.

PJNAUTY OF PROPRETHOOD 167

their religion to the gentiles and non-Jews. On the contrary,

Old Testament contains several injunctions to preach the
faith of Moses only to the Children o f lsrael.1 Judaism
•
developed, in consequence, principles which made a
distinction between the Jews and the gentiles and had a
different set of standards to judge the virtuous and evil
deeds of the people belonging to Israel and those of
others.
Maryam Jameelah, who wa s f ormerly 8 Jewess, writes
in Islam versus Ahl a/-K /tab, Past and Present that ..not only
do Jews fall to preach t heir faith to others but they do not
welcome conver ts. In all history Ik now of only two
Instances when non-Jews accept ed Judaism en masse-ln
Yamen some centuries prior to the birth of our holy
Prophet and the tiny, short-lived kingdom of the Khazars,
who were of Tartar or igin, in Russla." 1
The innate spirit of the Old Testament, making Itself
visible from every word of It, gives the im pression that It ls
a Shahnamah or eulogium of the ances tors of Jews. It has
none of the spiritual teachings and moral lessons, concepts
of human equality and dignity, homilies impressing upon the
mind the need to disc ipline o ne's self , preachments favour
ing the good of the hereaf ter in prefere nce to the things
wor ldly and mater ial, or discourses instilling the awe of God
and fear of divine retribution. It neither touches the right
chord which makes one God-min ded nor awakens the spirit
of human nobility and distinction In its no n-Jewish readers.
The entire Scripture revolves, with its fables and command
ments, round the Jews whom their religion and revelations
exalt as the 'chosen race' and the 'Children of God".
Christianity too, In a like manner, Is meant for the
Israelites alone. Jesus Christ had h1mself made It abun
dantly clear to his disciples that his message was meant

1. For deta ils sec chapter 22 of v ol 111 of Rahmatul -lit-Aliml n by

:Qazi Muhammed Sulolmon Maneurpur l.
2. Pp. 22/23

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168 lSLAlUO CONCEPT OF PROPHETHOOD

only for the Jews. •

0
Iam not sent but unto the lost sheep of the
house of Israel."1
•
A nd when he was requested by a Canaanite woman
to cure her daughte r grievously vexed with the devil, he
replied :
''It is not meet to take the children's bread, and
to cast it to dogs."1
Jesus preached not o nly to his own people, the
Jews, living In J.udea but also forbade his twelve
disciples to diffuse the gospel to others. He commanded
11
them, saying : Go not into the way o f the Gentiles,
and into any
city of the Samaritans enter ye nol ; but go rather to the
lost sheep of the hous'3 of lsrael.''3
The chauvinistic basis of social structure built up by
other eastern and A siatic religions is even more glaringly
conspicuous. The Aryans had condemne d the servile popu
lation under them as impur e and tr eated them as beas ts and
dogs.'
A new prophet, wilh new teachings and a new law,
capable of ·meeting the changed situat ion was thus the
demand of the tim e and will of Divine mer cy and wisdom,
For the reaso n that rellglon s very often relax their
ca nons to give free reins to the ric h and the r uling
clas ses, or go the other way round to de ny the pleas
ures, just and lawf ul. or else make the life ex tr emely hard
and unbe:=t rable under the influence of dry puritans and
ascet ics, a new prophe t is needed from t ime to time for
setting right th ese aberrat ions. Jesus had accord ingly told
his people that :
"And (I come) confirm ing that wh ich was befor e
me of the Torah, and to make lawful some of that which
was

1. Mt. 15 : 24
2. M t . 15 : 26
3. Ibid , 10 : 5-7
4 . For a deta iled account sec 'Caste Sy stem nnd the Unf

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ortunste Sudras' In chapter I of lhc Islam and t he World lJy the out
hor.

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 FINAU'rY OF PROPHETflOOD 169

_forbidden unto you. I come ur.to you with a sign

from your Lord, so keep your duty to Allah and obey
me."1 So, these are th\ two reasons for the advent of
a new
prophet. But the Qur'an proclaimed the termination of both
these causes ; it dec lared that being a universal message
from God, no nation or people shall henceforth be denied
Its blessings.
"Say (0 Muhammad) : 0 mankind I Lo I I am
the messenger of A llah to you all-{the messenger
of) Him unto Whom belo ngeth the Sovereignty of the
heavens and the earth. There is no God save Him.
He quickeneth anci he giveth death."1
"A nd We have not sent thee (0 Muhammad) save
as a bringer of good tidings and a warner unto all man·
kind ; but most of mankind know not."3
41
We sent thee not save as a mercy for the
peoples."'
"Blessed is He Who hath revealed unto His slave
the Criterion (of right and wrong), that he may be a
w arner to the peoples."ri
"Lo ! it is naught else than a reminder for all
peapies."1
A nd, ther e are many more verses of the Qur ' n wh ich
go to show that lslam is a common patrimony of all races,
nations and peoples, not confined to any country or region,
nor does it maJ\ e any distinc tion between the Jews and
the Brahmins ; it recognises neither race nor colo urs nor
admits of any social gradation ; it approves of fidelity and
devotion, uprightness and veracity, good faith and piety and
vir tuo us and angelic deeds, no matter where these are to
be found.

