What is really behind the call to "obey the messenger"?

Let me start off by pointing out that the difficult thing for a human mind is not the learning part but unlearning the part it already knows. In fact, there is a term in psychology for the related unease and discomfort we feel for letting go, cognitive disequilibrium, the term describes what happens when a discrepancy between something new and something is already known or believed clash. To make matters worse, this particular condition is more pronounced at the extreme ends of the learning spectrum.

Hence when somebody is narrowly schooled in a particular way as opposed to a broad-based education and on top of that restricted to a particular sect's take, it is then very hard to shake off the carefully constructed reality of the group. Similarly, an expert of the same school is in the same boat but suffers from an overdose of the questionable pool.

Why is the above relevant? In order to understand the sect scene, it is important to know how sects flourish and are able to justify their position and more importantly how they employ, more to the point, deploy their members in order to propagate their real position as opposed to the stated one. Of course with experience, one is able to gauge someone's real objective from the type of questions they ask.I will explain.

The insistence on attaching an out of context meaning to "Obey the messenger" along with a few other out of context examples from the book of God are all part of a time-tested strategy to subjugate ordinary people, not to mention the opening of the door to tarnish the Prophet of God Pbuh. Anyway, the changing of the Qaba, the incident of the honey, the cutting of the palm tree and few others are all routinely used, along with the bit about the Hikma, (which any one of us can gain as per the promised of God) to try and prove that the Prophet of God received Revelations in addition to the "official" Revelations in the form of the Quran.

Just this one verse is enough to refute these additional revelation claims; Nothing is said to you, [O Muhammad], except what was already said to the messengers before you. Indeed, your Lord is a possessor of forgiveness and a possessor of painful penalty. Quran 41:43

But here is the thing, even if there were additional Revelations and the Prophet Pbuh neglected to record them in the same way as he did the Quran, verbatim, written and memorized then he would have gone against God direct command;

O Messenger, announce that which has been revealed to you from your Lord, and if you do not, then you have not conveyed His message. And Allah will protect you from the people. Indeed, Allah does not guide the disbelieving people. Quran 5:67

Hence, when we combine the above two verses, there is nothing left to justify the "additional" Revelations claim.

But the most hypocritical tactic has to be the out of context quoting of actual verses from the Quran. Obviously, this hand-wavy maneuver is attempted in a desperate attempt to try and cement their additional Revelations claim. I say desperate because this is also the easiest tactic to expose. The reason it is the easiest is that the entire set of Revelations, with a definite beginning and a definite end, are all preserved in a sequence that the Quran repeatedly refers to as the book. Hence all one needs to do is read them in context and the deception is exposed and over with. The three verses that need to be mentioned in this respect are Quran 59:7, Quran 53:3 and Quran 33: 21. 

The full sequence of making the case for the additional Revelations is at least two orders removed from the audible and visible words of God.

The first deviation is to imply that Prophet of God Mohammad received revelations other than the Quran and then the second order of the deviation is that this second set of Revelations, unlike the Quran, can only be understood by an elitist cabal of "scholars".

Sounds familiar?

Incidentally, this is the bases for all the sects in every religion on earth. Furthermore, supposedly this second set of "Revelations" is the "meaning" of the Quran, which in itself is a guide hence, explanation of something.

Now let us get to the meat of the issue, why the insistence on this second set of "Revelations? Especially when by now the often repeated complete and perfected claim of the Quran is for all to look up and confirm for themselves. Thus opening the door to new "Revelations" different than what is already detailed in the official message the Quran.

And this is what all the fight is about.

An elitist cabal hell-bent on taking away the God-given freedoms and rights from individuals. How do you tell people to abandon the official Revelations? The only effective and proven way do so is to dupe people into believing that they are not abandoning God's Revelations because they are now following it through "another" set of "Revelations". So how effective is this ploy? Stay tuned, most are surprised.

