A lecture delivered by the Leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, Shaikh Ibraheem Zakzaky (H) on 27th January, 1990 at Kongo Campus, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.
A Snippet from Man’s History: From Adam (as) to Date
_Having discussed the duty of vicegerent, let’s quickly delve into history from the coming of Adam up to our time today. How far has the man conformed to the purpose of his coming? How far has he been a vicegerent of Allah?_
You know that area I was quoting earlier before. Allah created man. He said to the angels that He was about to place a caliph. What happened before Allah created man? It was on earth here, alright? He commanded the angels to bow before man, (Adam) and they bowed except Satan who failed twice and rebelled against his lord, arguing that created man was inferior to himself. He was created out of clay, and he, the Satan, was created out of fire. The Almighty Allah then cursed the Satan. He then sent down man to fulfill the mission for which he was created. That’s to act as vicegerent of Allah, the Almighty. He was also sent along with the Satan. You may remember where Allah said:
قَالَ اهْبِطَا مِنْهَا جَمِيعًا...
“We said, ‘Go down from it all of you.’ Quran (20:123)
Adam and Satan, that is go down and live on earth whatever my guidance shall come to you, then they have nothing to fear. That means message would be coming from time to time. That is why, Allah said those who follow my guidance shall have no fear nor shall they have any cause to grief.
وَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا وَكَذَّبُوا بِآيَاتِنَا أُولَٰئِكَ أَصْحَابُ النَّارِ ۖ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ.
“And those among you who shall reject my signs and declare them false, they shall be the companions of hell and therein they should dwell forever,” Quran 2:39.
This is why Allah sent down Adam, and Adam was actually representing mankind as a whole. That’s he was addressed as mankind. “My guidance would come to you from time to time, for the generation to mankind and jinn as well.” Answer the extreme as to where do we go after fulfilling the mission. Whether we have fulfilled the mission or not we must surely go back to the Almighty Allah. They were supposed to see or witness the consequences of their actions. It was for this reason that man came down to the earth.
Adam had actually fulfilled that mission because he worked according to what he was commanded except some of his children or majority of his children. Generations of mankind continued to fulfill that mission of caliph on earth until certain time when on whole of the earth people forgot where they came from and where they are heading to. That’s the time to serve idols instead of Allah and make rules and regulations to govern themselves instead of the rules of Allah, the Almighty.
It is for such a nation that of mankind that Allah sent Noah (AS). The generation was so stubborn that none of them was ready to follow Noah (AS) except very few to the extent that he prayed to Allah, the Almighty, to destroy that generation of mankind which Allah did. All were dead except Noah and very few people, all the rest perished.
Now, when the ship of Noah was resting on Mount Judea, history had repeated itself. When Adam was coming down to the earth, he came as a believer of Allah, the Almighty with the intention to fulfill the mission. Then generation after generation, his sons had forgotten the path of which he was brought here, and only Noah and very few people were ready to fulfill the mission.
At this time when the Ark of Noah was resting on the earth, history had repeated itself. It was like Adam’s second coming. Then Adam was the only human being on the earth. He and his wife were Muslims and they had submitted to their Lord; they were ready to obey him. After sometimes, people had forgotten and they were serving someone else, the landing of Noah from the Ark was like a second coming of Adam and only believers remained on the earth. The people of today are descendants of those who were saved in the ship of Noah so as to save the (whole of) mankind from destruction. Then what happened? Generation after generation of those saved in the ship of Noah, the history repeated itself again. If we read in the Quran, there are examples of different missions which were given to messengers by their Lord from time to time. In most cases, the messenger would refuse to accept the message and similarly failed in the same way as people of Noah had failed.
What is the mission of Iblis (Satan?) Had Satan come to fulfill the mission as the vicegerent of Allah? Actually no! Right from the beginning, Allah said He was about to place a vicegerent on the earth, meaning a man. But what is the level of envy which the Satan had for Adam? He bowed to make sure that Adam would never fulfill that mission.
So had Satan actually come for a different purpose? Become a vicegerent of Allah? No, he was already condemned to his hell. He is here to make sure the mankind has not fulfilled that mission so that in the end he would have so many people to escort him to hell. He was only calling on his own people party so that they would become companions of hell. He also made a promise, “I will mislead all of them except very few among them who are sincere in their service to you.” Can you see it? So Satan has come with certain mission. It is said that when they were coming down along with Adam and his wife, Satan was laughing, saying that if he had been so evil as to seduce the father (of humanity) he would win over their children and surely he meant it. Who actually won over the people who were destroyed in the place during the time of Noah? From time to time he used to succeed in capturing certain generations and establishing his vicegerent instead of the vicegerent of Almighty Allah.
It is not possible for me to give the history of the coming of man from Adam down to the time we are in. I will give briefly major events as examples. When was the coming of Ibrahim (AS)? Certain development had been made different from the time of Noah (AS) Remember Allah said in the Quran, “When the Lord of Ibrahim tested him by certain terms and he fulfilled all of them. Then Allah said, “I will make you a leader of mankind.” Ibrahim requested “And my offspring? Oppressors among them will not be in my family” The answer is yes. “Even your offspring will be leaders except those among them who shall transgress. Transgressors shall not get my promise of leadership. Leadership came from Ibrahim (AS) Allah said in one place in the Holy Quran, “Ibrahim was one of the supporters of Noah (AS) but Ibrahim had gone a step further ahead of Noah by adding Nubuwa (prophethood) with imamate (leadership.) He was tested by certain examinations. He said all and he claimed all the good. In part of the test, we know how he was cast into fire and he came out victorious. And he went to the god of unbelievers and he was cast into hell, man-made hell. Allah saved him, and Allah tested him to see what the love he had for Allah whether he would prefer his son above the love for Allah. Allah commanded him to slaughter his own son. He willingly wanted to slaughter him when Allah came to his help.
