The Greatest Model in History

Hi, and welcome to Midnight Cry, a program that is committed to speaking the truth in love. I'm your host, Romul Gossain, and today we have with us Dr. James White, who will be discussing with us who is the greatest model in history.

First of all, welcome to the show, James. Good to be with you, sir. Now we know through history that one very important aspect of Jesus Christ is Him being the mediator. He's intercession for us. Is there an equivalent in Islam?

Muhammad’s Role as Intercessor in Islam

Why is Muhammad so important?

Well, you know, because Islam denies to the Muslim people a mediator in the person of Christ by denying that the Jewish Messiah had any relevance outside of the Jewish people, by denying that He was called to be Savior of the world, and so on and so forth, the function of a mediator still has to be filled by someone.

And so there have been innovations introduced over the history of Islam, which some Muslims identify as bid 'ah, which include, you know, going to Muhammad's grave and praying there and leaving gifts and all sorts of things like this.

And I naturally understand what that inclination is. I can understand where it's coming from. But some of it comes directly from Muhammad himself. And one of these comes from the concept of intercession.

Now, as you may know, Muhammad asked Allah—this is all according to the Islamic sources—Muhammad asked Allah if he could pray for his parents who had died as mushrikeen, they had died as idolaters, and Allah said that he could not.

But most people are not aware of the fact that Muhammad actually has been granted two intercessions. One, the unusual one, the one that a lot of people don't know about, is that he was given the right to intercede for one mushrikeen, one person who died upon Shirk.

This was a special privilege. Special privilege given to Muhammad. And he was allowed to intercede for his uncle, Abu Talib. Because if you know Islamic history, you know that at the commencement of the prophethood of Muhammad and his earthly ministry, shall we say, starting in 610, he was very unpopular for about 12 years there in Mecca.

And if it were not for the protection of Abu Talib, he certainly would have either been driven out of Mecca or killed. But Abu Talib protected him. And though Muhammad did everything he could to get him to say the Shahada and to confess there is only one God, Allah, even on his deathbed, pleading with him to do so, he remained faithful to his ancestral gods.

And so Muhammad was given the right to intercede for Abu Talib. And as a result, Abu Talib has, well, I guess the only way to describe it is the best spot in hell, if there can be a best spot in hell.

He is described as wearing sandals that are so hot that his brains boil. But that's the best you can get in hell. Or another has him standing in flames up to his ankles so that his brains boil. But anyway, that's the best punishment.

And he has the best punishment. So the least punishment. Exactly. The least severe punishment would be to be standing in flames up to your ankles so that your brains boil. So that's the garden spot of the fire.

So that's one form of intercession. Much more important form of intercession is recorded by Sahih al-Bukhari. And I actually want to read this particular hadith to you because it, I think, is very important to understand the concept that is being, this is coming from Anas, narrated by Anas.

Allah's apostle said, this is at the end time, Allah will gather all the people on the day of resurrection. And they will say, let us request someone to intercede for us with our lords that he may relieve us from this place of ours.

So all of mankind is troubled and frightened at the day of judgment. They know judgment is about to come and so they say, let us find someone to intercede for us. Then they will go to Adam and say, you're the one whom Allah created with his own hands and breathed in you of his soul and ordered the angels to prostrate to you.

So please intercede for us with our Lord. So they go to the first created man. Adam will reply, I am not fit for this undertaking and will remember his sin. Start keeping track of that. Adam remembers his sin and will say, go to Noah, the first apostle sent by Allah.

So Adam says, not me, I sinned and my sin was part of what plunged all of us into this. So I'm not worthy for this undertaking. Try Noah. So we're going down the line now. And Noah is described as the first apostle sent by Allah.

So they will go to him and he will say, Noah's response is, I am not fit for this undertaking and will remember his sin and say, go to Abraham, whom Allah took as a Khalil. They will go to him and request similarly.

He will reply, I am not fit for this undertaking. So, so far, Adam not fit for this undertaking, Noah not fit for this undertaking, Abraham not fit for this undertaking, and will remember his sin and say, go to Moses, to whom Allah spoke directly.

Now, Moses, of course, we know did intercede for the people of Israel more than once. Maybe we'll find someone here. They will go to Moses and he will say, I am not fit for this undertaking and will remember his sin.

And if I recall correctly, I could be wrong about this, I'm going off memory, but if I recall correctly, some of the other chains of narration of this particular Hadith make reference to particular sins.

And I think with Moses, it was the killing of the Egyptian, if I recall correctly. They will go to Moses and he will say, I'm not fit for this undertaking and will remember his sin and say, go to Jesus.

Now, listen carefully. They will go to him and he will say, I am not fit for this undertaking. Go to Muhammad as Allah has forgiven his past and future sins. Now, what was missing there? He doesn't remember his sins.