1. Q. 111 ; 50
2. Q. VII 158
3. Q. X X XIV 28
4. Q. X XI 107
5. Q. )( XV 1
6. Q. XXXVlll 18

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 )70 J SLAMIC CONCEPT OF PROPRETHOOD

That Is why God proclaimed to the r11anklnd :

11
0 mankind I lo I We have created you male
and female , and have made you nations and tribes
that ye may know one another.• Lo ! the noblest of
you, In the sight of Allah, is the best In conduct. Lo !
A llah Is Knower, A ware.'' 1
The Prophet of Islam also declared on the occasion of
his victory over Mecca that-
,,A ll are the progeny of A dam, and A dam was
created of c lay. No A rab has a preference over a
non A rab, save on account of his piety."!
A hmad lbn Hanbal relates a Tradition, In the
M usna d , from ttie Prophet which says :
11
lf k nowledge were to be found on Pleiads,
some of the perso ns from Iran shall attain it."3
Then, on the other han d, the Qur'an emphasises, time
and again, that Islam is the natural religion of man, easy
and practicable.
11
A llah deslreth for you ease ; He desireth not
hardship for yo u."•
''He hath chosen you and hath not laid upon you
in religion any hardsh ip.''5
The overrel lgious ascet ics and ignorant priests had
made the earlier religions hard and imprac ticable ; man
was made to undertake a voyage through a channel narrow
and unnavi gable ; hence the eventual law and
prophethood put an end to all those hardships and
lightened the burden of humanity. A lluding to this feature of
the last prophethood, the Qur >a-n

1. Q. XLIX :
13 2. Tlrmlzl
3. In volume Iof Al-Jawab ul SafJJh Badd11la Din II Masih, lbn Talmlyah
hea discussed In detail the question relating to universality of
Muhammad'• prophethood .
4. Q. II : 185
s. Q. XXll :78

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 PlNA LITY OF PROPKETKOOO I.,I

says :
•
"He will enjoin on them that whi ch Is right and
forbid them that which Is wrong . He will make lawf ul
for them all gooJ things and p rohibit for them only the
foul ; and he w ill relieve them of their burden and
fetters that they U$ed to wear."1
The Qur>an also tells us that if all the wise-heads
and lawgivers were to frame ordinances designed to
meet all hum an needs in differe nt circumstances, they
would not be able to do so because t hey cannot plumb
the secrets within the ken of Div ine k nowledge.
0
Your parents and your children : Ye know not
which of them is nearer unto you in u_ sef ulness. It is
an injunctio n from A llah. Lo ! A llah is K
nower,
Wise."1
''A llah would explain to you and g uide you by the
examples of those who were before you, and would
turn to yo u in mercy. Allah Is Knower, Wise.
"And A llah would turn to you in mercy : but
those who follow vain desires would have you go
tremend ously as tr ay.
"A llah would 111ake the burden light for you, for
man was c reated weak."3
W ith the advent of Islam, no new religion need come
now either for propagati?g a universal principle of human
guidance or for reforming th e erraticism of former religions.
No fetters now remain to be broken up for setting man free
since the religion last sent by God is both world-wide in Its
concept as well as easy to practise.

Qur'lln and the Earlier Scriptures

Bef ore the Qur >an was committed to humanity, every

1. Q . VII : 157
2. Q. I V : 11
3. 2Q. IV : 20-28

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1 72 ISLAWIJ CONCEPT OF PROPH£THOOO