Apart from this, had it been possible from the first tribulation he faced with his people earlier when he destroyed their idols and they cast him into their own hell. The second test was passed when he was ready to slaughter his own son. He was being given that leadership role (during which he was being tested).
We should see that from the prophet Ibrahim (AS) up to the last messenger, all the messengers of Allah had been descendants of Ibrahim (AS) including the last messenger Muhammad (PBUH). They were all descendants of Ibrahim, meaning he was actually given this leadership role including his own offspring because of the works he had done.
Leadership is given to a family. The family is supposed to control the world with its leadership. Which is this family? The family of Ibrahim and the families of prophets whom messages were sent to; they are supposed to guide the rest of mankind. We should see that before I brahim, so many nations had been destroyed. Before Ibrahim, there were certain nations that were destroyed when they refused to accept the messengers. But with Ibrahim, certain developments had been made. He had been given leadership role which passed through him to his own offspring. The messages continued to come through them so that they could provide guidance. Why were they here on earth?
This state of affairs continued until Musa. There was another development at the time of Musa (AS) after the destruction of Fir’aun (Pharaoh) who established himself as the vicegerent of Satan. After his destruction, Musa (AS) was given a book which contained a law and a command to fight. Prior to that there was nothing like Jihad. What used to happen was Allah would send a messenger to a community, if the community accepted him; they would be saved and would serve a purpose until certain time. If they refused, Allah would save the messenger and the people who accepted him and destroy the rest. This was what happened to the people of Noah. This was what happened to the people of Hud; This was what happened to the people of Saleh. This was what happened to the people of Shu’aib and the rest.
After the destruction of Fir’aun, we had not heard of any nation being destroyed again ever since the destruction of Fir’aun. Instead, now a book is given to contain laws of the Almighty Allah and man is given a mandate to impose the laws onto those who believe and invite those who had not accepted and even fight them and bring them into the fold.
A book was given to the children of Israel from Musa (AS) and we can see that up to the time of Isa (AS) that from time to time they actually deviated and they raised some tyrants among them like King of Ahab who had even killed the messenger of Allah sent to him and he would raise some false prophets who would prophesize to him and so on and so forth till the coming of Isa (AS.) There would be changes from time to time but how? A messenger would come and restore the book of Allah, the Torah which was given Musa and would call people to the teachings of Allah, the Almighty and he would face persecution in the hands of the tyrants. Then there would be tug of war between the two parties. Allah would then come to his aid and his own people who would eventually emerge victorious and the tyrants would be destroyed.
The state of affairs continued till Isa (AS), when the party after him emerged victorious over the Children of Israel and the religion of the Jews was abrogated and the religion of Christianity was established, that’s the true teaching of Allah, the Almighty. And gradually, if you read the history of Christian world, you would see other deviation come into the mind. They also ceased to be vicegerents of Allah, the Almighty until the old one came into darkness. That was like a time before Noah (AS) just before the coming of last prophet Muhammad (PBUH) there was no nation that was deputizing God. No leader was a deputy of Allah on earth.
No, the world witnessed two superpowers and ambassadors: the Persians in the East and the Romans in the West. These superpowers, one was a deviant Christian. Not all of them fall on the teaching of Isa (AS) which had already been destroyed. Similarly, we presently have great empires just like we have the Soviet Union and America today. One is claiming to be Christian. There is a place in the American constitution which said ‘God First’. That is to say, they claim to be deputizing God. In the other part, they even recognize the existence of God. These ones are like the Persians and the Romans. The one was claiming to be Christian and the other was a worshipping power (that’s it was the people that was worshipping the state and it was noteworthy that atheism and Leninism were mostly sponsored and widely accepted in the Soviet Union.) There was no single nation deputizing Allah.
The Satan has established his supremacy over the people on earth and as usual, we always divide the world into two: Satan would want to divide the world into two so that if you are tired with one camp, you would be pushed to the other, but all are his own parties. And the messenger of Allah himself advised he would be sent during the dusty period of human history. When the world was making that guidance which would make mankind vicegerent of Allah, when the world was overtaken by the super powers of Satan, it was that very time that Allah sent his final messenger with the final package of his message (which was) completed and perfected. This time the area He would give the message is the heart of the world, the heart of Arabia.
The people who would first receive the message were the Arabs where long words were used in communicating the message and they have been given the mandate to pass over the message to the rest of mankind. Similar message had been given to the Israelites, but they failed and turned the religion into a tribal religion. The message which was supposed to lead mankind, they converted it into the tribal religion and then only the members who were born into the tribe also at the same time were qualified to practice the religion. They had already tampered with the message, adding a lot of things which were not in and maybe much which were in.
© Freedom Fighters Ng.
Tags
Shaikh Zakzaky