Finality of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)

This is really a non issue for most Muslims because this is known as fact that there is not other Prophet after Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) nor is there another Messenger, as this has also ended. But as per usual we had to speak about this even though we did not want to.


Definition


What we wish to do here is examine some proofs and then explain them. So firstly we must state that the words Prophet and Messenger are the synomyns, in terms of language.


The definition of a Prophet is he;

1. Who receives revelation in this world from Allah

2. Informs of the unseen; some of the past/present

3. His miracles manifest upon a challenge of prophethood

4. See Angels and speaks to them



In terms of sacred law the difference between a Prophet and Messenger is; a Prophet backs up the previous message (he doesn't bring a new law or is not ordered to convey it) and a Messenger brings a new law (he is ordered to convey it).

This is also one of the facts of a messenger/ prophet that they confirm the previous prophet/ Messenger. Prophethood was passed from father to son, father to son, father to son.

So when the passage speaks about the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) not being a father of any of the men. This means that Prophethood ended; it stopped; the passing of prophetic chain had finished.


The great lineage of the Prophetic era had come to a stop and it was to travel no more. "Muhammad is not the father of any man among you, but the Messenger of Allah and the Last of Prophets. And Allah has knowledge of everything." [Qur'an 33:40]"

Translated Last of the prophets is خاتم النبين Khatam here is the active participle or Ism Fa'il which is the active participle in Arabic which means that a person is doing that action. Like a opener is fatih. Khatam can mean seal, stamp, make impervious, inaccessible, conclude, finish, terminate or last. (p.227 Hans Wehr Dictionary)


So we can take last as it says here and we can take seal either way, we can understand the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is one doing the sealing, the one doing the finishing, the one concluding, the one making prophethood inaccessible, Prophethood began with him and ended with him.


This is illustrated vividly in the following narration;

Abu Hurayra narrates (Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “Certainly my example and the example of prophets before me is like the example of a palace, most elegant and most beautiful constructed by a person except with a blank space for a brick in one of its corners and that made the people (who were) going around it wondered and exclaimed (in perplexion): “Why not is this brick inlaid in here!” The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, “I am that brick and I am the last of the prophets.” (Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 1, p.501 & Sahih Muslim, Vol. 2, p.248)


The following are further evidence to this; Amir b Sa'd b. Abi Waqqas reported on the authority of his father that the Messenger of Allah (may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) addressing 'Ali said, "You are in the same position with relation to me as Aaron was in relation to Moses but that there is no prophet after me." Sa'd said: I had an earnest desire to hear it directly from Sa'd, so I met him and narrated to him what (his son) Amir had narrated to me, whereupon he said, "Yes, I did hear it." I said, "Did you hear it yourself?" Thereupon he placed his fingers upon his ears and said, "Yes, and if not, let both my ears become deaf." (Bukhari Book #031, Hadith #5913)


Narrated Abu Hurayra: The Prophet (peace and blessing of Allah said, "The tribe of Israel used to be ruled and guided by prophets: Whenever a prophet died, another would take over his place. There will be no prophet after me, but there will be Caliphs who will increase in number." The people asked, "O Allah's Apostle! What do you order us (to do)?" He said, "Obey the one who will be given the pledge of allegiance first. Fulfil their (i.e. the Caliphs) rights, for Allah will ask them about (any shortcoming) in ruling those Allah has put under their guardianship." (Bukhari Book #56, Hadith #661)


Narrated Jubair bin Mutim that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, "I have five names: I am Muhammad and Ahmad; I am Al-Mahi through whom Allah will eliminate infidelity; I am Al-Hashir who will be the first to be resurrected, the people being resurrected there after; and I am also Al-'Aqib." (i.e. There will be no prophet after me)." (Bukhari Book #56, Hadith #732)


Saad narrates that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) set out for Tabuk. Appointing 'Ali as his deputy (in Medina). 'Ali said, "Do you want to leave me with the children and women?" The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, "Will you not be pleased that you will be to me like Aaron to Moses? But there will be no prophet after me." (Bukhari book #59, Hadith #700)


It is narrated by Uqba bin Aamer, (Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah Muhammad (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, “If there could ever be a prophet after me, indeed Umar bin Khattab would have been such”. (Tirmidhi, Vol. 2, p.209)


There are more hadith on this but I wanted to stop at this point making it very clear that no Prophet could follow him and then what about the station of Messenger?


Messenger

Is the station of Messenger still open seen as prophethood is ended?

For a Messenger to come there needs to be a new law, there is no new law to come, the Shariah is the final law for mankind.


