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THE MEANING AND
FUNCTION OF PROPHETHOOD
THERE IS NO PEOPLE TO
WHOM A PROPHET WAS NOT SENT
God has created no
community of beings in the world without
a purpose and left them without a guide
or leader. It is inconceivable that God
Almighty, Who has not left bees without
a queen, ants without a leader, and
birds and fish without a guide, has left
humanity without Prophets to guide them
to both spiritual and intellectual and
material perfection.
Although man is
capable of finding God by reflecting
upon natural phenomena, without a
Prophet, he is unable to discover the
purpose of his creation, from where he
comes and what his final destination is
in life, and how he should worship his
Creator. The Prophets also taught people
the meaning of creation and the truth of
things and unveiled the mysteries behind
both historical and natural events.
Again, they instructed people in the
relations between man and the universe
and between the Divine Scriptures and
the universe. But for the Prophets,
mankind would not have been able to
achieve any scientific development. For,
although those who adopt evolutionary
approaches in explaining historical
events tend to attribute everything to
chance and fully deterministic
evolution, it was again the Prophets who
guided men in intellectual and therefore
scientific illumination. For this
reason, traditionally, farmers have
accepted the Prophet Adam as their first
master, tailors, the Prophet Enoch,
ship-makers and sailors, the Prophet
Noah, watch or clock-makers, the Prophet
Joseph, and so on. Also, through the
miracles they worked, the Prophets
marked the final points in scientific
and technological advances and urged
people to them.
Both through their
personal conduct and through the
heavenly religions and Scriptures they
conveyed to people, the Prophets have
also guided people to develop their
inborn capacities and directed them
towards the purpose of their creation.
Had it not been for the Prophets,
man-this fruit of the tree of
creation-would be left to decay.
Man needs justice in
social life as much as he needs inner
peace in his private life. It was again
the Prophets who taught people the laws
of life and established the rules of a
perfect social life on the basis of
justice.
Prophethood is the
highest rank, the highest honor,
possible. It proves the superiority of a
man’s inner being to that of others. A
prophet is like a branch which arches
out from the Divine to the human realm.
He is the very heart and tongue of
creation. He does not only possess what
we call a supreme intellect, which
penetrates into the reality of things
and events, as is the case with
geniuses, but also he is an ideal being,
all of whose faculties are
harmoniously excellent and active, and
who strives and progresses steadily
towards heaven, who awaits Divine
inspiration for the solutions to the
problems he meets, and who is considered
to be the connecting point between the
things and beings here and the Beyond.
His body is subject to and follows his
heart-figuratively, the seat of
spiritual intellect; his mind likewise
is subject to and follows his heart. His
perceptions and reflections are always
directed to the Names and Attributes
of God. He goes to what he perceives; he
arrives at the destination he aims for.
A prophet’s
perception, developed to the full─seeing,
hearing and thus knowing─surpasses
that of ordinary people. Nor can his
power of perception or understanding
be expressed or explained in terms of
different wavelengths of light or sound,
or in some other such way. It is not
within an ordinary man’s power and
means to acquire a prophet’s
knowledge, which goes beyond the limits
of ordinary human nature. However
intently deployed, our human powers of
analysis and synthesis, can never attain
to a prophet’s knowledge.
Through the prophets,
man has been able to gain an insight
into creation, and thus to find out and
to know the meaning of it. But for the
prophets and their teachings, man would
neither have seen nor understood the
true nature and meaning of things and
events, nor therefore could he have
entered into and coped with what is in
and around him.
In addition to
conveying the Divine message and
guidance, the prophets have also
taught man something of God and His
Names and Attributes. Their first
mission was to teach the reality of this
life, its true purpose and meaning.
Since God is beyond man’s perception
and comprehension, it fell to the
prophets to be the most obedient,
careful, conscious, self-disciplined of
people whilst they were performing their
tasks. If there had not been any clear
utterances by the prophets about the
Creator, the All-Mighty, the
All-Knowing, who governs and sustains
and cherishes the whole creation, from
the smallest atom to the largest nebula,
it would never have been possible for
man to think or know or say anything
right and proper about God.
