Why is it during the past 1300 years, or say the past 1000 years at least, the Muslim scholars in general, with very few exceptions, did not realize the truth of which the promised messiah has been blessed to tell the world about. Which truth? About the finality of prophethood, about the death of Jesus Christ, about the continuation of revelation, about no abrogation in the holy Quran. So let’s take them one after the other.
The fact is that as far as the question of finality goes, that I explained earlier, perhaps last night or the night before, that according to the holy Quran, this question is much older than some people think. It always takes roots in the darker ages of religion. And it always takes roots in many forms. So whenever a prophet comes, he has to fight with that idea. And that is the time of revelation that this, the other idea is erroneous and this is the correct idea. Like at the time of Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wasallam, according to the records kept by the holy Quran, there were people who believed in him ultimately, who had previously thought that no prophet would ever come.
Also people starting from the time of Joseph at least, Hazrat Yusuf, and you know how many generations had passed in between? More than 1,000 years. Much more than that, because between Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wasallam and Hazrat Moses, there were 1,900 years. And Hazrat Yusuf was much earlier. So the question is more powerfully applicable there than here. The descendants of Joseph, who believed that nobody would come after Joseph, could have asked the same question.
Now it has been revealed to you? At least after 600 some years of Jesus Christ, if we say that they were corrected, at least there is a gap of about 700 years. And then, right at the time of Huzoor-e-Akram sallallahu alaihi wasallam, there are found such people who believed that no prophet would come. So the concept of finality of prophets is not a new concept. The question is not this, that the concept of coming of prophets is new or old. The question is, the concept of finality of prophets is new or old. When you study the history of the finality question, then you understand the whole phenomenon.
The fact is that this is a common feature, which happens everywhere in the world at every coming of a prophet, without fail. That whenever a prophet from Allah comes, people of that time are not ready to accept a foreign yoke. To them, if yoke coming from above, which is not seen, is a foreign yoke, why should they bow their heads to somebody, some person, who is being called as one of them? In the Holy Quran there are repeated mentions. So it is not an idea based only on secular history. It is an idea based on the most reliable religious history kept by the Holy Quran.
That whenever a prophet came, the same was the question against him. Out of us ordinary people, a man claims that he has a higher authority from Allah and wants us to be subjugated to him. While as we see things, only the menials from among us are following him. While we the leaders, we don’t care for him. And he thinks he will interfere in our financial systems, the way we behave economically and otherwise. All this is nonsense. So the authority imposed by Allah is always hated. When this is the state of affairs, and this is a universal state of affairs, they are not ready to receive the prophet. Yet they have accepted the previous ones.
So a concept of finality automatically has taken root among such a people. But once we start travelling from this point into the future history, then we would begin to understand the whole question philosophically much better. Now they have refused to believe, yet Allah misses to it that they would ultimately bow down or they will be destroyed and annihilated. So those who survive and have to believe ultimately, they enter a new phase which is apparently opposite to the first phase. But in the resultant, it amounts to exactly the same thing. Excessive unjustified hatred is displaced by excessive unjustified love. And the same prophet whom they used to say you are less than a man, begins to become more than a man for them.
They say in him we believe because he came with such miracles as ordinary human being cannot show. Tales are being woven about him, hero worship takes root in the society. And the same people who used to hate him with the same mentalities I mean. When that mentality revives, they say we believed in him because he was a super being, he was not an ordinary person. As far as the ordinary person goes, he has no right to rule us and he has no right to receive any revelation from Allah either. So the concept of the prophet begins to rise higher than the reality.
So much so that then things are added to that prophet which never were possessed by such a person. More often than not, he’s turned into a semi-god. Sometimes he’s shown with wings and supernatural powers in his physical being. Sometimes he’s sent to the heaven alive and it is said that he will come again. It’s not the first time that has happened to the Muslim society, it has happened before. Almost in every society it has happened. So many people have been sent to heaven by earlier people and by the different people on earth, that there will be more than many dozens.
So the same thing happened to the Muslims as has been happening to earlier people and to the people of other parts of the world. The reason is always the same. They don’t want to have another prophet, one is enough. Willy nilly they accepted one and now they want freedom. Freedom of action. Freedom to walk out of the yoke of religion. Freedom to be corrupt. Freedom to be selfish and disregardful of humanity. These are the basic fundamental reasons which impel them to move away from religion in a way that apparently they remain religious.
