(part 1 of 2): The Essence of
Propheticism Propheticism is not unknown to the heavenly revelation religions, such as Judaism and Christianity. However, it has a special status and meaning in Islam.
According to Islam, God created man for a noble purpose: to serve Him and to live a righteous life based on His teachings and guidance. How could man get to know his role, as well as the meaning and purpose of his existence, if he did not get clear and practical instructions from what God wants from him? Here the need for prophecy becomes clear. So God chose at least one prophet for each people to deliver His message.
Someone could ask how the prophets were chosen and who was given this great honor?
Prophethood is God’s blessing and goodness, which He shows to whom He wants. However, when we look at the different messengers of history, there are three hallmarks of the prophets:
1. He is morally and intellectually the best in his society. This is necessary because the life of a prophet serves as a model for his people. His personality should appeal to people to accept his message, and they should not be rejected by an inadequate character. After receiving the message, he is infallible. That means he would never commit any sin. He could make minor mistakes, usually corrected by a revelation.
2. He is supported by miracles that prove that he is not a fraud. These miracles are granted by God with His power and permission, and they usually come from an area where the people are recognized and recognized as superior. We can illustrate this by showing the greatest miracles of the three prophets of the world religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Moses‘ contemporaries were excellent wizards, so his greatest miracle was to compete with the best wizards of his time in Egypt. Jesus‘ contemporaries were recognized, skilled doctors, so his miracles were to raise the dead and heal incurable diseases. The Arabs, contemporaries of the Prophet Muhammad – may God praise him – were known for their eloquence and great poetry. Therefore, the greatest miracle of the Prophet Muhammad was the Quran; The whole community of Arab poets and orators could not produce anything similar, although the Qur’an itself asked them to do so in several places. And again, Muhammad’s miracle had something special. All previous miracles were limited in time and location; that is, they were shown to certain people at a certain time. Not so the miracle of Muhammad – may God praise him – the Quran. He is a universal, everlasting miracle, because as the last prophet he was sent not only to a certain people but to all people. Past generations have testified to this miracle and future generations will again testify to the wonderful nature of the Quran in terms of its style, content and spiritual superiority. These can still be determined and therefore prove the divine origin of the Quran. Testify content and spiritual superiority again. These can still be determined and therefore prove the divine origin of the Quran. Testify content and spiritual superiority again. These can still be determined and therefore prove the divine origin of the Quran.
3. Every prophet clearly emphasizes that what he receives does not come from himself, but from God for the well-being of mankind. He confirms what was revealed before him and what will be revealed after him. A prophet does this to show that he is simply transmitting the message that the One True God has given him of all people and all times. So it is essentially the same message with the same meaning and purpose. Therefore, she should not deviate from what was revealed before her or what might come after her.
Prophets are necessary to deliver God’s instructions and guidance to humanity. We have no other way of knowing why we were created. What will happen to us after our death? Is there a life after death? Are we responsible for our actions? These and many other questions about God, angels, paradise, hell and more cannot be answered except through direct revelation from the creator and connoisseur of the invisible. These answers must be reliable and delivered by people whom we trust and whom we respect. This is the reason why the emissaries belonged to the elite of their societies in their moral behavior and intellectual abilities.
Therefore, Muslims do not accept the slanderous biblical stories about some of the great prophets. For example, Lot is reported to have forcibly drunk his daughters. David claims to have sent one of his leaders to his death in order to marry his wife. The prophets are too great for Muslims to tell such stories about them. Such representations cannot be true from the Islamic point of view.
The prophets were wonderfully supported and instructed by God to confirm the consistency of the message. The content of the message of all prophets to people can be summarized as follows:
a) Clear concept of God: His qualities, His creation, what should and should not be attributed to him
b) Clear idea of the invisible world, the angels, the Jinn (creatures of God next to people), paradise and hell
c) Why God has created us, what He demands from us and what rewards and punishments await us for our obedience or disobedience
d) How we manage our societies according to His will. That is, clear instructions and laws that, if used correctly and honestly, create a smoothly functioning, harmonious society
From the above explanation it is very clear that there is no substitute for the prophets. Even with today’s scientific advances, revelation is the only authentic source of information about the supernatural world. Guidance cannot be obtained through science or mystical experimentation. The first is too material and limited; the second is too subjective and usually misleading.
