7. False Prophets

Abu Hurayrah radiyallahu ‘anhu narrated that RasulAllah sallallhu ‘alayhi wa sallam said, “The day of judgement will not occur until 30 false prophets arise. Every one of them is claiming that he is a messenger.” If we would sum up all of the people who claim to be prophets in this ummah, we will find that they are more than 30 (in the past 1400 years). The explainers of hadith say that this is talking about the false prophets who end up having a sizable following and become famous and well known. This is not talking about the crazy people here and there claiming to be prophets. This is referring to people who actually had a group following them.

Among the most famous are two who claimed to be prophets during the time of RasulAllah sallallhu ‘alayhi wa sallam. These two were: Musaylimah Al-Kadhaab [which means Musaylimah The Liar] and Al-Aswad al-Unsi in Yemen. This happened towards the end of the life of RasulAllah sallallhu ‘alayhi wa sallam.

Musaylimah was from the Bedouins of Banu Haneefah. This is a big tribe, in the area of Yamamah. He was playing on the tribalism: RasulAllah sallallhu ‘alayhi wa sallam is from Quraysh and I am from Banu Haneefah. They are the city dwellers, we (Musaylimah’s people) are the rural people. You’ll find that false prophets always try to use deceptive ways to attract people. Musaylimah knew that the hearts of the people had nationalism, so he played on that. One of his right hand supporters would clearly say: “The Liar of Banu Haneefah is better than the Truthful of the Quraysh!” Many of his followers knew he was lying. His “Qur’aan” was funny.

This is a miracle. You will find people who are intelligent and good at poetry, but if they try to imitate Qur’aan, they come up with something that is not believable and miserable.

One of the most well-known and eloquent poets of the Arabs, a blind man, sat down for awhile to produce a Qur’aan. He was so arrogant and had a big ego. After awhile, the people started asking, “Where is that Qur’aan that you promised?” He said, “Forget about it. I couldn’t do it.”

Musaylimah AlKhadhaab had a huge following – hundreds of thousands of people. It was a big fitna, and this fitna was not extinguished until the time of Abu Bakr as-Siddeeq. This was one of the worse battles; tens of huffaadh were being killed. That’s how the process of collecting Qur’aan began. Abu Bakr started the process of bringing the mushaf together. And the project continued into ‘Uthmaan’s time. The famous battle of Al-Hadeeqah was when Musaylimah was finally killed.

RasulAllah sallallhu ‘alayhi wa sallam saw a dream where he was wearing two bracelets of gold. He said, “I was concerned. Allah told me to blow on them, so I blew on them and they flew away.” They asked RasulAllah sallallhu ‘alayhi wa sallam, “What is the ta`weer (interpretation) of that dream?” He said, “I interpreted the two liars that will come up in my Ummah.” He was talking about Musaylimah and Aswad AlUnsi. Musaylimah was killed. He got married to a woman named Sajah, who claimed to be a prophet too. She had a certain following, Musaylimah had a certain following. They married for political reasons. When Musaylimah was killed, she saw that this prophethood thing was not giving her any advances, so she forgot about it and became Muslim again.

AlAswad alUnsi was killed by a man named Fayrooz. They assassinated him in his palace in Yemen. That was the end of AlAswad alUnsi.

Then there was Tulayhah alUsdi. He claimed to be a prophet, but he became Muslim later. They say he was [a] fine [Muslim] after that.

Wallahu Alam, they say that either Tulayhah or Musaylimah, whenever they asked him to read Qur’aan, he would talk about ayaat describing food. So they said, “We don’t know if the angel is revealing to your heart or your stomach!”

AlMukhtaar Ibn ‘Ubaid at-taqafi also claimed to be a prophet.

In modern times: there is Mirza Gulaam Ahmad, the founder of alQadiyaniyah. He can be counted as the one of the 30 because he has a sizable following. It is kufr by shari’ah and also by Pakistan’s government as well.