Baha'i faith and Muhammad

[Lili]

The Baha'i faith, which says that Muhammad was a manifestation and prophet, also claims that the manifestation of our time is Baha'ullah and there will be others after him. However, the Quran says more than once that Muhammad was the last prophet and there will be no more after him. Since Muhammad claimed to be the last prophet, I don't see how Bahai's can consider Baha'ullah to be a manifestation, when that contradicts the claims of Muhammad. Any explanation for this?

[shunyadragon]

The Baha'i faith, which says that Muhammad was a manifestation and prophet, also claims that the manifestation of our time is Baha'ullah and there will be others after him. However, the Quran says more than once that Muhammad was the last prophet and there will be no more after him. Since Muhammad claimed to be the last prophet, I don't see how Bahai's can consider Baha'ullah to be a manifestation, when that contradicts the claims of Muhammad. Any explanation for this?

I will respond to this in more detail, but first to clarify some points.

(1) Mohammad did not claim to be the last prophet. This is an interpretation of some believers concerning what is meant be the 'Seal of Prophets' in the Quran.

(2) The Quran prophecies of the return of Christ, another prophet.

(3) The Quran and Islamic tradition prophecies the 'Promised Mehdi' a future messiah, which is associated prophetically with the return of Christ by many including the Baha'i Faith as either the forerunner of the messiah or another title of the messiah.

(4) Many movements have claimed to fulfill these prophecies in the last two to three hundred years, including the Baha'i Faith.

(5) All the Abrahamic religions have problems with their prophetic visions of the nature of future messianic figures. The Jews, Christians and Muslims all interpret their scriptures in variable ways, most commonly to exclude future messiahs from usurping their place as the one and only true belief until some hypothetical apocalyptic end of the world. The world never ends and the human spirit and revelation is reborn again and again, but ancient religions remain clinging to ancient dusty museum world views lost in past anachronisms.

I believe it is clear in the Torah, Bible and the Quran that more than one promised messiah is described, and the rebirth and renewal of religion is in some way necessary for the nature of theistic religion to be valid. The archeic nature of the ancient religions are clearly falsified in light of the knowledge of our modern world. Religion is either renewed in some way or the atheists and agnostics are justifiably correct in their beliefs.

As I said before in a previous thread, The ancient traditional anthropomorphic entity called God, likely does not exist at all The very active hands-on deity of miracles is clearly silent today except for wishful thinking and weak anecdotal claims as a witness to 'His' existence.

[Dave G]

I will respond to this in more detail, but first to clarify some points.

(1) Mohammad did not claim to be the last prophet. This is an interpretation of some believers concerning what is meant be the 'Seal of Prophets' in the Quran.

(2) The Quran prophecies of the return of Christ, another prophet.

(3) The Quran and Islamic tradition prophecies the 'Promised Mehdi' a future messiah, which is associated prophetically with the return of Christ by many including the Baha'i Faith as either the forerunner of the messiah or another title of the messiah.

(4) Many movements have claimed to fulfill these prophecies in the last two to three hundred years, including the Baha'i Faith.

(5) All the Abrahamic religions have problems with their prophetic visions of the nature of future messianic figures. The Jews, Christians and Muslims all interpret their scriptures in variable ways, most commonly to exclude future messiahs from usurping their place as the one and only true belief until some hypothetical apocalyptic end of the world. The world never ends and the human spirit and revelation is reborn again and again, but ancient religions remain clinging to ancient dusty museum world views lost in past anachronisms.

I believe it is clear in the Torah, Bible and the Quran that more than one promised messiah is described, and the rebirth and renewal of religion is in some way necessary for the nature of theistic religion to be valid. The archeic nature of the ancient religions are clearly falsified in light of the knowledge of our modern world. Religion is either renewed in some way or the atheists and agnostics are justifiably correct in their beliefs.

As I said before in a previous thread, The ancient traditional anthropomorphic entity called God, likely does not exist at all The very active hands-on deity of miracles is clearly silent today except for wishful thinking and weak anecdotal claims as a witness to 'His' existence.

