Does man think that We cannot assemble his bones?
Thus when the "Prophet of Islam, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, expounded the topic of resurrection to the pagan Arabs, a Bedouin by the name of Ubayy b. Khalaf picked up a decayed bone and set out for Medina to visit the Prophet.
Surah 75:3-4
1. I do call to witness the Resurrection Day;
2. And I do call to witness the self-reproaching Spirit.
3. Does man think that We cannot assemble his bones?
4. Nay, We are able to put together in perfect order, the very tip of his fingers.
5. But man wishes to do wrong (even) in the time in front of him.
6. He questions: "When is the Day of Resurrection?"
7. At length, when the sight is dazed
8. And the moon is buried in darkness
9. And the sun and moon are joined together that Day will Man say;
10. "Where is the refuge?"
11. By no means! No place of safety!"
12. Before the Lord (alone), that Day will be the place of rest.
13. That Day will Man be told (all) that he put forward, and all that he put back.
14. Nay, man will be evidence against himself,
15. Even though he were to make excuses.
16. Move not thy tongue concerning the (Qur'an), to make haste therewith.
17. It is for Us to collect it and to promulgate it:
18. But when We have promulgated it, follow thou its recital:
19. Nay more, it is for Us to explain it:
20. Nay, (ye men!) but ye love the fleeting life,
21. And leave alone the Hereafter.
22. Some faces, that Day, will beam (in brightness and beauty) -
23. Looking towards their Lord;
24. And some faces, that Day, will be sad and dismal,
25. In the thought that some backbreaking calamity was about to be inflicted on them;
26. Yea, when (the soul) reaches to the collarbone (in its exit),
27. And there will be a cry, "Who is a magician (to restore him)?"
28. And he will conclude that it was (the Time) of Parting;
29. And one leg will be joined with another:
30. The Day the Drive will be (all) to thy Lord!
31. So he gave nothing in charity, nor did he pray! -
32. But on the contrary, he rejected Truth and turned away!
33. Then did he stalk to his family in full conceit!
34. Woe to thee, (O man!), yea, woe!
35. Again, woe to thee, (O man!), yea, woe!
36. Does Man think that he will be left uncontrolled, (without purpose)?
37. Was he not a drop of sperm emitted (in lowly form)?
38. Then did he become a clinging clot; then did (Allah) make and fashion (him) in due proportion.
39. And of him He made two sexes, male and female.
40. Has not he, (the same), the power to give life to the dead?
surah 75:1-40 Al Qiyamah (The Resurrection)
Ayahsabu al-insanu allannajmaAAa AAithamahu
Bala qadireena AAala annusawwiya bananahu
Does man think that We cannot assemble his bones?
Nay, We are able to put together in perfect order the very tips of his fingers.
surah 75:3-4 Al Qiyamah (The Resurrection)
(Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur'an, Amana Corporation, 1989.)
"There are some people who think that the Qur'an is to be read merely for the purpose of obtaining spiritual reward (thawab) without need of understanding anything of its contents. They continuously recite the Qur'an, but if they are even once asked) "Do you understand the meaning of what you are reading?" they cannot answer. To recite the Qur'an is essential and good, being regarded as the first step necessary for comprehending its contents; and not merely as a means for gaining Divine reward.
The comprehension of the meaning of the Qur'an has certain peculiarities to which due attention must be paid. While other books are read for the purpose of acquiring the knowledge of novel ideas that merely involve reason and the rational faculties of the reader's mind, the Qur'an must be studied with the intention of educating oneself. The Qur'an itself clarifies this point: A book We have sent down to thee, blessed, that men possessed of mind may ponder its signs end so remember. (The Holy Qur'an, 38:29) One of the functions of the Qur'an is to instruct and to teach. For this purpose, the Qur'an addresses human reason and speaks in logical and demonstrative terms." 1
The verse below needs a little elaboration to emphasize its great importance in our understanding Surah Al-Qiyamah:
"He it is Who has sent down to thee the Book: In it are verses basic or fundamental (of established meaning); they are the foundation of the Book: others are allegorical. But those in whose hearts is perversity follow the part thereof that is allegorical, seeking discord, and searching for its hidden meanings, but no one knows its hidden meanings except God. And those who are firmly grounded in knowledge say: "We believe in the Book; the whole of it is from our Lord:" and none will grasp the Message except men of understanding." (The Holy Qur'an 3:7 Ali-Imran)
Thus when the "Prophet of Islam, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, expounded the topic of resurrection to the pagan Arabs, a Bedouin by the name of Ubayy b. Khalaf picked up a decayed bone and set out for Medina to visit the Prophet. In the hope of refuting the arguments of the Prophet and the logic of the Qur'an on which they were based, he raised up the bone, as if it were a valuable and convincing piece of evidence, and crumbled it to dust, scattering the pieces in the air. Then, he addressed to the Prophet these crude, unadorned words, inspired by his rebelliousness and ignorance:
"Who will restore to life the scattered particles of this rotten bone?"