“Truly the religion with Allah is Islam.” The Family of Imran 3:19


Allah said, "Whoso desires another religion than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him; in the next world he shall be among the losers." The Family of Imran 3.85


"Muhammad is a Messenger of Allah." 48:29


"Today I have perfected your religion for you, and I have completed My blessing upon you, and I have approved Islam for your religion." The Table spread 5:3


These are proofs that no other Messenger could come with a new message or a new sacred law after the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) his law is final and conclusive.


To further prove this see the following hadith; The Prophet of Allah (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) affirmed, "The chain of Messengers and Prophets has come to an end. There shall be no Messenger nor Prophet after me." (Tirmidhi, Kitab-ur-Rouya Babu Zahab-un- Nubuwwa, Musnad Imam Ahmad, Marwiyat-Anas bin Malik)



What about Jesus (upon him peace)?


Jesus (upon him peace) will return to kill the Antichrist and re-establish the sacred law before the end of time. He will follow the law of Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and will not bring about new message he will affirm the previous Message.


Also note he is not a new prophet, he was a prophet before and now he is coming again. Therefore he is not bringing anything new he is affirming and this is more an exception to the normal case of the prophets.


The Prophet of God (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) observed: "God Almighty hath sent unto the world no apostle who did not warn his people about the appearance of Anti-Christ. I am the last in the line of Prophets and you are the last community of believers. Without doubt, then, Anti-christ shall appear from amongst you". (Ibn Majah, Kitabul-fitan, bab:Dajjal).



What about Ibrahim the son who passed away?


The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) had three sons all who died in childhood or in Ibrahims case a few months after birth. We said before that Prophethood passed through from father to son.

Now there is a narration that the Prophet said,لو عاش لكان صديقاً نبياً

"If Ibrahim had lived he would be a truthful prophet."


Reported by Ibn Majah chapter on funerals no. 1511.

First of all according to Yahya ibn Ali Al-Shawkani this is a forged narration. (Siddiqqi Hadith literature p.212)

Some people use this as proof that prophethood could have passed on. Lets examine the words, لو lo means you are wishing for something that you know could never come true. For example I could say; If only today was Friday but I know that today is Saturday and that could not be friday because that has gone. In either case the hadith is rejected.


Bukhari narrates that Ibn Abu Awfa said, "If there could be a prophet after Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) it would be his son but there is no prophet after him."


Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) said, "He means that if he was not the seal of prophethood then his son would have been a prophet after him." (Tafsir Al-Khateeb As-Sharbini page.318)


This now cannot be understood in other way as it is proved beyond a shadow of a doubt the progeny is from our lady Fatima (may Allah be pleased with her) and our master Ali (may Allah be pleased with him), this brings us back to our first point.



Concluding remarks

We have proved in this that the stations of prophethood and messenger are both ended. It ended with his message, it was not passed on nor was there a new message. No one can now claim that they are a prophet or a Messenger, they cannot claim that they are bringing a new message or following an old one.


Disbelief is defined as someone who rejects the Prophethood of Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Those who do this cannot consider themselves Muslims.

This is a lie against God and this is worst sin that anyone can do, do you really want to be caught out by God? This can only be an act of foolishness. I have not used all the evidences that I had, I have picked some and not others, so if you find other information that is appropriate to this subject then do not be surprised. This article refutes those who claim to follow another prophet in and outside Islam, as well as another messenger.


Imagine a relay race, there are several runners, each runner takes the batton and runs with it to the next runner who then takes it on to the next runner. This cycle continues until the final runner receives the batton, he takes it to to end of the race. This is likeness of prophethood, each one carried the light and passed it on until it came to a end. Prophethood is not a station that someone can achieve, it is a station that someone is given. All claims of prophethood outside this are false and without truth.

A brief study of Hadith

This is for those people who do not accept hadith as part of the sacred law

A Brief History Of Hadith Collection And Criticism a Lecture by Dr. Jonathan A Brown a hadith scholar (Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies) from the University of Washington, "I have never been more impressed with anybody in history in my life than with Muslim hadith scholars. I mean, when I first started studying hadith I was very skeptical, I though it was all made-up and bogus but the more you study it the more you just appreciate the intense brain power of these people."

Tribalism or Group mentality

One of the worst things that is previlent at this time is the group mentality or tribalism. My group is the saved group, we are on the truth and everyone else is wrong.

When someone coming into this faith they must think what have I come into? These guys spend their time arging. I did not sign up for this!

My answer is leave group mentality let people be Muslim and leave them to it. You cannot change their minds by attacking some point of view that they have held for years will not benefit you.

As long as they are muslim leave them to and don't argue. I have tried to make people see my point of view and many don't understand. Leave tribalism.

