14. Responsibility of the Followers of the Prophet
It is God’s scheme of things that His message should be continually conveyed to the people of each time and place. (25:1) This task of conveying the message of God continued from the first prophet Adam to the last Prophet Muhammad. The aim was to sort out the good people from the evil ones so that the judgement of Paradise or Hell could be made for them on the basis of this test in the divine court on the Day of Judgement.
The Prophet Muhammad was the final prophet of God. He was the seal of the prophets. That is, after him God will not send any prophet more to guide the people to the right path. (33:40) This was not on account of any mysterious cause. The only reason behind this is that God has revealed the Quran in the form of a preserved book. (15:9) He himself has taken the responsibility of its protection and preservation. No human hand can make even a small change in it until the Day of Judgement. Being the case so, now, there remains no more need of a new prophet. Now, the unadulterated message of the Quran can be conveyed to the people of every age and generation. As if, now, the Quran is the substitute of the prophet. Now, after the termination of the prophethood there is no apprehension of the preservation of the prophethood. However, now, the real issue is to continue to convey the message of the Prophet to the people of each generation and of every age. Now, the practical form we have with us is that we translate it into every language of the world and then distribute it among the people.
This is the main responsibility of the followers of the Prophet. We can claim to be the followers of the Prophet only when we continue to convey the message of God in every period of history without a single pause. It is not an optional type of duty. But it is necessary for every member of this community that he should take part in this mission of conveying the message of God to the people. Even those who do not have sufficient knowledge of Islam to do dawah activities should at least distribute the copies of the Quran among the people. Only after doing so, one can claim that he is one of the members of the ummah (community) of the Prophet.