WTH?
No wonder I haven't been able to understand some of your posts.
Can you give some kind of resource to explain Baha'i as an...well, an atheist belief, I guess. I am not familiar with a Baha'i teaching that God likely does not exist at all.

[smaneck]

I'm a bit puzzled by your statement, " the Quran says more than once that Muhammad was the last prophet." I can only think of a single passage in the Qur'an which could be interpreted this way, namely:

"Muhammad is not the father of any man among you, but he is the messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets; and Allah is ever Aware of all things." (Sura 33 )

What other passages did you read as implying that Muhammad would be the last prophet?

I think it would help us to understand the context to the passage above. Muhammad had just married the divorced wife of his adopted son Zaid and for that reason he was being accused of incest. This passage was revealed in defense of the Prophets honor. It suggests that for the purposes of incest an adopted son cannot be considered as a natural son. The same is true when it comes to the office of prophethood. The term translated as prophet here is Nabi, the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew Navi. In Judaism prophets were a separate class of society and an office which could be handed down from father to son. What this passage is doing is illustrating that this is not going to be the case in Islam because Muhammad has no son. But as for meaning that revelation itself will end with the Qur'an, this flies in the face of the central message of the Qur'an which a testimony to God's continuing revelation. For instance the Jews are contemned for their position that prophethood has ended with the words, "The Jews say that the Hand of God is tied up. Tied up are their own hands for what they have said. But the Hands of God are outstretched." (Surih 5.)

Likewise we have this passage:

"And verily Joseph brought you of old clear proofs, yet ye ceased not to be in doubt concerning what he brought you till, when he died, ye said: Allah will not send any messenger after him."
(Sura 40 )

Why would the Qur'an urge Muslims to do exactly the thing it condemns everyone else of doing? It didn't but as with previous dispensations, Muslims ended up doing the same thing based on various pretexts, but most especially that single passage which I cited above.

Let's face it. No religion likes to be superceded.

[Lili]

That verse is the one I was thinking of. I always thought seal of the prophets meant last prophet.

[spiritmech]

I find this thread and this post in particular very informative. Obviously I disagree with it, but I know more about Baha'i than I did earlier this morning. Thanks Lili and Shunya.
sm

I will respond to this in more detail, but first to clarify some points.

(1) Mohammad did not claim to be the last prophet. This is an interpretation of some believers concerning what is meant be the 'Seal of Prophets' in the Quran.

(2) The Quran prophecies of the return of Christ, another prophet.

(3) The Quran and Islamic tradition prophecies the 'Promised Mehdi' a future messiah, which is associated prophetically with the return of Christ by many including the Baha'i Faith as either the forerunner of the messiah or another title of the messiah.

(4) Many movements have claimed to fulfill these prophecies in the last two to three hundred years, including the Baha'i Faith.

(5) All the Abrahamic religions have problems with their prophetic visions of the nature of future messianic figures. The Jews, Christians and Muslims all interpret their scriptures in variable ways, most commonly to exclude future messiahs from usurping their place as the one and only true belief until some hypothetical apocalyptic end of the world. The world never ends and the human spirit and revelation is reborn again and again, but ancient religions remain clinging to ancient dusty museum world views lost in past anachronisms.

I believe it is clear in the Torah, Bible and the Quran that more than one promised messiah is described, and the rebirth and renewal of religion is in some way necessary for the nature of theistic religion to be valid. The archeic nature of the ancient religions are clearly falsified in light of the knowledge of our modern world. Religion is either renewed in some way or the atheists and agnostics are justifiably correct in their beliefs.

As I said before in a previous thread, The ancient traditional anthropomorphic entity called God, likely does not exist at all The very active hands-on deity of miracles is clearly silent today except for wishful thinking and weak anecdotal claims as a witness to 'His' existence.

[shunyadragon]

I'm a bit puzzled by your statement, " the Quran says more than once that Muhammad was the last prophet." I can only think of a single passage in the Qur'an which could be interpreted this way, namely:

"Muhammad is not the father of any man among you, but he is the messenger of Allah and the Seal of the Prophets; and Allah is ever Aware of all things." (Sura 33 )

What other passages did you read as implying that Muhammad would be the last prophet?

