Rashad Khalifa
Rashad Khalifa (November 19, 1935 - January 31, 1990) was an Egyptian muslim who came to the United States as a student of biochemistry in 1959 and later became a citizen. He established an Islamic group called United Submitters International whose beliefs include the rejection of Hadith/Sunnah as a source of doctrine. For many years he was the imam of a mosque in Tuscon, Arizona.
Starting in 1968, Khalifa believed that he had discovered an intricate numerical pattern in the text of the Qur'an involving the number 19. The pattern involves counting of words and letters, and calculations involving the numerical equivalents of the letters. He published several books on this subject.
Khalifa was initially well-received, but became the subject of bitter controversy when he made several claims that according to both Sunnite and Shiite school of thoughts consider to put him outside the fold of Islam.
Controversy on denouncing verses in the Quran
He denounced two long-accepted verses of the Qur'an as false additions, thus portraying himself as a "purifier" of the Quran. Critics have argued that he expunged the verses solely to make the Quran conform to what they have argued to be his pre-concieved numerical pattern. Further controversy has been added to the issue from Rashad originally publishing miscounts that fitted the claimed pattern, which he later acknowledged but "corrected" by expunging verses and arguing for alternative spelling of some words.
Controversy on claim of messengership
Nor did it help when he used his patterns to declare himself as a messenger of God, alongside of Abraham and Muhammad. His claim of messengership caused him to be considered a heretic and an apostate by the main corpus of muslims. To justify his claim he put forth novel interpretations of the words "messenger" and "prophet" so that he could align his claim with at Quranic verse declaring Muhammad to be "the seal of the Prophets" usually taken to mean that Muhammed is the final prophet.
Controversy on hadith and sunnah
As stated, Khalifa rejected the importance of the sunnah and hadith in Islam. This has also caused the spawning of several groups with similar ideas yet disconnected with his main group.
Several muslims have published detailed refutations of Rashad Khalifas claims, but the controversy continues.
On January 31, 1990, Khalifa was stabbed to death in his Tuscon mosque. It is commonly believed that an extremist group al-Fuqra based in Pakistan was responsible, but it is unclear whether this has been positively established.
- The mathematical structure of the Nobel Quran
- Y.Y. Haddad and J.I. Smith, Mission to America; Five Islamic Sectarian Communities in North America, University Press of Florida, 1993. ISBN 0813012163.
- R. Khalifa, Quran: Visual Presentation of the Miracle, Islamic Productions International, 1982.
- R. Khalifa, Quran: The Final Testament, Islamic Productions International, 1989.