Sulaiman,

I found a woman rul­ing over them (peo­ple of Saba‘), she has been giv­en all things that could be pos­sessed by any ruler of the earth, and she has a great throne. I found her and her peo­ple pros­trat­ing (Yasjudun’, verb for, ​‘Sujud’) to the sun instead of Allah, and Shai­tan (Satan) has made their deeds fair seem­ing to them, and has barred them from (Allah’s) way, so they have no guid­ance ; So they do not wor­ship (pros­trate them­selves before) All?h, Who brings to light what is hid­den in the heav­ens and the earth, and knows what you con­ceal and what you reveal. Allah, Laa ila­ha illa Huwa (none has the right to be wor­shipped but He), the Lord of the Supreme Throne !

Even the bird knew that the Sujud of the peo­ple of Sabato the sun was in the context of worship. The bird also affirmed the Islamic <em>Tauhid</em> of dedicating all aspects of worship to All?h, Alone without partners. However, this is not our only proof. The Qur'an said after a few sentences and in direct reference to the Sujud of the Saba peo­ple to the sun :

“And that which she used to wor­ship besides All?h has pre­vent­ed her [from Islam], for she was of a dis­be­liev­ing peo­ple.” [27:20 – 43]

There­fore, it is the Qur’an that defined the Sujud of the Queen of Saba‘ and her peo­ple to the sun as an act of wor­ship, in this case, Shirk.

With regards to the sec­ond cat­e­go­ry of Sujud in the con­text of wor­ship, among the Qur’an­ic vers­es that Wail men­tioned is Allah’s statement :

“O, you who have believed ! Bow down, and pros­trate your­selves, and wor­ship your Lord and do good that you may be suc­cess­ful. And strive hard in All?h’s Cause as you ought to strive (with sin­cer­i­ty). He has cho­sen you (to con­vey Islam­ic Monothe­ism to mankind), and has not laid upon you in reli­gion any hard­ship : it is the reli­gion of your father Ibrahim (Abra­ham) (Islam­ic Monothe­ism). It is He (Allah) Who has named you Mus­lims both before and in this (the Qur’an), that the Mes­sen­ger (Muham­mad) may be a wit­ness over you and you be wit­ness­es over mankind ! So per­form As-Salat (Iqa­mat-as-Salat), give Zakat and hold fast to Allah [i.e. have con­fi­dence and trust in Allah].” [22:77 – 8]

These two Qur’an­ic vers­es, which as Imam Ibn Taimiyyah stat­ed, ordained all types of good and rebuked all types of evil, list var­i­ous acts, such as Ruku(bowing down), Sujud (prostrating) and doing good, all in the context of worship and as parts of the Islamic Monotheism. Evidence: Allah said in verse 77, {"and worship your Lord"}, thus indicating its intended context. In addition, there are two key factors that Wail ignored in these two Qur'anic Verses that clearly explain the meaning of Ruku and Sujud intend­ed in them. First­ly, Verse 77 men­tioned the Ruku‘ and Sujud that are pil­lars of the Islam­ic Prayer (Salat), which Verse 78 men­tioned in plain terms, {So per­form As-Salat}. Hence, the false­hood of the com­par­i­son between the Sujud in verse 77 to the Sujud of the angels to Adam is clear : the angels did not make Sujud to Adam in the con­text of prayer or while pray­ing to him, not even Wail made this wild assumption.

To con­tin­ue, Vers­es 77 – 8 men­tioned three pil­lars of the Islam­ic Prayer : Ruku, Sujud and sincerity to Allah. The Ruku and Sujud were men­tioned as pil­lars of the Islam­ic Prayer in spe­cif­ic Prophet­ic State­ments as col­lect­ed by Imam an-Nasaii and oth­ers ; Verse 39:11 ordained sin­cer­i­ty to Allah in the worship,

“Say (O, Muham­mad): ?Ver­i­ly, I am com­mand­ed to wor­ship Allah (Alone) by obey­ing Him and doing reli­gious deeds sin­cere­ly for His sake only.”

Verse 78 clear­ly indi­cat­ed that the con­text of the Ruku‘ and Sujud men­tioned in Verse 77 is their being parts of the Islam­ic Prayer :

{So per­form As-Salat (Iqa­mat-as-Salat), give Zakat}

Verse 77 leg­is­lat­ed doing good, includ­ing being char­i­ta­ble ; Verse 78 implied that the pil­lar referred to in ordain­ing doing good in Verse 77 is the Zakat which, just like the Salat, is one of five pil­lars of Islam. There­fore, these sen­tences where­in the word ​‘Sujud’ appeared indi­cat­ed the con­text of it, that is, wor­ship­ping All?h in sin­cer­i­ty. ​‘Sujud’, by itself does not mean an act of wor­ship ; even Wail under­stood this by say­ing that there is a ​‘con­text’ in which ​‘Sujud’ is men­tioned. If defin­ing the impli­ca­tion of Sujud requires a con­text, then the con­text decides which mean­ing is derived for Sujud, not the rhetor­i­cal bab­bling of un-enlight­ened Evangelists.

To expand on this top­ic, we should assert that the vers­es that Wail men­tioned are not suit­able to be com­pared in con­text to the Sujud of the angels to Adam.

First­ly, Wail men­tioned this verse :

See you not that who­ev­er is in the heav­ens and who­ev­er is on the earth, and the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the moun­tains, and the trees, and Ad-Daw?bb [mov­ing (liv­ing) crea­tures, beasts], and many of mankind pros­trate them­selves to All?h [22:18].

The con­text of this Verse is the obe­di­ence to Allah’s Qadar (Divine Pre­or­dain­ments and Pre­des­ti­na­tion), which is anoth­er mean­ing for Sujud, not pros­trat­ing to All?h by plac­ing the face on the ground. Proof : the sun, the moon, the moun­tains, the trees and the ani­mals do not pros­trate in the man­ner many of mankind and the Jinn and all of the angels will­ing­ly pros­trate. These things praise Allah in a way that we do not comprehend,

The sev­en heav­ens and the earth and all that is there­in, glo­ri­fy Him and there is not a thing but glo­ri­fies His Praise. But you under­stand not their glo­ri­fi­ca­tion. Tru­ly, He is Ever For­bear­ing, Oft-For­giv­ing [17:44]

and show com­plete obe­di­ence to Allah’s appoint­ed des­tiny and His cre­at­ed laws that gov­ern every aspect of the exis­tence. How­ev­er, these things, includ­ing the ani­mals, do not wor­ship Allah, as Imam Ibn Taimiyyah right­ful­ly stat­ed. Imam Ibn Taimiyyah said, ​“How can every type of Sujud be dis­al­lowed (mean­ing an act of wor­ship), when the ani­mals, which do not wor­ship Allah, used to make Sujud to Allah’s Prophet, peace be upon him?” Imam Ibn Taimiyyah is refer­ring here to a Hadith where­in a camel is report­ed to have made Sujud to the Prophet, peace be upon him, in the pres­ence of the Prophet’s com­pan­ions.⁷

But, Wail did not men­tion this verse :

And unto Allah (Alone) falls in pros­tra­tion who­ev­er is in the heav­ens and the earth, will­ing­ly or unwill­ing­ly, and so do their shad­ows in the morn­ings and in the after­noons [13 : 15].

