Aḥmad ibn Ḥusayn al-Bayhaqī, Dalā’il al-Nubuwwah, vol. 4, Cairo, Dār al-Rayyān, 1988, p. 321. See also, Al-Wāqidī, Kitāb al-Maghāzī, vol. 2, Beirut, ʿĀlam al-Kutub, 1984, pp. 734-735.
5 Al-Bukhārī, chapter on “Testimonies”, ḥadīth No. 2680.
6 Sayyid Quṭb, In the Shade of the Qur’ān, vol. 3, The Islamic Foundation, Leicestershire, 2001, pp. 299-300.
7 The Qur’ān: 28: 86.
8 The Qur’ān: 29: 48.
9 The Qur’ān: 39: 3.
10 Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ (Book of the Start of Revelations).
11 Ibid.
CHAPTER 4
THE NEED FOR A DIVINE MESSAGE
THE ANGEL CAME when Muhammad was in seclusion in the cave of Mount Ḥirā’, and told him to read the first five short verses of the Qur’ān. Muhammad’s prophethood started at the moment he received these first revelations.
Like other scholars, Imam Ibn Hazm defines prophethood as the acquisition of knowledge that is absolutely certain and cannot be gained through human endeavour or experience. Such knowledge can only be bestowed by God, and He gives it only to those of His servants whom He chooses to be Prophets. Some Prophets may be given Divine messages, which they then deliver to the people to whom they are addressed. If a Prophet is not given a message of his own, he works with the message of an earlier Messenger. The Children of Israel had countless Prophets: but the Messengers among them were few. Moses and Aaron are perhaps the clearest examples of this. God chose Moses to relay the message contained in the Torah, whereas Aaron was a Prophet working with Moses’ message. A number of God’s Messengers are mentioned in the Qur’ān by name, but God states that He also sent Messengers of whom He chose not to tell us. Addressing the Prophet, He says in the Qur’ān: “We sent other Messengers before your time; some We have given you an account of, while others We have not.” (40: 78)
Shortly after the beginning of his revelations, Muhammad became God’s Messenger, as God revealed to him the verses: “You, wrapped in your cloak, arise and give warning” (74: 1-2).1 This meant that the Prophet would advocate the Divine faith in accordance with the message that he would be receiving. Whatever remained intact from previous Divine messages (that is, free from distortion) would be endorsed or amended by the new message. In all previous cases, God’s Messengers were sent to their own peoples, speaking their languages and calling on them to believe in God and to conduct their lives in accordance with the messages delivered to them. The Prophet was declared God’s final Messenger and his message was the last to be given by God to mankind. For this reason, his message is contained in a book – the Qur’ān – which God has guaranteed to preserve intact for the rest of time.
That humanity is always in need of a Divine message is beyond doubt, and this is closely related to the purpose of man’s creation. According to all Prophets and to God’s Messengers, man undertakes the task of building virtuous life on earth. As the Prophet Ṣāliḥ urged his people to worship God alone, he said to them: “He it is who brought you into being out of the earth and settled you therein.” (11: 61) With settlement comes progress and the enhancement of the beautiful and beneficial (as its Arabic equivalent istaʿmarakum, which is used in this Qur’ānic verse, connotes). When we consider our position in the universe, it becomes clear that despite all the discoveries and advancements that we have made over the centuries, we can only move within a limited area and our abilities are finite. Man has always felt that there is a vast world beyond, and it is the endeavour to reach to this and discover its secrets that has motivated his research, scientific pursuit, philosophical theories, poetry and fiction. This has given rise to every advancement made by man. Yet, even those who make the most exciting discoveries are the first to acknowledge that they are only scratching the surface and that there is much more beyond.
This applies to human nature, psychology, feelings and emotions as much as it applies to the material world around us. When we deal with the material world, we may make mistakes. However, we can always revise our methods and correct our errors. The situation is not so straightforward when we regulate for feelings, emotions and human nature. A small mistake in these areas could have far-reaching adverse consequences. The need to avert such consequences by correcting an initial mistake is often resisted by a section of the population, because every human situation has its positive and negative aspects. Those who stand to benefit by its positives will – understandably – resist the change. Moreover, when we try to correct such consequences, we often go too far in the opposite direction, so that after some time another correction is needed. Had there been proper guidance in the first place, many errors of society could be averted.
For example, looking at sexual morality in Western society, and its development over the last two centuries, we find that the nineteenth century applied strict values. The first half of the twentieth century witnessed two world wars, which took away almost all of this strictness. Once the contraceptive pill was deemed safe, the so-called “sexual revolution” of the 1960s was hailed as liberation from arbitrary values. Intellectual discussion contrasting nineteenth and twentieth century values in this area tended to dismiss the earlier strict approaches as hypocritical: it was assumed that the earlier population did not really believe in strict values, but were compelled by society to keep up pretences. Any argument that the literature of the time did not support such a judgement is usually countered by the view that novelists and playwrights had to exercise self-censorship so that their works would not be banned. On the other hand, Western society has moved so far away from the values of those days that some people may wonder whether what remains unacceptable today may be acceptable in future.
In recent years, scientific advancement has posed some very difficult ethical questions, particularly with regard to genetic engineering and medically-assisted conception and pregnancy. Human society has been trying hard to find satisfactory answers to questions such as the following: Who has the rightful claim to the child born by a surrogate mother? If a woman agrees with a couple to bear a baby that is the result of artificial insemination, but later decides to keep the child when it is born, is it enough that she refunds the couple whatever fee they might have paid her in advance? How binding is such a contract? Is it right to use test tube techniques to help an elderly woman to conceive (as in the recent case where a sixty-nine year old woman gave birth through artificial insemination)? To what extent can genetic engineering be used in order to give couples a choice of their prospective child’s sex and characteristics? How about medically assisted suicide: is it right to help terminally ill people to end their lives, if they so desire?
In such matters, it is difficult to determine the extent to which human society can proceed on the basis of trial and error. If the adverse consequences of trials in a particular area are grave and difficult to cure, this may mean that people are subjected to serious problems that they might have been spared if proper guidance was available. We need guidance to avoid areas of danger and to lead a reasonably happy life. Given that human experience cannot provide this guidance, the only source available to us is the Creator: He knows His creation and can determine what will benefit or harm us.
Divine guidance has been given to us ever since humanity came into existence. It is provided in two ways: the first is human nature, when it is sound and uncorrupted by negative influences, and the second is through Prophets. These two work together, as the message preached by Prophets enhances the resources of human nature and ensures that it remains on the right track. We need to remind ourselves here of the definition of prophethood, which is