I think it would help us to understand the context to the passage above. Muhammad had just married the divorced wife of his adopted son Zaid and for that reason he was being accused of incest. This passage was revealed in defense of the Prophets honor. It suggests that for the purposes of incest an adopted son cannot be considered as a natural son. The same is true when it comes to the office of prophethood. The term translated as prophet here is Nabi, the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew Navi. In Judaism prophets were a separate class of society and an office which could be handed down from father to son. What this passage is doing is illustrating that this is not going to be the case in Islam because Muhammad has no son. But as for meaning that revelation itself will end with the Qur'an, this flies in the face of the central message of the Qur'an which a testimony to God's continuing revelation. For instance the Jews are contemned for their position that prophethood has ended with the words, "The Jews say that the Hand of God is tied up. Tied up are their own hands for what they have said. But the Hands of God are outstretched." (Surih 5.)

Likewise we have this passage:

"And verily Joseph brought you of old clear proofs, yet ye ceased not to be in doubt concerning what he brought you till, when he died, ye said: Allah will not send any messenger after him."
(Sura 40 )

Why would the Qur'an urge Muslims to do exactly the thing it condemns everyone else of doing? It didn't but as with previous dispensations, Muslims ended up doing the same thing based on various pretexts, but most especially that single passage which I cited above.

Let's face it. No religion likes to be superceded.

Good post! welcome to Tweb. It got ya some digital pearls of wisdom.

[smaneck]

That verse is the one I was thinking of. I always thought seal of the prophets meant last prophet.

Okay, but you said the Qur'an said this more than once, so there must have been more than one verse in mind?

[smaneck]

["(2) The Quran prophecies of the return of Christ, another prophet.

(3) The Quran and Islamic tradition prophecies the 'Promised Mehdi' a future messiah, which is associated prophetically with the return of Christ by many including the Baha'i Faith as either the forerunner of the messiah or another title of the messiah."

Just a couple of comments here. The belief in the Mahdi is based on hadiths not the Qur'an, but you are right that the Qur'an foretells the return of Christ.

You wrote:

"The archeic nature of the ancient religions are clearly falsified in light of the knowledge of our modern world. Religion is either renewed in some way or the atheists and agnostics are justifiably correct in their beliefs."

I'm not sure what you mean by ancient religions being falsified. How do you falsify a religion?

"The ancient traditional anthropomorphic entity called God, likely does not exist at all The very active hands-on deity of miracles is clearly silent today except for wishful thinking and weak anecdotal claims as a witness to 'His' existence.[/QUOTE]

So far as i know no one but the Mormons and the Nation of Islam beleive that God is anthropomorphic and I think it is misrepresentation of the teachings of the other prophetic religions to suggest that they do. Baha'i Teachings don't deny the existence of miracles they just don't see them as proof of any religion's validity. As far as God being 'hands on' it seems to me that the Baha'i Faith affirms, in the words of the Universal House of Justice, "God's continuous relationship with His creation and His intervention in human life and history." So if that's what is meant by being 'hands on' it seems to me that we believe Indeed, the whol premise of the Baha'i concept of Progressive Revelation is that God is *not* silent, that He is speaking to us today.

[smaneck]

Good post! welcome to Tweb. It got ya some digital pearls of wisdom.

Okay, I'm a newby. What's that?

[smaneck]

WTH?
No wonder I haven't been able to understand some of your posts.
Can you give some kind of resource to explain Baha'i as an...well, an atheist belief, I guess. I am not familiar with a Baha'i teaching that God likely does not exist at all.

Dear Dave,

I think the way that was put was a bit misleading. We believe that God's essence is unknowable, and that all we can know about God humanly speaking is through what we call His Manifestations who are the perfect embodiments of all the names and attributes of God. In other words, They demonstrate in their own Person what God is like. For that reason we don't think it necessarily wrong for Christians to say Jesus is God, we would simply understand that statement a bit differently.

warmest, Susan

[shunyadragon]

Okay, I'm a newby. What's that?