Unlike verse 22:18, this Verse includes those who do not believe in Islam or the Qur’an, includ­ing Wail him­self. Even Wail would not explain this Verse as being in the con­text of wor­ship, because his fel­low Evan­ge­lists would protest by say­ing that they nev­er pros­trat­ed even once to Allah. This Verse explains the mean­ing of the Sujud men­tioned in it by say­ing that it is done either will­ing­ly, by many of mankind, or unwill­ing­ly, by the non-believ­ers in Allah and all cre­at­ed things and ani­mals. This Verse con­tained ref­er­ence in it to the type of Sujud that is an act of wor­ship and to the type of Sujud that is done invol­un­tar­i­ly. Those who do not believe in Allah or Islam and would nev­er will­ing­ly pros­trate to Allah, unwill­ing­ly ful­fill the des­tiny that Allah ordained for them, and their shad­ows pros­trate to All?h with­out their con­sent : do they not see that their shad­ow always falls to the ground ? Many among mankind will­ing­ly pros­trate to Allah, and in their case, their Sujud is in the con­text of worship.

Con­clu­sion : Con­trary to what Wail insin­u­at­ed, Sujud is not men­tioned in the Qur’an only in the con­text of wor­ship. In the exam­ples giv­en here, the Qur’an states that every­thing, includ­ing those who do not believe in Islam or Allah, pros­trate to Allah in some man­ner, even if invol­un­tar­i­ly. There­fore, Mus­lim Schol­ars are per­fect­ly cor­rect to explain the Sujud of the angels to Adam in the con­text of greet­ing and hon­or­ing Adam, since ​‘Sujud’ has dif­fer­ent mean­ings and var­i­ous con­texts. Allah will­ing, the read­er will soon dis­cov­er our most sig­nif­i­cant evi­dence yet to sub­stan­ti­ate these facts.

Sec­ond­ly, Wail also men­tioned these two verses :

And from among His Signs are the night and the day, and the sun and the moon. Pros­trate your­selves not to the sun nor to the moon, but pros­trate your­selves to All?h Who cre­at­ed them, if you (real­ly) wor­ship Him [41:37]

and

So fall you down in pros­tra­tion to Allah and wor­ship Him (Alone) [53:62]

These very vers­es that Wail used to sup­port his Fat­wa that the angels pros­trat­ed to Adam in the con­text of wor­ship explain, and in the clear­est terms for any­one who has eyes and can read, that the Sujud ordained in them is in the con­text of wor­ship of Allah, a con­text that is made sep­a­rate of the word ?Sujud’ so as to define its mean­ing and intend­ed impli­ca­tion. Hence, we again ask, where is the Verse that states that the Sujud of the angels to Adam was an act of wor­ship or Shirk that All?h prohibited ?

Sec­ond, Sujud As A Mat­ter of Shar­i’ah (Islam­ic Law)

There is anoth­er type of Sujud that is a mat­ter of Shar­i’ah (Islam­ic Law). To explain this type, we should say that the Qur’an did not only state that the angels were ordered to make Sujud to Adam, but also men­tioned the rea­son behind this Divine Com­mand­ment. Allah said,

“So the angels pros­trat­ed them­selves, all of them. Except Iblis (Satan), he was proud and was one of the dis­be­liev­ers. (All?h) said : ?O Ibl?s (Satan)! What pre­vents you from pros­trat­ing your­self to one whom I have cre­at­ed with Both My Hands. Are you too proud (to fall pros­trate to Adam) or are you one of the high exalt­ed???? [Ibl?s (Satan)] said : ​“I am bet­ter than he. You cre­at­ed me from fire, and You cre­at­ed him from clay.” [38:73 – 6]. 

All?h men­tioned His cre­at­ing Adam with His Hands as the rea­son for His com­mand­ing the angels and Satan to pros­trate before Adam. In com­par­i­son, Adam’s off­spring are cre­at­ed by All?h say­ing, ​“Be”, and they come to exis­tence. The top­ic of dis­cus­sion in these Vers­es was the ori­gin of cre­ation, i.e., how All?h cre­at­ed some of His cre­ation, not the wor­ship of Adam, his priv­i­leges or sub­se­quent sin. This is why Satan respond­ed by say­ing, ​“I am bet­ter than him”, then said, ​“You cre­at­ed me from fire and him, You cre­at­ed from clay.” The Islam­ic tra­di­tion teach­es that for a peri­od of time before Adam was cre­at­ed, Satan was with the angels, even though he was from the Jinn (the dev­ils are dis­be­liev­ing Jinn):

“So the angels pros­trat­ed them­selves, all of them togeth­er. Except Iblis (Satan) — he refused to be among the pros­tra­tors.” [15:30 – 1]

If the top­ic of dis­cus­sion were on who deserved to receive a Sujud on account of their priv­i­leges, Satan would have said, ​“I was in the com­pa­ny of the angels, who always wor­shipped You (All?h); Adam did not wor­ship You at all before this.”

The Neos Hid This Qur’an­ic Verse From Their Read­ers — What Hap­pened to the Word ​‘Kar­ram­ta’?

Satan protest­ed on two accounts, as fol­lows. First­ly, Satan reject­ed All?h’s Com­mand­ment to make Sujud to Adam because he believed that the ori­gin of his cre­ation, fire, is ?bet­ter’ than the clay from which Adam was cre­at­ed. Sec­ond­ly, and to fur­ther solid­i­fy this mean­ing, we here­by uncov­er the Qur’an­ic Verse that Wail Tagh­li­bi hid from his read­ers, the Ayah where­in All?h said,

“[Iblis (Satan)] said : ​‘See this one (Adam) whom You have Kar­ram­ta (hon­ored) above me, if You give me respite (keep me alive) to the Day of Res­ur­rec­tion, I will sure­ly, seize and mis­lead his off­spring (by send­ing them astray) all but a few!’ ” [17:62].

Thus, and con­trary to what Wail decid­ed in his ​“fat­wa”, it is not Mus­lim com­men­ta­tors who stat­ed that the pros­trat­ing of the angels to Adam was an act of Ikram (hon­or­ing) of Adam, it is the Qur’an itself that did so in the plainest terms. This is the Ayah that Wail and his neo-spon­sors hid from their read­ers ! Wail men­tioned the verse before this one (17:61), but made no men­tion to the very next Verse (62) which con­tains the word, ​‘hon­ored’. The rea­son behind this action on his part is obvi­ous : this Ayah refutes the entire arti­cle that Wail wrote with­out hav­ing knowl­edge or even attempt­ing seri­ous research.

Satan men­tioned the pur­pose behind All?h order­ing him and the angels to make Sujud to Adam, that is, All?h’s ​“Ikram (hon­or­ing)” of Adam above the angels and the dev­ils ; the Qur’an stat­ed that the rea­son behind Adam’s ​“Ikram” is that All?h cre­at­ed him with His Hands. Hence, to hon­or Adam, the angels made Sujud to Adam in direct wor­ship (obe­di­ence) to All?h Who cre­at­ed him with His Own Hands and Who does what He will. The ques­tion remains as to why Wail Tagh­li­bi did not men­tion this Verse ? And where is the Ayah that says that Satan protest­ed the order to make Sujud to Adam on account of his rejec­tion to per­form an act of wor­ship to Adam ? Even the dev­il did not think of this one !

