Questioner: In Surah Luqman, Allah Ta’ala has said about Hazrat Luqman,
وَاِذۡ قَالَ لُقۡمٰنُ لِابۡنِہٖ وَہُوَ یَعِظُہٗ یٰبُنَیَّ لَا تُشۡرِکۡ بِاللّٰہِ ؕؔ اِنَّ الشِّرۡکَ لَظُلۡمٌ عَظِیۡمٌ Huzoor, could you kindly, this is the first part of the question, could you kindly let us know whether Hazrat Luqman was a Prophet or just…?
Huzoor (rh): Well, there are two opinions about it. Some people believe in him to be just a wise man, and most of the Muslim scholars do that and some consider him to be a prophet.
Questioner: Huzoor, where was he from? Was he from Egypt, Greek or Ethiopia
Huzoor (rh): or any other country of the world?
Questioner: Would you please throw some light? Would you kindly give us some history?
Huzoor (rh): I have no idea.
Questioner: And sir, after preaching what he preached, that beautiful verses in the Holy Qur’an…
Huzoor (rh): There is a discussion about this in Tafsir-e-Tabir and elsewhere as well. People have conjectures. No definite knowledge is possessed by anyone. Just you can conjecture that he might have been from that country or from that country. But it is not considered important by the Holy Qur’an or the Holy Qur’an might have mentioned it, should have mentioned it otherwise. So what is the next question, please?
Questioner: Huzoor, a third part of the question, same question. After preaching his son those beautiful verses in the الشِّرۡکَ لَظُلۡمٌ عَظِیۡمٌ and other things which are following after that, how much do we know about his son? Was he a righteous man or…
Huzoor (rh): What do you think?
Questioner: Do you know any detail, please?
Huzoor (rh): Pardon?
Questioner: Do you know any details?
Huzoor (rh): You know, the Holy Qur’an has its particular style. By the way, when you read these verses, the injunctions of Luqman to his son, one cannot fail to recognize the language of Prophets. When Abraham (as) is addressing his sons or Isaac (as) is addressing his sons and so on, the Prophets are admonishing their children. They generally use the same style of language. Particularly, they lay special stress upon perfect unity of God, unbreakable, inscrutable unity and they bring to the limelight the abhorrence of idolatry and so on.
So the whole style of Luqman seems to be that of a Prophet. Now, it is the style of the Holy Qur’an that when an admonishment is successfully accepted, it leaves the matter at that. I mean, it doesn’t go into detail about that. But when it is denied or rebelled against, then invariably the Holy Qur’an speaks on what happened later on. I mean, you can’t find any exception to this general rule. Wherever a word of advice is rendered or an admonishment is given to some people, if they accept it, the Holy Qur’an doesn’t enlarge further on the subject. If it is rejected or rebelled against, then the Holy Qur’an always points out to the ill consequences of their behaviour and non-cooperation and the punishment which is meted out to them by Allah. So in this regard, the obvious conclusion is that the son was a righteous man and he must have accepted the advice of his father or the Holy Qur’an should have told us. He heard, listened to him and then didn’t obey and then this happened to him. So because that part is missing, it is unnecessary. It is obviously implied that he was a righteous man.
