Old Testament Prophecies
By: Shahid Bin Waheed
Prophecy # 7-
Deuteronomy 32:21
032:021 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God;
they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to
jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a
foolish nation.
Qur’aanic reference 62:1-2!
يُسَبِّحُ
لِلَّهِ مَا فِي
السَّمَاوَاتِ
وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ
الْمَلِكِ الْقُدُّوسِ
الْعَزِيزِ الْحَكِيمِ
(1) هُوَ الَّذِي
بَعَثَ فِي الْأُمِّيِّينَ
رَسُولًا مِنْهُمْ
يَتْلُو عَلَيْهِمْ
آيَاتِهِ وَيُزَكِّيهِمْ
وَيُعَلِّمُهُمُ
الْكِتَابَ وَالْحِكْمَةَ
وَإِنْ كَانُوا
مِنْ قَبْلُ لَفِي
ضَلَالٍ مُبِينٍ
(2)
Whatsoever
is in the heavens and whatsoever is on the earth glorifies Allâh, the King (of
everything), the Holy, the All-Mighty, the All-Wise. (2) He it is Who sent
among the unlettered ones a Messenger (Muhammad صلى
الله عليه وسلم) from among themselves, reciting to them
His Verses, purifying them (from the filth of disbelief and polytheism), and
teaching them the Book (this Qur’ân, Islâmic laws and Islâmic jurisprudence)
and Al-Hikmah (As-Sunnah: legal
ways, orders, acts of worship of Prophet Muhammad صلى
الله عليه وسلم). And verily, they had been before in
manifest error;
Abraham
prayed Allah for His aid to the people of Makkah who were unlettered in
comparison with People of the Book who had longer tradition of learning. Allah
answered Abraham's prayer at the appropriate time; the time when almost all
People of the Book, Jews and Christians, had already deviated from the path of
rectitude by incorporating with Allah other deities, and the Makkan
incorporated idols. The unlettered Arab community is here mentioned not to the
exclusion of others. The message is universal, for the simple reason that
almost all people who existed then in Arabia and elsewhere had either missed
the real point and spirit of Allah's message or had deviated through arrogance.
Allah is He Who has sent to the unlettered Arab community a messenger from
their midst to relate to them and recite to them His revelations and to impart
sanctity to their quality and their actions, to teach them the Qur'an and
impart to them the knowledge of its authoritative text and to teach them the
wisdom of judging rightly in matters relating to life and conduct and to be in
full accordance with fact, reason and good sense, and to teach them sound
judgment in the choice of means and ends; notwithstanding that they were
before, ignorant adherents of evidently false beliefs.
In this prophecy the word “foolish”
refers to the Arabs before the advent of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) who were buried
into ignorance and have gone astray resulting in being looked down by Jews and
Christians with extreme contempt. However, when Jews and Christians distorted
the message brought by Moses and Jesus (PBUT) and fell into henotheism,
polytheism, and by ignoring the teachings of Tawrat and Injeel so God
raised the promised prophet from the among of the very foolish and unlettered
people. In the Qur’aanic verse the word “”unlettered” refers to
illiterate Arabs. It is needless to say that Jews and true followers of Jesus
were neither foolish nor illiterate. Therefore, this prophecy only refers to
Arabs. Paul has called “Greeks” ignorant
in “Romans” which is absurd. At that time Greeks were far ahead of all nations
of the world in Arts and Science. Greeks produced men like Socrates, Plato,
Pythagoras, Aristotle, Archemedes, Euclides, etc. to name few. All these men
existed before Jesus, and they were well versed in all branches of knowledge
including Torah. Paul learned his lessons in heathenism and Hellenism from
Greeks that he injected in the teachings of Jesus. So Paul is not
justified in calling Greeks as ignorant.