As stat­ed, Islam­ic tra­di­tions teach that Iblis, the fore­fa­ther of the Jinn, was with the angels and All?h put him to the test of obe­di­ence by order­ing him and the angels to pros­trate to Adam, soon after All?h cre­at­ed Adam with His Own Hands. Instead of act­ing like the angels by obey­ing All?h and hon­or­ing what He has cre­at­ed with His Own Hands, Satan refused and was thrown out of All?h’s Mer­cy for eter­ni­ty. He was arro­gant and the father of evil, refut­ing All?h’s Com­mand­ment by ?inform­ing’ Him of which of His cre­ation is bet­ter than oth­ers, ful­ly know­ing that All?h is the Cre­ator, the All-Knower.

Bib­li­cal Vers­es That Wail Hid From His Readers

Wail hid sev­er­al ​“types of” vers­es from his read­ers, includ­ing those from his own Bible, as follows.

Gen­e­sis 37 states this :

3. Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children…
4. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hat­ed him…
5. And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren : and they hat­ed him yet the more…
9. And he dreamed yet anoth­er dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more ; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obei­sance to me.
10. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren : and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed ? Shall I and thy moth­er and thy brethren indeed come to bow down our­selves to thee to the earth ?

Wail could have used these vers­es to con­clude that the ​“bow­ing down” men­tioned in them was in the con­text of wor­ship. Then he may con­clude that not only Joseph, but also Jacob, his wife and eleven chil­dren com­mit­ted Shirk, since the Bible states this :

Psalms 95 :
6. O come, let us wor­ship and bow down : let us kneel before the Lord our maker.
7. For he is our God.

and,

Exo­dus 20 :
1. And God spake all these words, saying,
2. I am the Lord thy God…
5. Thou shalt not bow down thy­self to them, nor serve them : for I the Lord thy God am a jeal­ous God.

Wail may also find fur­ther proof that the Bible pro­motes Shirk in the fact that sev­er­al oth­er Bib­li­cal vers­es men­tioned bow­ing down that was per­formed to oth­er than God, such as,

Gen­e­sis 27
22. And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father ; and he felt him, and said, The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.
23. …so he blessed him.
24. And he said, Art thou my very son Esau ? And he said, I am.
25. And he said, Bring it near to me, and I will eat of my son’s veni­son, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him, and he did eat : and he brought him wine and he drank.
26…and he smelled the smell of his rai­ment, and blessed him, and said…
28. There­fore God give thee of the dew of heav­en, and the fat­ness of the earth, and plen­ty of corn and wine :
29. Let peo­ple serve thee, and nations bow down to thee : be lord over thy brethren, and let thy moth­er’s sons bow down to thee.

and

Gen­e­sis 49
8. Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise : thy hand shall be in the neck of thine ene­mies ; thy father’s chil­dren shall bow down before thee.

Thus, ​“Prophet” Isaac drank wine, while ​“Prophet” Jacob lied in a shame­less man­ner to receive a bless­ing that was not intend­ed for him ; Isaac did not have a spare bless­ing to give to Esau who was cheat­ed out of the only bless­ing Isaac could afford giv­ing.⁸

What Hap­pened to the Bib­li­cal Sto­ry of Prophets Jacob and Joseph ? 

The Qur’an men­tioned anoth­er instance where­in some of All?h’s right­eous slaves made Sujud to some of All?h’s right­eous slaves. Allah said in the Qur’an :

“And he (Prophet Yusuf [Joseph]) raised his par­ents to the throne and they fell down before him pros­trate. And he said : ?O my father (Prophet Ya‘qub [Jacob])! This is the inter­pre­ta­tion of my dream afore­time ! My Lord has made it come true ! He was indeed good to me, when He took me out of the prison, and brought you (all here) out of the Bedouin-life, after Shai­tan (Satan) had sown enmi­ty between me and my broth­ers. Cer­tain­ly, my Lord is the Most Cour­te­ous and Kind unto whom He wills. Tru­ly, He ! Only He is the All-Know­ing, the All-Wise.” [12:100]

These great Prophets of All?h did not per­form acts of wor­ship to each oth­er, as Wail insin­u­ates in his ​“fat­wa”. Prophet Yusuf said, while affirm­ing Tauh?d :

“And I have fol­lowed the reli­gion of my fathers, ? Ibr?h?m (Abra­ham), Ish?q (Isaac) and Ya?q?b (Jacob), and nev­er could we attribute any part­ners what­so­ev­er to All?h.” [12:38]

And when death came to Prophet Ya‘qub, peace be upon him, he said this to his sons :

“What will you wor­ship after me???? They said, ​“We shall wor­ship your Il?h (God ? All?h) the Il?h (God) of your fathers, Ibr?h?m (Abra­ham), Ism?’?l (Ish­mael), Ish?q (Isaac), One Il?h (God),and to Him we sub­mit (in Isl?m)” [2:133].

This is pure Monothe­ism untaint­ed by the whims and desires of present-day Evan­ge­lists, who wish that the Qur’an would con­tain con­tra­dic­tions sim­i­lar to the hor­rif­ic con­tra­dic­tions that their ?holy books’ con­tain. All what they were able to bring is an alien idea nev­er con­tem­plat­ed in the Qur’an or the Prophet­ic Tra­di­tion or preached by any Mus­lim Scholar.

Surat Yusuf clear­ly described the rea­son why Prophet Ya’qub, his wife and eleven chil­dren made Sujud to Prophet Yusuf, as fol­lows : first, it was the habit of those who were before Islam to hon­or their lead­ers by pros­trat­ing before them.

Gen­e­sis 43
26. And when Joseph came home, they brought him the present which was in their hand into the house, and bowed them­selves to him to the earth.
27. And he asked them of their wel­fare, and said, Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake ? Is he yet alive ?
28. And they answered, Thy ser­vant our father is in good health, he is yet alive. And they bowed down their heads, and made obeisance.

and

2 Samuel 1
1. Now it came to pass after the death of Saul, when David was returned from the slaugh­ter of the Amalekites, and David had abode two days in Ziklag ;
2. It came even to pass on the third day, that, behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul with his clothes rent, and earth upon his head : and so it was, when he came to David, that he fell to the earth, and did obeisance.

Sec­ond, this Sujud that Prophet Yusuf received was the direct inter­pre­ta­tion of a vision that he saw before his broth­ers plot­ted to kill him :

“(Remem­ber) when Y?suf (Joseph) said to his father : ​‘O my father ! Ver­i­ly, I saw (in a dream) eleven stars and the sun and the moon — I saw them pros­trat­ing them­selves to me.’ He (the father) said : ​‘O my son ! Relate not your vision to your broth­ers, lest they should arrange a plot against you. Ver­i­ly, Shai­tan (Satan) is to man an open ene­my ! Thus will your Lord choose you and teach you the inter­pre­ta­tion of dreams (and oth­er things) and per­fect His Favor on you and on the off­spring of Ya’qub (Jacob), as He per­fect­ed it on your fathers, Ibrahim (Abra­ham) and Ishaq (Isaac) afore­time ! Ver­i­ly, your Lord is All-Know­ing, All-Wise.’ ” [12:4 – 6].

Prophet Yusuf saw in a dream that eleven stars and the sun and the moon pros­trat­ed before him. His father informed him that his dream meant that All?h had cho­sen him, mean­ing, to be a prophet and a king, and to teach him knowl­edge in the inter­pre­ta­tion of dreams. Years after Yusuf told his father about his dream, All?h made it come true : his par­ents and eleven sib­lings pros­trat­ed before him, because he was the king. 