Everything in the
universe tries to, as it were, exhibit
the Names and Attributes of the
All-Mighty, All-Encompassing
Creator. In the same way, the prophets
have taken note of, affirmed and been
faithful to, the subtle, mysterious
relation between God and His Names and
Attributes. Their duty was to know and
speak about God. Therefore, they entered
into the true meaning of things and
events, and conveyed it directly and
sincerely to their fellow human
beings.
Just as, even in the
smallest exhibitions, public fairs and
the like events, we benefit from a guide
or usher, who directs our steps and
prepares our attention, so also with the
magnificent exhibition of this creation,
we are in need of guides who draw
attention to the reality of it, direct
us towards its purpose and meaning,
and show us our way in it.
Is it possible that
the One who, in order to make Himself
known, ordered this creation, opened to
us His works, for our wonder and awe─is
it possible that He would not, through
some distinguished servants, reveal
His names and Attributes to those who
long to know Him? If this were so, would
it not make His creation a vain work?
The Supreme Being who made everything
like a tongue and a letter and who
revealed His Wisdom and Blessings
through such things is absolutely free
from vanity and absurdity. Thus, it
seems to us, most unlikely that a people
in one or other part of the world have
been deprived of God’s revelation
through His prophets. The Qur’an,
indeed, is explicit on this point:
For We
assuredly sent amongst every
people an Messenger (with the
command), ‘Serve God and eschew
evil.’ (16:36)
However, mankind
forgot the teachings brought by those
appointed servants, and over time went
astray, sometimes deifying the very
men who preached against it, and sank
into idolatry.
Throughout the earth
there are examples of what man’s
imagination has idolized─like the
mountain of the gods in ancient Greece
or, to this day, the River Ganges in
India. Even accepting that there must be
a tremendous difference between their
first appearance and the actual position
now, it is quite impossible to
understand the conditions that raised
Confucius in China and Brahman and
Buddha in India. It is equally
difficult to guess what they originally
taught, or to know how far time and
human degeneration have corrupted the
first message.
If the Qur’an,
which eradicates doubts, had not
introduced Jesus Christ to us, it
would not now be possible to have a true
picture of his life and his teaching.
For priests have confounded the truth
about Jesus Christ with the philosophies
and idolatries of the Ancient Greeks and
Romans, attributing divinity to man, and
anthropomorphizing God.
Perhaps it was one of
the conditions of the Roman Empire
accepting Christianity as the official,
state religion, that some of the
festivals, holy days, rites and rituals
of the church were derived from or
imitate directly, the practices of the
ancient Romans, Greeks and certain Asian
religions like Manihaism.
Considering what the
followers of the earlier religions did
to their prophets and to their Books, we
may well wonder how many prophets have
been treated in the same way by their
followers over time? From a reliable
Islamic source, there is a hadith
which says: ‘a prophet’s disciples
will carry out his mission after his
death but some of his followers will
later upset everything he established’
(Sahih al-Muslim, ‘Fada’il
al-Sahaba,’ 210-12; Ibn Hanbal, Musnad,
417) This is a most important point.
Many of the religions which we now
consider false turned to falsehoods,
superstitions and legends over time
through the deliberate malice of their
enemies─despite the fact that,
originally, they may have come from the
purest, Divine source.
To say that someone
is a prophet when he is not is
tantamount to kufr (unbelief),
just as to refuse to believe in a true
prophet is also kufr. On the
other hand, if the case of these false
religions is similar to that of
Christianity, that is, if they were
distorted by their followers over time,
we should look at those religions with
some caution and reserve judgment in
some measure. We should consider what
Buddhism may have been in its true
original; similarly, Brahmanism; or
the doctrines attributed to Confucius;
or shamanism and other such: it may be
that we may find in them some remnant of
what they were in their origins.
What they were
whether
true or false (we do not know) is
not what they are. Supposing the
impossible that their founders returned
and saw the religion they originally
established, they would not now
recognize them.
There have been many
religions which have been distorted
and altered in the world, and
consequently it is essential to accept
that the purity of their original
foundation. The Quran says:
There never was
a people without a Warner having
lived among them. (35:24)
And We
assuredly sent among every people
a Messenger. (16:36)
These revelations
universally declare that God sent
Messengers to every people throughout
the world. The names of some of these
are known to us through the Quran,
but there is also a large number whose
names have not been made known to us.
The names we know are 28 out of 124,000
(or perhaps 224,000); even then we do
not know exactly where and when many of
them lived.
