This post hardly qualifies as even scribblings. As a student of Islām and history, academic questions arise which are of no relevance to others. I was discussing the above question with a fellow History buff, and he asked my theories on the matter. I have had some thoughts but had never before arranged them with any semblance of coherence. So I thought I should finally put pen to paper, primarily for his reading, but perhaps someone might come across this and contribute something more concrete.

You, dear Reader, are of course welcome to continue reading, but you have been warned. These are mere scribblings of some ideas, and not established Islāmic dogma (unless I have indicated otherwise).

Prophets were sent unto every Nation

We understand from the Qurʾān that every nation has received a Prophet, or at the very least a warner, who called towards Allāh.

وَيَقُولُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا لَوْلَا أُنزِلَ عَلَيْهِ آيَةٌ مِّن رَّبِّهِ ۗ إِنَّمَا أَنتَ مُنذِرٌ ۖ وَلِكُلِّ قَوْمٍ هَادٍ 

Those who disbelieve say, “Why has a sign not been sent from his Lord?” You are only  warner and each nation had a guide.

ʾar-Raʿd: 7

Commentators such as ʾal-ʾImām ʾIbn Kathīr (رحمه الله) quote sources such as ʾIbn ʿAbbās (may Allāh be pleased with him) that guide means a caller unto Allāh. His student, Mujāhid is more specific that the caller is in fact a Prophet.

ʾal-ʾImām ʾIbn Kathīr (رحمه الله) further comments under ʾal-Fāṭir:24:

إِنَّا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ بِالْحَقِّ بَشِيرًا وَنَذِيرًا ۚ وَإِن مِّنْ أُمَّةٍ إِلَّا خَلَا فِيهَا نَذِيرٌ

Indeed We have sent you as a bearer of glad tidings and a warner. And Indeed there is no nation except that there has passed within it a warner

“i.e. there has been no nation from the sons of ʾĀdam except that Allāh sent warners unto them….and the verses are many in this regard.”

Asia, Africa…. but Europe?

So this is our belief that Prophets, or at least inspired warners were sent to all peoples. We believe this and are not required to know the names of any.

We know that what we now call Asia was blessed with the presence of most of the Prophets. Africa too has witnessed their presence. We accept that Europe too was warned, without needing to know any details, but as an academic discussion, are there any indications of these sacred personalities in Europe, or an explanation for why it might seem that there are not any?

A Solitary Mention

As far as I could determine, the only Prophet explicitly linked to Europe is ʾAyyūb or Job (عليه السلام). ʾal-ʾImām ʾal-Qurṭubī (رحمه الله) comments under Ṣād: 41:

The Commentators state that ʾAyyūb was a Roman from ʾal-Buthaynah.

ʾal-Buthaynah is in Syria, whereas “Roman” need not be Italian Roman as we understand it, but can be symbolic of Greek or European in general. Yet for want of further information, we do not know if he (عليه السلام) was of European descent and was born in Syria, or was he born in “Rome” and settled in Syria. If the latter, did he actually preach in Europe or did he receive his commission only in Syria? All these unknowns and ambiguities should also be weighed against the fact that geographical and racial concepts, which we take as etched in stone, are often modern constructs, and using them as yardsticks can be anachronistic.

That, to my limited knowledge, basically covers the textual evidence of Prophets in Europe. Yet if “every nation” is under the purview of receiving the divine message, and neither Islamic nor historical sources mention specific prophets in Europe, what other possibilities might exist?

The Pious were transformed into Idols

Idolatry originates with ignoramuses over-venerating the pious and eventually worshipping them. Whereas the pious worshipped Allāh alone. Living examples include Christian worship of ʿĪsā or Jesus (عليه السلام) and Rawāfiḍ worship of the “Twelve ʾAʾimmah”.