Qadianiyyah

QADIANIYYAH:

Founder

Born in the city of Qadian in the district of Punjab, India in the year 1835, a young man who would change the face of faith in the Indian Subcontinent would be born. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad came from a family of land-owning nobles and received an education from various teachers in the subjects of Persian, reading Arabic as well as the basic sciences. In the year 1868/69, he claimed that Allah, the Glorified and Exalted, began to carry on a conversation with him, the substance of it being that he had been chosen to be a messenger of Allah. Form that day; he went proclaiming his experience to the people.

As expected, he was met with scorn and ridicule, in addition to being presented with the verses in the Qur’an that state that prophethood has ceased. Ahmad claimed that these verses were metaphorical and were referring to only prophethood and not to being a messenger, as he was. Many of the Orthodox scholars of his time challenged him and set forth proofs to show his imposture and deception, yet he continued in his charade.

One of the constant comments about his station of prophethood is why a prophet should always be ill with typhoid, incontinence as well as other diseases. In all of his preaching, he was able to gather a small band of devotees around himself so that by the time he died on 26 May, 1908, his movement had become a well groomed organisation, with deputies, ministers and varying official posts, ready to carry his ideas into greater India and beyond.

Key beliefs

1. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian is the greatest of all the Messengers. This is of course a denial of the primordial nature of the Prophet Muhammad as well as the finality of the office of prophethood.

2. There was no Virgin Birth for Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

3. There will be no second coming of the Messiah at the end of ages.

4. Qadianis do not believe in the Mahdi.

5. The False Messiah is a myth or a metaphorical reality.

6. The miracles of the other prophets are not necessarily true.

7. Muslims who refuse to follow him are apostates and will fall under eternal judgement.

8. The Sunna of the Prophet Muhammad SAW is rejected as a source of law.

Extent

Due to their inability to successfully proselytise with the same zeal as their Ahmadiyyah opponents, most of the Qadianis remain in Pakistan and parts of India at a number of about 10,000-25,000.

Youth

Many Muslims groups wonder whats happened to our youth. They have left the deen and have busied themselves with earning a living.

They see the religion as something that they don't find anything in. Why have we reached this state? The answer is simple, really simple. The way we practice our religion isn't appealing to them.

It's that simple, they see us pray and fast but they just think that we are just physically wearing ourselves out and that's all.

They reject their background and reject part of this culture and then absorb themselves into such things as following their desires because they cannot see what we know about the religion. Also this is the age of following lowly desires.

Most of them absorb themselves into oppressed cultures who find themselves alienated in the modern world.

Our masjids are battle grounds where power struggles are fought and rivalry is battled out. Groups are presented and pushed forward, join my group, everyone has a group, this group mentality, almost tribal mentality is forced upon many.

This is wrong.

Were are those people who are interested in re-establishing the religion? Instead of establishing themselves, they want people to see that have some place in the masjid. Where did this come from?

On the flip side Wahhabi's on the whole don't have this problem, they are not plagued by corruption like the sunnis are, why is this? Why are the Sunnis making things hard for themselves, why don't they realise that we are chasing people out of our masjids and we don't care.

Generally there are exceptions but many Masjid committees are places were family loyalty is prevalent. They have made the masjid just a place where people pray and go home, the masjid was a place of learning.

Why don't we have the learning in the masjids like we used to do? The Committees are almost ineffective because they don't know what this country needs and they still think that they are living in a village somewhere in their homeland.

We have Imams whose mouths are sealed from speaking the truth about social problems, maybe due to fact that they are from Pakistan and don't see the need to look at our children and find out what their problems are.

Maybe they know but are forced to push all these problems under the carpet without thinking that this may have a longer, deeper effect that it did before. Or are their mouth sealed by the committee members, their silence buys them their jobs?


To solve the problem of the youth is to solve all the problems in our community.

This is not going to be easy but I do feel that things are slowly changing and they will change because if we continue in this manner they we will see that more problems.

I really hope that this can changed because if it cannot the future is bleak and this corrupt system will be removed so be part of the solution not part of the problem.

We have deep routed social problems which are steadily getting worse because of our failure to respond correctly and fix the problem.

We need to learn and we need to practice there no good in your love if you still disobey, you can slip up everyone does but you have to come back.

There are breakaway groups who are forming their own schools and calling English speaking scholars in, to teach. If the centre cannot be changed then it has to be changed from the outside this may lead to the death of these old-style movements and the birth of new Muslim organisations who can look after the needs of others.

Of course there are exceptions there are a few masjids who are working well with their communities but they are the minority.