Proof : Allah said that after they pros­trat­ed before him, Prophet Yusuf said,

“My Lord ! You have indeed bestowed on me of the sov­er­eign­ty, and taught me the inter­pre­ta­tion of dreams ? the (Only) Cre­ator of the heav­ens and the earth ! You are my Wal ? (Pro­tec­tor, Helper, God, Lord) in this world and in the Here­after. Cause me to die as a Mus­lim, and join me with the right­eous.” [12:101].

There­fore, Prophet Yusuf praised All?h for mak­ing him a king ; his fam­i­ly pros­trat­ed before him because he was the king. Where did the Qur’an or even the Torah say that when Prophet Ya‘qub pros­trat­ed before his son, it was an act of wor­ship ? Where did the Qur’an say that every Sujud is an act of wor­ship ? What Mus­lim schol­ar preach­es mak­ing Sujud as an act of wor­ship to oth­er than Allah if, as Wail dreamed, Allah ordered the angels to make Sujud as an act of wor­ship to Adam ?

The type of Sujud that All?h ordered the angels to per­form before Adam, as well as the Sujud that Prophet Ya‘qub made to Prophet Yusuf, is a mat­ter of Law (Ahkam, or Shar?’?h), not a mat­ter of wor­ship. When Islam came, many of the laws of pre­vi­ous nations were abro­gat­ed, among them the Sujud that is to hon­or kings and lead­ers. Ever since Islam dis­al­lowed it, mak­ing any type of Sujud to oth­er than All?h regard­less of the inten­tion behind it, even if it were to hon­or kings and lead­ers as was the tra­di­tion before Islam, became pro­hib­it­ed for Mus­lims. How­ev­er, we should state that the Angels are not required to fol­low Islam­ic Law. For exam­ple, the angels do not fast dur­ing Ramad­han ; the angels do not eat let alone fast from eat­ing. In addi­tion, we should state that pros­trat­ing to oth­er cre­ations as a way of hon­or­ing or greet­ing them is dis­al­lowed in Islam for those who came after this rul­ing was revealed, not for those who came before it and cer­tain­ly not for the angels.

As evi­dence that mak­ing Sujud as a mat­ter of tra­di­tion was pop­u­lar dur­ing the Prophet’s time, al-Bukhari report­ed that when the Prophet, peace be upon him, sent a mes­sen­ger to Her­cules, the Roman Emper­or, Her­cules had a lengthy dis­cus­sion with his advi­sors about Prophet Muham­mad and after­wards, the priests pros­trat­ed before Her­cules. This occurred in the pres­ence of the Prophet’s com­pan­ion who car­ried the Prophet’s let­ter to Her­cules. The Prophet’s com­pan­ion did not inter­pret this as an act of wor­ship by the Chris­t­ian advi­sors and priests to their Chris­t­ian king, but as a mat­ter of tra­di­tion and habit.

There is an authen­tic Hadith that is direct­ly relat­ed to this type of Sujud. When Mu’adh Ibn Jabal, the Prophet’s com­pan­ion, came back from the Sham Area (Syr­ia) to Mad­i­nah, he pros­trat­ed before the Prophet, peace be upon him, who asked him, ​“What is this, O, Mu’adh?” Mu‘adh said, ​“I vis­it­ed the Sham Area and wit­nessed them pros­trate before their priests and patri­archs. I wished to myself that we did the same for you.” The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, ​“Do not do it. How­ev­er, if I were to order any­one to pros­trate before any­one else besides Allah, I would have ordered the wife to pros­trate before her hus­band.“⁹ The top­ic of this Hadith is, ​“Mak­ing Sujud, as a mat­ter of Islam­ic Law, To Oth­er than All?h”.

This spe­cif­ic top­ic was brought to the Prophet’s atten­tion, the same Prophet who received the Qur’an from Allah where­in is men­tioned the Sujud of the angels to Adam. Even if the Qur’an had not elab­o­rat­ed on this top­ic ? yet we proved that it did in the clear­est terms — the Prophet him­self had elab­o­rat­ed on it. He did not say to Mu‘adh, ​“Do not do this, because Sujud is an act of wor­ship and direct­ing any act of wor­ship at oth­er than All?h is Shirk.” He did not say, ​“It is alright to do it, because the angels wor­shipped Adam as the Qur’an stat­ed.” He, peace be upon him, mere­ly stat­ed that this type of Sujud was pro­hib­it­ed in Isl?m and that if he were to allow it, he would have ordered the wife to pros­trate to her hus­band. It is not pos­si­ble that the Prophet, who upheld Islam­ic Monothe­ism in its most clear and pure form, would say to his com­pan­ion, ​“If I were to order any­one to wor­ship any­one else besides All?h, I would have ordered the wife to wor­ship her hus­band in Sujud,” because this would con­tra­dict the essence of Tauheed which the com­pan­ions embraced in defi­ance of Shirk itself. While com­ment­ing on this Hadith, Imam Ibn Taimiyyah said, ​“How can it be con­clud­ed that pros­trat­ing to some­thing indi­cates wor­ship of it, when the Prophet said?” and he men­tioned the Hadith above, say­ing after­wards, ​“It is known that the Prophet did not say, ​‘If I were to order any­one to wor­ship any­one else?’ ”

We should add that Muadh ibn Jab?l stated that the Sujud he witnessed was the practice of Christians during that era, and indeed, the Christians still practice this Sujud in the present time as they bow down to their kings or queens, and even bow down to kiss the hands of their popes and patriarchs. In yet another proof that this Sujud was a matter of tradition, Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal reported in another narration that Muadh Ibn Jabal said to the Prophet, ​“I thought that you have more right to be hon­ored [than the priests and patriarchs].”

In addi­tion, the type of Sujud that the Prophet said he would have ordered the wife to per­form to her hus­band, was explained by the Prophet him­self in that it was due the hus­band’s great right on his wife.¹⁰ In anoth­er nar­ra­tion¹¹ the Prophet, peace be upon him, fur­ther explained this Hadith by say­ing, ​“Because of what Allah favored (or, hon­ored) him with above her.” In this last nar­ra­tion, the Prophet used the word, ​“Fadh-dha­la”, which describes a type of hon­or that All?h bestows on whomev­er He will. Allah said in the Qur’an :

“And indeed We have hon­ored (kar­ram­na) the Chil­dren of Adam, and We have car­ried them on land and sea, and have pro­vid­ed them with At-Tayy­i­bat (law­ful good things), and have pre­ferred them (Fadh-dhal-nahum) above many of those whom We have cre­at­ed with a marked prefer­ment.” [17:70]

Thus, two things are clear : the con­text of this Hadith is Sujud as a mat­ter of tra­di­tion, and ​“Kar­ram­na”, from the same root word as ​“Kar­ram­ta”, is anoth­er term that Wail mys­te­ri­ous­ly ignored men­tion­ing in his article/​fatwa.

Third, Sujud in Yet Anoth­er Con­text in the Qur’an

Allah said, when trans­lat­ed means :

“So the earth­quake seized them (peo­ple of Prophet Sal­ih), and they lay (dead), pros­trate (Jathimeen) in their homes.” [7:78];

“And As-Sai­hah (tor­ment ? awful cry) over­took the wrong­do­ers, so they lay (dead), pros­trate (Jathimeen) in their homes. As if they had nev­er lived there. No doubt ! Ver­i­ly, Tham?d dis­be­lieved in their Lord. So away with Thamud!” [11:67 – 8]

And you will see each nation Jathiyah (hum­bled to their knees ; kneel­ing), each nation will be called to its Record (of deeds) [45:28].