By glorifying the previous prophet they think they will gain an access to heaven and the easiest way. And now they are reaching a frame of mind in which the new prophet will never be fitted. So they start giving attribute to the first prophet in which it is impossible for him to reappear or any man about him is predicted to reappear because their concept of the prophets have undergone a great change. And this is a universal phenomena again which is responsible for the rejection of the second prophet which comes afterwards.
All the people who have travelled in this direction ultimately reach a stage where either they have to be rejected entirely and a new religion is to be revealed or they have to be revived under the same book. There is no other choice left to Allah. So either Allah destroys them and annihilates them or reveals a new law or sends a non-lawbringer prophet to them but whenever he comes they cannot recognise him. They say that the prophets which we were expecting were of that quality and that quality is such as has never appeared in any prophet earlier before them, it is imaginary.
So a sort of finality idea has already taken root in them. The fundamental of rejection is always this pride of human beings, this arrogance of human beings that we do not want any interference in our corrupt way of life. Who is Allah to interfere with us? They can’t say that, so they say who is this man who claims that he is from Allah and under the authority of Allah he is trying to exercise power over us. So this is the analysis of the finality question.
This is a time old question, it has taken various garbs, various shapes, but it was always present in some form at the coming of every prophet, without failure, otherwise those prophets would not have been rejected, so it is just an excuse and whenever a prophet comes he begins to refute their ideas about the coming of the prophet and he begins to rectify them. If people of today have a right to question this and say why were not the earlier people told of this, what has been revealed to you, then the people of those times had the same right. For instance, let’s consider Jesus Christ, peace be upon him.
When Jewish rabbis started mocking at the followers of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, and asking them where Elia had gone, why had he not come, according to the scriptures as we read them, Messiah was to come after Elia, not before him. Elia was to work as a glad tider of the coming of Messiah. So where is that Elia, he was to come from heaven, descend bodily from heaven. He has gone up in his chariot according to the bible and he would descend in a halo of angels from heaven bodily, physically, that is exactly what is written.
So when they must have said to them that it must have been fulfilled spiritually, metaphorically, this and that, imagine their state of mind, they belong to an age which is much darker in the standard of general knowledge than the age of today. They were more inclined to mockery of such things as spiritual representation or a fulfilment in metaphor and all this, because they were far more inclined to believe in the literal words and literal meanings of words, so that is exactly what they did. When they reported this matter to Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, you know what he said? He said Elia, Yahya, that is Johanna, is the same Elia who was to descend from heaven.
Believe it or not, he has descended. How could he have descended? He was born before everybody’s eyes, that is to say in their presence, and they knew he was born to Zachariah, according to them a holy man or according to us one of the great prophets of Allah, but whatever the nature, they knew he was the son of Elia, he had never ascended to heaven. So did they have not the right, that is the fundamental question, to refute Jesus Christ by saying the earlier people, all the great scholars which have passed between those who make the prophecy and between you, they were kept in total darkness about it, they never mentioned even remotely that a person in the name of Elia would come. We were expecting a person in reality, in essence, palpably in the same body, yet you say somebody else has come and this prophecy is fulfilled, it’s all hocus pocus, we reject it.
Had they not the right? They had the right, and the answer was believe it or not, he has come, the same is our answer. Hazrat Naseem was told because from then on a new era of light was to begin, so the one who ushers in light from heaven, he is told from heaven, he was not a man made like other ordinary religious scholars are made in factories, he had a direct contact with Allah, and Allah had to show him, but he could not reach himself directly, through his own power.
This is why in Bahina-e-Ahmadiyya he goes on suggesting that Jesus Christ has risen to heaven bodily, because that was his own personal knowledge, that was the sum total of the knowledge of the entire Muslim world. It was only when Allah revealed to him, then he came to know, so it happened in the time of earlier Jesus Christ peace be upon him, the earlier Messiah, so if one is to be rejected for that reason, the other should also go overboard, now they have to be treated in the same bracket as far as this question goes.
