How Tradition Influences Textual Understanding

Those who are familiar with the U.S. Constitution is aware that a two-term president cannot be elected to the presidency again.

So, the belief that is held by the majority of people is that a two-term president cannot be president under any circumstances.

However, that is technically untrue. A two-term president is not prevented by the American Constitution from running as the Vice President and then becoming president by succession.

The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says:

No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

So as you can see, the 22nd Amendment only prohibits a twice-elected president from being elected as president again, but it doesn’t prohibit him or her from being the vice president and then ascending to the presidency by succession.

Now, some might say: “The 12th Amendment prevents a constitutionally ineligible president from being the vice president, so that means a two-term president cannot be vice president, right?”

Here is the relevant section:

But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.

Notice that the 12th Amendment says if you are constitutionally ineligible to the office of presidency, you cannot be the vice president. This means the 12th Amendment only says if you are not eligible to be president, then you cannot be Vice President.

• In other words, the 12th Amendment doesn’t mention anything about the eligibility to be elected to the office, but the eligibility to be put in the office. If you’re not eligible to be put into the office of president, then you can’t be vice president.

There are only two possible ways to qualify for being the president if someone meets all the demographic requirements: either election, or succession.

• The 22nd Amendment closes off only the election pathway for 2-term presidents.

• That leaves one more pathway open: succession.

• So the little-known fact is that a two-termer is still constitutionally eligible to be the president by succession only, despite the traditional thinking that no two-term president under any circumstances can ever be president again.

Quran: The Constitution of Islam

So why is this important? Because this is an excellent demonstration of how traditional interpretations of constitutional text can sometimes prevent people from accessing the correct and straightforward meaning of the text.

Think about it: The 14th Amendment of the American Constitution was used to justify and legalize racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans for decades, even though this amendment clearly forbade discrimination on the basis of people’s demography nationwide.

• Why did that happen? Because people weren’t able to see the straightforward meaning of the text due to their traditional ways of thinking. They let their traditions influence how they understood the constitution.

Likewise. the Quran is the Islamic constitution of faith. However, traditional ways of thinking about the Quran may obstruct people from accessing the correct meaning of the Quran’s straightforward and clear statements, just like it did for the American constitution.

The Prime Example: A Messenger after Muhammad

The traditional understanding of a messenger according to scholars is one who receives a new scripture, and the traditional understanding of a prophet is one who receives any kind of message from God, whether it is a scripture or something else.

So according to the traditional school of thought, all messengers are prophets, but not all prophets are messengers.

But when you look at what the Quran says, it defines a prophet as someone given a scripture. Verse 3:81 says every single prophet took a covenant with God to deliver and preach the scriptures (kitab) they were given. Then, a messenger will someday come AFTER all the prophets, whose mission will be to confirm all of their scriptures:

• [3:81] And when God took the covenant of the prophets: “Definitely, this is what I will give you of Book and wisdom. Then a messenger will come to you (all prophets) as one who will confirm what is with you (the scriptures). Definitely, you (all prophets) shall indeed believe in him and support him.” He said, “Have you agreed and accepted that, My heavy responsibility?” They said, “We have agreed.” He said, “So bear witness, and I am with you among the witnesses.

The Quran also clarifies in verse 33:7 that the prophet Muhammad himself took this covenant alongside the other prophets, meaning he too (like all the other prophets) agreed to support a future messenger (who will be tasked with the mission of confirming the Quran) who will one day come to him.

• [33:7] And when We took from the prophets their covenant—including from you (Muhammad), Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, the son of Mary—and We took from them a stern covenant. 

Of course, how can a future messenger meet prophet Muhammad and the other prophets when all the prophets are long dead?

• This can only happen when God takes up the soul of this future messenger to somewhere in the afterlife to meet the prophets, kind of like prophet Muhammad’s “mi’raj” (ascension) to the place where the lote tree was.

So verse 3:81 establishes that messengers confirm, teach, and judge by the scriptures provided to previous prophets. All prophets are messengers because they have to teach and judge by their own scriptures, but not all messengers are prophets.

One might ask: “Okay, what about Aaron? If he was a prophet, then what scripture was he given?” The Quran says Aaron was given the same scripture as his brother Moses.

• [37:117] And We gave the two of them (Moses and Aaron) the clear Book. 
• [21:48] And certainly, We definitely gave Moses and Aaron the Criterion, an illumination and a reminder for the servants. 

So if you take a plain, unbiased, and straightforward look at the Quran (Islam’s Constitution), it clearly states that a future messenger will come after Muhammad. But we let traditional thinking believe that Muhammad is the last messenger.

• The exact identity of this future messenger is discussed on this link.

• It is worth noting that not even this future messenger himself ever claimed that he was the last messenger.

Conclusion

In conclusion, sometimes tradition prevents people from accessing the clear and straightforward meaning of certain texts, such as the founding documents of a nation.

For example, the United States should not have allowed slavery and legalized racial discrimination to exist if its Declaration of Independence contained the following words:

• “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.“

But tradition and bias caused the people at the time to interpret those straightforward words as, “For white men only, not black people.”

Tradition even today causes Americans to not notice a loophole that allows a two-term president to become president again (by succession after being vice president).

In a similar way, traditional ways of thinking conceal many truths that are straightforward in the Quran, Islam’s constitution of faith, and just one example (the messenger coming after Muhammad mentioned in verse 3:81) was provided in this article.