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Prophecy is
a grace from God that He bestows to those whom He chooses from His
servants, and those He distinguishes from His creatures {Allah
chooses especially whom He pleases for His mercy, and Allah is the
Lord of mighty grace} (the Cow: 105).
Prophecy is
selective and favoring. It can only be given to qualified individuals
whom Allah has chosen for, because it is a heavy burden and a great
entrustment that no one is capable of assuming except those endowed
with constancy, just as He,
The Exalted said while addressing the Seal of the Prophets and
apostles {Surely We will make to light upon you
a weighty Word}.
And
Prophecy can never be by force and compulsion, but rather by Allah's
selection of the best of His creatures and the elites of His servants
whom He chooses to bear the burden of the mission, and whom He selects
from the rest of human beings. To this God said
in His Holy Book: {Allah chooses messengers from
among the angels and from among the men; surely Allah is Hearing,
Seeing} (Al-Hajj: 75).
From the
prophets whom Allah (s.w.t.) has elected: {Surely
Allah chose Adam and Nuh (Noah) and the descendants of Ibrahim and the
descendants of Imran above the nations} (Aal-Imran: 33). Allah
(s.w.t.) in the course of talking about some apostles says: {And
most surely they were with Us, of the elect, the best} (Sadd:
47).
Prophets
and apostles do differ from wise men, leaders, reformers, and geniuses
in two aspects: the first, their reception of the revelation from
Allah, and the second, their communication with and warning of people.
In this regard, Allah (swt) says: {He sends down
the angels with the inspiration by His commandment on who He pleases
of His servants, saying: Give the warning that there is no god but Me,
therefore be careful (of your duty) to Me} (An-Nahl: 2).
In another
verse, the Holy Quran indicates by the tongue of the Prophet Mohammed
(p.) when Allah ordered him to deliver to his people {Say:
It does not beseem me that I should change it of myself; I follow
naught but what is revealed to me} (Yunis: 15).
Between
prophecy and the mission:
Opinions
disagreed on the difference between a prophet and an apostle. Some say
a prophet is the one who is sent whether he is ordered to deliver (a
mission) or not. An apostle, on the other hand, is sent and ordered to
deliver a mission.
Others say:
prophecy may be minor to its holder who is then called a prophet, or
may be associated with an assignment to correct the behavior of
certain group of people in which case the assignment is said to be a
mission and its holder is called an apostle. Therefore, every apostle
is a prophet, but not every prophet is an apostle.
Allah (swt)
said: {And mention Musa (Moses) in the Book; he
was one purified, and he was an apostle, a prophet} (Mariam:
51), also {And We did not send before you any
apostle or prophet} (Al-Hajj: 52), until He said {so Allah
raised prophets as bearers of good news and as warners} (The Cow:
213), as well as other verses that their explicit meaning imply that
every envoy sent by Allah by an assignment is a prophet.
Thus it is
said: a prophet and an apostle are both sent to people, yet a prophet
is sent to communicate to people about what he has of the unseen
(supernatural) that Allah (s.w.t.) had informed him about. Whereas an
apostle is sent with a special mission added to the foundation of
prophecy just as we can perceive from His saying: {And
every nation had an apostle; so when their apostle came, the matter
was decided between them with justice} (Yunis: 47).
Accordingly,
a prophet is the one who demonstrates to people the rightness of their
subsistence and their hereafter through the religion's principles
and branches based on what Allah's auspices has called for the
guidance of people towards their happiness. An apostle, on the other
hand, is the bearer of a special mission that includes the completion
of a plea that, if breached, necessitates destruction or torment or
the like {so that people should not have a plea
against Allah after them (coming of) apostles} (Al-Nisaa: 165).
No doubt
that prophets, who came to guide humanity, are numerous, yet not all
of them their names were mentioned in the Holy Koran {And certainly We
sent apostles before you; there are some of them that We have
mentioned to you and there are others whom we have not mentioned to
you} (Ghafir: 78). As for the ones whom their names appeared in the
Book, they were twenty-five: "Adam, Noah, Idris, Hud, Salih,
Ibrahim, Lut, Ismail, Al-Yasha, Zulkifl, Ilyas, Yunus, Ishaq, Yaqoub,
Yusuf, Shu'aib, Musa, Haroun, Dawood, Sulaiman, Zakaryia, Yahya,
Ayub, Isa, and Muhammad" God's blessing and peace be upon all of
them.
