The Biblical book, Songs of Solomon, is a collection of poems in which a bridegroom serenades his bride with poetic raptures to which the bride responds in kind. The six chapters of this book are both a prophecy and an allegory which demonstrates the love of the deity for his people. In Chapter 5 of this allegory, the names David (as) and Muhammad (saws) are mentioned as the plural, masculine nouns, dwdym and mhmdym respectively.
Chapter 5 begins by mentioning the word dwdym in the first verse and ends with the word mhmdym. In other words, the author begins by referencing the groom’s connection with David (as), but ends by having the bride declare her groom to be Muhammadim. It is clear that Songs 5 is a prophecy that the messianic expectations of the Jews were to be fulfilled in the Prophet Muhammad and his followers. These followers rebuilt the place of worship in Palestine once dedicated to the One True God, Masjid Al Aqsa and established a great empire whose religion continues to spread throughout the globe. The word mhmdym in this chapter is the method by which the Jews in the Arabian Peninsula were able to identify the Prophet. Quran 2:146 says: “Those to whom We gave the Scripture know him (Muhammad) as they know their own sons. But indeed, a party of them conceal the truth while they know [it].
The word mhmdym is a plural masculine noun which literally means ‘Muhammad’s people’. The author of chapter 5 has created a double entendre or a word with a double meaning. Like the word dwdym, which suggests both the name of David as well as his people, so the word mhmdym also suggests both the person of the Prophet as well as his Ummah, the Muslim Ummah.
The prophetic word ‘mhmdym’ describes the person of the Prophet, especially his physical appearance as well as his nature. Muhammad is described as man of medium height with black eyes, black hair and beard, which contrasted handsomely with his light complexion and ruddy cheeks. His was known to use scent in his beard and to be soft spoken. This description matches the description of the groom in Songs 5:10:
My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand.His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies dropping with sweet smelling myrrh… his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is (Mohammed). This is my beloved, and this is my friend. O daughters of Jerusalem.
The words in Songs 5:1 (dwdym) and Songs 5:16 (mhmdym) are a synonymous parallelism, a common feature of biblical poetry. The author of Songs 5 draws a relationship between the friends of the groom who are dwdym (Davids (as) people or Judeans) and the mhmdym (Muhammad’s (saws) people). Both names mean beloved in Hebrew. The story is about the covenant/contract transfer from the dwdym to the mhmadym.
In Songs 5, the groom is symbolic of the deity and the bride is symbolic of the people with whom he established a covenant. That covenant was transferred to the Muslims, because everyone who professes Islam is regarded as equal under the law regardless of their religious or cultural origin. The Jews, on the other hand, believe that their deity separated them from other nations with whom they were forbidden to marry lest they become ritually impure and unacceptable to their deity. (See Deut 32 and the Talmud). The Jews kept the religion for themselves while the Muslims spread it throughout the entire globe.
There have been protests that the word mhymdym cannot refer to Muhammad (saws), that it is not a name, but a noun, which of course, is defined as the NAME of a person, place or thing. The name/noun mhmdym in Songs 5:16 is a reference and a parallel to the name dwdym in Songs 5:1. The name dwdym refers to David, the biblical king upon whom the Jews still place their messianic expectations. These expectations were that another Dwd/David would restore the kingdom of Judah and expand it to a global power or empire as well as rebuild the temple (masjid) dedicated to the One True God (Allah in Arabic). The author uses forms of the word dwd (beloved) 30 times throughout chapters of this poem, but the word dwdym is mentioned but once and that is in the first verse of Songs 5:1.
As for the pronunciation of the Hebrew word mhmdym as muhammadim, one must explore the various dialectical readings of of the Torah. There are several accepted readings of the Torah. Three of them are the Ashkenazi, the Sephardic and the Mizrahi pronunciations. Each of these methods of recitation are further broken down into dialects. Alone, the Mizrahi pronunciation is broken down into Iraqi, Kurdish, Lebanese, Syrian, Yemenite, Turkish and Iranian dialects. All of these dialects are employed in the recitation of the Torah. So, the Jews acquired many, many different dialects especially under the Muslims because they followed the expansion of the Islamic empire. Saying that there is only one pronunciation of the bible is like saying there is only one way to read the Quran when there are seven recognized ways to recite the Quran.
It is short sighted to insist on the current Ashkenazi pronunciation of biblical Hebrew. It is better to rely on the pronunciation of Mizrahi Jews especially those who resided in Iraq. The Jews resided in Iraq from circa 580 BCE until the Zionist effort to have all Jews exported to Palestine so that the Jews would out-number the native inhabitants who consisted of Palestinian adherents of the Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths. To the Mizrahi Jew, the name mhmdym would be pronounced as ‘muhammadim’ and not machmadim, which is the Ashkenazi version of the word. The Ashkenazi pronunciation is based upon the pronunciation of European Jews whose language is influenced by the languages of Europe and not the Semitic languages.
As for the prophecy in Songs 5, the Gospel according to Matthew 21:43 has Jesus (as) declare: “Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” So, it is clear that Jesus confirmed the prophecy in Songs 5 and the covenant was taken from the dwdym (David’s people) and given to the mhmdym (Muhammad’s people).
Jesus was sent to refute the Jerusalem temple authority’s interpretation of the Torah which was causing extreme hardship to the Jews in Palestine. The temple authority was also supporting the Roman occupation of that nation. It was to these Jewish scholars that he warned that the kingdom would be taken from them because the priesthood was the ultimate authority and it was the priests who were most familiar with the scriptural prophecies regarding the transfer of the covenant to another nation. So, definitely, it was these scholars that Jesus addressed. They were the only ones who could correct the corruptions that had sullied the interpretation of the Torah. They not only refused to clean up the corruption, they attempted to have Jesus killed, which was the final act of corruption. God transferred the covenant from the dwdym to the mhmdym (the people of David to the people of Muhammed) as promised in Songs Chapter 5.
The Book of Songs is an allegory with many different levels of meaning. On one level, the symbolism refers to the groom who symbolizes the deity, while the bride symbolizes the people who worship the deity. The love between the two symbolizes the contract or covenant between the deity and the people he chose to spread his message/religion throughout the world.
On another level of interpretation, the groom is Solomon (Shlomo in Hebrew) whose name means ‘peace’ or Islam. The bride is the Shulamite whose name means ‘the peaceful’. It is the love, the covenant or contract, that brings peace. Peace is accomplished when both the ruler and ruled agree to obey the contract as expressed in the Law. Songs is a prophecy that the Law or Torah was to be expressed through a covenant between Allah (swt) and the people who were committed to the purified Torah which became known as the Shariah, the law of the Muslim Ummah.