ʾal-ʾImām ʾal-Qurṭubī (رحمه الله) comments under Nūḥ: 23:

ʾĀdam, peace be upon him, had five sons who were great worshippers – Wadd, Suwāʿ, Yaghūth, Yaʿūq and Nasr. One of them died and they grieved for him. Satan said, “I shall make his likeness so that when you look at it you may remember him.” “Do so,” they said. So he made it in the masjid, out of brass and lead.  

Then another died and he made his image, until all died and he made their images. Matters deteriorated just as they do today, until after a while they abandoned the worship of Allāh Most High. Satan then said to them, “What is wrong with you, why do you not worship anything?” “What shall we worship?” they asked. “Your gods and the gods of your forefathers,” he replied, “Do you not see them in your places of worship?” So they worshipped them instead of Allāh.

To this day we see that Satan uses the same blueprint of transforming the innocent pious into idols. Why then should the same not have applied in the period between Nūḥ – Noah –  (عليه السلام) and ʿĪsā (عليه السلام)? Is it impossible that Buddha and Shiva were true believers or even prophets whose messages were atrociously distorted? After all, did ʿAlī (رضي الله عنه) and his descendants preach the fairy tales which the Shīʿah attribute to them?

Moving to Europe, who knows the reality of Zeus, Thor and Mars. Might they have been as historically real as Wadd, Suwāʿ, Yaghūth, Yaʿūq and Nasr? Might they have been monotheist believers whose stories similarly got distorted? Might they even have been Prophets whose followers made them into idols like ʾĪsā (عليه السلام)?

I do not say they were. I do not have knowledge of unseen. However, I do have access to the Qurʾān and its explanations, and this may POSSIBLY be an explanation.

Blind Acceptance of the Conventional Narrative

It is ironic that atheists love accusing the religious of blind following , when so much of what the atheists blindly believe do not stand up to the scientific scrutiny that they claim to worship. Whether it is the core tenet of their faith, like evolution, or historical facts, they cling to what the secular priest says and do not swerve.

A religious person is less likely to blindly accept everything the agenda of the mass media spews. Bear in mind that the inaccuracies of today’s “news” becomes the recorded history of tomorrow.

The Atheist French Revolution shaped the thought processes of the western world of today. Thus an apt example is the propaganda lie of the Revolutionaries that Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat cake.” No matter how many times serious historians negate this fable, the blind-following academics and journalists continue to perpetuate it as fact. How much of our history is in fact fossilised lies which has not been tested and which vested interests refuse to renounce?

Everything known about Norse mythology is taken from the Edda of Snorri Sturluson, a Christian who wrote his work three centuries after the conversion of Iceland to Christianity (1000 CE). There are no written records from before the conversion. Archaeology does not help, for amongst other reasons its findings are merely interpreted in the light of the Edda without question.

It boggles the mind how no questions are raised that an entire religion is acceptably codified:

1. By an outsider who belonged to the new religion.
2. With a gap of 3 centuries after the disappearance of the old religion.
3. With zero third party attestation.

Is it really that far fetched that Thor, for example, was a monotheist just like Wadd, or even perhaps the Prophet sent to the Norse people?

Why should the story written 3 centuries after the disappearance of the religion, and even more countless centuries after Thor – if he existed – be any more believable than that?

Remnants of Distorted Messages

Previous religions distorted the teachings of their Prophets and their scriptures. This loss of purity, which does not occur in Islām, would necessitate a new preaching to restore the lost purity.

مِنَ ٱلَّذِينَ هَادُواْ يُحَرِّفُونَ ٱلْكَلِمَ عَن مَّوَاضِعِهِ

Amongst those who are Jews are those who distort words from their place…

ʾan-Nisāʾ: 46

Yet, despite distortions, the message of Monotheism, prayer, fasting etc still remain in one form or the other, a glimmer of rays pointing to the true Prophets such as Mūsā – Moses – (عليه السلام).

Might this be the case in Europe? Were there any rays, however dim, left from the messages of Prophets? Certainly not in the north, as has been indicated. What however about the south then?