scripture had been subje cted to interpolations,

moditlcations and alterations or was wholl y destroyed by
the ravages of time. This was l.Jecause God had not
taken the respon sibility to protec t them from corruption
or des truction. These scrip tures wer e committed to the
care of their reli gious leaders since the peoples to whom
these were assign ed needed them only for a limited
space of time. The Qur'an alludes to this tact in this
verse .
"Lo I We did reveal the Torah, wherein is
guidanca and a light, by which the Prop hets who surr
Andered (unto A llah) judged the Jews, and the rabbis
and the priests (judged) by such of A llah's Scripture as
they were bidden to observe, and thereunto were
they wl tnesses .''1
The cor ruption of these Scriptures is a historical fact
accepted by lhe foll ')wars of all the earlier religions. The
Bible of the Hebrews was several times burnt or
destroyed, and, as acknowledged by Jewish historians, it
had to be rewritten at least thrice after complete
destruction. First, it were the Babylo nians under
Nebuchadnezzar (605 B. C. to 564 B. C.) who attacked
Judah In 586 B. C., destroyed the magnlficient templ e of
Solomon containing the A rk and the sacred Scriptures
and the relics of Moses and Aaron,
slaught ered a great number of Jews a nd dragged off the
rest into exile where they remained in Babylonian captivity
for fi f t y year s. The first five books of Old Testament
kraown as To rah, were reconstructed l>y Ezl'a from hi:;
memory who is also credited with the writing of the
Pro phets. To these were later added the "latter prophets"
and Psalms of David by Nehemiah.
The Jewish Scriptures were wiped out for the second
time when A ntiochus IV came to the throne in 175 B.C.
Palestine had fallen under the Seleucid or A siatic section
of Macedonian Empire a few years back in 198
B.C.

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1. Q. v : 44

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 FI NA l.lTY OP J•ROPReTii OOD 173

A ntiochus f orc ed the Jc s to worsh ip the Greek gods,

Zeus and Dionyso s, f orbade them to observe thei r
religious rites or circ umcise their c hilliren or even to have
the copies of Hebrew scriptures. In the temp le of
Jerusalem he erected an altar to Ze us and sacrificed on it
pigs, the most unclean of all animals. Now the Maccabees
restored t he Hebrew scriptur es again and added the
books that are known as ''The Writ ings".
Palestine fell to t he Romans under Titus (40-81) who
attacked Jer usalem on 7th September 70 A .O., destroyed
t he second Temple again '1nd t ook aw11y the sacred scrip
tures to Rome. The Jews were again exiled and dis persed.
It was feared that the oral law wo uld be lost f or ever unless
it was also recorded in writing Therefore, the lea rned
rabbis codified the law in a book know n as Nlishnah.
The views of the Jewish pe ople about the preser
vation and correctness of what they deem to be reve
lations diff er f rom the criteria set up by the Muslims abo ut
the immutable oharac ter of the Qur'an. The Muslims have
preserved the Qur'an as the unchangeable word of God,
abiding in its original f orm since Lhe day it was revealed,
while the mut ability of the Hebrew scriptures is not
considered by the Jew s to be against Its divine
charac ter. The Jews' own
description of the Books of their Bible and the ascriptio n
•
of their authorship lo the 'ancient sages' is illuminating as
well as interesting.
"Jewish tradition, while insist ing that some
Biblical books wer e composed by the c hief actors
there in, wh ich is not at all unreasonable, does not
hesitat e to admil later elabora tion and revision of
certain Books in the Bible.'"
"Ancient Jdwish traditio ns attributed the author
ship of the Pentateuch (with the exception of the last
eight verses describing Moses' death) to Moses

1. Vellntlno's One Volume Jewish Encyc lopoet.lla, London, p.93

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1 74 ISLAMIC CONCE PT OJf PltOPHETHOOn

himself. But the many inconsistenc ies and seemi ng

l:Ontradlctions contained in it attracted the attentio n of
the Rabbis, who exercised their iJigenuity In reconciling
them.'"
"Spinoza goes so far as to attr ibute the com posi
tion of the Pentateuch not to Moses, but to Ezra, which
v iew appears to have existed even in the time of t he
A pocrypha . . . . The lates t analy sis, however, has
led finally to t he definitive attribution of the
Pentateuch co ntents to no less than twent y-eight
different s o ur ces."t
The New Testament c ontains &ve11 mor e alt eratio
ns than th e Old ; the modern explosio n of the new lear
ning and new dis coveries in Biblical scho larship has
made the quest f or its authenticity even more dubious
than ever before. The fact is that the great chasm exist ing
between the Jes us of Naz ar eth and moder n scholarship
is perhaps unbridgeable. The fo ur Sy noptic Gospels were
continuously elabora ted, corrected and altered from time
to tim e by the scribes and the process continued during
the prolonged controversy that attended the attempt to
form ulate the fundam ental doctrines of or thodox
C hristianit y In terms of a c reed at the Council of Nlcaea in
325 A.O., and subsequently at Constantinople in 381 A .O.
These Gospels, more of a nature of biographi cal account
and traditions of Jesus C hris t than reve lat ions, were
compi led by various writers from differ ent sources from
about A.O . 65 to 100. A ll kinds of con1ec tures have
been made about possible writers of the Synoptic Gospels,
but they r emain an C'fligma lo the scholars who aro still
reviewing the problem of their compos ition and sources
.:i

1 Jewish E11cyc lopucdl1, Volumo IX, p 589

2. Ibid r>·590
3. For a de tailed RC.count of lhe composit ion A nd authorsh ip of Sy noptic
Gos pcls sec pagos 170-180 of t h P H 1slor y al Religions hy E 0
James (London, 1!:156).