So we should not be surprised when people leave the Sunnis because of this and the tragic events of last year. We have no knowledge that being parted in our masjids, so when people come and present ideas they see the people practice Islam better than the ones who they saw growing up. This must be the truth then! Unfortunately in terms of soundness of beliefs and jurist schools the four Sunni schools are unparallelled.

So the problem is our behaviour and our reaction to the people, our egos have tinged our religion for too long and now we are seeing bitter fruits ripen.

Now we cry because of our failures and our inability in reaching out to the people who need us the most, the youth, the weak and the needy.


We need to sit and listen then apply old solutions to new problems. If we cannot do it ourselves we get volunteers in who can help us in a certain field, women need to be catered for, because if we don't cater for women then others will.


We need scholars who understand this community and are willing to start at grass roots level and work to get the youth connected to the deen and the only this will happen is if we leave behind all our debris and go practice this deen and leave behind that which will eventually destroy us.

The one about the Priest, the Rabbi and the Imam

There was an Egyptian king who wanted to see which religion was true, Christianity, Judaism, Islam.

He called a Priest, a Rabbi and an Imam, to see which one would present the best argument.

The Christan priest was told to go first, he said no the Jews were here first so the Rabbi should go first. They argued then agreed for the Imam to go first.

The Imam was asked to present his case, he said, “If the Jews are right then the Muslims and Christians are okay because believe in Moses. If the Christians are right then the Jews have a problem and the Muslims are okay because we believe in Jesus. But if the Muslims are right then the Jews and Christians have a problem because they don’t believe in Muhammad.” (peace and blessings of God be upon him).

The age of Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) when she married the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him and his family)

This question is asked by many non-Muslims and is used to hurt Muslims who do not understand this, This was an answer that I had prepared for a Christian.

He married Aisha in contract initially and then she lived with him three years later. There are varying reports about her age when she married him some sources say 6,9,12,15 and the Shia say 18. According to Sheikh Hamza Yusuf all the narrations about her age at the time of marriage are singular narrations therefore there isn't one that stands out and we can affirm that narration.

In any case when she married him, she was fully formed woman, in other words capable of child birth. This was perfectly normal in that time, as it was the practice of the Arabs at that time to marry women at 12, when they had reached puberty and they did not live together until three years after that.

In most of the books, scholars generally say the age was twelve and then she went to live with him when she was fifteen, after the emigration to Medina.

This was a normal marriage in this time because another woman Khawla said why don't you marry Aisha, this confirms it as a practice of the people.

Don’t forget that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had a dream where the angel Jibril was carrying a person and he asked who is was, the angel said it is your wife, the cloth was uncovered and it was Aisha, this happened three times. She was married to him before the Hijra to Medina and did not live with him until after which was some three years.

In the Jewish Torah it states than any father who hasn’t married his daughter by the age of twelve, has dishonoured her. Henry the 8th wed Anne Boleyn aged twelve.

Some Hindis marry when their brides are aged twelve, the Jewish tradition has about what age a woman should be when she marries, some say 6 others say 9 and 12.

Mary mother of Jesus according to Christain sources was 12 when she gave birth to Jesus (upon them peace).

There are several reasons for this marriage, Aisha (may God be pleased with her) reported the second most narrations about him (over two thousand), she was the first female scholar and she taught hundreds if not thousands of students.

She corrected other companions when they made mistakes, she was a living authority of religious knowledge in her time. Muhammad (peace and blessing of Allah be upon him) was also married to Safiyyah, the daughter of Huyayy ibn Akhtab, the leader of a Jewish tribe in Arabia. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)married her when she was 16 years old and guess what? He was her third husband; she was married twice before him.

So, how old do you think she was when she got married to her first husband? Probably around 12 or 9, just like `A’ishah (May Allah be pleased with her).

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica—which is a Western source written by non-Muslim scholars and scientists — puberty is “in human physiology, the stage or period of life when a child transforms into an adult normally capable of procreation,” which essentially means “sexually mature.” She was engaged before him to the son of Uqbah ibn Muayt. He was one of the idol worshipers of the Quraish, who had abandoned her because of her father’s strong position in supporting Islam.

Also, when Khawlah bint Hakim suggested to him to marry Aisha, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, thought thoroughly whether to accept or to refuse. He took into consideration his relation with Abu Bakr (May Allah be pleased with him).

People who try to compare one time with another really misrepresent that time.

Many people forget how amazing Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) was, after the Prophet (peace and blessing of Allah be upon him) passed away, she did not marry again. She loved him that much that she could not bear to marry anyone else.

People who bring slander to this are really showing what they have in themselves because when a dog backs at the moon, it does not a make a difference to it.