Imam Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani said in his expla­na­tion on Sahih al-Bukhari, that, ​‘Jathin’, per­tains to sit­ting on the knees, or kneel­ing (a type of Sujud). Mus­lims are anx­ious : it remains to be seen as to how Wail Tagh­li­bi and the entire com­mu­ni­ty of Evangelists/​Shaikhs would explain these Vers­es and in which con­text they would kind­ly place them.

Con­clu­sion : Depend­ing on the inten­tion behind per­form­ing it, Sujud is either an act of wor­ship, and in Islam, all acts of wor­ship are strict­ly and exclu­sive­ly direct­ed at Allah. As Imam Ibn Taimiyyah right­ful­ly stat­ed, both the angels and mankind are pro­hib­it­ed from mak­ing this type of Sujud to oth­er than Allah. Or, Sujud is a mat­ter of habit and tra­di­tion to hon­or kings and lead­ers, and as such, per­tains to the Islam­ic Law which has pro­hib­it­ed it. In addi­tion, if it were Prophet Joseph who made Sujud to his par­ents and if it were mankind whom Allah ordered to make Sujud to the angels, then this Sujud would still be allowed for them since it is not meant as an act of wor­ship but as a way of greet­ing and hon­or­ing those who deserve to be hon­ored. Or Sujud is done invol­un­tar­i­ly as it is clear from Allah’s statement :

“See you not that who­ev­er is in the heav­ens and who­ev­er is on the earth, and the sun, and the moon, and the stars, and the moun­tains, and the trees, and Ad-Daw?bb [mov­ing (liv­ing) crea­tures, beasts], and many of mankind pros­trate them­selves to All?h. But there are many (men) on whom the pun­ish­ment is jus­ti­fied (they do not wor­ship Allah). And whom­so­ev­er Allah dis­graces, none can hon­or him. Ver­i­ly, Allah does what He wills.” [22:18]

Or, Sujud is in the con­text of Allah’s pun­ish­ment to dis­be­liev­ing nations as is clear from the Qur’an­ic vers­es describ­ing the fate of ​‘Ad and Thamud who were destroyed and left lay­ing pros­trate on their fore­heads. And on the Day of Judg­ment, every nation shall fall to their knees to the Lord, pros­trat­ing before His Majesty and Irre­sistible Pow­er. There is also the vol­un­tary Sujud as an act of wor­ship that mankind will be asked to per­form on the Day of Res­ur­rec­tion ; those who did not do it vol­un­tar­i­ly and sin­cere­ly in this life will not be able to per­form it vol­un­tar­i­ly on the Day of Judgment :

“(Remem­ber, or men­tion) the Day when the Shin (of Allah) shall be laid bare (on the Day of Res­ur­rec­tion) and they shall be called to pros­trate them­selves (to Allah), but they (hyp­ocrites) shall not be able to do so. Their eyes will be cast down and ignominy will cov­er them ; they used to be called to pros­trate them­selves (offer prayers), while they were healthy and good (in the life of the world, but they did not).” [68:42 – 3]

What Hap­pened to the Law of Ston­ing the Adulterer ?

Islam abro­gat­ed many of the laws leg­is­lat­ed for ear­li­er believ­ing nations in addi­tion to some of the laws leg­is­lat­ed in the ear­ly era of Islam. The Bible also abro­gat­ed parts of the Jew­ish law. Matthew 19:8 – 9 states :

“Jesus replied, ​‘Moses per­mit­ted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the begin­ning. I tell you that any­one who divorces his wife, except for mar­i­tal unfaith­ful­ness, and mar­ries anoth­er woman com­mits adultery.??? 

Yet, Answer­ing Islam dares to post an arti­cle by (an alleged) ​“for­mer Mus­lim”, Farooq Ibrahim, enti­tled The Prob­lem of Abro­ga­tion in the Quran. It appears that these Neos not only do not read the Qur’an even though they ​“gen­er­ous­ly” explain it to Mus­lims, but also do not read their own Bible. Farooq Ibrahim claims that he used to be a Mus­lim until, among oth­er things, he was ​“con­fused” on why Allah would abro­gate some of His Law. To answer that entire arti­cle, which was writ­ten by the yet anoth­er ​‘con­fused’ author, we post a sin­gle ques­tion to Chris­tians : what hap­pened to the ​“eter­nal” Law of Cir­cum­ci­sion¹², pro­hibit­ing eat­ing the flesh of swine¹³, and the law of ston­ing the adul­ter­er¹⁴ and the oth­er ancient laws that are found in the Bible, the Lit­er­al Word of God as Chris­tians claim, which the Chris­tians did away with ?

Chris­tians false­ly claim that Jesus is lord and eter­nal, as Wail stat­ed, ​“In fact, from eter­ni­ty, he was equal with God.” Rhetor­i­cal­ly, it must have been Jesus who issued these com­mand­ments in the Old Tes­ta­ment and lat­er on abro­gat­ed them in the New Tes­ta­ment. The real­i­ty is that these laws were cor­rupt­ed by the hands of Paul, the true founder of Chris­tian­i­ty, and the many anony­mous writ­ers who authored the New Testament.

The Chris­tians have two choic­es : either God abro­gat­ed some of the Law He revealed to ancient Prophets or there was no abro­ga­tion, and thus, the Chris­tians are sin­ners on two accounts : for dis­obey­ing the Lord’s ​‘Lit­er­al Word’ by drink­ing wine, eat­ing pork and not pun­ish­ing the adul­ter­er by ston­ing, and for chang­ing and cor­rupt­ing God’s Law as found in the Old Tes­ta­ment by abro­gat­ing it on their own in the New Tes­ta­ment.¹⁵

Priv­i­leges of the Prophets ; Rel­e­vance of This Top­ic to the Angels’ Sujud to Adam

In his arti­cle on Sujud, Wail Tagh­li­bi list­ed the priv­i­leges that All?h bestowed on Prophets Ibrahim (Abra­ham), Mus ? (Moses) and Is ? al-Masih (Jesus), saying :

The priv­i­leges giv­en to these prophets qual­i­fy them more than Adam to receive the pros­tra­tion from angels as ?greet­ing and exal­ta­tion’, if we should accept this as a pos­si­ble mean­ing. Since there is no indi­ca­tion that such a phrase was used to address any of these prophets, the inter­pre­ta­tion offered by Mus­lim com­men­ta­tors to the phrase of ​“falling down in pros­tra­tion to Adam” seems unconvincing.

First, we here­by tes­ti­fy that Wail’s accep­tance — or lack of it — of the expla­na­tion giv­en to this ?Islam­ic’ con­cept by ?Mus­lim Schol­ars’ has nev­er been of any con­cern to Mus­lims. Wail, who does not believe in Allah, the Qur’an, Muham­mad, or Islam, invent­ed a con­cept that was nev­er prop­a­gat­ed by the Qur’an or the Prophet­ic Tra­di­tion or con­tem­plat­ed by any Mus­lim scholar.

