History of Islam – Pre-revelation: Did other scriptures mention about Prophet Muhammad – Part 1

History of Islam – Pre-revelation: Did other scriptures mention about Prophet Muhammad

Did earlier prophets such as Moses and Jesus mention about Prophet Muhammad?

According to Islam, the answer is yes, they both mentioned about the coming of the last messenger of God to their people. There were many early christian and jewish scholars who knew about the coming of the expected messenger from their scriptures, such as Torah and the Gospel. And here I Just want to mention a few of them:

The first ones are the Priest Bahira and the Priest Nastura. Both of them, were the leading Christian scholars in their time, living in Damascus in the 6th century. They knew that the expected messenger would appear in the Arab world, and he would have marks of prophethood between his shoulders. According to Islamic history, both priests had seen P.Muhammad when he was young; and they saw the signs of his prophethood. I’m gonna mention some of their stories later in the up. videos…Another person was Ibn Hayyaban who was a Jewish scholar in the same century. He knew from the early scriptures that the expected messenger would someday have to migrate to Yathrib, which is modern-day Madina. So, this scholar left his land and went to Yathrib to look for the awaited Messenger..He arrived in Yathrib and waited for the Messenger, because he knew that his coming was near. He hoped to be one of his followers; however, he died, without having seen him..Abdullah bin Salam is another Jewish rabbi who devoted himself to study the Torah. He was living in Yathrib, too. So while he was studying, he was surprised to see some of the verses of the Torah, which mention about the coming of a Prophet, who would complete the message of the previous Prophets.

Therefore, he took an interest in the issue; because, he already heard that a prophet had appeared in Mecca. He also heard that the Prophet had left Mecca and was coming to Yathrib to live there with all the early Muslims. So Abdullah ibn Salam met with the Prophet when he came to the city of Yathrib (Madina). Then he accepted his message and became Muslim…The last one that I want to mention is Waraqa ibn Nawfal. Like other scholars, Waraqa had found the features of the last prophet in Torah and the Gospel. Waraqa lived in the Age of Ignorance in Mecca. But he was not one of the idol worshippers in the city. He believed that the idols would not bring any good nor evil to the people. So he left his community and went to Damascus. He accepted Christianity there and began to study his new religion. He learned Hebrew, he learned Torah and the Bible. and eventually he became a well-known scholar..While studying Christianity, one thing attracted his attention; the last prophet would come, and his coming was not so far. He began waiting for him and also mentioning about him to the people around. He is actually the one who comforted and testified about P.M when he got the first revelation from God…So, as a result, we can say that, prophet Muhammad was like the missing piece in the puzzle. He did not deny the messages of the previous prophets, but confirmed and completed them, according to Islamic tradition…So, What did these scriptures tell, about the last prophet?

Of course, I will Not tell all the verses in earlier scriptures that mention about P.M in this video; But I Just want to mention a few of them as an example:

The First one, that I want to mention, is from the Hebrew bible, in the book of, dudoronamy: If we look at this verse, it says:

“He said, the Lord came from Sinai, and rose from Seir onto them. He appeared in splendor from Mount Paran, and came forth with ten thousand holy ones.”

Muslim scholars said that God mentions about 3 places in this verse: Sinai; Seir; and Mount Paran. So according to these scholars, Sinai signifies Moses and the 10 commandments and the Torah that he received from God..The 2nd place in the verse called “Seir”, signifies Lord’s revelation to Jesus, because they say that Seir is a place in Palestine, where Jesus was born..And The 3rd place mentioned in the verse is “Mount Paran” which is a sign for P.Muhammad’s appearance in Mecca. Because, Paran, which is pronounced as Faran in Arabic, was one of the old names of Mecca; therefore, Mount Paran refers to the hills of Mecca…As for the Christian Bible, there are many indications to the last prophet, coming after Jesus Christ, pbuh. Especially in the Gospel of John, Jesus gives the glad tidings of a person to come, and calls him Paraclyte, or Periclyte for some scholars..Let’s first see, what Jesus mentions about the coming Paraclyte.

Here are the verses from the Gospel of John in the Bible:

Jesus said;

“I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete.(Wait)…“the Paraclet will teach you everything, and will remind you everything I said to you.”(Wait)..If I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you.”….“ he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and will tell you what is to come.”

In another verse, he said:

“I shall not speak with you for much longer, for the ruler of the world is coming”

From all these Biblical verses, we understand that: after Jesus leaves this world, God will send another prophet to the people; and this person will always speak the truth, and he will be the prophet of all times…The word Paraclete was translated in today’s Bibles as “Advocate, Spirit of Truth, and sometimes only the Spirit, The Comforter, Counselor, or the Ruler of the World. So these are the words that modern Bible mostly use for the translation of the Greek word Paraklete..However, there are some religious scholars who are also experts in Greek, who claim that the origin of the word Paraclete in Bible, is in fact Periqlyte, or Periqlytos which means “the most illustrious, the glorious, and praiseworthy”. And this meaning actually corresponds to the word “Ahmad” in Arabic.

And Ahmad is a name of PM in Islamic tradition. In fact, Ahmad, was a unique name that was never given to anyone before PM in the history. In other words, human history does not mention any person bearing the name Ahmad or Periqlyte, before P.M himself, pbuh…The Qur’an also informs us that PM’s name is “Ahmad” in the Bible. Quran says: “jesus, the son of Mary, said, “O children of Israel, indeed I am the messenger of Allah, bringing good tidings of a messenger, to come after me, whose name is Ahmad.
As I said before, there are numerous statements about a prophet who is to come, at a later time, in many other world scriptures. I won’t go into details in this video, but, if you are interested in learning more about this topic, there is a book called: “The Prophet promised in World Scriptures” written by Ali Unal and Harun Gultekin that I can recommend. I think it is a comprehensive study on this topic that you may find interesting. I hope you enjoyed the video. Thank you for watching!