As for the
number of prophets and apostles, narrations were dissimilar. Yet the
more eminent of which is the one attributed to Abu Zar who quote
Prophet Mohammed (p.) as saying that the prophets were one hundred
twenty four thousand prophets, and the apostles were three hundred and
twenty three apostles.
The
Prophets of (endowed resolve) (Ulu al-Azm):
Of
the prophets that the Quran described as "endowed with resolve"
are: Nuh, Ibrahim, Musa, Isa, and Muhammad whom Allah (s.w.t.) called
on him to follow the example of his preceding prophets in their
patience and struggle: {Therefore bear up as did
the apostles endowed with resolve bear up with patience}
(Al-Ahkaf: 35). They were called as such because their resolve was
very strong, their trial was immense, their struggle was arduous, and
for their constancy remembrance to the strong covenant taken from them
as Allah (s.w.t.): {And when We made a covenant
with the prophets and with you, and with Nuh and Ibrahim and Musa and
Isa, son of Mariam, and We made with them a strong covenant}
(Al-Ahzab: 7).
The
Great Prophet Muhammad was the most militant, most patient, and the
most sacrificing prophet: "No prophet has ever been hurt as I
had". Allah (s.w.t.) distinguished him with commendation and
honoring to the extent that He had never before distinguished any
prophet before him {And most surely you conform
(yourself) to sublime morality} (Al-Qalam: 4) .
Prophets'
infallibility:
The
wisdom of the Almighty Allah demanded that He makes his prophets the
most perfect of his humans by creation and by the nobility of
character, the best and the most honorable in lineage, the most
veracious by words, and their insight is acute. Allah (s.w.t.)
surrounded those prophets with care and overwhelmed them with
attention and guidance. He took on educating and teaching those
prophets as well as to guarding them (make them infallible) from
committing sins and disobediences. They were an example that guides to
the right path. Their paths and memories, after their death, have
turned into a lighthouse that lights up the darkness of life, and that
guides to the road of conscious awareness. In this regard, Allah
(s.w.t.) said: {And We made them Imams who
guided (people) by our command, and We revealed to them the doing of
good and the keeping up of prayer and the giving of the alms, and Us
(alone) did they serve} (Al-Anbiyaa: 73).If those prophets did
not acquire such a level of perfection they would not have been
listened to, and if they were to lie or betray they
would have been abandoned.
The
Prophets' Miracles
God aided
his prophets with supernatural things that were not accepted to the
mind so as they could
prove to those who did not believe them that they were speaking the truth.
Even
though, some imagined that this was a kind of witchcraft could be
learned ,that they could come up with something similar to , if they
learn its rules. But they were destined to fail, for the prophets'
miracles had nothing to do with magic , being an act done by Allah,
Who is capable of doing whatever He deems suitable.
The
prophets' miracles were
various . Every prophet's Miracle
emitted from what was common among his people, so that it could be
more supporting as well
as more committing. For instance, Musa's rod was converted into a
snake that swallowed the magicians' rods and ropes.
Some of
these miracles were cosmic, such as the burst of water out of the
stone when Musa struck it to supply his people with water to drink.
Besides, the cloud that
shaded the Children of Israel is another good
example of such miracles
Some
miracles had to do with the unseen ,as when Isa told his people about
what they had eaten; others were supernatural, as when the fire the
unbelievers wanted to burn Ibrahim with, turned to be cold and
peaceful instead.
It
is worth noting that the all miracles the prophets were aided before
Muhammad(p.) were addressed to a certain people in a certain time and
under given circumstances. It was only natural that they would end and
could only be heard about at
a later stage. But this is not the case with Muhammad's (p.)
immortal and ever lasting miracle, the Holy Quran, that challenged the
Arab's eloquence.
What characterizes
Muhammad's call is that his miracle is immortal
as well as accessible to any researcher and truth seeker
in any time and place..