There is no assertion of sinfulness on Jesus's part. There was with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. Come to Jesus. He still says, I am not fit for this. But he does not do so because he remembers any sin.

But interestingly enough, what he does make reference to, go to Muhammad as Allah has forgiven his past and future sins. Now, just a few nights ago, I did a debate with a Muslim apologist who openly affirmed that all of God's prophets are sinless.

I'm not sure what he would do with this. I guess he would reject this hadith. So now, coming to the first person, now to Muhammad, they will come to me and I will ask my Lord's permission. Notice he doesn't say, I'm not fit for this.

He doesn't say, I remember my sin, anything like that. I will ask my Lord's permission and when I see him, I will fall down in prostration to him and he will leave me in that state as long as Allah will.

And then I will be addressed, raise up your head, O Muhammad, ask and your request will be granted and say and your saying will be listened to, intercede and your intercession will be accepted. Now, what this particular version of this hadith does not include, which is found in other versions of the hadith.

And if I'm, again, going off the top of my head, no one blame me if I'm wrong about this, I think this is one of the hadiths that is narrated by both Muslim and Bukhari, which means it's very, very strong in its attestation.

But in other forms of it, Muhammad is taught a new way of worship at this point in time instead of just being prostrate for a long period of time. During this, he is taught a new form of worship that is evidently particularly pleasing to Allah or has never been revealed before, something along these lines.

And Allah says to him, intercede and your intercession will be accepted. Then I will raise my head and I will glorify and praise my Lord with a saying that he will teach me and then I will intercede. Allah will fix a limit for me that is a certain type of people for whom I may intercede.

So he can't just intercede for everybody. There's a specific people he intercedes for and I will, and I will take them out of the hellfire and let them enter paradise. This is, this is allegedly Muhammad speaking.

Then I will come back to Allah and fall in prostration and we'll do the same for the third and fourth times till no one remains in the hellfire except those whom the Quran has imprisoned therein. Now who would that be?

That would be the mushriks, that would be the kafirs. Other hadith sayings make it fairly clear that as long as a person has confessed any iman at all, that they've said la ilaha illallah, they've said the shahada, they have confessed some kind of faith, they'll be in that last group.

But what this would mean is that pretty much all Muslims, I don't see any exceptions here, will experience the hellfire for at least some period of time before they are removed. And in other hadith narrations, Muhammad talks about a certain people who will be in it long enough that they become known as the people of the fire because when they are taken out they've been blackened by the fire.

So if I understand you correctly, you're saying that all Muslims will go in there and then they're somehow purified by the intercession of Muhammad and they're taken... It's not a non-matter of purification.

There are arguments about these things because to be perfectly honest with you, the hadith literature is self-contradictory at this point. Anybody, all Islamic theology is based upon picking and choosing which hadith narrations you place the emphasis upon.

And that's one of the things that concerns me, especially in the area of radical Islam, is that the area of debate and the sources they're drawing from, it's self-contradictory. It depends on who you pick and choose to believe.

But it doesn't say anything about these people being purified either in the fire or by Muhammad's intercession. The point is that Muhammad is given this special ability to intercede for his ummah, but even then he can only remove them from the hellfire in stages.

Now why is that? I think it would be fair to go to other hadith narrations where there is a discussion of the Sirat, the bridge over which everyone must pass that spans over hell. And the idea of that is that the more faith you have, the more iman you possess, then the brighter the light you will have to cross over this bridge very quickly.

So that the one who has said the Shahada but has a very small amount of faith, the narration is that he will have a small amount of light that will come forth from his big toe and then it will go out and he'll have to stop and then it will come back on and he can go an inch a little bit farther.

And so there's this long period of time of getting across the bridge. I think if you put those together, then these different groups that are removed, if you're in the first group removed you have the greatest amount of faith, if you're in the second group a lesser amount of faith, so on and so forth.

But the thing that strikes me is that Muhammad would say, I will bring them out of the hellfire. Not Allah will release them from the hellfire, but his intercession is such that he brings them out of the hellfire.

In light of hadith like this, it is easy, especially in the, even when mentioning the name Muhammad, what does every Muslim say when you say Muhammad? The blessings of peace be upon him. Well why would you say that?

If he's already entered into the presence of God, why would you say that? Well I've heard some explanations that they're actually hoping to receive some portion of that blessing back upon themselves because Muhammad said, anyone who blesses me will receive blessings back from Allah, so maybe it's somewhat self-serving at that point.

But the point is that Muhammad takes a very central location and I fully understand why there have been these innovations over time where there are books of poetry written about him and there's this exaltation of him and over the centuries, you know, the sinfulness that is clearly seen.

