Answering Objections to Islam · Fulfilled Prophecies of Muhammad
The reach of the nation — and its decline
Handle with care. Do not use the decline to score political points about current events; keep it descriptive.
In short
- 1.Said when the Muslims were one besieged city surrounded by superpowers and hostile tribes
- 2.Within a century Islam reached from Spain to the Indus
- 3.He also foretold that nations would summon each other against the Muslims like diners over a dish
- 4.In that narration the Muslims are described as many in number but weak — like froth on a flood
The claim being examined
The Prophet said the earth was folded for him so that he saw its east and west, and that his nation's dominion would reach as far as he had seen.
The Islamic position
The prophecy cuts both ways: he foretold not only the extraordinary spread of Islam but also the later weakness of the Muslims, which is not what a self-promoter predicts.
Analysis
Pair the two narrations deliberately. Predicting your movement's triumph is the most self-serving prophecy imaginable and carries little evidential weight on its own. Predicting its triumph and then its humiliation is a different kind of claim, and the second half is what the companions had no incentive to preserve or invent. The historian Howard Johnston's summary of the speed of the seventh-century transformation is a useful non-Muslim citation for the first half.
From the Qur'an
وَعَدَ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ مِنكُمْ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ لَيَسْتَخْلِفَنَّهُمْ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ كَمَا ٱسْتَخْلَفَ ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ وَلَيُمَكِّنَنَّ لَهُمْ دِينَهُمُ ٱلَّذِى ٱرْتَضَىٰ لَهُمْ وَلَيُبَدِّلَنَّهُم مِّنۢ بَعْدِ خَوْفِهِمْ أَمْنًۭا ۚ يَعْبُدُونَنِى لَا يُشْرِكُونَ بِى شَيْـًۭٔا ۚ وَمَن كَفَرَ بَعْدَ ذَٰلِكَ فَأُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ هُمُ ٱلْفَـٰسِقُونَ
waʿada l-lahu alladhīna āmanū minkum waʿamilū l-ṣāliḥāti layastakhlifannahum fī l-arḍi kamā is'takhlafa alladhīna min qablihim walayumakkinanna lahum dīnahumu alladhī ir'taḍā lahum walayubaddilannahum min baʿdi khawfihim amnan yaʿbudūnanī lā yush'rikūna bī shayan waman kafara baʿda dhālika fa-ulāika humu l-fāsiqūna
God has promised those among you who believe and do righteous deeds that He will surely grant them succession in the land.
From the Sunnah
God folded the earth for me, and I saw its east and west, and the dominion of my nation will reach as far as the earth was folded for me.
The nations will summon one another against you as diners summon one another to a dish. Someone asked: will it be because we are few that day? He said: no, you will be many, but you will be froth like the froth on a flood.
Sources
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