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THE
PROPHETS WERE SENT
TO
GUIDE PEOPLE TO THE SERVICE OF GOD
God
declared in the Quran:
I
have not created jinn and mankind except to serve me. (al-Zariyat,
51.56)
We have
not been created to eat, drink and reproduce; these are
natural facts of our life, and natural needs. The main purpose
for our creation is to recognize God and serve Him. For this
reason, all the Prophets were sent to show us the way to the
service of God. Again, God declares in the Quran:
We
never sent a Messenger before you except that We revealed
to him, saying, ‘there is no god but I, so serve Me!’
(al-Anbiya’, 21.25)
Indeed,
We sent forth among every nation a Messenger, saying, ‘serve
you God, and eschew ‘taghut’ [idols, tyrants, Satan
and the party of Satan]’. Then some of them God guided
and some were justly disposed to misguidance. (al-Nahl,
16.36)
God
sent the Prophets so that they might guide us to His service.
All the Prophets were sent for the same purpose, with the
exception that while the mission of all the previous Prophets
was ‘limited’ to only one nation and a fixed period, the
Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, was sent as
a mercy to all the ‘worlds’, including mankind and jinn.
The
jinn are beings that we cannot see. According to an authentic
narration, Ibn Mas’ud reports the following incident
concerning the Prophet’s preaching his Message to the jinn:
Once
God’s Messenger and I went somewhere. He drew a circle
around me and said, Do not leave this circle until I return.
He went, and after a while, some tumults broke out on the
other side. I wondered whether something had happened to God’s
Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, but he had
commanded me not to leave the circle until his return. Some
time later, God’s Messenger returned and I asked him about
the uproar. He replied: The jinn have believed in, and
taken the oath of allegiance to, me. When some among them
insisted on unbelief, fighting broke out between them. The
uproar you heard was the fighting. This implies that my life
is about to terminate.1
By this
last sentence, God’s Messenger, upon him be peace and
blessings, meant that the purpose for his being sent was to
open the way to the guidance of mankind and jinn, and once
this way was opened, it would be of no use for him to live
longer because there was nothing more left to him to do in
life. This also implies that a believer should never be
neglectful of his essential duty in this world and pray to
God, as instructed by God’s Messenger, saying, ‘O God,
make me die if death is good for me; or else, make me live
long as long as living is good for me!’2
1. Tabari, Jami’
al-Bayan, 24.33; I. Hanbal, 1.499.
2. Bukhari,
Marda, 19; Muslim, Dhikr, 10.
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