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 FI NAL ITY OF JlROPTROOO 1 75

These books are aot comparable even to those Tradi

tio ns of the Prophet which come under the second and
third category , that is,those known as Had 7s-ul- Ghar1b and
Khabar -ul-Wahid . let alone the authentic Traditions contained
in the ·siha/1us-Siliah or the six a uthentic collections of the
Prophet's say ings and doings. The authentic Traditions,
according to Muslims, must have indisputably been related
by narrators pla inly and distinctly ; the chain of narrators
f rom the last link up to the Prophet must be unbrol<en ;
the subject related must have come under the actual ken of
its first narrators ;·every one of the narrators must have
been a person cons picuous f or his piety , v irtue and
honesty ; every one of the narrators must have received
more than one Had ith from the narrator immediately
preceding him ; every narrator must be well known for his
learning ; and, final ly, the Import of the Tradition must
not be contrary to the injun ct ion s contained in the Qur,l!
n, or to the rel igious doctrines, or to the Traditions
proved to be correct, or of a nature that people should
hesitate In accepting them. It wo uld, however , be futile
to seek for the narrators f rom whom the supposed
compiler s of the Synoptic Gospels had learnt the
accounts put into writing by them.
Besides the difficulty of ascer taining the authorship
of New Tes t ament, ano ther burden of the Bible Is Its
original language an d translation. Being originally
written in ancient Hebrew, the language of Jesus C hrist,
and in Koine (post-class ical Greek) , the Bible has lived
mainly In trans lations. A ll translations, made from one
language into another , are Imperfect and the way of
translation has been hard. They are, of a fact, no better
than a collectlon of stories andiolk-lores comparable to
wh t are regardtid by M usllms as r awayah or
unauthentic stor ies o r legends prevalent among the
masses. The Gospels are so very dissimilar to the Qur>!
n that only those who are unacquainted with the nature of
the two Scriptures would commit the

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176 JSl..A?iUC CONCEPT OF PRO PHETHOOO

folly of bringing them into comparlsen.

A French Orien talist, Eton Dien, has thus evElluated
the literary and historical lmportaece of the Synoptic
Gospels.
"There Is the least doubt that the Gospel given
by God to Jesus Christ and his people has been lost.
No trace of the original revelation remains now ; it
became extinct or was destroyed on purpose. That is
why the Christians have accepted four Gospels in place
of one, but their historical character and authenticity
is very doubtf ul. The earlies t copies of th e Gospel
are in Greek which is not allied to the Semitic language
spoke n by Jesus Christ, and this explains why the
rapport betwe en the Greek Gospels and their herald is
very feeb le in comparison to the Bible of the Jews
or the Qur ):In of the A rabs."'
The crudities of the Bible arc even more appalling ;
It contains numerous internal contradictions, incredible
dogmas and mistakes about historical events.: The Bible
ascribes things to God which are unbecoming of the
Divlne Bel ng-co ntradictory to the Power and Excellence
of God as accepted bv almost every retigion-and oasts
reflctions on the prophets which would be unwor thy of
even ordinary mortals, let alone the exalted messengers
of God. But, In spite of all its myths antl fable s and
Inconsis tencies, th e Bible has been a sacred Book f or
1

the followers of two great religions f or thousands of

years. Islam, too, accep ts these Scriptures , although in
a limiled sense, and calls t heir ollowers as the People of
lhe Bok . There are

1 . Azwii· 'Ala / M asilliyah. pp 52-53

2. lzhar - ul·Haq by MaulDnl!I Rahmot Ullah Klrllnwt llS1s 122 tex tual con
tradic tions and 108 mlstak os in t ho Bible Whi ch could not be recon
cile d so for. Its Urdu translatlon under t he name of Bible se Qur'!n
Tak , by Meulana Muhamma d Taqi IJsmbnl has rec ent ly been brought
out In Pakistan.
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 PINAL.ITV OP PROPHETHOOD 177

