 Chapter
5
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Victory News Magazine |
What has been mentioned can be summarized as follows:
To be sure, the extension of a man's life for
several centuries is something possible logically and
scientifically, although it continues to remain practically
impossible. But science is moving on the path, albeit a long one,
of realizing this possibility.
In the light of what has been said, we may
approach the issue of the Mahdi's life-span and the questions and
incredulity that surround it. We may note that such a long span of
life is logically-and scientifically possible, and science is
gradually moving towards changing this theoretical possibility
into a practical one. Hence there remain no grounds for wonder and
incredulity except that the Mahdi should have outstripped science
itself by changing the theoretical possibility into a practical
one in his own person before science could reached the level of
competence to bring it about. But this is something similar to a
person outdistancing science by discovering a cure for meningitis
or cancer.
If the problem is as to how Islam, which has determined the age of this awaited leader, has outstripped science in bringing about this change, the reply is that this is not the only area in which Islam has outstripped science. Has not the Islamic Shari'ah in general outstripped science and the natural development of human thought by several centuries? Did it not lay down prescriptions setting forth a program for implementation, whereas it took man several centuries to acquire the maturity to arrive at them independently? Did it not bring the divine laws which represent ultimate wisdom and whose secrets and judiciousness could not be comprehended until recent times? Didn't its heavenly message disclose cosmic secrets which had never occurred to man's mind and which were proved and confirmed by science only later on? Thus if we believe in all this, why should we regard it with incredulity if the Author of this message, the Glorious and the Exalted, has presaged and outdistanced human science in determining the age of the Mahdi?
The Nocturnal Ascension of the Prophet (s)
Here I am not speaking about anything except
cases of such presaging which we are able to perceive directly,
and it is possible to add to these other instances of presaging
mentioned in the heavenly message itself. An example of this is in
the Qur'an where it inform us about the nocturnal ascension of the
Prophet (s), a journey in which he was taken from the Holy Mosque
in Makkah to the Masjid al-Aqsa. If we want to understand this
nightly journey within the framework of natural laws, it may be
considered as a use of natural laws which science did not discover
except hundreds of years later. Therefore, the same divine
knowledge which made it possible for the Prophet (s) to travel at
that speed before science could understand it, has granted the
last of his God-designated vicegerents a long life before science
could accomplish anything of the kind.
Indeed this long life bestowed upon the awaited saviour by God, the Exalted, seems strange from the viewpoint of what is regarded as usual and familiar until today and in the light of what has been presently achieved by scientific experiments. But isn't the saviour's very role of bringing about a tremendous change, for which he has been prepared, something strange, unusual and unprecedented in history? Is he not entrusted with the task of changing the world and rebuilding a new civilization on the basis of truth and justice? Such being the case, why should we consider it strange if the preparation for this great role is marked with certain strange and unusual phenomena such as his long life-span? However strange and unusual these phenomena may appear, they are not more strange than the great role which he is to play on the promised day So when we accept his unique historical role despite its being without a precedent in the history of mankind, then why should we not accept his long life span which has no precedent in ordinary life?
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