United Submitters International

The United Submitters International is a minor Islamic group, founded by Rashad Khalifa. It is regarded by most Muslims as heretical. The group calls itself the "Submitters" and claims to follow the Qur'an Alone, rejecting hadiths and sunnah. A schism occurred within the main group after the death of Khalifa, with Edip Yuksel and a few former Submitters separating and accusing the Submitters of devoting themselves to Khalifa instead of God.

Beliefs

* All worship should be dedicated to God alone
* No human beings should be mentioned in prayer; this constitutes shirk (idolatry)
* The Qur'an is the last and best of all scriptures
* Islam as the world knows it today has been corrupted beyond recognition by adherence to hadith and sunnah
* Rashad Khalifa was the consolidating and purifying Messenger of the Covenant prophesied in the Bible (Malachi 3:1-21, Luke 17:22-36, & Matthew 24:27) and in the Qur'an (3:81)
* God put an authenticating code in all His scriptures, including the Qur'an, based on the number 19
* The number 19 is powerless, but it represents God's signature of 1-to-9, Alpha-to-Omega, Beginning-to-End

Submitters describe themselves as Qur'an Alone Muslims. There are other Islamic groups that characterize themselves as Qur'an Alone, such as many prominent Progressive Muslim groups and some of the former Tucson, Arizona group.

Rejection of hadith and sunnah

Academics and scholars in the Western tradition have long taken a jaundiced view of hadith (see hadith and sunnah, historiography of early Islam), believing that many of the "traditions" are later inventions. Khalifa was notable for being both a practicing Muslim and an absolutist rejector of hadith and sunnah. He argued foremost that hadith and sunnah were condemned by the Qur'an Alone ideology. He also argued that the hadith and sunnah were not credible, and that much of the elaborate structure of religious and family law, sharia, erected on the basis of the hadith, was not binding on Muslims. Indeed, he argued that the Qur'an alone was sufficient as a basis for Islam. His ideas have clearly had some influence, even outside his group of Submitters, but it would be difficult to quantify it. He promoted the slogan: The Qur'an, the whole Qur'an, and nothing but the Qur'an [http://www.submission.org/qhi.html] .

Rejection of two Qur'anic verses

While Khalifa's early publications claimed that the numerical code he saw in the Qur'an confirmed that the Qur'an was perfectly preserved, errors were found in his earlier counts. In the end, to keep the counts of certain critical words, Khalifa denounced two long-accepted verses (Sura 9:128–129) of the Qur'an as later interpolations, portraying himself as a "purifier" of the Qur'an. He claimed that the numerical patterns he found in the Qur'an showed the verses to be false [http://www.submission.org/tampering.html] . He also pointed to a tradition found in Sahih Bukhari, that these verses were only found in one version of the ninth sura when the Qur'an was compiled and standardized [http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/061.sbt.html#006.061.509] under the early caliph Uthman ibn Affan. Furthermore he argued that those two verses are labelled as Meccan in a sura usually accepted as Medinan.

Claiming to be a divine messenger

The controversy surrounding Khalifa deepened when he declared himself a Messenger of God, just as Abraham and Muhammad had been. He claimed to be the Messenger of the Covenant, prophesied in the Bible (Malachi 3:1-21, Luke 17:22-36, & Matthew 24:27) and the Qur'an (3:81), sent to purify and consolidate all God's messages into one.

Khalifa distinguished between "messengers" and "prophets" [http://www.submission.org/messenger/prophet.html] , arguing that prophets brought down scriptures from God while messengers did not. He considered Muhammad to be the final Prophet (delivering the final scripture; Qur'an) but not the last messenger. Most Muslims consider Muhammed to be both the final Prophet "and" the final messenger. Other Muslims henceforth considered Khalifa a heretic and an apostate.

Altering prayers

Khalifa claimed that it was wrong to mention any name besides the name of God in any of the worship practices, including the salat, or daily prayer, and the shahadah, or confession of faith. The usual forms of prayer and confession mention Muhammad. Removing Muhammad's name was not well received by other Muslims. Khalifa argued that mentioning the name of any powerless human being in any of the worship practises was idolatry, or setting up partners beside God.

The number 19

Many cultures and religions in the world have believed, or still believe, that certain numbers are especially lucky, significant, or meaningful. Khalifa argued that the number 19 had no special significance in itself, but was the common denominator of the Qur'an's mathematical code.

Characters in sacred texts read as numerals

Before the use of the numerals now known as Arabic numerals, Semitic writing systems used characters or letters also as numerals. In time, every character was associated with a number, so that every word could be represented as a number (the sum of the numbers associated with its letters). This was taken into Arabic as the abjad system. Medieval Islamic scholars used this abjad system to write treatises on the subject of numerology and the Qur'an. Islamic numerology is referred to as " 'ilm al-jafr" or " 'ilm al-hurūf" in Arabic [http://www.islamonline.net/askaboutislam/display.asp?hquestionID=8602] .

The use of the abjad system became quite popular in India. Indian Muslims commonly continue to place great signifance on the number 786 (number) because it is the abjad numerological equivalent of the Islamic invocation known as the Bismillah.

Numeric patterns in the Qur'an

Khalifa did not use the abjad system. Starting in 1969, he used computers to analyze counts of letters, words, verses (ayahs) and chapters (suras) in the Qur'an; initially he was searching for any kind of numerical pattern, specifically relating to letter frequencies in connection with the initial letters; later, having found a number of multiples of 19, he and others looked for letter, word, and other counts that were also 19-multiples. He believed that the Qur'an itself pointed to the significance of the number 19, which is mentioned in sura 74.

When Khalifa first began using a computer to "extract" patterns involving the number 19, many Muslims were both interested and supportive. However, as Khalifa became more involved with his findings, he began claiming that the patterns in the Qur'an identified him as a messenger sent by God. At this point Khalifa's "patterns" became controversial and were rejected by mainstream Islamic opinion.

Further Reading

* Martin Gardner (1980). "Mathematical Games". "Scientific American" 243 (3): 20-24.
* Ahmed Deedat (1984). "Al-Qur'an: The Ultimate Miracle".
* Abdul Aziz Bin Baz, Abdul Quddus Hasimi, Abu Abdurrahmann Mahmoud Murad (1985). "In Defence of the Qur'an and Sunnah". ISBN 0920265103
* Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips (1987). "The Quran's Numerical Miracle: Hoax and Heresy".
* Martin Gardner (1997). "Farrakhan, Cabala, Baha'i, and 19". "Skeptical Inquirer" 21 (2): 16-18, 57.
* Martin Gardner (1997). "The numerology of Dr. Rashad Khalifa". "Skeptical Inquirer" 21 (5):16-17, 58.

Websites of Submitters and related splinter groups

* [http://www.submission.org Submission.org] (organization website)
* [http://www.masjidtucson.org Masjid Tucson] (organization website)
* [http://www.submission.info Submission.info] (organization website)

Skeptical evaluation by Christians

* [http://answering-islam.org.uk/Nehls/Ask/number19.html The Mysterious 19 in the Qur'an] - A Critical Evaluation