stlll older scriptures, powever. The Vedas of India and

the A vesta of Iran are so ancient that it Is difficult to
tr ace their origin and find out their essential teachings.
They have sur vived from • times immemorial, but now it
ls impossible to de termine their authenticity or the age
when they were written.
A. Barth, Member of the Societe A siatlque of Paris,
writes in The Religions of India about the or igin of Indian
sacred scriptures.
"If we except a cer tain quantity of ap pended
matter, which criticism has no difficulty in
discriminating fr om the g enuine work , we have in t
hese writings, as a whole, an authentic literature
which professes to be what i Is, which neither
asserts by its£1f a superuatural origin nor seeks to
disguise Its age by recourse to the dev ices of
pasticcio. Interpo latlons and later ad ditions are
numerous enough, but these have all been made in
good faith. It Is never t heless diffic ult to fix the age of
these books, even In a ny appro ximate degr ee. The
most recent portions of the Brahmanas which have
come down to us do not appear to go further than the
fif th cent ury before our era. The rest of the literatur
e of the Veda must be ref er red to a remote antiquity,
and assigned, In a sequen ce impossible to determine
with any precision, a durat ion, the first term of which
i t is absolutely impossible tor us to recover."'
We should bet ter look to the conclusions of Indian
scholars deeply learned in ancient tho ught and llteratura of
the co untry One of these, Suresh Chandra Chakravar ti,
Lecturer in Calcutta University, writes In his Philosophy of
the Upanishads:
"The two extreme views are represented by Balgan
gadhar Tilak and by Max Muller. Tllak thinks that the
Vedic hym ns are as old as 4,500 B.C. Max Muller
could

t . The Rellglona of lndla, pp.4-5

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178 ol
lSLAMlC CONCl::PT OP t'ROf'l:IETH OOO

not give Rig-Veda an earlier da te.than 2,200 B.C.

though he freely admits that Rig-Veda consists of the
ear liest record of A ryc;n thought ...Without making
•
any attempt to fix the age of Rig-Veda, 1• t can be
safely said that, although the different hymns of the
Rig-Veda have been placed together in one Samhita,
the component parts of the Rig-Veda cannot be taken
to have been composed at one and the same time,
and ther efore no partic ular historical date can be
fixed as the age ot the Rig-Veda. It will have to be
admitted that the hymns of the Rig-Veda, from the
beginning to the end, must have taken nume rous
centuries to compose.''1
A nd, the f undamental thought of the Vedas has been
thus described by the renowned scholar and ex-President of
India, Dr. Radhakrishnan.
"The general conception of the Vedas were neither
definite nor detailed, and so allowed themselves to be
handled and fashioned in different ways by different
schools of thought. Besides, the very vastness of the
Vedas , from which the authors could select out of fr
ee conviction any portion for their authority, allowed
room for original thought." 2
A s for A vesta, the sacred Scripture of the Parsees,
the finding of a scholar qualified to speak on the subject
Is given here. He is Robert H. Pfeiffar, ex-Chairman of
the Depar tment of Semitic languages and Curator of the
Semitic Museum, Harvard University, who says in his
article on Avesta :
"The original A vesta (according to tradition) com
prised alI knowledge and was destroyed for the most
part by A lexander. Out of its remnants. a work of 21
volumes (or nasl<s} , was prepared in the 3rd century
A.O. but only one· nask (Vend/dad ) survives
complete ; the

1. T/>e Philosophy of the Upanishad•, pp. 2'4 .26

2. Indian Philosophy , Vol. II, London (1927), pp. 21-22

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 FINA U1·y OF J•ROPH ETllOOD 179

Dinl<ar d (In Pahlav i} gives a list of the other s. A f ter the

9th century, only the part s dealing with the worship were
taken t o India and are extant in five parts : Yasna (includ
ing the Galhas) , •Vispered , Vendidad , Yashta and K orda
Av esta." 1
But, the Our'an is the last of all revelations which not
only testifies t he ear lier revelations but also claims to
com plete and f ulfil t he divine guida nce. Man has to
depend on it for finding t he right path, th e path to
fe llowship of God and rectitude, till the Day of Recko
ning. It Is a unique Sc rtptur e sinre it has not under go ne t
he slightest c hange or Interpolation. God Is its Guardia n
who has taken upon Himself t he respons ibilit y of safe y
uarding its tex t against ever y alteration.
''Lo ! It is an unassailab le Sc ripture. Falsehood
canno t c ome at 1t from before it or behind it. (It is) a
revela tio n from the Wise, the Owner of Praise.''3
The div ine pledge f or its protec tion carr ies the guaran
tee that the holy Qur) n shall never be des troyed or
mutated,
nor w ill it ·die away fr the memor y , nor meet a ny
om other Say s Gotl abo ut this
accident like the Torah. radiant
Book :
" Lo ! W e, ev en We, reveal the R em inder, and lo I
We verily are its Gunrdlan."1
The pledge of Divine guard ianship covers it s
protection, preservance, propagation and study and is als o a
promise agains t its being for gotten or becoming
incomprehensible or inoperab le. The word H a(1z , use:d by
God for Himself is ext remely significan t and comprehensiv e.
For God had promised to preser ve the Book1 exac tly In
the f orm it had been revealed to the Prophet. He had also
made all the arrangements and created ways and means for