He believed that he would thus be able to refute the arguments of the Prophet and to destroy the belief of others in resurrection of the dead. His ignorant mode of thought prevented him from having any correct notion of the creation of being so that he imagined that the scattered particles of a decayed bone could not possibly be brought back to life. He obstinately maintained that the reassembling of the countless particles of the body was unacceptable to man's reason.
The Qur'an replied with this convincing argument based on persuasive logic: "(O Messenger,) say: `God Who first brought them to life will restore them to life. He has knowledge of all His creation.' ... Is the Creator Who brought into being the heavens and the earth incapable of creating the like thereof? Certainly He is the Creator and All-Knowing" (36:79, 81)." 2
The Qur'an categorically declares that only Allah knows the true interpretation of the allegorical verses i.e., "having hidden spiritual meaning that transcends the literal sense of a sacred text." (Since His Ruh Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi has come to announce and explain Al-Qiyamah to all humanity, the allegorical verses of the Qur'an now make far more sense.)
Will Humans Be Reassembled Or Born Again To Take Part In Resurrection?
Thus the Ummah must comprehend that although surah 75:3-4 seems a mere rebuke to humans that the Creator is perfectly capable of bringing back the physically dead to life again, it has a far profound meaning. Putting bones together is simple; even the very tips of the fingers can be perfectly reconstructed. This assurance of bringing the dead to life again is given in the most elementary terms possible to explain briefly the topic of resurrection to the pagan Arabs. It does not mean that bones in graves will come to life. This was a simple way of explaining the profoundly complex reality to uneducated desert dwellers 1400 years ago. Modern minds, despite vast leaps in intelligence and education, cannot still explain logically how skeletal and dust remains hundreds and thousands of years old will become flesh during the Resurrection. This doctrine of rebirth controversy has raged for centuries among Christians and Jews without any firm faith or logical conviction:
Why Christian and Jews find doctrine of bodily resurrection is logically incomprehensible
"The doctrine of bodily resurrection, linked closely to the soul's nature and destiny, suffers like a fate. The ancients knew little or nothing about the human organism - its chemical constituents, its functioning parts, its psychology - and even less about the nature of death. Modern man has measured corruption, can detail the chemical changes that take place when bodily life ceases, has a clear idea of what precisely corruption and decay of the human frame connote, and defines human death precisely by the cessation of the observable functions of the body. The three religions define death as the moment when the soul leaves the body.
In his defense before Agrippa, Paul asked his Jewish audience: "Why is it judged incredible with you, if God doth raise the dead?" (Acts 26:8). There have always been those who found the concept of the bodily resurrection unbelievable, and their modern counterparts are appearing increasingly - even in within the framework of Christendom."
FALSE IDEAS
The ancient Greeks disdained the notion that the body could ever be raised. Thus when Paul spoke concerning "the resurrection of the dead [ones - plural]" in Athens, his message was mocked (Acts 17:23). During the time of Jesus, the Sadducees denied the resurrection of the body (Mt. 22:23; Acts 23:6-8).
Even some Christians in the primitive church had fallen for this error, and so affirmed: "There is no resurrection of the dead" (1 Cor. 15:12) - a heresy which Paul attempted to correct In the late decades of the apostolic age, a sect known as the Gnostics arose, denying the resurrection of the body. In our own age, atheism, of course, rejects the idea that the human body will be raised from the dead. An article in the Soviet Encyclopedia asserts that the concept of the resurrection is in "decisive contradiction with scientific natural knowledge" (quoted in Wycliffe Dictionary of Theology, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999, p. 455).
Of course religious modernism repudiates the idea of the resurrection, since, having "demythologized" the Scriptures, it rejects any element of the miraculous.
Cultish groups also have a problem with the doctrine that God will raise the body. The "Jehovah's Witnesses" assert that the incorrigibly wicked "will never be remembered for resurrection" (Make Sure of All Things, p. 314).Within the churches of Christ, those who have converted to the dogma of Max King deny the resurrection. Like Hymenaeus and Philetus, men who erred in Paul's day, these folks suggest that the "resurrection is past already" (2 Tim. 2:17,18), having been spiritually effected in A.D. 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem (see our recent Feature article, The Menace of Radical Preterism.) Whether ancient or modern, within the church or outside of it, the denial of the bodily resurrection is radical error. And in this age of biblical illiteracy, this false doctrine will continue to make its presence felt among the people of God unless gospel teachers return to a proclamation of the fundamental principles of the Christian faith, one of which is the "resurrection of the dead" (cf. Heb. 6:1,2).
THE BIBLE AND THE RESURRECTION
The Bible clearly affirms the doctrine of the general resurrection of the dead. Note, in brief, the following points.
1. The concept of the resurrection is found in the Old Testament - though not as pronounced as it comes to light in the New Testament (cf. 2 Tim. 1:10). According to Jesus, God's declaration to Moses regarding Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was an indication of the eventual resurrection (Mt. 22:31,32). Other Old Testament passages also suggested that man's body would be raised ultimately (see Job 19:25-27; Psa. 17:15; Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:2; Hos. 13:14).
