Prophets Knowledge of Unseen & Answer to Five Unknown Things

Prophets Knowledge of Unseen & Answer to Five Unknown Things Mentioned in Quran

KNOWLEDGE OF UNSEEN:

1. The unseen is reality, concrete and irrefutable.

2. The ilm-e-ghaib or the knowledge of the unseen belongs exclusively to Allah the almighty as his exclusive divine prerogative, none having any share in it. or any power to controvert and refute his exclusive domain. his knowledge is total, unbound and his own.

3. Allah Almighty bestows this knowledge of the unseen to his chosen servants. The knowledge of servant is never comparable to knowledge of Allah azzawajal, as servant knowledge is the bestowed one, bounded & limited to creation or to the extent as wanted by Allah subhanahuwatala.

4. Allah the Almighty has also granted this knowledge of the unseen to the Apostles and Prophets. as he want and upto what he want.

5. Allah the Almighty bestowed the knowledge of the unseen of the entire creation and universe (kull maqlooq) to the holy Prophet hazrat Muhammad Allah's grace and peace be upon him.

6. The Prophet Muhammad's (peace be upon him) knowledge of unseen is greater than all creations of Allah, Allah has granted him knowledge of every thing in the universe, however in no way equal to Allah, however

7. The holy Prophet (Allah's grace and peace be upon him) bestowed this knowledge of unseen to his companion who in turn passed on this knowledge to the qualified persons who were entrusted with the mission to propagate the religion of Allah to succeeding generations.

No doubt, the great poet philosopher of islam allama iqbal has aptly summed up the illustrious personality of the holy prophet (Allah's grace and peace be upon him) in one of his beautiful couplets as :

Lauh bhi tu, Qalam bhi tu, tera wajud Al-kitab,
Gumbad-e-Abgina rang tere muheet mein habab.

(Translation: you are o holy prophet (Allah's grace and peace be upon him) the scroll( of human destiny), you are the pen of divine (with powers) to scribe and delineate the affairs of the universe, you are the personification of the book of Allah. this vast glassy canopy (the sky) is not more than a bubble in the vast ocean of your august knowledge.)

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Relevant Quranic verses proving knowledge of unseen:

1. “These are the tidings of Unseen that We reveal to you in secret”.
[Surah-Ale-Imran, verse 44].

2. “Nor will He disclose to you the secrets of the Unseen. But He chooses of His Apostles (For the purpose)” [Surah-Ale-Imran, verse 179].

3. “The Knower of Unseen reveals not His secret to anyone. Except to His chosen Messengers”. [Surah-Al-Jinn, verse 26.]

4. “…Allah has sent down to you the Book and Wisdom and has taught to you what you did not know, and great is the grace of Allah upon you.” [Surah Al-Nisa, Verse 113]

5. And this Prophet is not miserly upon the hidden. (Allah gave the knowledge of the hidden to the Holy Prophet – peace and blessings be upon him.) [Takweer 81:24]

6. Sayyiduna Esa (Peace be upon him) when he addressed his Ummah, saying "And I declare to you whatever you eat and whatever you store in your houses."[Surah Ale Imran: 3:49]

It meant that whatever they had eaten in the houses - within four walls - and whatever they had preserved there in was well known to the Prophet of Allah.

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Few Ahadees proving knowledge of unseen:

1. Narrated Anas bin Malik RA : The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said, "Straighten your rows for I see you from behind my back." Anas RA added, "Everyone of us used to put his shoulder with the shoulder of his companion and his foot with the foot of his companion." (Sahih Bukhari:Call to Prayer:692)

2. The Prophet (May Allah bless him and grant him peace) stated, “I have seen my Lord, He put His hands upon my chest, after which everything appeared before me and I recognized everything. [Musnad Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, vol 5, page 243]

3. The Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) said, “Without doubt Allah SWT had placed the whole earth in front of Me and I saw its ends.”
(Sahih Muslim Vol 2, Pg No: 390)

4.“The Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam), “I have seen all the things of this universe from where I stood, to the extent that I have seen Heaven and hell also.”
(Sahih Bukhari Vol 1, Pg No: 126, Pg No: 18)

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Question and answer concerning to ilm-ghaib of prophets and relevant quranic verses/Ahadees prooving ilm-ghaib:

Q) How can you say that Muhammad (May Allah bless him and grant him peace) has been given the knowledge of the Ghayb when Allah Almighty says in the Qur’an that there are five things of which no one has any knowledge about?

The relevant verse of the Qur’an is as follows:-

“Undoubtedly, Allah has the knowledge of the Hour, and He sends rain and knows what is in the wombs of the mothers and no soul knows in what land it will die. Undoubtedly, Allah is the Knower, All Aware”. (Surah Luqman Verse 34)

The answers to this is:

The word used in this verse in Arabic is Adri, which refers to that knowledge which someone can attain by guessing. Of course the knowledge of the Unseen of the Prophet (May Allah bless him and grant him peace) was not by guessing. Allah informed this to him.

Hafidh Ibn Kathir (who met and briefly studied with Ibn Taymiyya) has written in his famous commentary to the Qur’an, ‘Tafsir Ibn Kathir’, the meaning of this ayaat, namely, that no-one can find the knowledge of these things on there own endeavor. Only Allah can give this knowledge, for example Allah gives knowledge to the angels whose duties are to control rain, and therefore on the command of Allah it rains.

Also Allah commands an angel who goes into the mother’s womb and hangs a record around the child’s neck what he/she will do in their lifetime. This knowledge is not attained by the angel but rather it is given by Allah Himself.

If the literal and direct meaning is taken from the above quoted ayaat, then it will mean that only Allah knows what is in the mothers womb but today, we can discover quite easily if the child is a male or female by modern scanning techniques.

If the angels have some knowledge on the five Unseen things - given to them by Allah, why is it strange if the Prophet (May Allah bless him and grant him peace) also has some of this knowledge - again bestowed by Allah.