Messengers and Prophets of Africa, China, India, the Two Americas, and Australia
Published in March 14, 2018
Translated by: Ahmed Fathy
Introduction:
We often receive via email this repeated question about the fact that prophets and messengers of God mentioned in the Quran were sent only to the Middle-East region; the question specifically is as follows: why has not God mentioned in the Quran His prophets and messengers sent to the other regions of the world such asAfrica, China, India, the Two Americas, and Australia? We attempt here to provide the Quranist answer to this question in the points below.
Firstly: the Quranic text does NOT mention the names of all prophets and messengers of the Lord God; rather, it mentions only few of them:
1- God says the following to Muhammad: "We sent messengers before you. Some of them We told you about, and some We did not tell you about..." (40:78).
2- God mentions in the Quran that the message of all messengers/prophets from Noah to Muhammad is one, and He asserts that the Quran does NOT mention stories of all His messengers/prophets; yet, God has sent messengers/prophets to all people on earth, and this means that the Quranic stories focus on the Middle East because it is in the middle of the whole world: "We have inspired you, as We had inspired Noah and the prophets after him. And We inspired Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the Tribes, and Jesus, and Job, and Jonah, and Aaron, and Solomon. And We gave David the Book of Zabur. Some messengers We have already told you about, while some messengers We have not told you about. And God spoke to Moses directly. Messengers delivering good news, and bringing warnings; so that people may have no excuse before God after the coming of the messengers. God is Powerful and Wise." (4:163-165).
3- God says the following to Muhammad: "You are only a warner. We sent you with the Truth; a bearer of good news, and a warner. There is no community but a warner has passed through it. If they deny you, those before them also disbelieved. Their messengers came to them with the clear proofs, with the Books, and with the Enlightening Scripture." (35:23-25). This means that Muhammad's sole mission was confined to conveying the Quranic message to warn and preach and bring glad tidings; if his contemporaries disbelieved in this message, they have, in fact, imitated the rest of the communities/nations of the world who mostly rejected and disbelieved in the celestial messages conveyed by their messengers/prophets; this means that all people in the planet Earth have received messengers/prophets as warners who confirmed and asserted one, clear message of monotheism (There is no God but Allah) conveyed by previous messengers/prophets in all eras and locations.
4- After the descent/revelation of the Last Message of God, i.e., the Quran, there are no more messengers/prophets; yet, there is ample scope for preachers of the Quranic Truth after the death of Muhammad, the Seal of Prophets, and these preachers of Truth preach the Quranic insights granted to human beings from the Lord God; see 6:104, 7:203, and 45:20. God has commanded Muhammad to say the following: "Say, "This is my way; I invite to God, based on clear insight - I and whoever follows me. Glory be to God; and I am not of the polytheists."" (12:108). Those who preach the Quranic insight will be witness against their contemporaries on the Day of Resurrection and will be brought along with messengers/prophets and then followed by the rest of the human beings: "And the earth will shine with the Light of its Lord; and the Book will be put in place; and the prophets and the witnesses will be brought in; and Judgment will be passed among them equitably, and they will not be wronged. And every soul will be fully compensated for what it had done. He is well aware of what they do." (39:69-70). These verses are about all human beings from Adam to the last generation of humanity before the Hour and Resurrection; all people will be judged and brought forward, preceded by all messengers/prophets and the witnesses who preached the monotheism and the Divine Truth in all eras and locations. This means that the call for the Truth has reached all human beings in Africa, China, India, Europe, Central Asia, Australia, Siberia, Alaska, islands of the Pacific Ocean, North America, South America, etc. "Messengers delivering good news, and bringing warnings; so that people may have no excuse before God after the coming of the messengers..." (4:165). Those who never received messengers/prophets from God nor preachers from among any generations will not be tormented by the Lord God Who is never unjust toward people: "...nor do We ever punish until We have sent a messenger." (17:15).
Secondly: Quranic indications of other peoples/nations who received God's messengers and prophets:
1- The first human community was the people of Noah; when they drowned in the deluge/flood, Noah and believers were saved in the Ark; their progeny re-populated the earth once more; see 37:77. The very first large community of this progeny on earth were the people of Aad; their prophet reminded them of their being made successors on earth after the people of Noah; see 7:69. When the people of Aad were destroyed by God, the very next human large community on earth was the people of Thamood, and their prophet reminded them of their being made successors on earth after the people of Aad; see 7:74. After such communities, human beings scattered on the surface of the earth, within all corners of it, and God has sent messengers/prophets for them. Let us examine this fact within some Quranic indications in the points below.