The good news is that with a bit of digging one can avoid falling for this unashamed sophistry. The way of selling all this is rather crude but once again effective just the same. First, a series of false premises are established in order to extract a conclusion that fits an already held and /or taught the false position. Once again, there is a term for it, "stacking the cards", a logical fallacy and like all logical fallacies, the objective is to appeal to emotions rather than the intellect. In order to reduce the chances of the falsehood been exposed, the focus is shifted towards everything that cannot be verified. A number of fronts are needed to pull this off. The most important of these are the notions of Blind faith and Taqleed (essentially not to question the teacher); both are a shut up call to those who may dare to challenge the propagators. In order to deal with the ones who can actually expose the conspiracy, serious resources are specifically allocated to deal with the "troublemakers".

Since considerable resources are needed to ensure the success of a campaign of this nature, there are two main routes to take for achieving it. The first is to try and get in bed with a suitable party already possesses the resources, a preferred shortcut of the religious cabal. What is in it for the party? Of course the promise of even more resources hence more influence and power. The alternative is to try and raise the needed resources from scratch. The most convenient way for the former is the state itself, which I often refer to as the "emperor". Historically this route has brought the most success to the clergy of every religion to name. The latter, in turn, can be done in two ways; firstly to encourage the masses to contribute towards spreading God's word. Who would dare to refuse? Even though Cloud Financing was mastered by the religious cabals throughout the ages but that never stops them from outright stealing from the masses, let’s call it the second way.

The third equally important element of the equation is too dumb down the masses first. This guarantees two things, the vast majority will not be capable of figuring out what is being done to them and of course, it also makes it that much easier to convince unsuspecting masses to part with their hard-earned money.

Once the realization set in among the usual circles that the word of God unlike earlier Revelations, which were entrusted to the "scholars" and clergy, is impossible to change, that is the visible audible words of God as detailed in the Quran. So the next logical step was to come up with another set of unofficial God's words in order to "abrogate" the official words of God. One would say on the surface a workable solution and to some extent it did work, clearly, a large number of "ignorant" believers were successfully duped into believing the new words of God.

As if this was not enough, the cabal came up with an actual mechanism to "cancel", yes cancel scores of Quranic verses. As usual, the various scholars of different sects can't seem to agree on which verses abrogate which ones but all agree on the "need" to cancel words of God. So much for the "consensus of the scholars" claim. This alien notion of al-nāsikh wal-mansūkh (abrogation) was cooked up and to this day is their Trojan horse. When cornered, out it comes, surprising the by now suitably dumbed down masses.

Needless to say, the nonsense of abrogation was exposed by upright scholars throughout the history and one of the earliest opposition can be traced back to Abu Muslim Al-Asfahani and Ibn Rushd and the Ibn Khaldun of this world. Among the modern scholars Mohammad Asad, Ahmed Subhy Mansour, Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq, and Shabbir Ahmed are often cited.

Most impartial observers always maintained that the "scholars" were in on it when it came to distortion of God's words as confirmed by the Quran itself. Unfortunately for the distorter and cancellers, the message this time around is the perfectly preserved word for word and as the information age comes into its own there is nowhere to hide from the truth.

It is clear now that the reasons for distortion of the message are also not anything out of the ordinary, personal gains, peer pressure, fear of losing status, fear of losing position and of course the fear of the "emperor" were and are all routine motivations. In addition, the distortions were done with the specific objective of pleasing the ones who took care of them when they delivered and also "took care of them" when they failed to deliver. One would think anyone with a functioning brain cell would at least raise the tough questions and unlike in the olden days when these types of challenges were easily shouted down, the good news is that that is not the case now. The shouts of "ask an Imam" are being drowned out by the din of the thousands of servers around the world that has changed how information is sent and received, forever.

This game changer has enabled ordinary folks to check and cross-check claims in a fraction of the time previously needing days and weeks even years. So let us examine how some of these key notions are dealt with within the Quran, the ultimate Self Referenced book. What does the Quran say what is the meaning of "obey the messenger" and more importantly how is the issue of "explanation" of the Quran dealt with within the Quran? And lastly what is to be followed by the believers and what will render one to be labeled as an unbeliever by God Himself.

Before we go directly to the Quran on the issue of "obey the messenger" and the issue of "explanation", let us first deal with the question that refuses to go away; why would the messenger prohibit the writing down of the "meaning" part of Revelations even temporarily.