Your new and need to post a certain number of posts before you can take off your training wheels. Check out the different categories and ask questions in places like 'Student Services.'.

[shunyadragon]

WTH?
No wonder I haven't been able to understand some of your posts.
Can you give some kind of resource to explain Baha'i as an...well, an atheist belief, I guess. I am not familiar with a Baha'i teaching that God likely does not exist at all.

In almost all religions and beliefs people have an image or vision of a 'Source' some call 'God' or possibly multiple Gods. These are human perspectives and not necessarily the nature of the 'Source.' The more ancient world views that tend to portray an anthropomorphic hands-on miracle working God or Gods have no viable reference for the existence of these Gods in the modern world. For example, a dude named Zeus hanging out on Mount Olympus and in thunderstorms zapping unfortunate miscreants with lightening bolts likely does not exist.

To be an atheist would mean that one did not believe in any Divine 'Source' exists. I believe that a 'Source' exists, but the human perspective cannot narrowly define this 'Source' based on the literal understanding of ancient scripture in the manner most ancient religions do. The Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Native American, Buddhist or Vedic beliefs represent their world view of the Divine in their time and cultural perspective. This concept may be called Transcendental Pluralism (TP).

Example, the trinity in most of Christianity is the absolute defined literal doctrine of what is the nature of God. In the TP view the trinity is the nature of the human relationship with God from the human perspective in the Christian world view, and not the absolute nature of God, which is unknowable.

[shunyadragon]

tip: Learn to use quotes and cites tp help you communicate on this and other websites that use this system. ie [quote=John Doe ] God is . . . [/quote ] or [quote ] God is . . . [/quote ],

also [cite=Reliable Source ] Says God is . . . [/cite ]

I included a space in the brackets so that you can see the notation. When you use the notation do not use the space.

You wrote:

"The archeic nature of the ancient religions are clearly falsified in light of the knowledge of our modern world. Religion is either renewed in some way or the atheists and agnostics are justifiably correct in their beliefs."

I'm not sure what you mean by ancient religions being falsified. How do you falsify a religion?

Ancient and exclusive religions are falsified two ways.

First, the failure of considering the universal in evaluating observations and specific beliefs or evidence when evaluating a world view. virtually all ancient religions and those with limiting or exclusive world views only consider a limited portion of beliefs, observations or evidence from a limited cultural or time frame view. This logical way to evaluate knowledge and beliefs as considering the universal when evaluating the specific was probably first proposed by Aristotle in Book I of Physics.

Second, the ancient religions are for the most part falsified if they rely on the Miracles and a literal view of ancient scripture, ie six day creation and the 'World flood.'

"The ancient traditional anthropomorphic entity called God, likely does not exist at all The very active hands-on deity of miracles is clearly silent today except for wishful thinking and weak anecdotal claims as a witness to 'His' existence.

So far as i know no one but the Mormons and the Nation of Islam beleive that God is anthropomorphic and I think it is misrepresentation of the teachings of the other prophetic religions to suggest that they do. Baha'i Teachings don't deny the existence of miracles they just don't see them as proof of any religion's validity. As far as God being 'hands on' it seems to me that the Baha'i Faith affirms, in the words of the Universal House of Justice, "God's continuous relationship with His creation and His intervention in human life and history." So if that's what is meant by being 'hands on' it seems to me that we believe Indeed, the whol premise of the Baha'i concept of Progressive Revelation is that God is *not* silent, that He is speaking to us today.

The Old Testament definitely describes an anthropomorphic God, sometimes jealous, remorseful, vindictive and arbitrary interacting with humans in a very human fallible way. As in God physically met Moses in a human form, interpreted by some Christians as being Jesus Christ. This in one form or another is taken by many if not most Christians literally. The literal physical doctrine of the Trinity believed by many Christians is an anthropomorphic belief of a Father God and the physical God the Son. Of course Mormons using the same scripture have put a polytheist spin on their being the belief that humans may become also Gods in the afterlife. It is also true that some Christians interpret this metaphorically and symbolically, but there is the necessity of the foundation of Christian doctrine that mush of the OT and the physical human nature of God must be literal.