2. The doctrine of the bodily resurrection is affirmed abundantly in the New Testament (see Jn. 5:28-29; 6:39-40; Mk. 12:18-27; Acts 17:23; 26:8; Rom. 8:23; 1 Thes. 4:16; 1 Cor. 15; 2 Cor. 5:1-2; Phil. 3:21).How any person can read Paul's great discussion of the eventual disposition of the dead - in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 15 - and not believe in the resurrection, has to be one of the mysteries of the ages. In that remarkable chapter the apostle develops his line of argumentation in the following fashion.
a. Paul persuasively pled for the historical fact of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ on the basis of numerous eyewitnesses of the risen Lord. On one occasion, this consisted of more than 500 people (15:1-11).
b. The apostle maintained that the Lord's resurrection is Heaven's guarantee that we too shall be raised. Jesus is the "first-fruits" (a figure suggesting a future harvest) of the general resurrection to be effected at the time of His return (vss. 12-34).
c. Paul discussed the nature of the resurrected body. It will not be a physical or a corruptible body; rather, it will be spiritual and incorruptible (vss. 35-49). Nevertheless, there will be an identity continuum between our present body and the new, resurrected one. Only in this light can the term "resurrection" (which means to "stand up") have any relevance. Moreover, each body will have its own individuality (vs. 38). It is so thrilling to reflect upon the fact that our new body will be identical in form to the glorious body of our resurrected Lord (see Phil. 3:21).
d. Finally, the theological impact of the resurrection is set forth. It is a declaration of victory (vss. 50-57). In view of this great hope, saints are admonished to persevere in their fidelity (vs. 58).The biblical doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is a comforting concept. Those who would rob us of this hope are not friends of the cause of Christ." 3
Then we have modern scientist who cannot accept the "outside" explanation: that a god will "resurrect" the corrupted body. He knows that in a living body today the actual molecules which compose it were not part of it some time ago. In another decade it will be made up of molecules which at present are elsewhere: in African lions, in passion-flowers of the Amazon, in Maine lobsters, in earth in Patagonia, and in the fur of a Polar bear. For the scientist, the body as such has truly ceased to exist. No "shade" or reduced form of the body exists in an "underworld" or in Elysian fields. The body has ceased to exist. He therefore finds the resurrection of the body unintelligible." 4
This disbelieve comes from modern scientific minds who have good reason to dismiss the logic of the dead coming back to life. So how were illiterate, desert-dwelling humans 14 centuries ago expected to understand bones coming to life during the Resurrection?
Belief in al-akhirah (life after death) is crucial to the Islamic faith
"Belief in al-akhirah (life after death) is so crucial to the Islamic faith that any doubts about it amount to the denial of Allah (God). Allah’s own word in the Qur’an is the foundation of this faith. Besides, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) explained the centrality of this belief for a person who wishes to lead an Islamic life. We know that we have no means of knowing life after death as a perceptual experience. But Allah has given us certain levels of consciousness that provide us with insight into realities not perceptible through the senses. The Qur’an speaks to our rational mind when it answers the disbelievers who ask, “Who will give life to the dead bones?” The answer is, of course, the One Who created them. Allah in the Holy Qur’an appeals to man’s reasoning and addresses his power of reflection and judgment by asking him to reflect on how rain revives the dead earth. This is something that is obvious to us; if so, how can we then deny the truth of the resurrection, when Almighty Allah can just as easily revive the dead bones as He revives the earth? (It is Allah Who sends forth the Winds, so that they raise up the clouds, and We drive them to a land that is dead, and revive the earth therewith after its death: even so [will be] the Resurrection!) (35: 9)." (www.islamonline.net)
Fourteen centuries ago Allah very briefly told that He is capable of putting their bones and even fingertips together again - simple terms to make simple minds understand that after death they will be brought back to life in future during the Resurrection. This extremely complex subject of dead humans coming back to life was too confusing and complicated to be explained to illiterate humans. Since it was to take place in the future, a brief explanation was sufficient. Thus when Qiyamah would finally take place, as it is taking place now, humans will be far more educated and advanced to understand that Allah is talking about the rebirth of souls and nothing else. Nothing else!
Humans during the medieval ages could not have believed in their wildest imaginations that the modern scientific progress would be possible. Electricity, telephones, gasoline driven engines, television, air travel and space exploration must have seemed like fantasy and fiction, even a century ago. The presence and the function of genes and DNA were not even known until the middle of the 20th century. What appeared far-fetched yesterday is taken for granted as ordinary. So will the "putting together of bones, even the very tip of the fingers" of centuries past be understood in this enlightened age as the rebirth of all dead beings to face the Resurrection?
But if one follows the Islamic scholars version of 'graves opening up', we beg for logical answers to the following questions:
1) How will the millennia-old buried remains be collected together and 'raised up again' during the Resurrection into perfect beings, a disbelieve rampant even centuries ago?