You want an excellent example of this? The satanic verses. I mean those are from Islamic sources. The early centuries of Muslims were, in the first number of generations, they weren't embarrassed to make reference to what happened there and the interaction with the Meccan leaders and the fact that Muhammad wanted to impress them and wanted to give them something that maybe might give himself some peace and in the process ends up saying this is from Allah but it was actually from Shaitan.

There wasn't the kind of embarrassment at that time that there is today. And so that's an excellent example of where early on you had a willingness to see the weakness of Muhammad but then as time passes, well no, no, we can't allow for anything like that and now, well he never said anything like that and Ibn Ishaq is attacked because he records it and well he's not reliable and so on and so forth because there has been this growing viewpoint on Muhammad.

Almost a glorification.

A glorification over time. Very much so. And that's quite a strange thing because a Muslim would staunchly would think, they would staunchly defend and say no, it's only Allah, it's only God that can forgive.

And so now to be able to consider or take that Hadith seriously, you would have to consider the fact that Muhammad is being proclaimed as an intercessor and that all Muslims will go into hell and then he will pluck them out of hellfire so to speak.

Now there is some argument, there are some Muslims who say that no, they will only see hell or touch the fire but it won't hurt them. There's all sorts of arguments that have been raised. It seems rather clear to me what's being said but the important part is Muhammad's central role in bringing about the salvation of his Ummah.

Can we now compare that to Jesus Christ? Exactly.

We have to because I think what has given rise to this in the development of Islam is the fact that you have a holy God, you have his law, you have sin, you have hellfire and you don't have a mediator, you don't have a savior, you don't have one who can bridge that gap and provide that salvation and that's where Muhammad has been being, there's just inevitable desire to raise him up to that.

But when we look at the New Testament we don't have a Jesus who has to go to God after people have gone to everybody but him, they've gone to a whole line of people before him, then they finally come to him and he doesn't have to be taught a new form of worship and he doesn't have to do it in stages.

One of the striking contrasts here that I hadn't really thought of before just now is that Muhammad has to repeat this intercession to bring these people out of hellfire but there is no personal relationship between Muhammad and the vast majority of these people.

He does not know them, he does not know them intimately, he does not have a relationship with them, instead he is just bringing people out who've done something.

But even the fact that they can go into hell and come out of hell, I mean it's almost a God of second chances in hell, I mean that's what we're saying.

Well it certainly makes you wonder why, how are they released from hell? How is Muhammad's intercession something that would allow, why are they there in the first place, if they're not there for their sins then why are they there?

And if they're there for their sins then how can Muhammad's intercession remove sin? If their sins have already been forgiven by Allah then why are they in hell? I mean it just doesn't make sense in comparison to what we have in scripture where Jesus has an intimate relationship with every single one that he saves from hell, not by pulling them out of it having been stuck into it, but by having entered into a personal relationship with them in this life as their Lord and Savior, sent his spirit to indwell them, their sins are already forgiven, they've already passed out of death into life, the judgment for them has already taken place in those matters, and therefore they possess eternal life as a personal possession even at this point in time.

And so his role of intercession is when he has finished his work upon the cross just as the high priest took the blood of the sacrifice and entered into the holy place and presented it there on the mercy seat, Jesus now enters into the holy place in heaven and he stands as the lamb slain from the foundation of the earth and there in the presence of the Father we as we are united with him have perfect peace with God.

And so the intercessory work that is his is not, and this is very important to emphasize, it is not Jesus trying to convince God to be nice to us. That's not what intercession is. Intercession is not a mean, angry, nasty God that wants to destroy us and Jesus gets in the way saying, no, no, no, no.

We must remember the very fountainhead of salvation itself is the Father. And instead what we have is we have the holy God upon the throne. We have Jesus entering into his presence, we are united with him, he sees his perfect righteousness and as we are united with him that righteousness is ours.

Therefore we have peace with God because of the one to whom we are united. It's a perfect work of intercession. We never enter into hellfire and it is personal and intimate because it's not just a nameless group that is joined to Christ.

Jesus knows every one of his sheep by name. That's right.

I mean it's not based on that person, it's based on Jesus. And his grace. And his grace. It's based on him. And I think that's the difference because every single person knows in their own heart, in their own mind that they're sinners and they're not worthy of God's forgiveness.

The only thing that can give us the forgiveness of God is perfection and the only one that we know who is sinlessly perfect is Jesus Christ. James thank you for your time. Thank you for having me. We really hope that you've been able to see for yourself the importance of Jesus' intercessorship.

To be able to see that he is your mediator is the only thing that will be able to provide salvation. Who it is that you follow. Who is the one who you bow down to as being Lord and King. I hope that this episode has been able to help you.

Please stay in tune for the very next episode of Midnight Cry as we will be discussing predestination versus fatalism. Until then, may God bless you and thank you.