Refuting the nonsense that Allah prays for Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.
by Ibn Anwar
A couple of days ago I was chatting with some Christians who brought up this issue. One of them was arguing that Allah worships or prays on or for Muhammad s.a.w. according to the Qur’an. This contention was popularised by the Christian polemicist Sam Shamoun and his ilk. It is no doubt a reaction to Muslims who argue against the alleged divinity of Jesus Christ by pointing out that he prayed to God. The argument essentially postulates that if a person prays to God then that disqualifies him from divinity. In many Christians’ mindset by arguing that Allah prays on Muhammad that refutes the Muslims’ postulation on Jesus and his prayerful disposition, that is, Allah prays and yet he’s still God hence if Jesus prays that means he is no less divine than Allah. In this article we will illustrate that the argument propounded by Shamoun and his ilk stems from a profound ignorance and misunderstanding of the Arabic language and linguistics in general.
The argument that Allah prays(by implication to someone) is derived from the following verse:
“Surely, Allah and His angels send blessings to the Prophet. O you who believe, do pray Allah to bless him, and send your Salām (prayer for his being in peace) to him in abundance.” (33:56)
The detractors of Islam e.g. Shamoun argue that the word used in the verse stems from the word ‘Salah’ which means to pray or worship. They would argue that the above which renders the word as ‘blessings’ is a mistranslation of the original Arabic. The word in question is yusalloon which is fi’il mudhari’ jama’ muzakkar saleem or third person plural imperfect verb. It comes from the root Sala or صلا. Ordinarily the word Salah or صلا from which we get the word salah (صلاة) does mean prayer or worship, however in the verse in question when the word is ascribed to God and angels it connotes the meaning of blessing and/or forgiveness. When the word is used by God it does not mean prayer or worship, but rather blessing. This phenomenon is known as polysemy in language, that is, a word may carry multiple dimensions or meanings in different situations. Ahmad Shehu Abdussalam explains it in the following:
“Polysemy is a semantic state of a word in which it indicates two or more meanings. A word is polysemous when it looks the same as others and has more than one meaning…These varied meanings are known as “senses” (al-wujuh in the sciences of the Qur’an), and can be interrelated, shared in certain attributes or slightly different, indicating multiplicity of meaning, while varied forms of the same word, if any, are the “uses” (al-naza’ir in the sciences of the Qur’an). The word al-akhirah, with only one form (i.e. a use) has five senses: resurrection, paradise, hell, grave and the latter (Qur’an 92:13, 2:102, 39:9, 14:27 and 38:7 respectively).” [1]
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