Prophethood is one of the fundamental articles of faith in Islam. A Muslim should believe in prophethood and in all the prophets sent by God and make no distinction between them.
The Prophet’s responsibility was to communicate the divine message to humanity. In doing so, if he received a negative response from the people, or even in extreme cases was persecuted, nevertheless, he had to follow a strict policy of avoidance of confrontation, and had unilaterally to adopt the path of patience and forbearance. He was responsible only in so far as the conveying of the message was concerned. As for the response to, or acceptance of the message, that was entirely dependent on the addressees. But clearly, the greater the number who accepted the message, the greater the sphere in which a practical system of guidance sent by God became established.
God’s messengers came in every age and to every region. According to a Hadith (words of the prophet)—starting with Adam and ending with the Prophet Muhammad—1,24,000 messengers were sent to different nations, time and again, to guide the people to the right path. The prophets mentioned by name in the Quran are about twenty-four in number. The five well known prophets who came before Muhammad were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus. The Prophet Muhammad, the last in this long line of prophets, was known as the ‘Seal of the Prophets’.
All the prophets, according to Islam, brought the same basic truth: that there is only one God and that all human beings are accountable to God for their actions; On the Day of Judgement, they will be judged according to their good and bad deeds. Those who believe in God and His Prophet and do good deeds shall be rewarded in the next world. In contrast, those who disbelieve and do bad deeds shall be punished in the next world.
The prophets who were given divine revelations in the form of books were called rasul, while those who did not were called nabi. Of the Spirit of Islam Issue 27 March 2015 41 holy books, four find mention in the Quran: the Sahifa or the scrolls given to Abraham; the Torah, the revelations to Moses; the Zabur, the psalms of David; the Gospel, the teachings given to Jesus. Each of these was originally a complete revelation, but unfortunately, these books and teachings were not properly preserved. Some, like the Sahifa, were lost completely. Others were changed in various ways by human intervention and are no longer in their original form. They could best be described as edited versions of divine revelations, which have been altered from time to time by editors and commentators.
In the past, the need for new prophets had arisen because God’s religion was no longer in its pristine form, having been distorted in a number of different ways. New prophets had to come to the world periodically in order to revive the true spirit of religion, and thus restore it to its original form. After the Prophet Muhammad, there was no need for another prophet, for the Book— the Quran—which he gave to the world has been preserved intact, in its original form. The Quran is a collection of the divine revelations which the Prophet received over a period of 23 years.
The records of all the prophets have been rendered historically unreliable by interpolations with the sole exception of Prophet Muhammad. Firstly, this is because the Prophet Muhammad was born in an age when the history of the world was already being extensively chronicled and secondly because of a strong team amongst his followers. This in itself made circumstances conducive to authentic records being kept of God's messages and the Prophet's exemplary life. The relevant facts were passed on from one generation to the next by both oral and written tradition, and with the advent of the printing press, came the modern guarantee that no changes would ever be made in the divine scriptures. This renders unassailable the position of the Prophet Muhammad as God's final messenger. Professor Philip Hitti has acknowledge this in the following words “Mohammad is born within the full light of history”.
Source: Spirit of Islam March 2015
