Hazrat Masih Maud A.S. has written about this in some detail in his book Lazoonul Masih. And it’s a very interesting chapter to read. The fact is that first of all you should understand the phenomena of this terminology as used as a metaphorical expression. Somebody is given a name which is not his name and the words of similarity are also omitted. This is a figure of speech in every language. For instance, you can say somebody is Shakespeare and you do not use the words of similarity by saying he is like Shakespeare, or similar to Shakespeare, or near to Shakespeare, but just you say he is Shakespeare.
Now that sort of compliment is the highest compliment in this regard, in this sphere. And when you add the words of similarity, then something of the beauty of the compliment goes out. I mean this is a lesser compliment if you add the words of similarity. Like if you say somebody is like Shakespeare, that’s a very small compliment as compared to when you say he is Shakespeare. Or if you say somebody is like a lion, that’s also a compliment, no doubt. But if you say he is lion, that’s much different and much more forceful.
So when you use this figure of speech in various languages, it’s a common factor everywhere, then you do not have to produce more than one similarity before you use this compliment for anybody. Even just one prominent characteristic of one person is apparent transfer to the other. And when you call somebody a Shakespeare, he does not have to be a British, he does not have to be in shape and figure and other habits like Shakespeare.
Nationality is not important in this. Any other factor is just irrelevant. Shakespeare’s importance has to be found. That importance lies in his being a dramatist of the greatest order, of the highest order. So if somebody is a dramatist, that’s enough. And it suffices to call him a Shakespeare if he has no other similarity. Similarly when you call someone Hatam Tai, if that person is generous, even if his tribe is not Tai, even if he is not an Arab but is an Ajami, and even if no other similarity exists, yet this one singular feature of his being generous justifies his being called a Hatam Tai.
So when Ahazrat Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam calls someone in his ummah Masih, first of all you must understand the basic characteristics of a Masih. And if they are present, it is justified to call that person a Masih. What is the differentiating feature, what is the distinctive feature of a Masih? That has to be understood. But not only that, in this case the similarities do not end there. They are much more than the ordinary usage of this term in ordinary languages. Even if one particular feature of Masih was present in Ahazrat Masih Maud alayhi sallallahu alaihi wasallam, it was distinctive in Masih, his being called a Masih was justified. That is my argument.
But if you find many other similarities on top of that, then perhaps it is so evident that only a blind man misses the analogy between the two, can miss the analogy between the two. So I begin with the central point. What is Masih as distinct from other prophets? That has to be understood. What was the role of Masih in the background of Judaism? Because it was the first time in the world among known religions that the term Masih was used as a prediction. And it was promised that a Masih would appear among you. His name was Jesus Christ, but his office was Masih.
So this is why I repeat the word Masih, not Jesus Christ. Jews were expecting someone to appear in the name of Masih. Although he came and they did not recognize him, because they were expecting him to be of a different nature altogether. But that is not the point. The point is, when he did come, and we believe that he came, then what was the distinctive feature of Masih that we observe from his life, putting him on a different platform from the rest of the Jewish prophets? This is the fundamental question. Once it is solved, the question of analogy will also be solved.
As I see it, previous to him, the Jews were permitted to take their revenge, and they were within their rights, of course. But the stress upon revenge and defence against sword by sword was just a common permission to all the Jewish prophets who came after him. So much so that the permission for defence became an instrument of torture, an instrument of revenge, and an instrument of atrocity against others. And it lost its meaning and significance altogether when Masih appeared. It had lost it before.
So the Jewish religion became a religion of atrocities and cruelties and hard-heartedness. This feature is repeated after Ahafinji. This feature is repeated in the Holy Qur’an about the latter days of Jewish people. Summa qasat ulubugum. Summa qasat ulubugum. This is a verse often repeated in the Holy Qur’an in various ways. So Messiahhood is a remedy for a disease of a people, which in a nutshell can be summed up as hardening of hearts, cruelty, atrocities, transgression against others’ rights. This is exactly what had happened to the Jewish people before Messiah came.
And secondly, the Holy Qur’an tells us that they refused the authority of Allah and followed their own authorities, that is, the authorities of their religious scholars. And they had lost spirituality and had only stuck to form. This was the second nature of their disease. So they were to be brought back from form to spirituality, to essence. These are the two major diseases of the Jews, which were not rectified previously by other prophets. Even David, even Solomon, peace be upon them, they were permitted to defend their rights with swords, so much so that when you look back in history, they appeared to be rather aggressors than defenders.