1 An Encyclopaed ia of Religions , New York,

1945 2. Q. XL! : 41-42
3. Q. xv :
9

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 1 80 ISLA.\U C CONCEPT OF PROPHETHOOD

the fulfilment of that great task. A s soon as any verse

•
of the Qur>an was revealed, the fol low ers of the Prophet
vied
with one anot her to commit it to their memory. The
Inimi table symphony of the Qur >fin, e purity,
grace and elegance of its sty le were as much
responsible for this attrac tion as was thepurehear ted
ness of those to whom it was f irst addressed. Side
by side, the Qur >a n con tained all the Instructions abo ut
the mode of worship and promulgated injunctions w ith a
bearing upon the social, politica l, cultural and
Intellec tual needs of the growing Muslim so ciety.
A ll these causes wen t to c reate a fondn ess and an
ardent affection for the Qur>an which was like an lnsatiate
th irst ot enjoying a greedily desired object. This is
illustrated by the fact that seventy of tho se Muslims w ho
were k illed at the well of Ma'Dnah, In 625, hardly three
years after the migration of thePr ophet to Madina, were
those who had committed the Q ur >1f n to their memory .•
There has always been a la rge number of persons, In
ever y Muslim land, and in every age, who have learnt
the whole of the Qur> n by heart, and studied and ta ught
it to others. The Muslims have always loved to rec!te
Qur>an . not in the prayer alone, but to derive inspiration and
solace th ro ugh its recital. People who have not had the
opportunity of living among the Muslims might find i t hard to
believe, but the fact rema ins that there have always been
innumerable rersons who could recite the whole of the
Scripture from memory, and even today their number would
exceed several hundred thousa nd.
The Immediate successors of the Prophet gave
first priority, as if Inspir ed by som e d.ivine presage, to the
Our ' n being put into writing instead of relying solely on
the memory of the people. Soon after the battle with the
people of Yam amah, w herein a great many of those who
had learnt the Q ur' n by heart had been slain , < umar
advised the first

1. Al-BidDyah· wan-Neh'fJyah. Vol IV. p. 71. Aleo see Sah1h Bukh'tJrl

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and Muslim.

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 FINALITY Of PROPSETHOOD 18 1

Caliµh A bu Bakr to get jhe whole Scripture written in a

book. Prior to it , the Qur'an had been recor ded by t he
people o n the leaves of the date, and slab s of while
sto nes, and the breasts of the people hat remembered it. t
Umar constantly pressed A bu Bakr for collecting the Qur >an
in o ne Book until, at length, God opened the breast of
A bti Bakr so to do it, and he entrus ted the Job to Zaid ibn
Th ablt. Zaid sought for the verses and co llected it
fr om the writ ings and memory of those who had lear nt it by
heart. Thus the Q ur >an was written within two
years of the death of the Prophet. During the Callphate of
'Uthman, report s were received tha t people in the far off
areas conquered by the Muslims wer e learning to recite
Qur'an In diff erent ways according to va rious
dialects of th e A rab t r ibes. Conversion of non-A rabs to
Islam, in lar ge numbers, was another cause to ensure pre
servation of the Qur'an in its original f orm. Ac cordingly,
t Uthman got severa l cop ies of t he Scripture made out

from the collect ion of A bu Bakr and sent them to ever y q

uarter of the countries of Islam ; and kept one at Madina
which he named Al-Imam. This edition of the
Qur>a-n produced by
t Uthman has been handed down to this day unalter ed ;
and this is the Qur 'an sti ll used by every Muslim f or
recitation and prayer. Nobody has ever raised any dissenting
voice against the co pies of this Scripture circulated ln
A.H. 25, nor ls ther e any Museum or librar y possessing a
variant text of the Q ur> n.1 There has also been a complete
consensus

1. A. Mlngana, Keeper of the Oriental Manuscripts In tho John Ray

lands Library and Lecturer In Arabic, University of Manchester w
r ites : "Thore arn In public libraries of Eur ope many Ouranlc
manuscripts of high antiquity, tho oldest dating probably from
t he 2nd t stamlc century , but, apart from some anomalies of spe
lltng due to rudi mentary charac ter of the early Arabic
or thography, no real variant can be detected in them. This
conclusion Is borne out by Noldak e. who examined such
manuscripts, and by the present writer. who for the purpose of this
artic le consultod three of thorn preserved In the John Rayland

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library " {Encyclopaedia of Religions and Ethics, Vol. X.p. 54D).

