Proofs of Prophethood
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Knowledge Of The Lost Past : The Inimitable Qur'an
Along with its linguistic miracles, the Qur'an also revealed historic events and outcomes that would have been impossible for the Prophet ﷺ to have known at the time, including accurate mentioning of the Pharoah's fate in Ancient Egypt.
The Proofs for the Prophethood of Muhammad ﷺ eBook is available now. Download your copy here.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. The Qur'an is also remarkably accurate about historical events that would have been absolutely impossible for the Prophet Muhammad to have known. One such example is the fact that Pharaoh's body will survive. Yes, the Bible also states that the Pharaoh of Moses drowned, but the Qur'an very particularly asserts that God promised to save his corpse as an example and sign, a lesson for later oppressors from being lost at sea. The preservation of mummies is actually something quite rare, and the fact that the Prophet Muhammad knew and stated, asserting that this particular corpse is the one that survived, considering the knowledge of his day, makes this Qur'anic assertion mind-boggling. And the Qur'an mentions many nations that were ultimately punished by God for their rebellion, and yet it never states that their bodies would be saved as an example for later generations to come. The sole exception in the Qur'an is Pharaoh's corpse, which happens to be the one that remains available until this very day in the Egyptian Museum of Cairo. For several centuries before the Prophet Muhammad, and for nearly 1200 years after him, knowledge regarding ancient Egyptian civilization was scarce at best. It wasn't until the invasions of Napoleon Bonaparte, and subsequently the discovery of a tablet known as the Rosetta Stone in 1799, did the discipline of Egyptology emerge, and the hieroglyphics were deciphered, and now we finally had access to reliable source
material on ancient Egyptian civilizations. France had sent a team of researchers to explore these newfound tombs, among which was the famous Dr. Maurice Boukai. He then presented his findings in 1976 to the French Institute of Forensic Medicine, and received multiple national awards for his groundbreaking work in this regard. Another example from ancient Egypt is the fact that Joseph, peace be upon him's king, the king of history, was not a pharaoh. The Quran identifies the ruler of ancient Egypt as pharaoh 65 times, but they all are in the story of Moses, peace and blessings be upon him. Not a single time is Egypt's earlier king in the time of Joseph, peace be upon him, called a pharaoh in the Quran. This differs from the Old Testament for example, which uses that term pharaoh for both rulers, and even for earlier kings such as the one in the time of Prophet Abraham himself, peace and blessings be upon them all. However, it's since been established that that term pharaoh has only been coined in the reign of Thutmose III about 1500 years BC during the 18th dynasty of ancient Egypt. Historians have further discovered that during the era of Joseph, peace be upon him, the 15th to 17th dynasties of ancient Egypt were actually those of an invading force from Palestine and hence they were called the Hyksos dynasties, which meant literally foreign kings. What does all of this mean? Since the term pharaoh means literally great house or elite bloodline, and since the Hyksos in the time of Joseph, peace be upon him, were occupiers and not indigenous rulers,
it would have been incorrect to call them pharaohs had that term even existed. Circling back to that very careful usage of the honorific title pharaoh, Dr. Maurice Boukai says, I must confess that when the Quran was first being conveyed to people, the ancient Egyptian language had been lost from the collective memory of humanity, he says, for two centuries and remained that way up until the recent 19th century. Therefore, he says, it would be impossible for us to know that the kings of Egypt should be called anything other than what they were called in the Bible, pharaoh. And yet the subtle word choice of the Quran on this matter, he says, is thought provoking. It's important to note though that the historical accuracy of the Quran is not just some recent discovery resultant of archaeological excavation. This was something that was confirmed by the Jews and Christians during the Prophet's time and it astonished them. The fact that Muhammad, peace be upon him, could simply speak of personalities across cultures like Abraham and Joseph and Jesus and Moses and Dhul Qarnayn and others like them with such detail was inexplicable. It was a mystery. This is why scores of Jews in Medina conceited and professed that Muhammad must be a true prophet, even if some of them thereafter still resisted his message under the claim that it only applied to the Arabs. This was due to their inability to contest its divine origins. They knew all too well that it was impossible for there to be any semblance of this history in the Arabic language whatsoever.
You know, an uninformed person could argue that none of this history is remarkable at all and it could simply be that Muhammad, peace be upon him, was spoon-fed from some Bible scholar or some lost manuscript. This accusation actually existed during the Prophet's life, peace be upon him, but it quickly disappeared and most serious Qur'an critics would refuse to cite it today due to it being such a weak possibility that it makes them look desperate. How so? Number one, it is contrary to the historically indisputable integrity of Muhammad's character. Number two, the bulk and veracity of what the Prophet, peace be upon him, brought could only be attained over decades of apprenticeship that would be impossible for him to hide. To this point, the Qur'an actually says, say to them, O Muhammad, had Allah not willed, I would never have been capable of reciting such words to you, for I have lived in your midst for a lifetime. Will you not then reason? Number three, as we sampled earlier, the Qur'an avoided and stepped around the historical inaccuracies found in the Bible. So are we saying that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, plagiarized from an earlier scripture and the only accurate version from the thousands of conflicting manuscripts? And did this version exist in 7th century Arabia of all places and in a foreign language that Muhammad, peace be upon him, secretly learned and then was lost forever without a trace? Finally, even if this bizarre hypothetical were true, it would still only account for the source of this information and choose to ignore the miraculousness of the end product.
The Qur'an itself responds to this accusation about this historical precision being spoon-fed from elsewhere. Allah says, and we certainly know, O Muhammad, peace be upon him, that some of them are saying he got it from another human being. Say to them, O Muhammad, this source that you accuse him of taking from is a foreign source. It is a different language. And yet this Qur'an is one that is clear and pure in its Arabic.
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