(part 2 of 2): Belief in all prophets without difference
You could ask:
How many prophets did God send to mankind? We are only certain in what is clearly mentioned in the Quran, namely that God has sent a messenger to every people. He did so because it is one of God’s principles that He will never settle with a people until He has made it clear to them what to do and what not to do. The Qur’an mentions the names of 25 prophets and indicates that there were others who were not named to the Prophet Muhammad – may God praise him. Of these 25, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (may God praise them all). These five are among God’s greatest messengers. They are called the „unshakable“ prophets.
An outstanding aspect of Islamic belief in prophecy is that Muslims believe in all God’s messengers without exception and respect them all. All prophets came from the same One God, for the same purpose: to lead humanity to God. Therefore, it is important and logical to believe in all of them. The misconduct of recognizing some of these prophets and rejecting some is due to misunderstandings about the role of the prophet or is a racist bias. Muslims are the only people in the world who see belief in all prophets as a basis of belief (article of belief). The Jews reject Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them), and the Christians reject Muhammad (may God praise him). Muslims accept all of God’s messengers that God has sent as guidance for humanity. However, the revelations that those prophets brought before God from Muhammad have been changed in one way or another by humans.
Belief in all the prophets of God is imposed on the Muslims in the Quran:
“Says: We believe in God and in what has been sent down to us (as a revelation) and in that to Abra-ham, Ismael, Isaac , Jacob and the tribes, and (to) what was given to Moses and Jesus, and (to) what was given to the prophets by their Lord. We make no difference to any of them and we are devoted to Him. ” (Quran 2: 136)
In the following verses, the Quran continues to instruct the Muslims as this is the true and impartial belief. If other peoples believe the same, then they are on the right path. If they don’t, they will follow their own moods and inclinations and God will take care of them because we read:
“If they believe in what you believe in, then you are rightly guided. However, if they turn away, they are in conflict. But against them God will suffice you. He is the all-hearing and omniscient. God’s coloring – and whose coloring is better than that of God! And we serve him. ” (Quran 2: 137-138)
There are at least two important points related to prophecy that need clarification. These points concern the roles of Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them) as prophets, which are often misunderstood.
The Qur’anic declaration of Jesus strongly rejects the idea of his “divinity” and “God’s sonship” and introduces him as one of God’s great prophets. The Quran makes it clear that the birth of Jesus without a father does not make him the son of God and mentions Adam in this connection, who was created by God without a father and without a mother.
“Certainly, the parable of Jesus is with God like the parable of Adam. He created it out of earth. Then He said to him: ‚Be!‘ and there he was. ” (Quran 3:59)
Like other prophets, Jesus performed miracles. For example, he raised the dead and healed the blind and the lepers, but when he showed these miracles, he always made it clear that all of this was from God. In fact, the misunderstandings about the personality and message of Jesus – Peace be upon him – arose among his followers because the divine message that he preached was only reported after he was no longer in this world. It was written down after a period of over a hundred years later. According to the Quran, he was sent to the children of Israel to confirm the validity of the Torah that had been sent down to Moses, and also brought the good news from a last messenger to come after him.
“And when Jesus, the son of Mary, said: ‚Children of Israel, surely I am God’s messenger to you, confirming what was revealed to me by the Torah and proclaiming a messenger who will come after me: be Name is Ahmad (the praised) ”(Quran 61: 6)
(Ahmad: the praised or the highly praised has the same root as Muhammad, the name of the Prophet.)
However, the majority of the Jews slandered him. They plotted against his life and thought they crucified him. But the Quran rejects this view and says that they neither killed nor crucified him; he was raised to God in heaven. There is a verse in the Quran that indicates that Jesus will come back, and all Christians and Jews will believe in him before he dies. This is also supported by authentic statements by the Prophet Muhammad – may God praise him.
The last prophet of God, Muhammad, was born in the sixth century AD. born in Arabia. Up to the age of forty, the people of Mecca knew him only as a man of excellent character and good manners and they called him Al-Amien (the trustworthy). He himself did not know that he would soon become a prophet and receive God’s revelation. He called on the idolaters of Mecca to worship only the One and Only God and to accept him (Muhammad, may God praise him) as His Prophet. The revelation he received was remembered in his companions‘ memory during his lifetime, and was also written on palm leaves, leather, and the like, and passed on to subsequent generations. So the Quran as we read it today is still the same as it was revealed to him Not a letter has been changed because God Himself ensures His protection. This Quran claims to be the book of guidance for all mankind for all time and mentions Muhammad, may God praise him, as God’s last prophet.
Source: https://www.islamland.com/deu/articles/prophetentum-im-islam