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The Holy Quran mentioned
the will of Prophet Jacob to his children in the context of telling of
the story of the leadership (imamate) of Abraham the Building of the
Sacred House by him and his son Ishmael and their prayer for the coming
of Prophet Mohammad, thus:
And when his Lord tried
Abraham with certain words, he fulfilled them. He said: Surely I will
make you an Imam of men. Abraham said: And of my offspring? My covenant
does not include the unjust, said He.
And when We made the House a
pilgrimage for men and a (place of) security, and: Appoint for
yourselves a place of prayer on the standing-place of Abraham. And We
enjoined Abraham and Ishmael saying: Purify My House for those who visit
(it) and those who abide (in it) for devotion and those who bow down
(and) those who prostrate themselves. And when Abraham said: My Lord,
make it a secure town and provide its people with fruits, such of them
as believe in Allah and the last day. He said: And whoever disbelieves,
I will grant him enjoyment for a short while, then I will drive him to
the chastisement of the fire; and it is an evil destination.
And when Abraham and Ishmael
raised the foundations of the House: Our Lord! Accept from us; surely
Thou art the Hearing, the Knowing: Our Lord! And make us both
submissive to Thee and (raise) from our offspring a nation submitting to
Thee, and show us our ways of devotion and turn to us (mercifully),
surely Thou art the Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful. Our Lord!
And raise up in them an Apostle from among them who shall recite to them
Thy communications and teach them the Book and the wisdom, and praise
them; surely Thou art the Mighty, the Wise.
And who forsakes the
religion of Abraham but he who makes himself a fool, and most certainly
We chose him in this world, and in the hereafter he is most surely among
the righteous. When his Lord said to him, be a Muslim, he said: I
submit myself to the Lord of the worlds.
And the same did Abraham
enjoin on his sons and (so did) Jacob. O my sons! Surely Allah has
chosen for you (this) faith; therefore, die not unless you are Muslims.
Nay! Were you witnesses when
death visited Jacob, when he said to his sons: What will you serve after
me? They said: We will serve your God and the God of your fathers,
Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac, one God only, and to Him do we submit.
(2/124-133).
These verses raise many
issues:
1.
Allah elevated His Prophet Abraham to another level, apart from those of
prophethood and delivering a message, which he named Imamate
(leadership) (1); having acquired such a status, Abraham asked if he
could bequeath it to his descendant. God Almighty answered his prayer
that this status, which is granted by a covenant from God and a bequest
from Abraham, shall not include the unjust among them. In other
words, this status is the exclusive preserve of the pure ones among his
descendants.
2.
Abraham and Ishmael prayed to God to send a prophet from among their
progeny, i.e. the progeny of Ishmael (2). There is consensus between
commentators that reference was made to Mohammad as the promised
prophet. (3).
3.
The
prayer for such a prophet was interlinked with the building of the
Sacred House and the Divine trial that Abraham should pass through in
slaughtering his son Ishmael, as discussed in other verses of the Holy
Quran.
4.
The
linkage between the instruction given by both Abraham and Jacob to their
offspring and making clear its main thrust, i.e.
And the same did
Abraham enjoin on his sons and (so did) Jacob. O my sons! Surely Allah
has chosen for you (this) faith, therefore die not unless you are
Muslims.
And if we know that following the religion of Abraham and Jacob was not
then confided to their respective offspring, we can conclude that
choosing the faith for them was the choosing submission for them (4),
i.e. choosing them for the type of Imamate Abraham was endowed with to
the exclusion of the other followers of Abraham. This brand of Imamate
that makes it incumbent on the people to submit to those chosen ones and
worship in the same they used to worship. And since that status cannot
be achieved only by those who are truly submissive to God, both Abraham
and Jacob made it abundantly clear to the chosen ones among their
offspring that they should hold fast to being submissive to God and that
they should not die unless they are Muslims, i.e. utter submission to
God (5). In this light, the wisdom, behind the interlinking of the
instruction given by Abraham to the elite among his offspring (6) and
that given by Jacob to the elite among his offspring, is made abundantly
clear (7).
Then another instruction by
Jacob was mentioned, for the first set of instructions by him was not
directed to all his sons; it was targeting the chosen ones among them,
i.e. those who were chosen for the Abraham Imamate.
As for second will of Jacob,
i.e. that at his deathbed, to all his sons, among whom was the chosen
and not so, it was a general one. Jacob sought to obtain an undertaking
from the rest of his sons to abide by the divine covenants and not break
them.
5. In Chapter as-Saffaat,
Allah says, And We showered Our blessings on him and on Isaac;
and of their offspring are the doers of good, and (also) those who are
clearly unjust to their own souls. (37/113).
The relative pronoun (him)
refers to Ishmael. The verse purports that among the descendants of
Isaac and Ishmael there were those who qualified for the Abraham Imamate
and would inherit it. Since God conferred the Imamate on Abraham before
the gospel of Isaac, and since Abraham and Ishmael were praying, while
raising the foundations of the House, for sending forth a prophet, from
their descendants at the end of time, i.e. Mohammad, we come to know who
is the final and eternal heir of the Abraham Imamate; it is this
Ishmaelite Meccan Messenger.
Since, in His Wisdom, God
had ordained that the chain of message bearers continued in the
descendants of Isaac, more particularly in Jacobs, the heirs to the
Abraham Imamate were the chosen ones of Jacobean descent. However, the
sending of prophets and messengers, of a Jacobean descent, was not to
continue forever; rather it was a stopgap between the mission of Isaac
and the materialization of the Divine promise of the mission of the
Ishmaelite Meccan Messenger.
Therefore, it becomes
manifest that the heir to the Abraham Imamate, of a Jacobean descent, is
a temporary one, i.e. his inheritance ceased with the advent of the
mission of the Ishmaelite Messenger.
This fact, in both its
facets, has been the subject matter of the text of this study, which was
subjected to corruption at many an occasion, we have already discussed.
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