Chapters

Before the Chastisement There is a Message and a Messenger

Ahmed the Promised One · Alaa Alsalem

2. Before the Chastisement There is a Message and a Messenger

This is a matter that all divine messages have confirmed. The Almighty said:

⁴ Imam Al-Sadiq^PBUH is the sixth of the twelve divinely appointed Imams. The end of the Umayyad dynasty and beginning of the Abbasids marked a period of weaker central authority, warranting greater academic freedom. He was able to teach freely, training around four thousand students including Abu Hanifa and Malik Ibn Anas, the founders of two major Sunni schools of law. Many religious accounts and traditions were recorded from Al-Sadiq, leading the Shia jurisprudence to called "Jafari"-Trans.

⁵ Imam Al-Ridha^PBUH is the eighth of the divinely appointed Imams. He lived in a period when the Abbasid caliphs were facing Shia revolts. The Caliph Al-Mamun sought to remedy this problem by appointing Al-Ridha as his successor. After initially refusing the offer, Al-Ridha accepted the designation under the condition that he would not be involved in any affairs of Al-Mamun's government. The Imam is well-known for having public debates with prominent figures of other sects-Trans.

⁶ Shaykh Muhammad Ibn Ali Al-Sadooq, Kamal Al-Din Wa Tamaam Al-Nimah [Perfection Of Religion And Completion Of Divine Favor] (Qom: Muasasat Al-Nashr Al-Islami, 1984), 391.

⁷ Muhammad Ibn Yaqub Al- Kulaini, Al-Kafi [The Sufficient Book] (Tehran: Dar Al-Kutub Al-Islamiya, 1944), vol 1, 337.

⁸ The Hujjah is translated as “Proof”, as he is the Proof of God upon the creation-Trans.

⁹ Muhammad Ibn Ismail Bukhari, Sahih Al-Bukhari (Beruit: Dar Al-Fikr, 1981), vol 4, 143 (Arabic). You may refer to the English translation: Sahih Al-Bukhari (Saudi Arabia: Darussalam Publishers & Distributors), Book 55, Hadith 658-Trans.

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{Then watch for the Day when the sky will bring a visible smoke. ✶ Covering the people; this is a painful torment. ✶ [They will say], "Our Lord, remove from us the torment; indeed, we are believers." ✶ How will there be for them a reminder [at that time]? There had come to them a clear Messenger. ✶ Yet they turned away from him and said, "[He was] taught [and is] a madman." ✶ Indeed, We will remove the torment for a little. Indeed, you will return. ✶ The Day We will strike with the greatest assault, indeed, We will take retribution} Quran Chapter “The Smoke” 44:10-16.

This smoke is chastisement, and chastisement is preceded by a message. God Almighty said: {And never would We punish until We sent a messenger} Quran Chapter “The Night Journey” 17:15. Moreover this smoke, or chastisement, is a punishment for denying the messenger who was sent to the very people being chastised. He is present among them, as is clear from the verses: {Yet they turned away from him and said, "[He was] taught [and is] a madman."} Also, after covering them, this smoke or chastisement reveals the people’s faith in this messenger, just as when the chastisement covered the nation of Jonah, or Jonas^PBUH. Moreover, this smoke, or chastisement, is linked to the Minor Judgement-in fact, it is the minor assault, as has been made clear in the above verse. Nothing follows it except the great punishment and retribution against the oppressors.

The Torah mentions the day of the great divine retribution that occurs as a result of denying the messenger and redeemer:

[1] Who is this who comes from Edom, in crimsoned garments from Bozrah, he who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength? “It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.” [2] Why is your apparel red, and your garments like his who treads in the winepress? [3] “I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me; I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath; their lifeblood spattered on my garments, and stained all my apparel. [4] For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come. [5] I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold; so my own arm brought me salvation, and my wrath upheld me.

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[6] I trampled down the peoples in my anger; I made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth” (Isaiah 63).

In the Gospel we are presented with the same truth (that the punishment is preceded by a messenger):

[7] By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith (Hebrews 11).

This means that the people of Noah^PBUH were chastised because they didn’t believe in him. However, there was a divine messenger among them beforehand, and the chastisement occurred as a result of their denial of that messenger. The chastisement would have been lifted if they had repented and believed in the messenger.

Regarding the lifting of chastisement from Jonah’s people as a result of their faith, the Torah states:

[4] Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” [5] And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them (Jonah 3).

Today, nobody doubts the warnings of the chastisement that is approaching the people of the earth. In fact, it is happening in different lands currently, such that the signs of the Second Deluge, the Hour, and the Minor Day of Judgement have become clear and tangible to the majority of the population. Only arrogant people deny these signs. And chastisement, as we have learned, comes only after a messenger is dispatched and then denied. So the important question is: who is that messenger? And who is the one that sent him?

This messenger undoubtedly is the possessor of the divine call. This issue concerns the entire world, because the warnings of chastisement today encompass everyone. That is why when the religious texts mention a world reformer or savior, it is in the context of "the entire earth" or "all peoples and nations" or "the whole world":

For Muslims: “The Mahdi of the nation of Muhammad will fill the earth with equity and justice, just as it has been filled with inequity and injustice.” In the Torah: “In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples-of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious” (Isaiah 11:10).

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In the Gospel: “And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8).

God willing, we will discover that all of these texts are referring to the same man.

Moreover, let us not overlook the fact that the smoke mentioned in the above Quranic verse is one of the signs of the Hour. For Muslims, it indicates the rise of the Riser (Qaim).¹⁰ When Prophet Muhammad^PBUHAP was asked about the rise of the Riser, he said: “His example is that of the Hour: {None will reveal its time except Him. It lays heavily upon the heavens and the earth} Quran Chapter “The Heights” 7:187. He will come to you unexpectedly.¹¹

According to Sunni Muslims, the Prophet^PBUHAP mentioned the Hour and said: “It will not come until you see ten signs that precede it: the Smoke, the Antichrist, the Beast, and the Sun rising from the West . . .”¹² For Sunnis, the “smoke" is not the chastisement of the Day of Judgement: “If it was occurring on the Day of Judgement, the smoke would not be lifted for them.”¹³

As for the non-muslims, the smoke is a sign of the coming of the savior and redeemer. The awaited reformer and the smoke are mentioned in the Gospel, specifically in the canonized Book of Revelation: [2] He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft (Revelation 9).

In the Torah, it states: [30] “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. [31] The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes” (Joel 2).

If the smoke is a chastisement, as is well known, then the chastisement is linked to a messenger. Actually, the chastisement is due to the denial of this messenger by the people. Thus, it is a punishment for them: {How will there be for them a reminder [at that time]? And there had come to them a clear Messenger}. So at this point we might ask: who is this messenger?! We will discuss his attributes in the following section.