2) What about the cremated dust of billions of beings that have been scattered over the seven seas, and recycled back by nature into the atoms that are now part and parcel of you and me?
3) What about the millions lost and digested by the sea, or those eaten by animals and scavengers, and their remains scattered all over the land?
4) And how will the countless headless, limbless skeletons of wars and genocide be assembled together and brought to life during the Resurrection?
Mass of chopped limbs and heads of some 800,000 victims of 1994
Rwandan genocide (BBC)
5) What about those who knew next to nothing about Islam, like the two million Cambodians (above) who lost their lives during Pol Pot's reign of terror?
6) What about the millions dying daily upon birth?
"Some two million babies born every year in the developing world die on the first day of their lives, the Save the Children charity has said. (BBC, 9 May 2006)
Over two million die of diarrhea annually in Nigeria. (UNICEF 8 October 2005)
BANGALORE: As many as 1.2 million new-born babies die in a month due to lack of proper care and access to medical facility, Dr N Karthik Nagesh, neonatologist, and Director (Paeditric Research), Manipal Hospital, said on Tuesday. (Tuesday, November 21, 2006 15:50 IST) A non-governmental organization Food Aid International (FAI) has said that about 3,000 people die daily of hunger and poverty in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. (The Punch reported Monday. March 01, 2004)
Every day, more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds. State of Food Insecurity in the World 2005. (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.)
Wealth 'may not lead to health'
By David Loyn
International development correspondent
Economic growth does not necessarily translate into improvements in child mortality, major new research suggests.
Every year 10 million children still die before their fifth birthday, 99% of them in the developing world, according to Save the Children.
BBC, 18 February 2008
7) How about those cremated, a ritual widely practiced for millennia by Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs. "Beliefs differ among Christian groups; some, such as Protestants, have no objections, while others, particularly Roman Catholics, generally frown on the practice because they see it conflicting with their belief in the resurrection of the body." 5
8) What about the hundreds of millions severely mentally sick over the centuries who have no way of knowing God Almighty?
Mentally ill 'suffering neglect'
BBC, 4 September 2007
Mentally ill people in the developing world are being badly neglected, according to a study published in the Lancet medical journal.
The authors say mental illness makes up about 14% of global disease, more than cancer or heart disease.
Up to 800,000 people commit suicide each year, mostly in poorer countries.
Despite this, the authors say, 90% of sufferers in developing countries receive no care - and in some cases are chained to trees or kept in cages.
Health officials call for new strategies and more money for treatment of the mentally ill in the developing world in a special series published by the Lancet.
They warn that as more people suffer from mental problems as a result of war, poverty and disease, unless widespread treatment becomes available, poor countries will be further handicapped in the future.
BBC, 4 September 2007
Million Chinese Suffer From Mental Illness
Beijing, China.
by Staff Writers
Beijing, China (XNA) Sep 25, 2006
Experts claim that as many as 100 million people out of China's 1.3 billion population may be suffering from mental illness. The estimates are based on surveys carried out in several parts of the country, said Zhang Mingyuan, an expert with the mental illness branch of the Chinese Medical Association, at the seventh annual meeting of the association's psychiatry branch.
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
Million Mentally Ill in India
The mentally ill are the most vulnerable members of our society and are most prone to abuse, neglect and despair. Due to the very nature of illness, which in severe cases takes away the insight, these citizens form a voiceless population.
The Minister of Health and Family Welfare in his opening remarks in the Consultative Committee meeting of the Ministry, held in Delhi last week, said that he would like to share the experience of his ministry regarding the progress made in the National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) in the country. He wished to share the difficulties faced in reaching the unreached population i.e. the mentally ill who have been away from benefits of modern treatment due to stigma, ignorance and paucity of services.
Underlining the importance of the programme he said that at any given time about 10% of the population suffers from various mental and behavioral disorders. Out of these, approximately 10% suffer from severe mental disorders. And 10% of those suffering from severe mental disorders require long-term treatment. Out of those requiring long-term treatment, approximately 10% require hospitalization.
From the above estimate about 100 million population suffer from some mental ailment at any given time. The burden of neuropsychiatry disorders is estimated to be a whopping 12% of the total disease burden and imposes a heavy burden on the family and society in terms of morbidity, loss of productivity and mortality in terms of suicide in extreme cases.
(Source: Bio-Medicine.org)
9) What about all those born before the advent of Prophet Muhammad, and those after, who never were Muslims and make up roughly 90% of the total humans born on Earth since creation? Does the Day of Judgment apply to these non-Muslims?
10) What Truth about the Resurrection must Allah manifest to those who, after having died over the centuries, are 'raised up' (brought back to live by rebirth) during the Resurrection?
“They swear their strongest oaths by Allah, that Allah will not raise up those who die: Nay, but it is a promise (binding) on Him in truth:
But most among mankind realise it not.
(They must be raised up), In order that He may manifest to them,
The truth of that wherein they differ,
And that the rejecters of Truth, may realise that they had indeed (surrendered to) Falsehood.