I believe the role and nature of the miraculous in the Baha'i Faith is very different. By hands-on I am referring to the anthropomorphic literal God of the literal world flood, and acting literally like a king and general commanding armies.

I believe the Baha'i Faith acknowledges the spiritual unity and underlying metaphoric and symbolic meaning of ancient scripture puting them in the ancient cultural time frame they were revealed, but not the necessary literal and necessary view held by most believers.

[smaneck]

[quote=shunyadragon;2321672]tip: Learn to use quotes and cites tp help you communicate on this and other websites that use this system. ie

God is . . . [/quote ] or [quote ] God is . . . [/quote ],


Sorry, I can't make sense out of the above and don't really understand what your doing.

You wrote:

"Ancient and exclusive religions are falsified two ways. "

Funny you should put those two things together. The most ancient religions were not exclusive. Most polytheistic tradions have been extremely tolerant and inclusive. It is the later, monotheistic traditions that tended to be more intolerant and exclusive.

You wrote:

"The Old Testament definitely describes an anthropomorphic God, sometimes jealous, remorseful, vindictive and arbitrary interacting with humans in a very human fallible way."

That's true of the older sections of the OT. By the time you get to the Prophetic books and the Deutero-Isaiah in particular, God is depicted as much more universal and no longer anthropormorphic. You see Progressive Revelation occurs even within the OT. ;-)

"As in God physically met Moses in a human form, interpreted by some Christians as being Jesus Christ. This in one form or another is taken by many if not most Christians literally. "

Are you sure most Christians take this literally? I don't think Catholics do and most Christians are Catholics.

"The literal physical doctrine of the Trinity believed by many Christians is an anthropomorphic belief of a Father God and the physical God the Son."

I'll let the Christians answer this for themselves, but when I was a Christian I never understood the Trinity in physical terms. Jesus was the only one who was supposed to have a physical body.

" It is also true that some Christians interpret this metaphorically and symbolically, but there is the necessity of the foundation of Christian doctrine that mush of the OT and the physical human nature of God must be literal."

Why must it be literal?

"I believe the role and nature of the miraculous in the Baha'i Faith is very different."

We don't consider miracles that important in the Baha'i Faith, but that doesn't mean we deny their existence. We believe, for instance, that Jesus was born of a virgin. Here is what a letter written on behalf of the Guardian of the Baha'i Faith had to say about miracles:


"Again with regard to your question relative to the birth of Jesus; he wishes me to inform you that there is nothing further he can add to the explanation he have you in his previous communication regarding this point. One thing, however, he wishes again to bring to your attention, namely that miracles are always possible, even though they do not constitute a regular channel whereby God reveals His power to mankind. To reject miracles on the ground that they imply a breach of the laws of nature is a very shallow, well-nigh a stupid argument, inasmuch as God Who is the Author of the universe can, in His Wisdom and Omnipotence, bring any change, no matter how temporary, in the operation of the laws which He Himself has created."

(Compilations, Lights of Guidance, p. 489)

"By hands-on I am referring to the anthropomorphic literal God of the literal world flood, and acting literally like a king and general commanding armies."

It seems to me you are setting up a straw man here. Yes, some Christians take the Great Flood literally. I don't see what that has to do whether God is anthopomorphic. I'm not sure what you mean by "acting literally like a king and general commanding armies." Certainly God is often referred to as the Lord of Hosts in the Bible. Baha'is sometimes apply that title to Baha'u'llah. But we don't believe He literally commands armies.

"I believe the Baha'i Faith acknowledges the spiritual unity and underlying metaphoric and symbolic meaning of ancient scripture puting them in the ancient cultural time frame they were revealed, but not the necessary literal and necessary view held by most believers."

I think most believers are not all that different than Baha'is. Like us they take some of their scriptures literally and not others. I don't know of any Christian who takes the admonition that 'if your hand offends you cut it off, ' literally, for instance. But I'll let those that follow this other religions tell us whether they think you have accurately represented their beliefs.

warmest, Susan