Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!m2.csc.ti.com
From: araja@m2.csc.ti.com (Ali Raja)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: On the Meaning of "Muhammad the Seal of the Prophets" (II of VI)
Message-ID: <3451@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 7 Dec 89 12:24:01 GMT
References: <3396@brazos.Rice.edu>
Sender: root@rice.edu
Lines: 42
Approved: shari@wpi.edu


>This has been interpreted by many among Muslims to mean that Revelation from
>God ended with Muhammad's Revelation, and the door of God's mercy towards
>mankind was closed for ever.

Not so.  Your analogy was incorrect.  The Succession of Prophethood can
be viewed as a lesson given to Mankind.  With Mohammad, the lesson has 
been completed.  The statement that Muhammad is the Mercy of God towards
mankind shows that the messge that he brought will be considered
completely valid for the rest of eternity, not the opposite, as you
would aver.

>Both Jesus and Muhammad broke the Sabbath. Does this mean that they were wrong?
>Or, God forbid, they were false prophets?

They knew which laws to follow, since they were lawgivers in their own
right.  Plain and simple.

[I have skipped over many of your following quotations from Scripture]

>"Say ye:  `We believe in God, and that which hath been sent down to us, and that
> which	hath been sent	down to Abraham and  Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the
> tribes: and  that which hath  been given to Moses, and to Jesus, and that which
> was given to the  Prophets from their	Lord. No difference  do we  make between
> any of them."					Al'Baghara-2:130

This does not mean that it is necessary for the Muslim to accept 
Baha'ullah, nor is it necessary for the Muslim to accept that 
the saying of Jesus in the Bible are literal truth.  Given this,
there is no need to reconcile the statements of "lastness" made
by Jesus.

>There must be a deeper meaning to the term Khatam'u-Nabieen than its apparent
>meaning (i.e. the Author of last Revelation from God).

Even this does not necessarily follow.  Jesus did not claim that he 
was the "Katam'u-Nabieen".  He probably used a phrase in Aramaic
that I do not know.  If I was to accept that the statement that you
quoted was correct, it would not logically imply that the lack of 
literalist interpretation has to be extended in the case of Muhammed.

[rest deleted]