For to anything which We have willed, We but say the word,”
surah 16:38-40 Al Nahl (The Bees)
A. Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur'an, 1989.
11) Why does Allah insist that humans beings "must be raise up, in order that He may manifest to them the truth of that wherein they differ" during the Resurrection, if the terror and mayhem of the dreaded Doomsday is at its height?
12) Why does Allah insist that the rejecters of Al-Qiyamah "must be raise up, in order that . . . the rejecters of Truth, may realise that they had indeed (surrendered to) Falsehood", if all around mountains are crashing and skies rent asunder? What is the point of this absolutely futile exercise? Why do Islamic scholars indulge in such satanic lies and delude the Believers away from the Straight Path?
13) How is Allah going to explain to all humans, especially Jews, Christians and Muslims, about "the truth of that wherein they differ" which, as far as religion is concerned, requires months and years of meticulous cross-examination and critical appraisal? Do fools, idiots and fundamentalists think these centuries-old differences are going to be ironed out during a brief Friday sermon or Sunday mass?
14) Will Allah appear in Person or send His Ruh to clarify "the truth of that wherein they differ", so that all religious regimes and their blind followers are amply warned?
15) Has His Ruh Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi already "manifest to them the truth of that wherein they differ" over the last 30 years so "that the rejecters of Truth may realise that they had indeed (surrendered to) Falsehood"?
16) Why is the pre-ordained Qiyamah of His Ruh so full of hope, promise, peace, love and healing, and aptly called the Night of Power and Honour (The Holy Qur'an, 97:1-5 Al Qadr) in the Qur'an? It is because all humans since creation began, barring none whosoever, are given the right to take part in the Resurrection. All souls who lived on Earth, no matter how briefly or ignorantly, will be told/warned of the Resurrection and given a chance to follow the Straight Path
Seven compelling rebirth surahs in the Qur'an
There are seven compelling rebirth surahs which are found scattered in the Holy Qur'an and must be studied by the Ummah to confirm rebirth of all humans, and not 'graves opening up', to face the Resurrection and Last Judgment. As mentioned even Christian and Jews are unable to make sense but Jesus declared that no one can enter paradise and attain eternal life unless has received second birth by the Spirit (Baptism of Allah). All this is only possible after the arrival of the promised Comforter or Allah's Ruh who triggers it during the Last Judgment and Resurrection when all souls who existed on Earth since creation will be born again, receive the Baptism of Allah and begin cleansing themselves in mind, body and soul. The seven ayaats are as follows:
1. Surah 2.28 Al Baqarah (The Heifer)
2. Surah 4:97-99 Al Nisa (The Women)
3. Surah 22:5 Al Hajj (The Pilgrimage)
4. Surah 23:12-15 Al-Mu'minum (The True Believers)
5. Surah 39:42 Al Zumar (Crowds)
6. Surah 56:60-61 Al Waqi'ah (The Inevitable)
7. Surah 71:13-14 Nuh (Noah)
"Belief in reincarnation is an ancient phenomenon; in various guises humans have believed in a future life since the Ancient Egyptians, perhaps earlier, and ancient graves containing both people and possessions may testify to beliefs that a person would have need for their treasured possessions once again despite physical death.
In brief, there are several common concepts of a future life. In each of them either the person, or some essential component that defines that person (variously called the soul or spirit) persists in continuing existence:
People live on this earth, and then live in some kind of afterlife for the rest of eternity - variously called heaven (paradise) or hell, or the Kingdom of the Dead, or some higher plane, or similar. They do not return to earth as such.
People die, but will return to the earth or are revived in some final Judgement, or at some final battle (eg the Norse Ragnarok). They may go to heaven or hell at that time, or live again and repopulate the earth. This is often called an apocalyptic vision of the future.
People die, and are returned to this or another existence continually, their form upon return being of a 'higher' or 'lower' kind depending upon the virtue (moral quality) of their present life. This is often called Transmigration.
People die, go through inner planes and return, rebirth, (usually or often) as new human beings. Strictly, it is this which is known as reincarnation (also called "rebirth"). In many versions, eventually there is the potential to escape the cycle, e.g. by joining God, enlightenment, some kind of self-realization, a spiritual rebirth, entering a spiritual realm, etc. (There is some confusion, in general society, between reincarnation and transmigration; see below for comparison)
Beliefs in reincarnation or transmigration are widespread amongst religions and beliefs, some seeing it as part of the religion, others seeing in it an answer to many common moral and existential dilemmas, such as "why are we here" and "why do bad things sometimes appear to happen to good people". Reincarnation is therefore a claim that a person has been or will be on this earth again in a different body. It suggests that there is a connection between apparently disparate human lifetimes, and (in most cases) that there may even be covert evidence of continuity between different people's lifetimes, if looked for."6
In this 21st century the reality of rebirth bursts forth with all its ancient mystery and splendor, and those enlightened will understand the parable of 'graves opening up.' Simple, illiterate, desert tribes 1400 years ago would never have understood the complexities of rebirth and Resurrection.
