Page 128 - Demo

124will 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 Shālōm 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, “Shālōm” and Shlāmā,” 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