The follow-up question is even more puzzling if the Ahadith are also part of the Revelations that the messenger was supposed to deliver then what possible harm can come out of mixing revelations from the onset? Perhaps as footnotes within the body of the Quran :)

Since it is clear that the cry behind "obey the messenger" is to claim of additional Revelations, all we have to do is to demonstrate that the Revelations to Prophet Mohammad Pbuh which we are suppose to obey were restricted to the Quran and Quran Alone. Even if there were any other forms of communication between the Prophet of God and God then that is none of our business. It is none of our business because we are told in no uncertain terms that the Revelations we are to follow are in a single book. Furthermore, the Book is arranged into identifiable chapters and not a loose collection of "sayings", as is the case with Hadith. This is extremely important because the challenge of God of the immutability of the Quran is tied to chapters. 

The point to keep in mind is pretty straightforward. Since the Quran reached the people through the mouth of the messenger hence it makes perfect sense to add "and obey the messenger" to "obey God" dozens of times and not once as "obey Mohammad" Pbuh. Beside the word used between the two references to "obey" is "and" and not "or".

God details "obey the messenger" very clearly in the Quran, hence no need to guess its meaning and intent. The first thing to note is the repeated reference to the Book as mentioned above, with a clear implication of a beginning and an end. And the use of the singular underlines the fact that there is only one book of Revelations under discussion. So if there were additional Revelations then they had to be included in this one book.

"And We have revealed the Book to you which has the clear explanation of everything, and a guidance and mercy and good news for those who submit." 16:89

And again;

"Surely We have revealed the Book to you with the truth that you may judge between people by means of that which Allah has shown you; and be not an advocate on behalf of the treacherous." 4:105

And yet again;

"And We have revealed to you the Book with the truth, verifying what is before it of the Book and a guardian over it, therefore judge between them by what Allah has revealed and do not follow their low desires (to turn away) from the truth that has come to you;" 5:48

And then this;

"Shall I then seek a Ruler other than Allah? When He it is Who has revealed to you the Book (which is) distinctly elucidated;" 6:114

There nothing else to obey, but the book, delivered by the messenger and God questions us about the very issue of another book;

"What! shall We then treat the Muslims as the Criminals? What has happened to you? How do you judge? Or have you a book from which you study? That you have surely therein what you choose?" 68:35-38

So what are we supposed to study? As it happens we are supposed to study the very book, given to the Prophet of God Mohammad, even though he was given the Hikma, as is promised to all those who strive in the way of God, by following and studying the very same book, with a definite beginning and a definite end, the very definition of a book;

It is not for a human that Allah should give him the book and authority and prophethood and then he would say to the people, "Be servants to me rather than Allah ," but [instead, he would say], "Be pious scholars of the Lord because of what you have taught of the book and because of what you have studied." Quran 3:79

The sheer number of verses that hits the Hadith claims out of the park from different angles is amazing. The.following two verses are a clear case in point yet again. There is no difference between the obedience of God and the obedience of His messenger;

"O you who believe! obey Allah and His messenger and do not turn back from Him while you hear" 8:20

And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger and transgresses His limits - He will put him into the Fire to abide eternally therein, and he will have a humiliating punishment. Quran 4:14

In both the above verses it is clear that the words to be heard and the limits both belong to God, the clear use of the singular (عَنْهُ) in 8:20 and (حُدُودَهُ) in 4:14 leaves no doubt whatsoever. If there were more than one disobedience of turning away or more than one limits then here is where God would have separated them for our understanding.

In addition, this process of Revelations is time stamped with these words "this day" and mark a clear end point of completion of the single Book Quran;

Prohibited to you are dead animals, blood, the flesh of swine, and that which has been dedicated to other than Allah, and [those animals] killed by strangling or by a violent blow or by a head-long fall or by the goring of horns, and those from which a wild animal has eaten, except what you [are able to] slaughter [before its death], and those which are sacrificed on stone altars, and [prohibited is] that you seek decision through divining arrows. That is grave disobedience. THIS DAY those who disbelieve have despaired of [defeating] your religion; so fear them not, but fear Me. THIS DAY I have perfected for you your religion and completed My favor upon you and have approved for you Islam as religion. But whoever is forced by severe hunger with no inclination to sin then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. Quran 5:03

That leaves us what God has to say on the issue of explanation of His words. God preserved the Quran for us for a reason and the reason is so that we will not become slaves to what was said and done over a thousand years back. To now somehow introduce the notion that the completeness and perfection of God's Book need something more is tantamount to challenging His declaration of completeness and perfection.

