Jerusalem In Quran; Forward-Book by Sheikh Imran N. Hosein

FOREWORD

Jerusalem in the Qur’an is a great book that thrilled and delighted me in a number

of ways. I am surprised that such a meticulously documented book had to wait for such

a long time before seeing the light. It is now more than half a century since the

Zionists began their appalling oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian

people whose only offense is that they happened to live in a country considered by the

Jews to be their promised holy land.

The Zionists have continuously referred to distorted scriptures from the Torah and

other Biblical material to justify their atrocious behavior and to motivate the Jews to

establish a State of Israel that extends from the Nile to the Euphrates with Jerusalem as

its capital. For example, David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, is quoted

to have said, “The Bible is our deed to the land of Israel”. Muslim scholars, on the

other hand, have largely failed in refuting Zionist claims from authenticated historical

and religious sources and have also failed to accomplish their religious responsibility

in clearly documenting this question from the Holy Qur’an and the Blessed Ahadith of

our beloved Prophet (PBUH). As far as I know, whatever is written on this subject is

rather superficial and emotionally tainted or simply stating facts in a cool manner. May

Allah Ta’ala reward Brother Imran Hosein for writing this scholarly document, which

will indeed fill up this intellectual and religious gap and serve as an academic

reference to Muslims in all parts of the world. As I write this introduction, this book

that was published only this year is already being translated to Arabic and Bosnian. In

a short time it will be rendered into other European languages and to all the other

tongues of the Islamic world.

It must be reported however that the importance of writing a book about the Holy

Land in the Qur’an have not escaped the vision of far-sighted and creative Muslim

thinkers such as Dr. Kalim Siddiqui, Founder-President of the Muslim Institute for

Research and Planning, and Professor shaheed Ismail Al-Farouqi. I am surprised at the

vision of the former scholar who asked Imran Hosein to write this book as early as

1974. He urged him saying that Jerusalem is the key to understanding the historical

process of the Middle East and the world at large. Shaikh Imran successfully

accomplished this task after 27years. Though seemingly late, but it has come at the

right time in which the whole world is being shocked by Jenin and what happened in

Sabra and Shatila.

Ismail Al-Faruqi actually put this issue in writing in his book, “Islam and the

Problem of Israel” that the author referred to. He strongly stated that Israel poses a

greater danger to Muslims than the Euro-Christian Crusades of the Middle Ages or the

Euro-Colonialism of modern times. “Israel”, he wrote, “is neither of these, but that it is

both and more, much more”. He therefore urged Arabs and Muslims not to accept the

Jewish State as an integral part of the world nations of Asia and Africa. He also incited

Muslim scholars to investigate this issue in depth. I am sure that if both of these great

Muslim thinkers were alive, they would have acclaimed this classic book as what they

have aspired for.

I am amazed by Imran’s style of writing. Though Jerusalem in the Qur’an, is a

meticulously written thesis combining religious and historical documents with recent

political events and penetrating interpretations from the Qur’an and Hadith, it runs like

a story. Once you begin reading it, it is hard to stop. This is the general quality of a

novel. The person would read it once and throw the book away - but not that of a

serious thought-provoking dissertation like the book that Brother Shaikh Imran

published. It is a reference that one needs to keep and reread whenever the subject is to

be researched. I believe that this eloquence of the Shaikh must be the result of a natural

gift that has interacted with his indefatigable work as a preacher and da’iyah and the

Divine Blessings for his sincerity.

Finally, in spite of the seemingly depressing situation of the Muslims in general and

the Palestinians in particular, reading the book would certainly give one a warm surge

of optimism about our future; a bright light that shines at the end of our long dark

tunnel of history. We are living at the end of time. This is the age in which the

prophesies of the Holy Qur’an and the Blessed Hadith are unfolding right before our

very eyes to prove to humanity the truthfulness of our faith.

Exactly as our Prophet told us, we have seen the barefooted-poor shepherds of sheep

and goats in the Arab Peninsula competing with each other in building higher and

higher skyscrapers. And we have witnessed the Muslims exploding in numbers but

weakening in character and subdued by their love of this dunyah and their fear of

death thus confirming the authenticated Hadith. And exactly as our Prophet told us,

the strong enemies of Islam are now devouring our countries as though they were a

hungry group invited to a large cauldron of food. And as Allah Ta’ala Himself told us

in his Revealed Holy Qur’an, the Children of Israel, who had been scattered all over

the earth during their Diaspora, have returned to the Holy Land. And as recorded in the

Qur’an, they have indeed committed much corruption and have become powerful and

elated with mighty arrogance.

Just as we have seen these incidents as though we were watching a horror movie, we

will indeed see its imminent happy ending that was prophesized to us in the Qur’an

and the Sayings of our Prophet. The Muslims will wake up from their slumber and the

Jews will receive their promised Divine punishment. The Zionist State will be

destroyed and whatever they have built will be raised to the ground.

The book gives a detailed beautifully written exposition of these episodes with

brilliant interpretations from the Holy Qur’an and Sunnah. Though some may differ

with him with respect to his interpretations of some of the Qur’anic Verses or the

Blessed Prophetic sayings, no one would fail to appreciate his penetrative thought and

his spiritual depth. I therefore recommend the book very much to scholars and laity.

Malik Badri

Dean,

International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization,

Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia