As part of our colloquium series, Associate Professor Emeritus Husain Kassim will be delivering a talk, titled "The Seal of Prophets: Jesus, Mānī, and Muḥammad." Please join us for this talk!
Abstract:
This investigation deals with the claim that Jesus (4 B.C. E.), Mani (216 C.E.), and Muḥammad (570 C. E.) are the ‘Seal of Prophets’. It relates with the Johannine theologically developed concept of the Paraclete, since Mani and Muhammad both claim to be the Paraclete of Jesus and the ‘Seal of Prophets’ According to Matthew and John, after the death of Jesus would come no other Prophets. The historical facts, however, proved it otherwise. After the death of Jesus, came Mani and claim to be the Paraclete of Jesus and the ‘Seal of Prophets’. Similarly, Muslim scholars maintain that Muḥammad was the Paraclete of Jesus and the ‘Seal of Prophets’. All these three historical figures were accepted as the ‘Seal of Prophets’ in the religious and cultural traditions of Christianity, Manichaeism, and Islam respectively.
My investigation explores Jesus, Mani, and Muḥammad as the ‘Seal of Prophets’ relating it to the Johannine concept of the Paraclete and shows that there is no clear linear historical course of an evolutionary trajectory for explaining the same fact – the “Seal of Prophets’ for Jesus, Mani, and Muḥammad to be valid when one relates it to Johannine concept of the of the Paraclete. It just did not develop along a predictable evolution. For now, we have to content with the contention that Jesus, Mani, and Muḥammad are considered the ‘Seal of Prophets’ in each of these religious and cultural traditions of Christianity, Manichaeism, and Islam.
Bio:
Husain Kassim is Associate Professor Emeritus , University of Central Florida. He has taught as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Bremen, Distinguished Chair in the Intercultural Theology and Religion at the University of Salzburg, and as Visiting Professor at the University of Karachi. Dr. Kassim is the author of Hermeneutics in the Genre of Mukhtaṣar, Sarakhsī: The Doctrine of Juristic Preference in Islamic Jurisprudence, Aristotle and Aristotelianism in Medieval Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Philosophy, Legitimizing Modernity in Islam, and Islamicate Societies as well as several articles in the area of Islamic Studies.
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