Sec­ond, and in con­tra­dic­tion to the asser­tion that Wail made, we men­tioned the sto­ry of Prophet Yusuf and the fact that his par­ents and eleven broth­ers pros­trat­ed to him as a way of greet­ing and exal­ta­tion. Yes, Prophets Yusuf and Ya‘qub were not specif­i­cal­ly men­tioned in Wail’s state­ment, “?these prophets”. Yet, the fact remains that Prophet Yusuf received a Sujud that was pre­or­dained in the Qur’an itself and this is fur­ther proof that Wail erred in his ​“fat­wa”.

Third, we should ask, what rel­e­vance do the priv­i­leges of the hon­or­able Prophets Wail men­tioned have to the top­ic under dis­cus­sion ? All?h did not say in the Qur’an that He ordered the angels to pros­trate to Adam because Adam’s priv­i­leges were bet­ter and more exalt­ed than the priv­i­leges giv­en to the oth­er Prophets.

Fourth, the Prophets whom Wail men­tioned were tremen­dous­ly hon­ored by All?h, Who gave each of them mir­a­cles exclu­sive to them and fre­quent­ly praised them in the Qur’an. In con­trast, the Qur’an did not men­tion any mir­a­cle that Prophet Adam was favored with, and there­fore, the Chris­tians will have to be ?gen­er­ous’ with their father and allow him to keep this priv­i­lege. Amaz­ing­ly, Wail strives hard to deprive Adam of any virtue so as to sup­port the Chris­t­ian dog­ma of doom stat­ing that Adam’s sin stained all of human­i­ty and chained them, unjust­ly pre­vent­ing them from hav­ing a good rela­tion with God with­out hav­ing Jesus cru­ci­fied for their sin.

These men­tioned Prophets also received a part of the hon­or that All?h bestowed on their hon­or­able ances­tor, Adam, the father of all of mankind, when the angels pros­trat­ed before him. Thus, Wail’s state­ment, “?we may won­der why God would exclu­sive­ly hon­or Adam by this priv­i­lege. The ques­tion becomes why would God not hon­or oth­er prophets like Ibrahim, Musa, and Issa Al-Mas­sih (Jesus Christ) in the same way?”, is entire­ly irrel­e­vant because the answer is that this hon­or was giv­en to he who was cre­at­ed by All?h’s Own Hands. Thus, we should ask Wail, who else among the Prophets and all of mankind was cre­at­ed by Allah’s Own Hands so that he too receives the hon­or des­ig­nat­ed to he, Adam, who was cre­at­ed by All?h’s Own Hands ?

Fifth, Adam dwelled in Par­adise, as the Qur’an and even the Bible tes­ti­fy. There­fore, why did not Wail protest this priv­i­lege too, since some of the Prophets he men­tioned are at a high­er degree of hon­or and exal­ta­tion than that of Adam and deserve to dwell in Par­adise as well ?

Sixth, Islam teach­es this about Allah :

“He can­not be ques­tioned as to what He does, while they will be ques­tioned.” [21:23]

Sev­enth, the priv­i­lege of receiv­ing the angels’ Sujud that All?h gave Adam is not because Adam was a Prophet who received rev­e­la­tion from All?h, or because he was bet­ter than all oth­er Prophets, or on account of what Adam did or did not do in his faith : there is not a sin­gle Qur’an­ic Verse that men­tion any of these ideas. This priv­i­lege, as Wail con­curs, is exclu­sive­ly based on what All?h Him­self did : He cre­at­ed Adam with Both His Hands. Wail said :

Paul describes the ori­gin of first Adam as ​‘of dust of the earth’ (1 Corinthi­ans 15:47); thus refer­ring the read­ers back to the begin­ning. ?In the begin­ning God cre­at­ed the heav­ens and the earth?and God said, let there be?and there was’ (Gen­e­sis 1:3, 6 – 7). God brought all things into being, by his word, (Psalms 33:6, 9 ; 145:5 ; Hebrews 11:3). But for Adam it is explic­it­ly stat­ed to be dif­fer­ent. God cre­at­ed Adam in a dif­fer­ent man­ner. ?The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nos­trils the breath of life, and the man became a liv­ing being’ (Gen­e­sis 2:7). That was a spe­cial favor that God exclu­sive­ly con­ferred to Adam, but not to the rest of crea­tures. He did not come to exis­tence by the sim­ple com­mand of God, but rather by receiv­ing the breath of God, that gave him life.

Amaz­ing­ly, Wail finds it ​“bewil­der­ing” that Adam, not the rest of mankind, would receive the hon­or of being pros­trat­ed to by the angels, even though he was endowed with this favor for being cre­at­ed by All?h’s Own Hands, i.e., the very rea­son for order­ing the angels and Satan to pros­trate to Adam, i.e., the very spe­cial favor that Wail agreed was giv­en to Adam and none else among cre­ation. Why did not Wail protest this exclu­sive favor that God gave only to Adam, i.e., being the only liv­ing cre­ation cre­at­ed by All?h’s Own Hands, when oth­er Prophets had more priv­i­leges and were bet­ter qual­i­fied to receive the hon­or of being cre­at­ed in this man­ner than Adam ?

One Adam, Two Adams, Three Adams, And So Forth

Eighth, when Adam received the pros­tra­tion from the angels, he had not yet com­mit­ted a sin. How­ev­er, Wail made a com­par­i­son between the sin­ful Adam and the sin­less sec­ond Adam, say­ing, ​“After this review of the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the first Adam, and those of the last Adam, Jesus Christ, a brief com­par­i­son between them would demon­strate who deserves to receive pros­tra­tion from angels.” Com­par­ing Adam who sinned lat­er on in his life with the rather fic­ti­tious, eter­nal, spir­i­tu­al, sin­less, sec­ond Adam is just anoth­er fan­ta­sy that has no rel­e­vance to the top­ic under dis­cus­sion, which is con­cen­trat­ed on he who was cre­at­ed by All?h’s Own Hands. This is espe­cial­ly the case since accord­ing to the false Chris­t­ian dog­mas, Jesus was begot­ten, not made.

What Hap­pened to the Orig­i­nal Sin ?

For some rea­son, Wail evad­ed men­tion­ing the Chris­t­ian dog­ma of ​“Orig­i­nal Sin”. How­ev­er, he kept bab­bling about Adam’s sin and how he lost his rela­tion­ship with God because of it, saying :

Briefly, Adam was in good rela­tion with God ; but because of his dis­obe­di­ence he lost that rela­tion. On the oth­er hand, the Last Adam, Jesus Christ, was sent by God from heav­en. And he ful­ly obeyed God ; there­fore he was able to restore man to a good rela­tion with God.

Wail also said :

The result of Adam’s dis­obe­di­ence was not restrict­ed to Adam him­self. It entailed curse upon the earth?Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned. (Romans 5:12).

Thus, Wail means, mankind inher­it­ed Adam’s sin, but Wail skill­ful­ly evad­ed direct men­tion­ing of this Chris­t­ian dog­ma by name.

Wail Quotes Paul, the True Founder of Christianity

Wail devi­at­ed to a top­ic that is entire­ly irrel­e­vant to the top­ic under dis­cus­sion by saying,

Adam is fre­quent­ly men­tioned in the Bible. In fact, the Bible speaks about two Adams?In the 15th chap­ter of the first epis­tle to the Corinthi­ans which Paul wrote c. 55 AD, he advo­cat­ed the real­i­ty of res­ur­rec­tion. And in order to sup­port his posi­tion he spoke about the first man Adam and the Last Adam :

“The first Adam became a liv­ing being, the last Adam, a life-giv­ing spir­it. The spir­i­tu­al did not come first, but the nat­ur­al, and after that the spir­i­tu­al. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the sec­ond man from heav­en” (1 Corinthians.15:45 – 47).

