SURAH AL-BAQARAH
Ayah 4.
والَّذِينَ يُؤْمِنُونَ بِمَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ وَمَا أُنزِلَ مِن قَبْلِكَ وَبِالآخِرَةِ هُمْ يُوقِنُونَ
And who believe in what has been revealed to you, and what was revealed before you, and of the hereafter they are certain.
----------------------------------------------
"And who believe in what has been revealed to you, and what was revealed before you"
– “you” = Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.
– there is no mention of what will be revealed “after” you.
Therefore there will be no more revelation after the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. Anyone (after Muhammad s.a.w) who claims to receive revelations from God, goes against what this ayah has said. Revelations came to the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w and came BEFORE him, not AFTER him.
Surah Baqorah talked about “Eeman” (faith). Faith in what?
In this ayah, it is “Eeman” in the message (revelation). Believing in the message that was conveyed to the Prophet s.a.w where we are exposed to the “unseen” world.
“what was revealed before you”
The Quran told us to believe on the past scriptures that were revealed earlier before the Quran. Even though the content of those scriptures nowadays have been altered, but remnants of Allah’s words may still be somewhere in those scriptures. Therefore we still have to respect those books of the past (the remnants of the original Torah and Injeel)
For us, there is no such thing as burn the Bible or the Torah day like what the pastor in US declares burn the “koran” day. We don’t fall to that low standard of behavior.
This ayah indicates that there were other divine revelations before the Qur’an and that there was actually only ONE religion, that is the religion of submitting ourselves to the Creator and Master of human beings. Refer to Revelations and Prophets.
(1) Believing of a God that created the world -> this is easy for people to believe.
(2) Believing in an after life (the hereafter) -> this too is believed by other religions of the world (except the Atheist and Agnostics). The Atheist will not want to answer for their bad deeds hence the refusal to believe the existence of life after death (Judgement day).
(3) Believing in the revelations -> This is a bit complicated for people to swallow.
When you say revelations, it involved the angel (that brought the revelations), the Messenger (that received the revelations) and the Book (where revelations were documented).
Believing in revelation means that you must believe and obey all the commands and prohibitions coming from the Book. You must believe every single thing that the Messenger was telling you. You must believe the credibility of the man claiming himself to be the Messenger of God. You also must believe that the Messenger truly indeed received revelations from an angel sent by God, and not the devil disguised as an angel.
Some people developed their own way of communicating to God, their own way of what is right and what is wrong, their own belief of what going to happen in the hereafter. All because they don’t believe in revelations and the Messengers. They think they are too smart to follow the “Books” or the “Messengers”. Unfortunately they have not done enough research on the credibility of the Messengers.
Quran is the last revelation. All other revelations came before the Quran. All previous “Books” never claim to be the last revelation. The Quran already covered this issue via this ayah. If your neighbor claimed he received revelation, you know that is not revelation and he is a liar.
“and of the hereafter they are certain (thoroughly convinced).”
“yuqinunn” translated as “they are certain“, but the meaning is more than that. When you “googled” information on certain things (eg. remedy for cough), you believe what you read (you are certain), but as long as you have not tried it out, you are in fact in a state of not thoroughly convinced.
If several people told you that a dish is delicious, you are certain that that dish should be delicious as people have tasted it. But when you yourself have tasted the dish, you have experienced the taste and totally love it.
That is how this ayah is describing about the people of taqwa, total convinced of the hereafter as if they have seen and experienced it. They have seen others facing death and died. That is one reason why they are convinced to wanting to protect themselves. In the physical world, if it rains, you will prepare yourself with an umbrella, protecting yourself from getting wet, etc.
Their conviction of not missing on Solah, conviction of protecting their ears in listening to haram, their eyes on not watching the haram, their tongue on not saying the haram, their stomach on not taking in the haram, etc. are proves that they are convinced. They know they will come face to face with the hereafter, that death is not the end, but is the initial phase of the hereafter.
Taqwa and conviction can only materialize when you are totally convinced of the hereafter and you think of it daily. In the hereafter we are at the mercy of Allah whether Allah saves us from the hell fire and let us enter paradise.
Historically proven, total conviction were the “riwayaat” (documented events) of the “sahabah”(companions of the Prophet s.a.w) who were willing to sacrifice everything including their lives for the “Deen” (the God-given way of life).