wocihac2011_human_development

inspiration means divinely manners or qualities. The inspiration means a blessed
gift, not equality or to be clearer, it is not divine proportion. In this regard, Islamic
prophecy is divine inspiration, that is to say the Muslim prophet receives the words
from God through His revelation, not through the manifestation of God or His
incarnation and then this incarnation experienced by the individual prophet is
translated into words that are later attributed to God. Therefore the question of the
Islamic prophecy should be looked at divine revelation, i.e. the Qur’an, not the
allegation of the divinity of the prophet as commonly held in Christianity.
Divine revelation factor
Divine revelation is a distinguished factor in the separation of Islam from
Christianity, which is said to be based on divine manifestation or incarnation. The
first thesis of the three fundamental theses of the European scholars humanly, that
is to say inspired prophecy associated with Prophet Muhammad (saw), has been
duly addressed. This discussion is intended to disprove the remaining two, i.e.
Islam as an adaptation, and the Arabs before Islam as primitives; they did not live
up to any of the established cultures of Egypt, Persia and Syria.
By implication, divine revelation contrasts with human inspiration, they are
in different domains. Human inspiration is related to human senses or capabilities
such as experience and knowledge, especially being said of Prophet Muhammad
(saw), and with human society. These capabilities are identified with the
boundaries of time and place; they are subject to changes according to the change
of time and the difference of place. They are subject to trial and error because of
uncontrollable circumstances and knowledge inexperience. Thus, the ideas that
come with the said religious reformist are not exempted from revamp or revision,
there must have arisen a radical element with the reformist society to revolt
against part of or the whole of reformation agenda. The ideas written in scripture
are constantly reviewed to suit the community members. Historically, this did not
happen to the Qur’an as divine revelation.
The issue raised by the orientalists, such as Gibb, R.A. Nicholson, and so
on is that Islam was shaped by other contemporary cultures and religions
surrounding the Arab, subsequently shaping their minds. Common view of the
orientalists is that superstitions, myths and biblical stories were randomly adopted
in the Qur’an but this view is convincingly rejected by Muslim scholar such as
Ismail Ali Muhammad (2000) based on fundamental differences, i.e. content
(angles), language style and consistency of the messages.
It is agreeable that there was inter-racial interaction between the Arabs and
non-Arabs before Islam, but not religious interaction because the interaction was
confined to trades, rather than religious interaction because hostility dominated the
Jews, Christians and the Arabs then. The interaction was triggered by social needs
or living necessities, rather than the awareness to spread belief or faith across
ethnical boundary.
Besides, there were cultural and social instabilities that had made the
Qur’an distinguishable. The instabilities manifested themselves in battles between
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