Wail then end­ed his arti­cle by saying :

Con­clu­sion : Dear read­er, you have two options : Either you are sat­is­fied only with what the Qur’an says about the first Adam, or you believe what the Bible says about the Last Adam. If you choose the Adam of dust, and con­tin­ue your walk in the path of dis­obe­di­ence like him, you will end up with eter­nal punishment?But if you believe what the Bible says about the Last Adam, who came from heav­en and ful­ly obeyed God, you will be saved from your sins, and have eter­nal life. More­over you will have also fel­low­ship with him now and forever.

Note the hor­rif­ic, false news that Wail brought the Chil­dren of Adam : Adam end­ed up with eter­nal pun­ish­ment, ​“If you choose the Adam of dust, and con­tin­ue your walk in the path of dis­obe­di­ence like him, you will end up with eter­nal punishment.”

Ninth, if Jesus is lord, as Chris­tians claim, and if Sujud is an act of wor­ship, as Wail claims, then why did not the dis­ci­ples wor­ship the sec­ond, sin­less, eter­nal Adam by mak­ing Sujud to him, espe­cial­ly since Wail wrote this, ​“There­fore he is wor­thy that every knee should bow before him, not out of respect and exal­ta­tion, but rather in the sense of wor­ship due to God him­self. In fact, from eter­ni­ty, he was equal with God”?

The ​“Good News” of Prophet Muham­mad (21:107)

Tenth, All?h clear­ly stat­ed that Adam made errors :

“Thus did Adam dis­obey his Lord, so he went astray” [20:121].

Yet, All?h stat­ed that Adam repent­ed from his sin and that He for­gave him :

“Then Adam received from his Lord Words. And his Lord par­doned him (accept­ed his repen­tance). Ver­i­ly, He is the One Who for­gives (accepts repen­tance), the Most Mer­ci­ful” [2:37]

and

“Then his Lord chose him, and turned to him with for­give­ness, and gave him guid­ance” [20:122]

The ​“Words” men­tioned in verse 2:37 were report­ed in anoth­er part of the Qur’an :

“They (Adam and Eve, peace be upon them) said : ​‘Our Lord ! We have wronged our­selves. If You for­give us not, and bestow not upon us Your Mer­cy, we shall cer­tain­ly be of the losers’. [7:23]

Adam became free of his sin when All?h accept­ed his repen­tance, and thus, nei­ther he nor his wife or off­spring were bur­dened with his sin. All?h said :

“Or is he (who turned away from Islam) not informed with what is in the Pages (Scrip­ture) of M?s ? (Moses). And of Ibr?h?m (Abra­ham) who ful­filled (or con­veyed) all that (All?h ordered him to do or con­vey). That no bur­dened per­son (with sins) shall bear the bur­den (sins)of anoth­er. And that man can have noth­ing but what he does (good or bad). And that his deeds will be seen. Then he will be rec­om­pensed with a full and the best rec­om­pense.” [53:36 – 40]

In Islam, every­one is born sin­less. Al-Bukhari and Mus­lim nar­rat­ed that Muham­mad, the Mes­sen­ger of All?h, the Bear­er of Good News, said :

“Every child is born on al-Fitrah (the pure Islam­ic Nature) and then his par­ents make him Jew­ish, Chris­t­ian or Magian (fire-wor­ship­per), as an ani­mal pro­duces a per­fect young ani­mal : do you see any part of its body ampu­tat­ed???? Then, he recit­ed, ​“The reli­gion of pure Islam­ic Faith (Han­i­fa [to wor­ship none but All?h]), The pure All?h’s Islam­ic nature with which He (All?h) has cre­at­ed mankind. Let There be no change in All?h’s reli­gion (i.e. to join none in All?h’s wor­ship). That is the straight reli­gion ; but most of men know not [30:30]”.

Deliv­er­ing Mankind From the Injus­tices of Tyran­ni­cal Reli­gions to the Jus­tice of Islam

This is tremen­dous, good news from Allah, the Cre­ator of all that exists. Mankind is no longer bound by the invent­ed doc­trine of doom, where every­one is born with a sin they did not com­mit, where every­one must seek sal­va­tion from the orig­i­nal sin that they did not com­mit through the cru­ci­fix­ion of a man who did not com­mit their sin or the orig­i­nal sin. Mankind should seek sal­va­tion from these doc­trines and free them­selves from the chains unjust­ly placed on them by false reli­gions, to the free­dom of Islam where one only wor­ships the One and Only Lord and Cre­ator of every­thing, where one is only respon­si­ble for his or her own errors and col­lects the rewards for his or her own righteousness.

The Chris­t­ian con­cept of the orig­i­nal sin is firm­ly reject­ed in Islam, which teach­es the good news that one is only respon­si­ble for one’s own actions and errors. It is unjust that one should car­ry the bur­den of an error com­mit­ted by some­one else, inher­it­ing this bur­den from one gen­er­a­tion to the next gen­er­a­tion. It is more unjust that God should love the world so much that, as Chris­tians claim, He would have His own [false­ly claimed] son cru­ci­fied for the sins of Chris­tians who com­mit every type of sin God for­bade in every Divine Book He revealed.

Chris­tians Should Respect Adam, the Father of Humanity

Adam was the first Muwa‘hh?d (Monothe­ist) among mankind, the first right­eous man to have ever lived. He observed and taught Tauh?d to his chil­dren. He was a Prophet to whom All?h spoke and revealed specifics of Tauh?d and Monothe­is­tic wor­ship. His off­spring remained on Tauh?d until the time of Prophet Noah, when they start­ed wor­ship­ping the idols. Thus, Noah was the first Mes­sen­ger, as al-Bukhar ? and Musl?m report­ed from All?h’s Prophet, in the sense that he was the first Prophet to be sent to a dis­be­liev­ing peo­ple. The Chris­tians should respect Adam and refrain from demean­ing him because of a sin he com­mit­ted, repent­ed from and became sin­less. Adam is the father of mankind whom All?h hon­ored by giv­ing him knowl­edge and faith :

“And He taught Adam all the names [of every­thing].” [2:31].

Adam is the father of mankind who taught them to have faith in the Cre­ator of all that exists. Adam was the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of all of mankind when he received the hon­or of being pros­trat­ed to by the angels because All?h cre­at­ed him with His Own Hands. This is the top­ic, not a com­par­i­son between the priv­i­leges of the Prophets as com­pared to the priv­i­leges of Adam or how many orig­i­nal Adams one can come up with.
Wail’s Bewil­der­ment is of His Own Creation

Mus­lims reject trin­i­ty because trin­i­ty was nev­er men­tioned as a part of the valid creed either in the Old Tes­ta­ment or in the Qur’an. Jesus nev­er pro­fessed trin­i­ty ; trin­i­ty was nev­er men­tioned by name in the New Tes­ta­ment. Trin­i­ty, the Orig­i­nal Sin, the sec­ond Adam, God’s claimed begot­ten, yet, eter­nal son, and the Holy Ghost being God are all alien ide­olo­gies nev­er pro­fessed to by Jesus him­self or by any oth­er Prophet who came before or after him. The Old Tes­ta­ment nev­er men­tioned these dog­mas, and Bib­li­cal Prophets nev­er preached them. And not only Mus­lims reject these dog­mas. The Jews do not only reject trin­i­ty, but also dis­be­lieve in Jesus, accuse his hon­or­able moth­er of hor­ri­ble sins and are still await­ing the first com­ing of the Mes­si­ah, more than two thou­sand years after the Mes­si­ah came.

The Chris­tians pro­fess trin­i­ty as the entire world knows and there­fore, Mus­lims did not unjust­ly claim that Chris­tians call to trin­i­ty. In con­trast, Wail and his neo-sup­port­ers invent­ed an alien con­cept to Islam not found in the Qur’an, the Prophet­ic Tra­di­tion or the state­ments of any Mus­lim Schol­ar. They invent­ed an under­stand­ing that is nev­er preached by Mus­lims, then decid­ed that Mus­lim schol­ars did not con­vince them about the prop­er inter­pre­ta­tion of the Qur’an, even though what Mus­lim schol­ars say as expla­na­tion for the Sujud of the angels to Adam is found explic­it­ly in a Qur’an­ic verse that Wail hid from his read­ers. The ques­tion is, to what lows are haters of Islam will­ing to sink to in their fever­ish yet vain attempts to defeat Islam’s supe­ri­or creed ? If they wish to try and derail the progress of Islam, and they will nev­er suc­ceed, they will fair bet­ter if they con­front­ed the Islam­ic creed with their creed, so that Truth is made appar­ent and False­hood is destroyed. Mankind already accepts Islam as their reli­gion at a faster rate than Chris­tian­i­ty, mak­ing many Chris­tians wor­ried. Yet, instead of con­fronting Islam­ic Tauh?d with the Chris­t­ian Trin­i­ty, some Chris­tians resort to defam­ing Islam and cor­rupt­ing the Islam­ic Texts in such a shame­ful man­ner demon­strat­ed by Wail and his sup­port­ers. If one does not believe in Islam’s creed, one should not waste time dis­cussing Islam­ic Law.

Wail’s “ ​‘bewil­der­ing ques­tion, of what is meant by God’s com­mand to angels to ​‘fall down pros­trate to Adam’ ” did not con­sume him because, as he claims, ​“nei­ther Mus­lim com­men­ta­tors nor the Qur’an itself have suc­ceed­ed in offer­ing a plau­si­ble answer.” His bewil­der­ment is of his own mak­ing. He did not read the Qur’an with care so as to under­stand its Mes­sage in pur­suit of Truth. To the con­trary, Wail first filled his heart with hatred of a reli­gion he can­not even begin to under­stand, then hasti­ly read Qur’an­ic vers­es to find mis­takes in them. This arti­cle has clear­ly shown him to be a fake Shaikh who did not con­tem­plate what he wrote before post­ing it. If Islam is a false reli­gion as Chris­tians claim, then why do they spend so much time and effort try­ing to defeat it ? The full respon­si­bil­i­ty now lies with Answer­ing Islam to remove Wail’s arti­cle from their web­site, espe­cial­ly that they now know that Wail hid the fact that the Qur’an specif­i­cal­ly described the angels’ pros­tra­tion to Adam by say­ing that it was a way of hon­or­ing him, {?Ara-aita­ka had­ha al-lad­hi kar­ram­ta ​‘alai???} [17:62]. From his name, Wail Tagh­li­bi seems to be an Arab Chris­t­ian, and thus we ask him to first recite this verse to his spon­sors, inter­pret its mean­ing for them, and then explain to them why he did not men­tion it at all in his article.

This is only a reminder and peace be unto those who fol­low the true guid­ance that the Cre­ator of all that exists sent down to His Prophets, peace be upon all of them.

1. Abu Bakr Muham­mad ibn Abdul­lah ibn al-Ara­bi, born in 468 AH (i.e., after the Prophet’s Hijrah, or Migra­tion from Makkah to Madinah)/1075 CE and died in 543 AH/​1148 C.E.[↩]
2. By Abu al-Aun, Muham­mad ibn Ahmad as-Saf­fari­ni, born in 1114 AH/​1702 CE and died in 1188 AH/​1774 C.E.[↩]
3. al-Fatawa, Vol. 23, p. 145[↩]
4. al-Fatawa, Vol. 21, p. 269[↩]
5. As report­ed in a Hadith, or Prophet­ic Tra­di­tion, col­lect­ed in Sahih Sunan at-Tir­mid­hi [249]. For a detailed descrip­tion of the Islam­ic Prayer, refer to the Eng­lish trans­la­tion of Zad-ul Ma‘ad, by Imam Ibn al-Qayy­im, Vol. 2.[↩]
6. al-Fatawa[↩]
7. Sahih at-Targheeb wa-t-Tarheeb (1936)[↩]
8. We will revis­it these false accounts attrib­uted to Allah’s Hon­or­able Prophets in our book, The Prophet of Mer­cy, which is in response to Craig Win­n’s The Prophet of Doom.[↩]
9. This is an authen­tic Hadith (Prophet­ic State­ment) col­lect­ed in Sahih Ibn Majah.[↩]
10. Sahih at-Targheeb (1936).[↩]
11. As report­ed in Sahih at-Targheeb (1935)[↩]
12. Gen­e­sis 17 : 12 – 13, ​“For the gen­er­a­tions to come every male among you who is eight days old must be cir­cum­cised. And my covenant shall be in your flesh for an ever­last­ing covenant” and Luke 2:21, ​“On the eighth day, when it was time to cir­cum­cise, he was named Jesus”; yet, in Gala­tians 5:2 – 6 one reads this, ​“Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be cir­cum­cised, Christ shall prof­it you noth­ing. For in Jesus Christ nei­ther cir­cum­ci­sion availeth any thing, nor uncir­cum­ci­sion ; but faith which wor­keth by love.”[↩]
13. Leviti­cus 11:1, 7, ​“And the Lord spake unto Moses and to Aaron, say­ing unto them : ​“And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be cloven­foot­ed, yet he cheweth not the cud ; he is unclean to you”; yet Chris­tians did away with this Divine Law in 1 Tim­o­thy 4:1 – 5, ​“Now the Spir­it speaketh express­ly, that in the lat­ter times some shall depart from the faith, giv­ing heed to seduc­ing spir­its, and doc­trines of dev­ils ; Speak­ing lies in hypocrisy ; hav­ing their con­science seared with a hot iron ; For­bid­ding to mar­ry, and com­mand­ing to abstain from meats, which God hath cre­at­ed to be received with thanks­giv­ing of them which believe and know the truth. For every crea­ture of God is good, and noth­ing to be refused, if it be received with thanks­giv­ing : For it is sanc­ti­fied by the word of God and prayer.”[↩]
14. John 8:4 – 5, 7 as fol­lows : ​“They say unto him, Mas­ter, this woman was tak­en in adul­tery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law com­mand­ed us, that such should be stoned : but what sayest thou ? So when they con­tin­ued ask­ing him, he lift­ed up him­self, and said unto them, He that is with­out sin among you,let him first cast a stone at her.”[↩]
15. I should make men­tion that the mat­ter of abro­ga­tion is explained in detail in my trans­la­tion of Izhar-ul-‘Haqq, by Shaikh Rah­mat­ul­lah ibn Khalil ar-Rah­man al-Kayranawy al-Hin­di.[↩]