1/1: After the Quranic story of Noah, God says the following about all human beings in general: "Then, after him, We sent messengers to their people. They came to them with the clear proofs, but they would not believe in anything they had already rejected. Thus We set a seal on the hearts of the violators." (10:74).
1/2: After the Quranic story of the people of Aad and their prophet Hud, God says the following about all human beings in general: "Then, after them, We raised other centuries. No nation can advance its time, nor can they postpone it." (23:42-44); here, the term (centuries) means generations of human beings; the term (nations) means communities/societies who might (or might not) be grouped within a State, a regime, or a country.
1/3: After the Quranic stories of Noah, Hud, Saleh, Shueib, and Lot (who were in the Middle-East region), God says the following about all human beings in general: "We did not send any prophet to any town but We afflicted its people with misery and adversity, so that they may humble themselves. Then We substituted prosperity in place of hardship. Until they increased in number, and said, "Adversity and prosperity has touched our ancestors." Then We seized them suddenly, while they were unaware. Had the people of the towns believed and turned righteous, We would have opened for them the blessings of the heaven and the earth; but they rejected the truth, so We seized them by what they were doing. Do the people of the towns feel secure that Our might will not come upon them by night, while they sleep? Do the people of the towns feel secure that Our might will not come upon them by day, while they play? Do they feel safe from God's scheme? None feel safe from God's scheme except the losing people. Is it not guidance for those who inherit the land after its inhabitants, that if We willed, We could strike them for their sins? And seal up their hearts, so that they would not hear?" (7:94-100). When we ponder deeply on these verses, we infer the following two points.
1/3/1: The Quranic term "town" (or "village" in other translations) refers in the Quranic text to society/community, society/nation, or country/State, and this reflects an advancement in terms of civilization, instead of the more primitive centuries/generations referred to in the verses 23:42-44, but this has nothing to do with the fact that both types of peoples were disbelievers who were destroyed and smitten by God.
1/3/1: Since the Quranic preaching in 7:94-100 addresses towns or civilized societies, this is addressed also to all eras and generations after the death of Muhammad until now, after the descent of the Quran, and also until the end of days; as per the verse 7:100, only losers on the Hereafter assume in this world that their evil deeds will not entrap them and they assume that God will not punish them.
2- Of course, when God destroyed generations of disbelievers in certain eras, this occurred within the level of human beings scattered in all corners of the earth, as we infer from the Quranic indications that we tackle in the points below.
2/1: After mentioning the people of Noah, God says the following about all human beings in general who are the progeny of Noah who was like a second Adam after the deluge/flood: "How many generations have We destroyed after Noah? Your Lord is sufficient as Knower and Beholder of the sins of his servants." (17:17). This is about many generations/centuries on earth: west, east, south, and north. Excavations and ruins show that there were destroyed civilizations everywhere on earth, even in the remotest corners of the world. Their being destroyed is the direct result of their disbelief in God's message conveyed by messengers/prophets sent to them.
2/2: God says the following about the peoples of Noah, Aad, Thamood, and those who came after them: "" (25:37-39); this indicates that there are many generations/nations/communities to whom God has sent messengers/prophets but we do not know about them; the Arabs of Arabia during the time never knew about such nations: "And the people of Noah: when they rejected the messengers, We drowned them, and made them a lesson for the humankind. We have prepared for the wrongdoers a painful retribution. And Aad, and Thamood, and the inhabitants of Arras, and many centuries/generations in between. To each We presented the parables; and each We devastated utterly." (25:37-39).
2/3: God says in the Quran: "Before them the people of Noah rejected the Truth, as did the confederates after them. Every community plotted against their messenger, to capture him. And they argued with falsehood, to defeat with it the truth. But I seized them. What a punishment it was!" (40:5); here, the phrase (as did the confederates after them) refers clearly to all nations/communities among the progeny of Noah who rejected God's Message and committed sins and aggressions and this incurred their devastation and destruction.
