All of the prophets who came into
this world had an identical mission. They taught that man’s life on
earth was but an infinitesimal part of his eternal life. In this world
he was put to the test. Reward or punishment would come in the next.
After death, if he had followed the Lord’s path, he would find his
eternal abode in heaven. But, if he had strayed from it, he would be
plunged straight into hell. His damnation would be everlasting. This was
the reality of life taught by each and every one of the Prophets.
Adam
was the first man on earth and also the first Prophet. He was succeeded
by a long line of prophets right up to the time of the Muhammad.
Altogether there have been some 124,000 messengers of God. They appeared
in different lands and among different peoples, preaching the word of
God and exhorting people to live in fear of Him. But very few of those
they addressed have ever proved willing to give up their freedom for the
sake of God.
Few people, for instance, followed the Prophet Yahya (John the
Baptist) and he died a martyr’s death. When Lot left his people, only
two of his daughters accompanied him. According to the Old Testament,
only eight people entered the ark along with Noah. When Abraham left his native country, Iraq,
the only people to accompany him were his wife Sarah and his nephew
Lot, although they were later joined by his two sons, Ishmael and Isaac.
Even after great missionary effort on the part of Jesus, the priests
and religious authorities who heard his teachings did not follow him,
and even his twelve friends temporarily forsook him at the moment of
truth.
This was the unhappy lot of most of the prophets. The ties of kith
and kin sometimes brought a handful of followers to the more fortunate,
but as often as not, would-be prophets were forced by the inattention
and insensitivity of those around them to live out their lives in
solitude and persecution. This verse of the Qur’an very aptly sums up
common attitudes to Prophethood throughout the history of mankind:
How regretful for the servants. There did not come to them any messenger except that they used to ridicule him. (Yasin 36:30)
How extraordinary it is, then, that prophets are the very ones to
whom the least historical importance has been attached. History has
fully chronicled the lives of kings and soldiers, but not one single
prophet’s life has been given its due place in the annals of history. Aristotle (384-322
B.C.), who was born one thousand years after the Prophet Moses, was not
even acquainted with Moses’ name. The reason is not far to seek: most
of the prophets were rejected by their peoples; their homes were
demolished; they were treated as outcasts from society; they appeared so
unimportant that no one deemed it necessary even to make any mention of
them.
Why were the prophets treated in this manner?
There was just one reason for this, and that was their criticism of
current practices, especially of the established religious authorities,
the priesthood. People love nothing more than being praised; and they
loathe nothing more than being criticized. The prophets exposed the
difference between right and wrong, making no compromise with their
peoples.
They were persistently pointing out the faults in people’s beliefs
and actions. Consequently, people turned against them. If the prophets
had taught what everyone wanted to hear, they would never have been
treated in this manner.
Although this was the fate of most of the prophets, a few of them
were spared, Joseph, Solomon and David being names that immediately
spring to mind. But the power and prestige that these prophets acquired
was not due to the popularity of their teachings; they had an entirely
separate origin.
David was a young soldier in the army of the Israelites under King Saul, during the time that the Israelites and Philistines went to war with each other. Among the army of Philistines was the giant Goliath. So, powerful a fighter was he that no one was prepared to do battle with him. King Saul
then announced that he would give his daughter in marriage to anyone
who slew Goliath. David came forward, challenged the giant, and killed
him. In this way he became the son-in-law of the King of Israel. In a
subsequent war, both King Saul and his heir apparent were killed in
battle. David was thereupon crowned King of Israel. Solomon was David’s
son, and succeeded to his father’s throne. As for Joseph, he was endowed
by God with the ability to interpret dreams and the King of Egypt,
impressed by his ability, went so far as to entrust the affairs of state
to him. But the King still remained head of state and he and his
subjects continued to adhere to their pagan religion.
This hostile treatment meted out to the prophets throughout the ages,
deprived people of true guidance and, what was even more serious, made
the preservation of the scriptures and teachings of the prophets
impossible. Only a prophet’s followers can preserve his teachings after
him; but the prophets either had no followers, or so few as to be unable
to counter the challenges of their society to the preservation of the
Holy Scriptures.
The knowledge of God is eternal. He sees the future just as He does
the past. He was aware, before the sending of the prophets, that this
would be the fate of the human race. So He had decreed that He would
remedy this situation at the end of the prophetic era by sending His own
special envoy to the world: a prophet whose task would be not only to
preach religion, but also to exalt it above all others on earth. He
would be granted special succor from God, enabling him to compel his
people to bow to the truth. God would keep him on earth until he had
rectified the perversions of the society around him. God’s own Might
would assist the Prophet to vanquish his enemies. In this way the true
religion would be established on solid foundations and God’s Word would
be perpetuated, as it says in the Bible, “for the earth shall be filled
with the knowledge of the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea.”
Translations and additions have taken the present day Bible very far
from the original. But it still contains multiple references to the
coming of the Prophet Muhammad. If one studies the Bible objectively,
one will find certain references that cannot be applied to anyone else.
The very purpose of the mission of the Prophet Jesus was to announce to
the world, and to the Jewish nation in particular, the coming of the
final prophet. The “New Testament” to which he referred was, in truth,
Islam, for it marked the end of Jewish religious hegemony and projected
the Children of Ishmael as the true recipients of the word of God.
Hence, the rise of the Prophet Muhammad.
The Prophet Jesus came to the world six hundred years before the last
of the Prophets. In one reference to Jesus, the Qur’an has this to say:
And
[mention] when Jesus, the son of Mary, said, “O children of Israel,
indeed I am the messenger of Allah to you confirming what came before me
of the Torah and bringing good tidings of a messenger to come after me,
whose name is Ahmad.” (As-Saff 61:6)
The words “Ahmad” and “Muhammad”
have the same meaning: the praised one. In the Gospel of Barnabas the
name of the coming prophet is given quite clearly as Muhammad. But since
Christians consider the Gospel of Barnabas to be apocryphal, we do not
consider it proper to quote from that source. We cannot even be sure
whether Jesus, in his prophecy, referred to Ahmad or Muhammad. Most
probably he used a word with the same meaning as these names.
In his biography of the Prophet, Ibn Hisham quotes the historian,
Muhammad ibn Ishaq, the most authentic source on the Prophet’s life, as
saying that when Jesus spoke in his mother tongue the word that he used
of the coming prophet was “Munhamann” meaning “the praised one.” This
traditionally accepted appellation was probably passed on to him by
Palestinian Christians who had come under Islamic rule. When the Bible
was translated into Greek, the word became “Paraclete”.
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Source: Taken from the author’s Muhammad, a Prophet for All Humanity.
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