Page 187 - Demo

2. John the Baptist recognizes Muhammad as being183superior to and more powerful than he is. That significant expression made to the Jewish multitudes, “He that cometh after me” reminded their Scribes, Pharisees, and lawyersof the ancient prophecy of their great ancestor Jacob, in which that patriarch uses the unique title of “Shīlokhah” for the “Rasūl Allah,” the epithet frequently used by Jesus (pbuh) for Muhammad (pbuh) as preserved in the Gospel of Barnabas. At the time of writing my article on the“Shiloh” [1] I said that the word might be acorruption of “shīlōūkh” or “Shīlokhah,” [2] which meanstheApostle of Allah, but I did not then recollect that St. Jerome, as well, had understood the Hebrew from in that sense, for he has translated it as “qui mittendis est.”We have only an epitome of John’s sermon in a few lines, written not by himself but by an unknown hand -at least not in his own original tongue- and much tampered with by transcribers and redactors who had already made his disciple Jesus (pbuh) an idol or a god. However, when we come to compare this sermon preached in the wilderness of Judea and on the shores of the Jordan with the marvellous grace, elegance, eloquence, and power so manifest in every verse and page of the Holy Quran, we understand the sense of the words, “He is more powerful than I!”When I picture to myself the ascetic Baptist preaching aloud in the wilderness, or on the banks of the Jordan, to the masses of the Jewish believers, with a theocratic history of some four thousand years old behind them, and then make a brief review of the quiet, orderly, and dignified manner in which Muhammad (pbuh) proclaimed his celestial verse of the Quran to the unbelieving Arab[1] Cf. Islamic Review for September, 1928, p. 313 et seq.[2] The Oriental Hebrews and Assyrians pronounce the word “Shilokah” or “Shīlōākh.” It is very difficult to write or transliterate the Semitic languages in the Latin characters. (the author).