WA-LAA UQSIM BI-AN-NAFSAL-LAWWAAMAH
I do call to witness the Resurrection Day;
And I do call to witness the self-reproaching Spirit.
Of what are they asking one another?
(Is it) of the Great Announcement, about which they have been differing?
They will indeed come to know soon;
They will indeed come to know soon.
surah 78:1-40 Al Naba' (The Announcement)
(Ahmad Ali, Islam: The Qur'an, Princeton University Press, 1988)
QUOTES OF ALLAH'S (SWT) RUH SHRI MATAJI NIRMALA DEVI
"There are lots of myths in the Bible and one of them is that at the Time of Resurrection your bodies will come out of the graves. This is not only for Christians, but also for the Muslims and Jews. Think of this - What remains in the grave after many years? Only a few bones. And if these bones came out how can you give them Realization? Think of it. It is a big myth. Not possible logically.
In Nal Damyanti Akhyan they have clearly given that when the Kalyug will come, all these seekers who are seeking in the hills and mountains will be born again, and they will be given their Self-Realization! Their Kundalinis will be awakened and that is logical, because that is what we are doing today."
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
India - December 25, 1993
"It is very hard to believe that we can become the Spirit. This is one of the big myths of Modern Times and many a times when I speak about becoming the Spirit people say that, "How can you say like that? "How can it be that easy?"
But it is a living process of our evolution and if it is done by the Power of a living God, then it has to be very simple, has to be very easy . . .
Today that Time has come. That Time has come. The Time of Judgment has come and at this Time we have to see that we'll be judging ourselves; but not by some sort of an authority, but by something which is within us which we call as the Kundalini, is placed in the triangular bone called as sacrum. Just see, Greeks knew about it. That's why they call the bone as sacrum. But what is this bone in the biblical understanding - it is the reflection of the Holy Ghost (Ruh of Allah)."
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi
ADDITIONAL QUOTES
"World War II: Combatants and Casualties (1937 - 45)
The figures below are gathered from various sources and, inevitably, are estimates for the most part. The starting point is taken as 1937, when in July of that year China was invaded by Japan in a widening war that continued until the defeat of both Japan and Germany in 1945. The figures for China and the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.), in particular, may be off by millions. The purpose is to indicate the immensity of the human losses in this most terrible of all wars, one characterized by unspeakable atrocities, germ warfare, enormous civilian casualties, genocide of 5 1/2 million European Jews, and the use of a new and terror-laden weapon of war--the atomic bomb. Estimates of the death toll attributable to the war for military and civilian losses have ranged upward to 60 million, with civilian losses at or more than 50 percent of that total (a stark contrast with the losses of WWI, in which such losses were no more than five percent). Th war had a far greater global reach than its predecessor; over 50 countries or dependencies were listed as having some degree of involvement.
The greatest human losses, as indicated below, were suffered by combatants and civilians of the Soviet Union and China. In the near two-and-a-half year siege of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) by the German forces, 1 1/2 million Russians alone died from shelling, bombing, disease and starvation, a figure that exceeded all the military casualties of the U.S.A.and British Commonwealth combined. The cruelties perpetrated by morally depraved units of the Japanese army in China is demonstrated most vividly in the torture and massacre of civilians and the barbaric killing of war prisoners in the infamous Rape of Nanking that took the lives of over 300,000 Chinese. Other mass civilian deaths, apart from the singular destruction of European Jews, comprise the hundreds of thousands of slave laborers in the Japanese-held Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) as well as the 1 1/2 million deaths in Bengal as a consequence of war-related famine."
Professor Joseph V. O'Brien, Department of History
"Seven Million Died in the 'Forgotten' Holocaust
Five years ago, I wrote about the unknown Holocaust in Ukraine. I was shocked to receive a flood of mail from young Americans and Canadians of Ukrainian descent telling me that until they read my column, they knew nothing of the 1932-33 genocide in which Josef Stalin's Soviet regime murdered seven million Ukrainians and sent two million more to concentration camps.
How, I wondered, could such historical amnesia afflict so many? For Jews and Armenians, the genocides their people suffered are vivid, living memories that influence their daily lives. Yet today, on the 70th anniversary of the destruction of a quarter of Ukraine's population, this titanic crime has almost vanished into history's black hole.
So has the extermination of the Don Cossacks by the communists in the 1920s, the Volga Germans in 1941 and mass executions and deportations to concentration camps of Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians and Poles. At the end of World War II, Stalin's gulag held 5.5 million prisoners, 23% of them Ukrainians and 6% Baltic peoples.
Almost unknown is the genocide of two million of the USSR's Muslim peoples: Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Tajiks, Bashkirs and Kazaks. The Chechen independence fighters who today are branded as "terrorists" by the U.S. and Russia are the grandchildren of survivors of Soviet concentration camps.
Add to this list of forgotten atrocities the murder in Eastern Europe from 1945-47 of at least two million ethnic Germans, mostly women and children, and the violent expulsion of 15 million more Germans, during which two million German girls and women were raped.