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182 LAM!l! CO NOE l:'T 01' PROP Hl!T HOOll

of opinion am ong all Mus lims, to whate ver sect they

may belong, on t his compilation ; th ey have all held the
opinion that this Is the wor d of God in abso lute purity, as
•
dic tated by God to Muhamm ad thr o ugh nrchangel Gabriel.
without any corruption, accretio n and mutilatio n. A nd,
now w ith the present mean s of publication and the
existence of innu merable persons who can r epea l the
whole t ext from their memory, there is absolute ly no
danger of any inter polation in its text. In th e 11th editio n of
the Encyc lopaedia Brit"n nica, it has been ack nowledged
that t he Qur>tt n is par excel lence "the most widel y read
book in existence."1
The orienta llsts, especially weste rn sc holars of
Islam. most stoutl 1 deny that the Q ur 1an is the word of Go d
vouc h safed to Prophet Muhammad through Wahy, 1et they
avouch the pristine purity of its tex t. A n inveterate
enemy of Islam , such as Sir William Muir was, and whose
Life of Muhomel c om pelled Sir Syed A hmad K ha n, an
enthusias tic supporter of Wes ter n education and
liberalis m, lo wr ite K hulba-ti Ahmadiy ah to conf ute
him, writes about the Qur'an in his book.
"Cont en ding and embittere d fac tions, tak ing
their rise in the murder of Othman himself within a
quarter of a centu ry from the death of Mahomet,
have ever s ince rent the Mahometan world. Ye t, but
one Coran has been current amo ngst them ; and the
consentan eous use by them all In every age up to the
present day of the same Scripture, is an irrefragable
proof that we have now before us the very text
prepared by command of the unf ortunate Ca liph.
There Is probably In the world no other work wh ich
has remained twelve centu ries with so pure a text.
The various readings are wonderfully few in number,
and are chiefly confined to differences in the vowel
points and diacritical signs.

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1. Vol. X V, pp . 898 (11th Edition)

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 FlNA Ll1 Y OV PROPH ETHOOO 183

But those marks.were invented at a later date."1

Wherry writes In his Commentary on the Our)an :
"The tex t of the Qurl n is the purest of all the
•
works of a like antiquity.":!
A nother English trans lator ot the Qur>lin, Palmer, says :
"Othman's recension has remained the authorised
text .. .from the time it was made until the present
day...., Lane-Pool writes In the • seleclions from the
Kuran' :•
11
1l is an immen se merit In the Kuran that there
is no do ubt as to its genuineness . . . . That every
word we can now read with full confidence that it
has remained unchanged thro ugh nearly thirteen
hundred years.''
With the Word of God remaining Intact, Islam never
needed a new Prophet for separating the untruth from the
truth, nor a new revelation to take the place of a gospel
corrupted and mutilated by man.

Qur'an's silence about Adv ent of a New Prophet

This is, thus, the Infinite, ever-abiding Book of God, a

standard and a criterion wh ich co ntinues to enlighten the
path of Truth and rectitude. It leaves nothing of the spiri
tual needs of man in dark, yet It Is completely silent about
the advent of any new Prophet after Muhammad. This was,
undoubtedly, an important matter of crucial importance
whi ch ought to have been clearly stated if a prophet was to
reappear again in the worl d. A book which speaks of the
portents IIke 'the smoke'11, 'the beast'0 and 'the Gog and
1. Life of Mahomet (London-1912), Vol. I pp XXll-X Xlll
2. Vol. I(Turnber, London), p. 349
3. Palmer , 'Tiie Ouran', Introduction, p . LIX
4. (Turnber, London), Introduction , p. c.
s. But watch thou for the Day when the sky w ill produce vlelble
emoke that w ill envelop the people. (Q. XLIV :10·11)
6. And when the word la 1ulfllled concerning them, We shall bring forth
a beast of the earth to speak unto thorn because mank ind had not
faith In Our rovelatlons. ( Q. XXVll: 82)

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184 ISL/\UC CON Cl!J>T OF Pl<.OPR ETROOD

Magog'1 announ cing the advent of .the Day of Judgement,

would have surely f oretold the arr ival of the new
Prophet, If only to tell its f ollowe rs to receive him w ith
•
open <.trms whenever he comes. Is not man, af ter all,
averse to every- thing new, an d Is he not disposed to reject
a new messen ger of God ? Was it not, t hen, necessary
that the Q ur >an should have warned the Muslims against
being uncordial to the new harb inger of truth, whos e
rejec ti on wou ld have
laid open their faith to danger an d invited the wrath of God ?
How could have the Prophet , whose mercy and compassion
f or his f ollowers been thus praised by GocJ, kept q uiet,
leaving his followers groping in darkness ?
"There hath come unt o yo u a messenger, (one) of
yourselves, unto w hom aught that y e are over
burdened is grievous, f ull of conce rn fo r yo u, for the
believers f ull of pity, merclf ul."2
How could have suc h a Prophet s poke n of t he arrival
of A nti-Christ but kept silence about the advent of a new
Prophet ? This was certainly a matter of grave co ncern for
his f ollowers, for on it depended their salvation as well as
their remaining on the path of righteousn ess.
The Q ur'lin, in fact speaks so candidly of the perfec
tion of Islam and termination of prophet hood t hat nobody
who Is conversant with the A rable language and diction
can entertain any doubt abo ut these matters, unless, of
course, one is Insincere or inso lent enough to twist the
Q uranic verses w ith some ulterior motive. Nevertheless,
the Prophet has f urther elucidated the Quranic statemen ts
in even clearer terms in order to leave no uncertainty or
ambiguity
lurking In the mind of credulo us peop le. There are nume
rous Tradltlons3 which teach the principle of pr ophetho
od

