KHUTAB V: 10. TIME WILL COME
10. TIME WILL COME
A prophet, in Arabic نَبِيْئ (nabī’) -- and later became نَبِّيَ (nabīy) for easy articulating -- literally
means “a person who prophesies, nabba’a (نَبَّأَ) what will happen in the future, naba’ (النَّبَأ)Its
plural is anbā’ (أَنْبَاء). The Arabic
word for what has happened in the past isخَبَر
, its plural is أَخْبَار“news” in
English. Then these two words نَبَأand خَبَر
are used as synonyms, both have the same
meaning, namely, what will happen in the future as well as what happened in the
past. As the word naba’ and its derivatives are easier to articulate
than khabar and its derivatives, it is used mostly in the Qur’ān, as it
is to be read by Arabs as well as non-Arabs.
As a
prophet who brought the Qur’ān to people, it contains many prophecies of the
future. He also prophesies many things not mentioned directly in the Qur’ān,
such as follows:
لا يَأْتِي
زَمَانٌ إِلا الَّذِي بَعْدَهُ شَرٌّ مِنْهُ حَتَّى تَلْقَوْا رَبَّكُمْ (رواه
البخاري)
Time
will come where its later will be worse
than what precedes it, until you meet
your Lord
(Reported
by al-Bukhārī)
The
Prophet s.a.w. also said:
إِنَّ اللَّهَ لا يَقْبِضُ الْعِلْمَ
انْتِزَاعًا يَنْتَزِعُهُ مِنْ الْعِبَادِ، وَلَكِنْ يَقْبِضُ الْعِلْمَ
بِقَبْضِ
الْعُلَمَاءِ، حَتَّى إِذَا لَمْ يُبْقِ عَالِمًا اتَّخَذَ النَّاسُ رُءُوسًا
جُهَّالًا فَسُئِلُوا
فَأَفْتَوْا
بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ فَضَلُّوا وَأَضَلُّوا
(رواه البخاري)
Allah does not take away the knowledge, by taking it
away
from (the
hearts of) the people, but takes it away by the death
of the
religious learned men till when none of the (religious
learned men) remains, people will take as their
leaders
ignorant
persons who when consulted will give their
verdict without
knowledge. So they will go astray and
will lead
people astray (Reported by al-Bukhārī)
The Prophet s.a.w. prophesised
that religious knowledge would be disappeared and religious ignorance would
appear. He said:
مِنْ
أَشْرَاطِ السَّاعَةِ أَنْ يُرْفَعَ الْعِلْمُ وَيَثْبُتَ الْجَهْلُ وَتُشْرَبَ
الْخُمُورُ
وَيَظْهَرَ
الزِّنَا (رواه
البخاري)
From among the portents of the Hour are
(the
following): religious knowledge will be
taken
away (by the death of religious learned
men);
(religious) ignorance will prevail; drinking
of
alcoholic drink (will be very common);
there
will be prevalence of zina (adultery)
. (Reported by al-Bukhārī)
Nowadays people
learning Islamic knowledge become less and less compared to those who learn
other subjects, especially IT, as it is highly required almost everywhere. If
we look around us we find that many of the children of our scholars in Islam, ‘ulamā’,
are not interested in becoming ‘ulamā’. Non-Arab among them cannot
read the Arabic books of their parents which could be rare and very valuable
books. When the parents died these books end up in the bookshops or the library
of Islamic schools (madrasahs).
Ignorance
of Islamic knowledge is starting to prevail, as many Muslims give their
personal opinions about a certain subject in Islam, sometimes based of what
they call “common sense”. There is danger in basing the truth on ”common sense”
as it is relative and keeps changing based on time and place. Reading the
translations of Islamic books without referring to their original Arabic
language, especially the Qur’ān and the Ḥadīth, does not guarantee that
a person masters Islamic knowledge. If someone said that you do not have to
know Arabic to know Islam, I would say that you do not have to know English in
order to know English literature.
Drinking alcohol
has become common in Western countries, so that road accident and alcohol are
mostly closely related. When a Muslim convert told the police man who checked
his breath for alcohol that he did not
drink such thing, the police man said to him: “If everybody is like you,
then I could lose my job.“ That means
alcohol and the like, although it is bad for causing many accidents and creating problems, at the same
time it creates jobs.
Adultery is
common, that every big city has usually a red light district where brothels
are, and people working there would not be very ashamed for their job, as they
are working serving people in “sex industry”, just like working in steel
industry, and pay taxes like any other workers. Marriage institution becomes in
jeopardy, and even some married people do not want to have babies, although the
main purpose of marriage is procreation beside sakīnah (tranquillity).
In Islam having children is an investment for the Hereafter where they are
expected to pray for their parents after their death. For those who do not
believe in this, may consider having children to be a burden, and therefore
they preferred keeping pets, cats, dogs, etc. rather than having babies.
These animals are affectionate and obedient to their owners, and unlike
children, they never talk back.
A similar ḥadīth
is as follows:
مِنْ أَشْرَاطِ
السَّاعَةِ أَنْ يَقِلَّ الْعِلْمُ وَيَظْهَرَ الْجَهْلُ وَيَظْهَرَ الزِّنَا وَتَكْثرَ النِّسَاءُ
وَيَقِلَّ
الرِّجَالُ حَتَّى يَكُونَ لِخَمْسِينَ امْرَأَةً الْقَيِّمُ الْوَاحِدُ (رواه
البخاري)
From the portents of the Hour are: (religious) knowledge
will
decrease, there will be prevalence of
zina (adultery),
women will
increase in number so much so that fifty
women will be looked after by one man.
