The Message of the Prophets Seerah – 1

Need for the Guidance of Allah

It is an undeniable fact that the source of all knowledge is Almighty Allah Who made this universe and created man to populate it. Who else but Him can know the realities of this universe. Who else possesses the knowledge of human nature and its true elements? The Creator alone knows His creatures. Human awareness is circumscribed by what has been revealed by the Creator, for man has no independent means of his own to get at the truth.

In this connection, the difference between two different aspects of reality must be fully grasped so as to avoid any fallacy in discussion. There are things which you perceive through the senses, and having gathered a body of knowledge by means of these senses, you can proceed to classify this information with the help of reflection, argumentation, observation or experimentation and to deduce laws from them.

For this type of information no revelation from heaven is needed. This is the province of your personal discoveries, explorations, meditations, reflections, research and deductions. It has been left to you to explore the world around you and discover the forces which operate; to understand the laws under which these realities function, so that you may stride forward along the path of development. Yet in this matter too, your Creator has not deprived you of His help.

All through the course of history, Allah has been unfolding before you, no matter how imperceptibly, His created world through an evolutionary process. He has opened up new vistas of knowledge before you, and at certain points of history He has inspired men to invent new techniques or to discover new laws. But the fact remains that in this domain man must gather knowledge by himself, without the help of a Divine Messenger or a Divine Book. Man has been endowed with all the resources to collect the information necessary in this sphere.

But the second category of reality is transcendental, beyond the reach of our perception; things which we are powerless to comprehend; things which cannot be weighed or measured by scales, nor discovered by pressing into service any of the instruments for acquiring knowledge which we have at our disposal. The theories of philosophers and scientists on this subject are mere conjectures and they do not come under the scope of knowledge. Here our ultimate realities and rational theories about them cannot be taken as definitive even by the very expounders of these theories. But if the authors of these theories possess any awareness of the boundaries of their limited knowledge, they cannot have faith in the validity of their notions. Nor can they call upon others to believe them. Need for Following the Precedent of the Prophets (pbut) Knowledge is obtained through the Guidance of Allah, for Allah alone is aware of realities. Allah offers this knowledge to man by means of Revelation. Revelation is transmitted to none but the Prophets (pbut). Allah has never published a Book and, having distributed to each individual, told him to study it to ascertain for himself the reality of his own existence and that of the universe. To realize his role in the practical world in the context of this reality. Allah has always appointed the Prophets (pbut) to convey this message to man, so that the Prophets (pbut) should not rest content with merely propagating their mandate, but driving it home, demonstrating it in action, recalling to the right path, those who defy the Divine mandates and organizing the believers into a society where every aspect bears practical evidence of this knowledge.

It is evident from this brief exposition that, for Guidance, we are wholly dependent upon the character displayed to the world by a Prophet of God (pbuh). A non-Prophet who does not believe in a Prophet is not eligible to be our leader, even though he may be a sage, a deeply learned and wise man. This is because such a person bereft of this knowledge is incapable of devising a true and just system of life for us.

Why we cannot obtain Guidance from the Prophets other than Muhammad (pbuh)

Let us now consider the question of why, of all of the venerable men whom we know as Prophets, and all the leaders of religions who conceivably may have been Prophets, we prefer to seek a message from the character of Muhammad (pbuh). Is this prejudice or is there a reasonable ground for doing so?

I submit that there is a rational basis for this. We certainly acknowledge and believe in the Prophet hood of all those who have been named in the Holy Qur’an as Prophets. But, we lack reliable information by authentic sources on their teaching and their character. There is no doubt about the Prophet hood of Hadrat Noah, Ibrahim, Ishaque, Yusuf, Moses and Jesus Christ (peace be upon them) and we believe in all of them. But none of the Scriptures revealed to them has come down to us in its original form so that we may benefit from its pristine message. Similarly, the life-history of none of these Prophets (pbut) has been handed down by any authentic means enabling us to follow their example in the various spheres of individual and collective existence.

A person who undertakes to prepare an account of the teaching and characters of all these Prophets (pbut) cannot write more than a few pages and these too, entirely with the help of the Qur’an, for nowhere else is authentic material extant about them except in the Holy Qur’an.

Authenticity of the Character and Precedent of the Holy Prophet (pbuh)

Now take the second attribute of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) by which he stands unique among all Prophets (pbut) and leaders of religion. Just as the

Book transmitted to him, amounts of his character have also been preserved to serve as a beacon for us in all walks of life. From early childhood to the close of his life, a large number of those who saw him, witnessed the events of his life and heard his conversation, addresses, exhortations or warnings, had retained them in memory and passed them onto their successors. Some of the research scholars believe that the number of those who had passed on to the next generation eyewitness accounts or reports of events that they had heard during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) number a hundred thousand people. The Holy Prophet (pbuh) himself dictated some commands and handed or dispatched them to certain people. These were later bequeathed to the succeeding generations.

There were at least six Companions (pbut) who had recorded the Traditions of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and tested the authenticity of their records by reading them out to the Holy Prophet (pbuh). These writings were also inherited by posterity. After the death of the Holy Prophet (pbuh), some fifty Companions (pbut) undertook to collect accounts of the circumstances and incidents of the Prophet’s life and his holy utterances. The material gathered from this source also came into the hands of those who later accomplished the task of collecting and compiling the Traditions of the Holy Prophet (pbuh).

Besides, as I have mentioned earlier, the number of the Companions who transmitted orally their knowledge of the Holy Prophet’s character (pbuh) runs to one hundred thousand, according to the estimate of some researchers. Little wonder, when we take into account the fact that the Holy Prophet (pbuh) performed his last Hajj, known as the Farewell Pilgrimage, in the company of one hundred and forty thousand people! All these believers saw him at the time of Hajj, learned from him the rituals of Hajj and listened to the addresses which the Holy Prophet (pbuh) delivered during this last Pilgrimage.