Page 118 - New English Book L

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Chapter IX

Genuine Prophets preach only Islam [1]

There is no nation known to history like the people

of Israel, which during a period of less than four hundred
years, was infested with myriads of false prophets (pbtuhem)
, not to mention the swarms of sorcerers, soothsayers and
all sorts of witchcrafts and magicians. The false prophets
were of two kinds: those who professed the religion and
the Torah (Law) of Yahweh and pretended to prophesy in
His name, and those who under the patronage of an idolater
Israelite monarch prophesied in the name of Báal or other
deities of the neighbouring heathen peoples. Belonging
to the former category there were several impostors as
contemporaries with the true prophets like Mikha (Micah)
and Jeremiah, and to the latter there were those who gave
much trouble to Elijah, and caused the massacres of the
true prophets and believers during the reign of Ahab and
his wife Jezebel. Most dangerous of all to the cause of
true faith and religion were the pseudo-prophets, who
conducted the divine services in the temple as well as in
the Misphas and pretended to deliver the oracles of God
to the people. No prophet perhaps, received at the hands
of these impostors more of persecution and hardships than
the Prophet Jeremiah.

While still a young man, Jeremiah began his prophetic
mission about the latter quarter of the seventh century
before the Christian era, when the Kingdom of Judah was
in great danger of invasion by the armies of the Chaldeans.
The Jews had entered into alliance with the Pharaoh of
Egypt, but as the latter had been badly defeated by the
troops of Nebuchadnezzar, Jerusalem’s doom was merely

[1] .Quran, 3:19. The Religion before Allah is Islam (submission to His Will): Nor
did the People of the Book dissent there from except through envy of each other,
after knowledge had come to them. However, if any deny the Signs of Allah, Allah
is swift in calling to account.)Editors(.