So much sword was used in their reigns that we don’t know the crimes of those people against whom they raised swords, they have not been recorded. But whatever is recorded is their glorious victory over their enemies. So the people are rightfully inclined to believe, if the Holy Qur’an had not exonerated them I mean, that the whole of the Jewish people had become aggressors, even their prophets and kings. So the Messiah came to completely reverse the phenomenon. The right, the right which the Bible had given, of course still lay with the Christians, but it said that out of sacrifice, for the sake of religion, for the name of Torah and Moses, we must offer sacrifices and cease to take our right by force.
So a complete revolution took place in Judaism, where sword was permitted to be used by the enemies, transgression was transferred to them, aggression became their right, cruelty was left to them, and the godly people were completely disarmed as far as the right of defence was concerned. They were left with offering of sacrifices, offering their necks, offering their properties, offering their homes to be burned, offering themselves to be burnt alive. This is Messiahhood. Now you read the entire history of Judaism, without, except this, you cannot distinguish Messiahhood from the other phenomena of prophets. And this is not all.
Sacrifice a long history of persecution, a long history of apparent defencelessness against most powerful enemies and cruel enemies, yet progressive victory of the weak against the offender and the powerful, without there being any arms involved in defence. This is Messiahhood. Now when you look back again to the origin of Judaism, that is, let’s look, start from the time of Torah, you’ll understand that Hazrat Moses was the first lawbringer, and it was right from his time that an allegation was being made against him that you are not a rational person, you tend to win by force.
And the Holy Quran also preserved one of such allegations, that you want to enforce yourself through means of power and oppression. That allegation continued to build during the following periods in Judaism. If Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, had attempted to defend these prophets by logic, by words of mouth, by quoting scriptures and histories and this and that, nobody would have believed him. Everybody would have continued to believe that Judaism is a religion of force, it spread through the force of arms, and when they were deprived of the force, then it ceased to spread. This was the allegation. How could it be refuted? Through exactly transforming the whole situation.
Now the sword was entirely left to the enemies, and sacrifices were left to the people of Torah. These Christians were, according to Christ’s claim himself, so the religion was defended. Despite the fact that they were completely poor, helpless, innocent people, being persecuted from all sides, yet they won ultimately. If it was sword which won in the first instance, then how it came that in the second instance, it completely sold as people won with the same message. That established that it was the beauty of message, the force of message from Allah, the help from Allah which had become victorious even in the first instance.
Now the same thing is repeated in our time. To begin with, Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was a law-bringer like Moses was. He was similar to him according to the claim of the Holy Quran. He was permitted to defend himself against the sword which was raised against him by the enemies first, and when the atrocities went beyond all limits, then he was permitted. But once he was permitted to defend, the enemies started talking about a link between the spread of Islam and sword of Islam, and the whole world started talking against him and his followers, and the later so-called caliphs but kings of Islam.
Islam is a religion of barbarism and it only can spread through sword and that is the secret of Islam’s victory over others, otherwise message has nothing in it. Unfortunately, this idea was further supported by Muslim scholars, and there are such scholars and some very popular scholars among the Muslims of today who claim that as long as our Huzoor sallallahu alaihi wa sallam relied on arguments and spiritual powers, he could not spread Islam among the Arabians. The moment he took up sword, then he brought them to reason, and he forced them to listen to the word of Allah, but not without the help of sword. Look at Maulana Madhubi Sahib, read his Hadith of Jihad, and then you’ll understand what I mean to say.
So if Allah wanted to defend Moses before him, who was not as dear as Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was, why should he not have defended Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in the same manner? As Jesus stood, that is Messiah, stood in relation to Moses, so a Messiah was ordained for Ummat-e-Muhammad-e-Azam, to bring about the same sort of revolution, where sword will be taken away from them, they will be deprived of the right of defence, yet left alone and defenceless, they would ultimately become victorious, and no persecution would be permitted to eliminate them, rather it would leave them stronger than before.
That was the phenomenon of Messiah, which was repeated. And we are passing through that phase, one hundred years of our history, is exactly unfolding the history of Christianity, early Christianity, that is to say. And after every persecution we know we are becoming more powerful and we gain more influence, and increase in number and wealth, and every quality which is, I mean every value which is being robbed from us, instead of being deprived of those values, new values are added to us. This is the phenomenon of Messiah, persecution but not with a loss, persecution with a gain. And this is how we are defending Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam through our blood and our sacrifices.
