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will at once be known to have been sent by the Lord in
truth.” Let us, therefore, take into serious consideration
the following points:-

1. The Prophet Jeremiah is the only prophet
before Christ who uses the word Shalom in the
sense of a religion. He is the only prophet who
uses this word with the object of setting or proving
the veracity of a messenger of God. According to
the Quránic revelation, Abraham, Ishmá’íl, Isaac,
Jacob, Moses, and all the prophets were Muslims,
and professed Islam as their religion. The term
“Islam” and its equivalents, “Shalom” and Shlama,”
were known to the Jews and Christians of Makkah
and Madinah when Muhammad (pbuh) appeared to
perfect and universalize the religion of Islam. A
prophet who predicts “peace” as an abstract, vague
and temporary condition cannot succeed in proving
his identity thereby. In fact, the point of dispute, or
rather the critical national question, controverted by
the two eminent prophets known to the court and
the nation like Jeremiah and Hananiah (Jer. xxviii.),
could not be solved and definitely settled by the
affirmation of the one and the denial of the other,
of the imminent catastrophe. To predict “peace” by
Jeremiah when he had all the time been predicting
the great national disaster -either by the submission
of the King Sidaqia to the Chaldean sovereign or by
his resistance- would not only involve his failure, not
to talk of his being a success in proving his veracity,
but also it would make him even ridiculous. For, in
either case, his presumed “peace” would mean no
peace at all. On the contrary, if the Jews resisted the
Chaldean army, it meant a complete national ruin,
and if they submitted, an unconditional servitude.
It is evident, therefore, that Jeremiah uses the term