A study of the laws of ancient Rome in the days closer its founding, not the Empire, inclines me to view these laws as dim rays from a divinely inspired sun. Ancient Roman Laws inculcated a spirit of manliness, men were to walk in Rome and not be carried in vehicles. Limits were placed on the quantity of luxury goods one could possess. The hut of the father of Rome, Romulus, was preserved for generations as a sign of how a true Roman should live. Theatres of stone were forbidden. They could only be temporary wooden structures. A Roman should not be distracted by entertainment of the world. Even in later corrupt centuries, the Romans exhibited a more intelligent attitude to entertainers than what we do today. As much as they watched gladiators, they were not celebrities like today’s soccer and movie stars. Socially, gladiators were on par with prostitutes. Both sell their bodies for entertainment, what is the difference?

That both the Jewish Talmud and Arab historians like ʾal-Wāqidī claim that Romans are descendants of Esau brother of Yaʿqūb – Jacob – (عليه السلام) adds to the possibility that the founders of Rome had some knowledge of divine law. How far they kept it or distorted it is another issue.

Most of us might know of one founding story of Rome, that of the brothers, Romulus and Remus. Yet historians such as T.P. Wiseman mention over 70! The more one studies the founding of Rome, the more murky the story appears. The excuse is usually given that records were destroyed when the Gauls occupied Rome in 387 BCE. To me however there seems to be a sense of deliberate cover up of many central facts, that the Romans seem to want to hide.

What really happened almost 3000 years ago? The story goes that Remus violated the religion of Romulus during the sacred wall demarcation ceremony and so Romulus killed him. Is that it? A man gets killed for jumping over the site of the future wall? Can there be more to it? Did Remus just defy the religious ceremony or is it symbolic of him confronting the paganism of the Latins? Was Remus a warner? A Prophet? Were the Romans embarrassed about Monotheistic ancestors and Prophets and hid their history under cover of “lost records”?

A Prophet need not be of the same People

That Allāh sent warners and Prophets to all peoples, need not mean that they be of the same “nationality”.

• ʾIbrāhīm (عليه السلام), Yūsuf (عليه السلام), Yaʿqūb (عليه السلام) Mūsā (عليه السلام) and Hārūn (عليه السلام) were all sent to Egypt without being Egyptian.
• Lūṭ (عليه السلام) was sent to Sodom from his eastern homeland.
• Yūnus (عليه السلام), the Israelite, was sent to Nineveh.  
• ʾIsmāʿīl (عليه السلام) may have been raised in Makkah, but neither of his parents were from there.

Thus the messengers sent to Europe need not be “of there” but may even be of those whose names we have heard of.

Common Descriptions of a Guide

ʾIdrīs (عليه السلام) taught mankind the basic sciences of civilisation. I find it interesting that an ʾIdrīs-like guide, who teaches mankind the basics of civlisation, can be found throughout the world. Thus the Egyptians spoke of Djhuty, the Greeks spoke of Hermes, and the Aztecs spoke of Quetzalcoatl. The last is especially interesting not so much because of the distance from the “Middle-East” but because the Aztecs described him as bearded, a feature their men did not possess.

Do all these civilisations recall the distant memory of the same Prophet in the same place of their distant common ancestors? Or was the special mission of ʾIdrīs (عليه السلام) not confined to one place, but took him to various continents? Or was a Prophet with the same mission sent to each people?

Allāh knows best. We are obligated to believe what the Qurʾān and its authorised commentary states, not in speculation and theories. Nevertheless, for me the study of history increases my faith. I see patterns behind which there has to be a Creator. Thus this thought exercise which perhaps someone else can flesh out with solid facts.

There is however one practical ramification. I was amazed that in this late era there are still some ignoramuses who wish the gates of Islām closed to certain races, particularly closed against “Whites”. I have no hope in such people if they ignore the clear words of Allāh and His Messenger (صلى الله عيله و سلم) which denounce racism. Perhaps however, the thought of disrespect to the ancient Prophets and Believers of Europe might open the eyes of some. May Allāh guide us all and increase us in beneficial knowledge.

سليمان الكندي

Twitter: @sulayman_kindi