Among these monstrous crimes, Ukraine stands out as the worst in terms of numbers. Stalin declared war on his own people in 1932, sending Commissars V. Molotov and Lazar Kaganovitch and NKVD secret police chief Genrikh Yagoda to crush the resistance of Ukrainian farmers to forced collectivization.
Ukraine was sealed off. All food supplies and livestock were confiscated. NKVD death squads executed "anti-party elements." Furious that insufficient Ukrainians were being shot, Kaganovitch - virtually the Soviet Union's Adolf Eichmann - set a quota of 10,000 executions a week. Eighty percent of Ukrainian intellectuals were shot.
During the bitter winter of 1932-33, 25,000 Ukrainians per day were being shot or died of starvation and cold. Cannibalism became common. Ukraine, writes historian Robert Conquest, looked like a giant version of the future Bergen-Belsen death camp.
The mass murder of seven million Ukrainians, three million of them children, and deportation to the gulag of two million more (where most died) was hidden by Soviet propaganda. Pro-communist westerners, like The New York Times' Walter Duranty, British writers Sidney and Beatrice Webb and French Prime Minister Edouard Herriot, toured Ukraine, denied reports of genocide, and applauded what they called Soviet "agrarian reform." Those who spoke out against the genocide were branded "fascist agents."
The U.S., British, and Canadian governments, however, were well aware of the genocide, but closed their eyes, even blocking aid groups from going to Ukraine.
The only European leaders to raise a cry over Soviet industrialized murder were, ironically and for their own cynical and self-serving reasons, Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
Because Kaganovitch, Yagoda and some other senior Communist party and NKVD officials were Jewish, Hitler's absurd claim that communism was a Jewish plot to destroy Christian civilization became widely believed across a fearful Europe.
When war came, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British PM Winston Churchill allied themselves closely to Stalin, though they were well aware his regime had murdered at least 30 million people long before Hitler's extermination of Jews and gypsies began. Yet in the strange moral calculus of mass murder, only Germans were guilty.
Though Stalin murdered three times more people than Hitler, to Roosevelt he remained "Uncle Joe."
The British-U.S. alliance with Stalin made them his partners in crime. Roosevelt and Churchill helped preserve history's most murderous regime, to which they handed over half of Europe in 1945.
After the war, the left tried to cover up Soviet genocide. Jean-Paul Sartre denied the gulag even existed.
For the western Allies, Nazism was the only evil; they could not admit being allied to mass murderers. For the Soviets, promoting the Jewish Holocaust perpetuated anti-fascism and masked their own crimes.
The Jewish people, understandably, saw their Holocaust as a unique event. It was Israel's raison d'etre. Raising other genocides at that time would, they feared, diminish their own. This was only human nature.
While today, academia, the media and Hollywood rightly keep attention focused on the Jewish Holocaust, they mostly ignore Ukraine. We still hunt Nazi killers, but not communist killers. There are few photos of the Ukraine genocide or Stalin's gulag, and fewer living survivors. Dead men tell no tales"
The Toronto Sun, 16 November 2003
"More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981.
Africa has 12 million AIDS orphans.
At the end of 2006, women accounted for 48% of all adults living with HIV worldwide, and for 59% in sub-Saharan Africa.
Young people (15-24 years old) account for half of all new HIV infections worldwide - around 6,000 become infected with HIV every day.
UNAIDS/WHO 2006 AIDS epidemic update"
"The 'bird flu' that killed 40 million
Health officials warn that millions could die in a flu pandemic. It would not be the first time. The Spanish flu virus that swept the world in 1918-19 is considered one of the most deadly diseases in history....
Striking a world already devastated by war, such early warning signs were largely missed and the influenza went on to kill 40 million in a matter of months."
BBC, Wednesday, 19 October 2005
"Belief in al-akhirah (life after death) is so crucial to the Islamic faith that any doubts about it amount to the denial of Allah (God). Allah’s own word in the Qur’an is the foundation of this faith. Besides, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) explained the centrality of this belief for a person who wishes to lead an Islamic life.
We know that we have no means of knowing life after death as a perceptual experience. But Allah has given us certain levels of consciousness that provide us with insight into realities not perceptible through the senses. The Qur’an speaks to our rational mind when it answers the disbelievers who ask, “Who will give life to the dead bones?” The answer is, of course, the One Who created them.
Allah in the Holy Qur’an appeals to man’s reasoning and addresses his power of reflection and judgment by asking him to reflect on how rain revives the dead earth. This is something that is obvious to us; if so, how can we then deny the truth of the resurrection, when Almighty Allah can just as easily revive the dead bones as He revives the earth?