Before parroting words like "Hadith explains the Quran" we must pay attention to God's words on the very issue of explanation.

"And they do not come to you with an argument except that We bring you the truth and the BEST EXPLANATION (وَأَحْسَنَ تَفْسِيرًا). Quran 25:30-33

And then this;

"وَكُلَّ شَيْءٍ فَصَّلْنَاهُ تَفْصِيلًا ............" Quran 17:12 Even Hilali the ultra-conservative translates it as "And We have explained everything (in detail) with FULL EXPLANATION"

Judging by the current state of the sect scene, where the mixing of true Revelations with secondary sources in a tightly controlled environment is the norm, the Prophet of God was 100% right in forbidding any of his sayings to be written down for general consumption, even this very piece of information of not writing apparently came to us by the same secondary sources that now try to justify their relevance. The not writing down also included even the ones which were somehow classified as "super Revelation", the now famed Ahadith Qudsi. Oddly enough some of these sayings of God even lack the requisite Sahih label but why should that bother them? Once conviction based on the "reviews" of others sets in reason and logic goes out the proverbial window.

So now we have three classes of Revelations in Islam alone according to the distorters, the Quran, the book of God is the first agreed upon. No thanks to the scholars. In order to complete the deception, customary and cynical lip service is given to the Quran, which no single sect can take credit for and this is done primarily to ensure not losing the crowd altogether. The second type is the reported words of God passed down to us through the companions of the Prophet Pbuh, most of them apparently the private collection of one "favored" companion, the Qudsi collection and the third type is marketed as the "explanation of the Quran", imagine that. With complete and often contradictory so-called "explanations" by different sects.

Here we must touch on the propagation of the originalism arguments, the so-called Ahlu-s-Sunnah, with respect to the understanding and interpretation of the Quranic message, this illogical position of the traditionalist in addition to the authenticity issues needs to be challenged. It makes absolutely no sense to introduce originalism into the understanding of a Universal message. Because in that case, the "original" fixed understanding will rob the universality from the original message, thus replacing it with the understanding of a select set of individuals, a theological impossibility, that happened to be around when the Prophet of God was delivering the message. Furthermore, to make matters worse, in spite of the tall claims no single verifiable agreed-upon record of this understanding can be found anywhere. Given the sect scene, a lot of competing versions are in circulations. Besides, mere claims of single person narrations have zero value in the very Book of God for which all these "original" understandings are propagated by the respective sects.

Hence the argument that this Universal message was already understood by one set of people (companions) therefore another set of people with even a broader knowledge base are disqualified from understanding it on their own is a ruse. Needless to say not a word in the Quran to support this view.

And then there is the issue of the presence of hypocrites among the companions as confirmed by the Quran 9:101 and ironically the Hadith literature and the "science of Hadith" are completely silent. Just so that we are clear on the issue of science part of the claim, to be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence and subject to specific principles of reasoning. Good luck with that.

Now for that list to gauge how effective can duping the masses be. Mind you this list is merely my top fifty, the actual list runs into hundreds of dos and don'ts, mostly don'ts, a hallmark of subjugation;