1. Until,when Gog and Magog are let loose, and they hasten out
of every mound. (Q. X XI :96)
2. Q. IX : 128
3. The renowned TradlUon lst. Maul nl Anwar Sh!h Kllshmlrl says In
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 [ Continued on next page

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 FINALITY OP PROPHJ?.THOOD 185

and explain, with illustrfttlons, why Cl new prophe,t would

not be needed by humanity after the Prophet Muhammad.
Here we shall give only five. Traditions o n the subject of
final ity of Muhammad's prophethood, which have been
taken from the Sihah or the si>r. correct books ot Hadith.
"The prophets of Bani Israel used also to possess
authority over them , and when one prophet died,
another took his place. There shall be no prophet
after me, but there woul d be my vicegerents. "1
"The Prophet said : 'The likeness between me and
the prophets before me is as the Ilkeness of a man who
built a beautif ul house but left to put a brick in the
cor ner. Then, the people who saw the house, going
round It, wondered why the brick had not been put in
that corner. So, I am that very brick and seal of the
prophets.':
''The Prophet said : 'I have been allowed to take
precedence of all other prophets In six things : I have
been granted a perfect speech ; I have been helped by
way of def erence and awe ; the booty of war has
been made lawf ul fo r me ; thE) earth has been made a
purifier and a place of wo rship for me ; and I have
been sent unto the whol e of creation and the chain of
prophets
has bee n brought to comp letion through me.'3
"It is related by Jubair bin Muttam that the A postle
..

his book en l ltlod Aqidotul Islam' that ther e are 200 Tradit ions about
tho finality of prophelhood (p . 318). MaulBn! Muft i Muhammed
Shafi of Daoban d has given 210 such Traditions in 'Khatm-1-
Nabuwat' . The number of st ch Tradit ions is certainly mor e than
theso.
Another scholar, Mauliin! Mahmud Hasan Khlln of Tonk has
sum med up lho findings of earlier scholars, Tradlt lonlsts,
scholastics and the mystic s in Moy C -:tr-us-S1Jn nat-li-Khatm-un--/ -
Nsbi1wah which la perhaps the most detallo d disser tat ion on tho
subjec t.
1. Sohill Buk lf;Jri. Muslim nnd Tirmidhi on the authority of lbn A bl H tlm
2. Musllm, Tirmidhi, and lbn Majsh

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3. Tirmidhi

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1 86 !SLAMIC CUNCl£PT OJJ PRUVH·nmoo

of God said : Iam Muhammadi I am Ahmad ; I am

tfle A bolis her through whom God shall abol ish'
nfide lity ; I am the Ass embler for Go d shall
res urrec t others af tei me on the Day of
Judgement ; and I am the Successor after whom
there shal I be no prophet.''1

Settled Opinion about final ity of ?rophethood

For the reason that the Qurani c verses were ex plicitly

clear and Tr aditions w ere handed down by very many
distinct chains oi narrato rs, the companions of the Prophet
w ere unanimous In holding the view that prophethood had
come to an end af ter the last A postle of God, and that
no new prophet shall ever come after him. The
consensu,s of opinio n among the com panions is a f
undamental rule of Islamic Shar i 1 ah, for none could be
expected to understand the meani ng and purpose of
prophetic pronouncements
better than they. A lI the companions were thus agreed,
w itho ut any exce ntion, in declaring Musailamah as an
infidel and a disbelieve r against whom it was perfectly lawf
ul to wage the holy war. Musallamah, nevertheless,
testified to the prophethood of Muhammad, commended his
followers to do the same in giving out call to
prayer1.professed his faith In the Q ur, n and claimed to
follow its Injunctions ; but, he also claimed to receive revelat
ions, mis-interpreted the Qur>a-n and laid the claim to share
prophethood with the last of the prophets. He, thus, wanted
to open the door to a sort of s ubsidiary prophethood
although ministering to the
paramo unt law of Muhammad's apostleshi p. Musallamah,
.
the Liar, was thus a precursor of all the Impostors who
later on made a c laim to prophethood In Islam. He was
kllled in the battle of Yamamah, but twelve hundred
Muslims had to lay down their lives fighti ng that im postor.•
A
swad
<UnsT was another impostor who claimed to be a prophet

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1. Bulf llar i , Mus/Im and Abu Nua<Jm
2. Tar / /ch Tabr1. Vol . I ll, p. 254

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