(It is Allah Who sends forth the Winds, so that they raise up the clouds, and We drive them to a land that is dead, and revive the earth therewith after its death: even so [will be] the Resurrection!) (35: 9)."
www.islamonline.net
"Christianity within its own borders has specialized in self-crucifixion, at first to quite a minor degree during the first 1500 years of its life, when heretics and dissidents and accused witches and sorcerers were put to death, as Jesus was. Then, with the breakup of its unity in the 16th century, Christians devised for each other one Hell more horrendous and tortuous than another, indulging in a 300-year round of mutual recrimination, accusation, denigration, and relegation by bell, book, and candle, to the filthiest categories of human life. No branch of Christianity can be excused from this, because all Christians have indulged in it. No body of Christians ever answered the insults of other Christians with Christ's answer: "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do?" They all developed special vocabularies replete with violent words such as "heresy," "heretic," "extirpation," "condemnation", "excommunication," "outcasts," "unclean believers." "vice-mongers." Each one devised its special defenses against the other: social ostracism, civil war, discrimination, calumny, legal non-existence. Rome was the Red Lady of the South. Luther was the Pig of Germany. Protestants were the sons of vipers. Jews were the "race of the devil." Muslims were "benighted and error-ridden barbarians." No body of Christians ever tried to conquer the world with humility and patience and love, and no body of believers ever tried to fan the flames of faith, in the heart of man by being authentically believers.
The Jews, in retaliation for their pain and their sustained exile, contributed to the sea of hate, distrust and, in some cases, deformation of truth. They invented multiform expressions of contempt, condemnation, loathing, and utter rejection of Christians. They even modified some of their traditional beliefs because the Christians had borrowed them in their original form and, in their repugnance from all things Christian, they wanted no resemblance to subsist between their faith and that of the Christians. They returned hate with hate. They, also, cannot be excused and considered totally guiltless. They preached truth and justice, yet they violated both in order to maintain their religion and their Jewishness. Christians preached love but practised officially sanctioned hate, intermingling their loveliest psalms of compassion for their dying Savior with the expressions of extreme disgust for the Jews. . . .
Muslims preached mercy and compassion, but they practised none or very little, assigning both Christians and Jews to the lowest rung in Allah's consideration, and historically meting out to both a treatment which rivals any cruelties of man in known history. Down through the ages, this procession of the crucified one has come: formed, maintained, and augmented by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Each one has prayed with its armies to its god that the armies of the opponents be destroyed. There is no palliating or explaining away the sin of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The three religions failed in another significant way. None of them attacked slavery or race prejudice or other flagrant inhumanities of man to man from the very beginning of their existence. The Arabs of today sanction slavery as spontaneously as the Popes of the 19th century sanctioned the creation of castrati choirs for Papal masses, as readily and blindly as the Protestant ethic of the white American sanctioned the serfdom and degradation of the Negro race until the second half of the 20th century. Each religion has practiced the art of climbing on the bandwagon: only when lay and secular reformers, sometimes lacking any formal religion whatever, raised such a hue and cry that men's consciences were stirred, did the religions begin to turn their huge resources toward reform. The Catholic Church in Germany and Italy acquiesced in Nazism and Fascism at least in the earlier stages of the ideologies. Russian Orthodoxy acquiesced in the despotism and sadism of Czarist times. Greek Orthodoxy sanctioned the corruption of the Byzantine court and is today bitterly nationalist in Greece's disputes with Turkey. No Protestant Church and no Jewish Synagogue ever officially condemned and attacked the Ku Klux Klan before 1945 in America, though individuals did. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have practiced the double standard in this matter . . .
Thus the three religions have not been witnesses to the truth. All, it is true, have developed an exalted vocabulary, and a very impressive manner of announcing their own grandiose claims. All three have excelled and excel in words, as distinct from actions. All three have an impressive ritual and have refined psychological approaches to man. Yet the witness of words, mere words, has never changed men's minds, nor has mere theological subtlety helped men to be better men. The witness of the three religions have been faulty, at times perniciously false and erroneous. The three of them have witnessed to the uses of hate for the love of a god. And all three have disposed of the lives and happiness of millions of human beings without any real feeling for human suffering or any genuine concern for the concrete realities of life.
It is clear, first of all, that today all three religions lack any authoritative note for man. They have, as yet, each one of them, sufficient number of adherents to give the impression of continuing strength, and this glosses over for them and for the outside world at times their terrible weakness. For each of them, when scrutinized closely, is blackened with sufficient failures to prevent any thinking man from believing in them. And, above all, all three persevere in making a claim which cannot possibly be valid and true: that they are, each single one, the true religion.
Each one of them, however, hides from the ultimate test of its validity and truth behind a wall of unknowing and expectation. All three chorus that only the "Last Day," when the "End" comes, when "God" decides, will it be clear that the "other two" and all others besides were false, and it (the claimant) was all along the true community of the one "God."
Malachi Martin, The Encounter, F., Straus and Giroux, 1970, 329-32.
NOTES
1. www.al-islam.org/al-tawhid/unique-quran.
2. http://www.al-islam.org/Resurrect/r6.htm
3. The Resurrection of the Human Body, Christian Courier: Archives, Sep. 10, 1999
4. Malachi Martin, The Encounter, F., Straus and Giroux, 1970, pg. 286.
5. United Methodist News Service, 15 Nov 1999 13:33:33
6. Reincarnation, www.wikipedia.org/
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