1. Shahada with Mohammad’s name in it.
2. 5-time Salat
3. Number of Rakats in Salat
4. Adzan
5. 2.5% Zakat
6. Hajj timings restricted to three days
7. Starting time of Fast up to an hour before Sunrise
8. Hijab
9. Mahram as an escort
10. Music and dancing Haram
11. Wearing of Silk and Gold Haram
12. Dog being unclean
13. Rjam (Stoning to death as a punishment)
14. Pregnancy as proof of guilt
15. 80 lashes for consuming alcohol
16. Imams as infallible
17. Ijma (Consensus of scholars)
18. Taqleed (To follow the teachings of Imams blindly)
19. Circumcision
20. More than 4 steps of Wadu
21. Growing of beards as a Religious duty
22. Women are forbidden to offer Salat during menstruation
23. Taking Picture Haram
24. Division into Sects
25. Minimum age of marriage fixed at 9 years
26. Prayer of Istikhara
27. Taraweeh
28. A long list of foods declared Haram other than, dead meat, the flesh of swine, blood and any meat other than God's name have been called.
29. The signature slogan of the Muslims "Allah hu Akbar"
30. Shaving of the hair of a newborn
31. Separation of the genders
32. Wearing a cap as obligatory for praying
33. Wearing of Hijab as obligatory for praying
34. Entering the toilet with a left foot
35. wearing of the lower garment above the ankles for men
36. Wearing of the lower garment below the ankles for women
37. Wudu a must for touching the Quran
38. The return of Jesus
39. Belief in Dajjal
40. Belief in Imam Mahdi
41. Punishment of the grave
42. Death punishment for apostasy
43. To take more than one wife which are not widows
44. Abrogation of the verses of the Quran
45. Jizyah as a tax on non-Muslims in Muslim lands.
46. Fatwas
47. The born Muslim claim
48. The notion of a madhab
49. Predestination
50. Unqualified intercession

So what is the common thread running through the above familiar list?

Not a single one on the above list can be found in the Quran. Imagine that.

The time-tested question to ask to get to the bottom of a claim or make sense of an event is; who benefits from it? And by that, I mean actual immediate, short term and long term benefits, not a promise of a benefit in the afterlife. One thing is for sure, not the people. I can go down the list and detail each one of them but so can you. We will leave it for now except to note that the above is a blueprint for raising an army stripped of free and rational thought and scared to death by the mind-messing professionals that control these sects. In other words, a perfect tool for them to exploit as they please. Another discussion.

For now, any reasonable person after having a close and hard look will promptly ditch the entire list if they cannot verify its authenticity. Unfortunately, the reaction of the majority is to keep on clinging to it because the above list is what defines them now and since none of it is found in the Quran then it is not the message of the Quran that makes them see themselves as Muslims.

Cognitive disequilibrium is alive and well. Ironically they actually use the list as a justification of their claim that the Prophet Pbuh had received additional Revelations if they don't then they must face up to the fact that they are doing it plain wrong. Very few have the courage to admit to being totally wrong and risk breaking away from the comfort of being in the majority. The rationale is; if all these people are doing it then it must be right. It also does not bother them that there are even bigger majorities outside Islam that do it radically different and also claim to be right.

So much for the majority is always "right" argument.

The obvious thing to do is to question; are we following the word of God as God meant it to be followed?

Instead, the surprising question is "if we didn't have the Hadith how will we know what to do? How will we know how to pray? Unsurprisingly similarly held illogical positions are held in even nonreligious thinking. "We need rich job creators to take care of us" will sound very familiar to many.

The apparent different versions of this "additional" Revelations also don't pose any problem for them. They are able to continue supporting their respective sect's position by reiterating the absurd claim that "our scholars are better than yours", without any attempt to challenge their claims. When the cognitive dissonance begins to bother them too much, they promptly declare members of all other sects as Kafirs and that apparently does the trick because now "rejecting Hadith" is not rejecting Hadith because the rationale is that "kafirs" cannot know what the Prophet of God said. Never mind that these same "Kafirs" .........."believe in Allah, and in the hereafter, and in Malaika, and in the Book, and the Prophets." ......... Quran (2:177)

The arrangement in a twisted way works perfectly for each and every sect against every other sect.

Once they are that far gone it also does not bother them one bit that it is impossible for them to verify anything their scholars are ramming down their throats except of course through the "reviews" of other scholars, who in turn are also clueless on the issue of authenticity.

So much for God's mercy in gifting us the Quran free from the "scholars" and clerics.

For the minority among us who do raise the alarm, we have the words of God to comfort us against the majority held position;

And if you obey most of those upon the earth, they will mislead you from the way of Allah. They follow not except assumption, and they are not but falsifying. Quran 6:116

And then this warning;

And most of them believe not in Allah except while they associate others with Him. Quran 12:106