FOREWORD
Jerusalem in the Qur’an
is a great book that thrilled and delighted me in a number of ways. I am
surprised that such a meticulously documented book had to wait for such a long
time before seeing the light. It is now more than half a century since the Zionists
began their appalling oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people
whose only offense is that they happened to live in a country considered by the
Jews to be their promised holy land.
The Zionists have continuously referred to distorted
scriptures from the Torah and other Biblical material to justify their
atrocious behavior and to motivate the Jews to establish a State of Israel that
extends from the Nile to the Euphrates with Jerusalem as its capital. For
example, David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, is quoted to
have said, “The Bible is our deed to the land of Israel”. Muslim scholars, on
the other hand, have largely failed in refuting Zionist claims from
authenticated historical and religious sources and have also failed to
accomplish their religious responsibility in clearly documenting this question
from the Holy Qur’an and the Blessed Ahadith of our beloved Prophet
(PBUH). As far as I know, whatever is
written on this subject is rather superficial and emotionally tainted or simply
stating facts in a cool manner. May Allah Ta’ala reward Brother Imran
Hosein for writing this scholarly document, which will indeed fill up this
intellectual and religious gap and serve as an academic reference to Muslims in
all parts of the world. As I write this introduction, this book that was
published only this year is already being translated to Arabic and Bosnian. In a
short time it will be rendered into other European languages and to all the
other tongues of the Islamic world.
It must be reported however that the importance of writing a
book about the Holy Land in the Qur’an have not escaped the vision of
far-sighted and creative Muslim thinkers such as Dr. Kalim Siddiqui,
Founder-President of the Muslim Institute for Research and Planning, and
Professor shaheed Ismail Al-Farouqi. I am surprised at the vision of the
former scholar who asked Imran Hosein to write this book as early as 1974. He
urged him saying that Jerusalem is the key to understanding the historical process
of the Middle East and the world at large. Shaikh Imran successfully accomplished
this task after 27years. Though seemingly late, but it has come at the right
time in which the whole world is being shocked by Jenin and what happened in Sabra
and Shatila.
Ismail Al-Faruqi actually put this issue in writing in his
book, “Islam and the Problem of Israel” that the author referred to. He
strongly stated that Israel poses a greater danger to Muslims than the
Euro-Christian Crusades of the Middle Ages or the Euro-Colonialism of modern
times. “Israel”, he wrote, “is neither of these, but that it is both and more,
much more”. He therefore urged Arabs and Muslims not to accept the Jewish State
as an integral part of the world nations of Asia and Africa. He also incited Muslim
scholars to investigate this issue in depth. I am sure that if both of these
great Muslim thinkers were alive, they would have acclaimed this classic book
as what they have aspired for.
I am amazed by Imran’s style of writing. Though Jerusalem
in the Qur’an, is a meticulously written thesis combining religious and
historical documents with recent political events and penetrating
interpretations from the Qur’an and Hadith, it runs like a story. Once
you begin reading it, it is hard to stop. This is the general quality of a novel.
The person would read it once and throw the book away - but not that of a serious
thought-provoking dissertation like the book that Brother Shaikh Imran published.
It is a reference that one needs to keep and reread whenever the subject is to be
researched. I believe that this eloquence of the Shaikh must be the
result of a natural gift that has interacted with his indefatigable work as a
preacher and da’iyah and the Divine Blessings for his sincerity.
Finally, in spite of the seemingly depressing situation of
the Muslims in general and the Palestinians in particular, reading the book
would certainly give one a warm surge of optimism about our future; a bright
light that shines at the end of our long dark tunnel of history. We are living at
the end of time. This is the age in
which the prophesies of the Holy Qur’an and the Blessed Hadith are
unfolding right before our very eyes to prove to humanity the truthfulness of
our faith.
Exactly as our Prophet told us, we have seen the barefooted-poor
shepherds of sheep and goats in the Arab Peninsula competing with each other in
building higher and higher skyscrapers. And we have witnessed the Muslims
exploding in numbers but weakening in character and subdued by their love of
this dunyah and their fear of death thus confirming the authenticated Hadith.
And exactly as our Prophet told us, the strong enemies of Islam are now
devouring our countries as though they were a hungry group invited to a large
cauldron of food. And as Allah Ta’ala
Himself told us in his Revealed Holy Qur’an, the Children of Israel, who
had been scattered all over the earth during their Diaspora, have returned to
the Holy Land. And as recorded in the Qur’an, they have indeed committed much
corruption and have become powerful and elated with mighty arrogance.
Just as we have seen these incidents as though we were
watching a horror movie, we will indeed see its imminent happy ending that was
prophesized to us in the Qur’an and the Sayings of our Prophet. The Muslims
will wake up from their slumber and the Jews will receive their promised Divine
punishment. The Zionist State will be destroyed and whatever they have built
will be raised to the ground.
The book gives a detailed beautifully written exposition of
these episodes with brilliant interpretations from the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah.
Though some may differ with him with respect to his interpretations of some of
the Qur’anic Verses or the Blessed Prophetic sayings, no one would fail to
appreciate his penetrative thought and his spiritual depth. I therefore
recommend the book very much to scholars and laity.
Malik Badri
Dean,
International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization,
Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia
to be continued....
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