Essentially we are
not bound to know all the past prophets.
The Quran says:
We did in times
past send Messengers before you;
of them there are some whose
stories We have related to you,
and some whose story We have not
related to you.
(40:78)
In this way, the Quran
warns us not to deal with some of those
whom it does not mention to us.
Recent studies in
comparative religion, philosophy and
anthropology, have shown how many
communities, living at very great
distances from each other, share certain
concepts and practices. For example,
turning from plural to a singular
conception of God; in their
supplications in times of exceptional
stress seeking refuge only in the One
Supreme Being and raising their hands
and asking something from Him. There are
very many such phenomena which
indicate a singular source, a single
teaching. (We shall not dwell on this
point here; the subject is discussed
also in answer to the question (p.68,
below), ‘How many prophets have
been sent to mankind?’)
If primitive tribes
cut off from civilization and the
influence of the known prophets, have
a sure understanding of the Oneness of
God, though they may have little
understanding of how to live according
to that belief, it must be that, as the
Quran tells us, every people and
nation has had its own Message and
Messenger:
For every
people is a Messenger. When their
Messenger comes, the matter is
judged between them with justice,
and they are not wronged. (10:47)
No people and no land
are excluded from that commandment.
This brings us to the
question of whether those who claim they
have not been sent prophet will be held
responsible for their beliefs and
actions. As we have just explained,
there is no reason to believe that any
peoples in the world have been deprived
altogether of the prophets’ light.
There may have been periods in which
darkness seemed to prevail. But such
were temporary darknesses, after which
the Grace and Blessing of God again
enlightened the people through
revelation to His chosen servants. Thus,
whether it be less or more, every
people, at some point in their history,
saw or heard or experienced to the full,
the mercy of revelation. Nevertheless,
we must allow that, in some instances,
the destruction of the beliefs which the
prophets established was so absolute and
people introduced so many distortions
into the religion and bizarre rites of
worship that the true teachings were
generally, if not altogether, lost by
the people. In such cases, a long
interregnum of darkness may have
replaced enlightenment. Though darkness
is ever followed by an enlightenment,
and an enlightenment by darkness, there
may be some peoples who remained in
darkness as it were unknowingly and
against their own will. For such people
there are glad tidings in the Quran.
These are not punished or blamed for the
wrong they may do, until and unless due
warning has been conveyed to them: We
would never visit our wrath on any
community until We had sent a Messenger
to give warning (17:15). That is,
the warning precedes responsibility
and then reward or punishment.
As for the details of
this matter, the imams of the
Islamic schools of thought think
differently. For instance, Imam Maturidi
and his school argue that no people can
be excused given that there is plenty of
evidence pointing to the One Creator
which leads to belief in Him. By
contrast, the Ashari school, referring
to the Quranic verse quoted above,
argue that warning and guidance must
precede judgment and people can only be
held responsible if they have been
sent a prophet. There is a third body of
scholars who have combined these two
positions. They hold that those who have
not been sent any prophet and thus have
not willfully strayed into unbelief or
worshipped idols are ahl-i najat (the
people who will be excused and so escape
the punishment and who, as God wills,
may be saved). For, in fact, some people
cannot analyze the things and events
around them, cannot penetrate to their
meaning, nor deduce therefore the right
course of belief and action. Such people
are first taught the right way, given
explanations and directions on how to
act and then, in line with their actions
thereafter, are answerable and
accordingly rewarded or punished. But as
for those who willfully take to unbelief
or adopt an hostile, negative attitude
to belief and religion, or knowingly
defy God and His commandments, they will
certainly be questioned and punished for
their deviation and corruption, even
though they live in the farthest, most
desolate and deserted region of the
world.
To summarize : no
region or people has been altogether
deprived of Divine enlightenment through
God’s chosen servants, His prophets.
Directly or indirectly, all people of
all periods have, at some time in their
history, known or been aware of a
prophet and of his teaching. A period
during which the names of the prophets
have been forgotten and their
teachings completely eroded, until
another prophet is sent, is described
as an interregnum. It is accepted that
people who live in those periods would
not be punished but rather excused, on
the condition that they have not
knowingly and willfully deviated into
polytheism or atheism.
And God, the
All-Knowing and All-Encompassing, knows
best.
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