2/4: The believing prince among the family of Moses' Pharaoh preached his people/family inside the palace of Pharaoh by saying the following: "The one who had believed said, "O my people, I fear for you the like of the day of the confederates. Like the fate of the people of Noah, and Aad, and Thamood, and those after them..." (40:30-31). The phrase (and those after them) refers to the fact that this prince knew about the fate of some (and not all) ancient nations smitten by the Lord God, and some of such nations are known only to God; at the time of Moses' Pharaoh, no one knew about the existence of the two Americas, Alaska, South Africa, Sahara desert of Africa, Australia, New Zealand.
2/5: Of course, Moses was more knowledgeable than this believing prince inside the palace of Pharaoh; Moses said to his people: "Has not the story reached you, of those before you, the people of Noah, and Aad, and Thamood - and those after them? None knows them except God. Their messengers came to them with the clear proofs, but they tried to silence them, and said, "We reject what you are sent with, and we are in serious doubt regarding what you are calling us to."" (14:9). Within the verses 14:10-13, we read about the common, repeated dialogue between all messengers/prophets and their peoples in all eras and places. The phrase (none knows them except God) in the verse 14:9 indicates the fact that there were messengers/prophets and their peoples who were never known to messengers/prophets whose names and stories are mentioned in the Quran.
3- Few of such messengers/prophets and their peoples who were never known in the Middle-East are mentioned in the Quran without names, locations, and eras (e.g., see 36:13-32), and their locations might be anywhere (e.g., the two Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, or even Australia). When we ponder the verses 36:13-32, we infer the following points.
3/1: The members of the affluent class or retinue members were typically extremists in their polytheism and disbelief; they rejected two messengers and God has sent to them a third messenger; this is an exceptional case, as far as we know. This indicates that such polytheistic affluent ones were dominant people who fully controlled their society of disbelievers and urged them to reject the Truth.
3/2: Yet, these rich, polytheistic retinue members who had authority knew and worshiped God (along with their deities), but they were too proud to accept the messengers sent to them: "They said, "You are nothing but humans like us, and the Dominant Lord did not send down anything; you are only lying."" (36:15).
3/3: Within the dialogue between the three messengers and such affluent disbelievers, the messengers were threatened by being stoned to death: "They said, "We see an evil omen in you; if you do not give up, we will stone you, and a painful punishment from us will befall you."" (36:18).
3/4: Those affluent retinue members were warned and preached by a non-prophet; he was a man from the farthest areas/suburbs of the city: "Then a man came running from the remotest part of the city. He said, "O my people, follow the messengers." (36:20). This means that this man came from the poorest, densely populated areas and not from the heart of the city, where money, authority, and power were centered. This means that these events had an advanced measure/level of civilization; the city here controlled large areas around it; this man from the common people was killed, as we understand from the context of 36:13-32 because he dared to preach the affluent, powerful retinue members, and then, God punished them by devastating them and their civilization.
4- Of course, the same pattern is repeated briefly within the Quranic Chapter 7 (see 7:1, 7:27, and 7:35-36). This Quranic Chapter 7 begins by God talking about all humanity and how they are urged to follow only the Scripture of the Lord God, which is the Quran in that case. And then, we read other verses tackling the destruction and devastation of the ancient nations and how God's messengers/prophets and all human beings in general will be judged on the Last Day. The Quranic Chapter 7 talks within the other verses about the sorry of Iblis/Satan and how he disobeyed the divine command by refusing to prostrate before Adam and how Satan is bent to mislead and tempt the progeny of Adam. This story ends in God's warning human beings against the schemes of Satan. In fact, Iblis was an angel, but when he disobeyed the Lord God, he was expelled from the Upper Realm, turned into a devil/Jinn named Satan, and descended into a Barsakh level of the earth; Satan and his progeny have but one aim: to tempt generations of human beings until the Hour comes so that as many human beings as possible would enter into Hell in the Hereafter; see also 36:60-63.
Lastly:
1- So far, Satan has managed, with great success, to mislead, misguide, and tempt human beings by making them reject the Truth and to establish, venerate, and follow devilish revelations of the earthly, man-made, fabricated religions that contain nothing but myths, blasphemies, falsehoods, lies, and distortions. Yet, some features of the Truth still exist within such polytheism; e.g., the belief in God (even alongside with ma-made deities/saints) and the stories of ancient nations; e.g., the deluge/flood of Noah.
2- With great success, Satan has managed to accomplish his mission as far as the Muhammadans are concerned; they have rejected, discarded, and abandoned the Quran; see 25:30.
3- Since Satan has achieved great success in misguiding the Muhammadans, his success is even greater within all of the other nations worldwide!