(Reported by al-Bukhārī)
The number of men will decrease, but the number of
women will increase drastically, so that it will reach fifty times more than
men. Those who are involved in and victims of arm conflicts are mostly men.
Although the policy of the government in China that every couple should have
one baby only, they prefer males, the number of females in the world keeps
increasing more than males. More girls are born than boys.
The number of
pious and religious men will decrease. Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. said:
«إِنَّمَا النَّاسُ كَالإِبِلِ المِائَةِ،
لاَ تَكَادُ تَجِدُ فِيهَا رَاحِلَةً» (رواه البخاري)
People are like a hundred camels, you almost do not find
a proper one suitable for
traveling and carrying goods.
(Reported by al-Bukhārī)
It means that time will come when there will be so
many people, but the those who are following Allah’s prescription are very few.
A ḥadīth with a similar meaning is as follows:
«يُوشِكُ أَنْ يَأْتِيَ زَمَانٌ
يُغَرْبَلُ النَّاسُ فِيهِ غَرْبَلَةً، تَبْقَى حُثَالَةٌ مِنَ النَّاسِ،
قَدْ مَرِجَتْ عُهُودُهُمْ، وَأَمَانَاتُهُمْ،
وَاخْتَلَفُوا فَكَانُوا هَكَذَا»
وَشَبَّكَ بَيْنَ أَصَابِعِهِ،
فَقَالُوا: وَكَيْفَ بِنَا يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ؟
قَالَ: «تَأْخُذُونَ مَا تَعْرِفُونَ، وَتَذَرُونَ
مَا تُنْكِرُونَ، وَتُقْبِلُونَ عَلَى أَمْرِ خَاصَّتِكُمْ،
وَتَذَرُونَ أَمْرَ عَامَّتِكُمْ (رواه النسائي)
Time soon will come when good people will go and
bad people
remain; they will break their promises and
faithfulness,
and disagree among themselves, and they
become like this (the Prophet intertwined his fingers);
they said: what shall we do then, O Messenger of
Allah? He
said: Do what you think is right and leave
what you think is not right, and turn to the
order
of your leading personalities, and avoid the order
of your
common people. (Reported by al-Nasā’ī)
Time
will come when the majority of people are crook and unreliable, so that we do
not know who is good and who is bad. At that time, the Prophet told us to stick
to what we think is right and avoid what we think is wrong, and turn to the
order of educated people and avoid the order of common people.
In a long ḥadīth the Prophet said that among the signs
of the coming of the Hour are:
... أَنْ
تَلِدَ الْأَمَةُ رَبَّتَهَا، وَأَنْ تَرَى الْحُفَاةَ الْعُرَاةَ الْعَالَةَ
رِعَاءَ الشَّاءِ
يَتَطَاوَلُونَ
فِي الْبُنْيَانِ (رواه مسلم)
… that the slave-girl will give birth to her
mistress,
that you
will see the barefooted ones, the naked, the
destitute, the herdsmen of the sheep
(competing
with each
other) in raising lofty buildings."
(Reported by Muslim)
This
means that parents would have no longer any authority over their children, and
children would no longer respect their parents.
Parents would desperately try to please their children as if they are
their masters.
The second sign
of the coming of the Hour is poor barefoot shepherds suddenly became rich and
competing with one another over building the tallest building. Among the 300
tall buildings in the world, the tallest one is the Skyscraper Burj Khalifa
in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 828 m high, built in 2010, consisting of 163
floor. Abu Dhabi, is the second leading country, that built 55 tall buildings
in this 21th century (except one, Burj al-‘Arab, built in 1999), after
China that built about 75 high buildings. The USA has 41 high buildings, and
Australia has 7 high buildings.
The second high building in the world is Makkah
Royal Clock Tower, has 120 (123?) floors, 601 m high, took more than five
years to build, completed in 2012, The third tallest building is Taipei 101
in Taipei (Taiwan), has 101 floors, 509 m high, built in 2004 the
tallest building in the world at that time. The fourth tallest building is Shanghai World Financial Center in Shanghai, has 101
floors, 492 m high, built in 2008. The fifth tallest building is International
Commerce Centre in Hongkong, has 118 floors, 484 m high, built in 2010. The
sixth tallest building is Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, has 88
floors, 452 m high, built in 1998.
The
Sky City in Changsha in China is planning to be built the tallest skyscraper in
the world, 10 meters taller than Burj Khalifa in Dubai, standing at 838m high, over 220 floors.
The proposed tallest building in the world that will
also take over Burj Khalifa as the tallest skyscraper will be the Kingdom
Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1,000 meter high. It will be built by the
Saudi construction firm Ben Laden Group in over five years. The tower will
include a hotel, serviced apartments, and luxury condominiums.
High rise apartment buildings are in great demand,
especially in the Arab countries in the Middle East, where the populations are
increasing rapidly with limited space. The discovery of oil in these desert
countries that turn them into oil rich ones is the main contribution to the fulfillment
of this pressing need for high rising buildings. The Prophet s.a.w. had
prophesized it over one thousand years ago. (CIVIC, 22.03.13)
Bibliography
1.
Maktabah Shamilah
world
3.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-to-build-
worlds-tallest-building--injust-90-days-8340870
4.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/feb/21/shard-builder-
worlds-tallest-skyscraper.html
5.
http://www.emporis.com/statistics/worlds-tallest-buildings
6.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraj_Al_Bait
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