It was the Quran which won in the first instance, it was not sword, nor you own the sword, and the Quran is apparently defenceless, yet the rationale of the Quran, the beauty of the Quran is becoming victorious at every encounter, and the true Islam is winning ground daily by the arts in every direction. This is the fundamental, as I understand, of Messiahhood. And this similarity is so obvious that I wonder how people can miss it. But there are other similarities, for instance, the time, first of all, the position. Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, whenever he mentioned Messiah, his second advent, he said he would come among the akhirin, the latter day’s people. And he would also, through implications, through inferences, would reach also the conclusion that he was to appear at the head of the 14th century.
When we look back at the first Messiah, he also appears among the latter day’s people. He also comes at the head of the 14th century. The distance between Moses and Messiah is about 1300 years. And this is exactly the case with Hazrat Masih Maudud A.S. The distance between Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in time and him is 1300 years. Jesus did not bring a new law. In fact, he claimed that I have not come to change a jot of Bible. So Hazrat Masih Maudud A.S. claimed that I have not to bring a new law, I have come to complete it in essence and in practice. And that is what Jesus said. Similarly, the revelation which was given to Jesus, according to the Holy Quran and according to their own claim as well, it is called Injil, An-Ajil.
You know what An-Ajil means? It means Mubashirat, nothing else. Injil means a glad tiding and An-Ajil is the plural of Injil which means Mubashirat. And Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam predicted that lam yabfa min al-nubuwata illa al-mubashirat. That is An-Ajil. So many similarities and the similarities are further extended not in the person of Hazrat Masih Maudud A.S. alone but in the person of his opponents as well. Hazrat Rasul-e-Karim sallallahu alaihi wa sallam described in detail the age when Messiah would appear and he himself predicted that his ummah in those days would be like the ummah of the Jews. And he said the similarity would be so complete as one shoe out of the pair is similar to the other shoe of the same pair.
So my people apparently who are so-called Muslims we should say, according to that prediction, they would become exactly like Jews of Jesus Christ’s time with hardened hearts and all these qualities of that time have been repeated by Hazrat Rasul-e-Karim sallallahu alaihi And he says they would become like these people. So if they have the same disease, their energy should be the same. That is Messiahhood. So similarity is extended to the whole ummah. Because the ummah would become a people like the Jews, so the answer is the same, Messiahhood.
That is the only cure for such a people, to bring them back from form to spirituality, from aggression to a defenseless sacrifice. So Hazrat Masih Maud a.s. has also quoted other similarities, for instance the empire under which Jesus appeared was a foreign Roman empire. And the empire under which Hazrat Masih Maud a.s. appeared was also an extension of Roman empire. The fact that the British or the western governments are an extension of Roman empire can be verified by the claims of their own leaders.
For instance Churchill in his book on compatriots, I don’t remember the name, exactly the title of the book, but that is the book which describes some of his contemporaries, compatriots, contemporaries. And the title I just missed, but in that book under the title Trotsky, he writes that the western civilization and the western political power of today is in fact a revival of the Roman empire, and an extension of the same empire which had lost to the world for a while. So a person no less than Churchill also claims that this is exactly Roman empire that we see today, in a different form.
So Hazrat Masih Maud a.s. had said exactly the same thing, and he has written it in his book, that the present government is in fact a form of Roman empire. And under the Roman empire, Muslims of India were as significant and as small, as unimportant as the Jews were in the days of Jesus Christ under the Roman empire of that time. And there a feud started between two factions, Jesus Christ was on one side and the Jews were on the other. So to defeat Messiahhood, they concocted certain allegations against him and went to the Roman empire and asked them to have him persecuted. And he was persecuted because of that. In fact it was not because of their internal differences, they had alleged that he is not loyal to the government. And this was the debate mainly which went on before Pilate.
So Hazrat Masih Maud a.s., an attempt to my life was made also under the Roman empire. But only I was saved from a cross, or from hanging, because of the blessing of Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa s.a.w. It is not necessary that every feature must repeat. So this similarity is extended also in that sphere. The government, its similarities, the position of Muslims vis-a-vis that empire, and their state of mind and state of heart, everything is similar.
So Hazrat Masih Maud a.s. goes on counting certain other interesting features of analogy. If you want to know more, you better refer to that book I have mentioned. But for the time being I think it should suffice.
