Peace be upon you. Some time ago, I read an article in a monthly magazine, Ansarullah, about how Hazrat Salman Farsi accepted Islam, and that he had heard a few characteristics about the Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and one was that Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa, peace be upon him, would have a seal of prophethood at his back. I wonder, could you please kindly elaborate this tradition? Well, this aspect is to be further investigated, because the seal of prophets has no material reality. The word seal of prophet cannot be expressed in material terms. It’s the most excellent quality, even beyond one’s imagination.
So, not only there, but in many other traditions, one reads about this. I think this started later on. People started thinking of the seal of prophets in the material terms, because of that age, of course it was 1400 years ago. The brilliance of Islam is because of the light which was shed around the Holy Qur’an and around the person of Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa, peace be upon him. So, when we study Islam in view of the revelation of the Holy Qur’an and the presence of Huzoor-e-Akram, peace be upon him, we think that that age was the most modern age. And we forget that the people living around were most backward people. And had Islam not given them light, of course they were Ummiyeen, of the worst order.
So, these things started to creep into Islam when they reverted to their older views later on. This is my impression. Because seal of prophet has a meaning which has absolutely no bearing to a stamp on the body. And what was written on that stamp and how it was formed, I mean, this is all, I think, conjectures. There might be some birthmark, it is possible, at the back of the Holy Prophet, peace be upon him. And because this word was revealed, Khataman Nabiyeen, so later on people might have started conjecturing and imagining that that seal which was mentioned in the Holy Qur’an, this was the seal. There is a possibility.
And there is also a possibility for a symbol to appear. I mean, that cannot be ruled out. That there might have been some birthmark and later on it may be considered to be the symbol, an apparent symbol of the seal of prophets. Although in itself it was not a seal of prophets. Muhammad Rasulullah himself was seal of prophets. This has to be borne in mind. So you, at the most, if you accept those traditions, after full investigation and if you find them to be correct, the maximum license you can give it, the maximum, I mean, the most you can draw out of those traditions is this, that that was, if it was anything, it was just symbolic, something symbolic.
Because seal of prophet is referred to Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam himself. It has never been said in the Holy Qur’an that he was given the seal of prophets. It is said he himself was the seal of prophets. So if his whole body, if it was a bodily seal, if his whole body was a seal, then what is the significance of that small seal to be attached somewhere? So if these traditions really survive the severe scrutiny, and if you go through all the lines and study the character of various people involved in the chain of tradition, of those who conveyed, related these traditions to us, you might find that some among them were not trustworthy. And also study from what is called the point of view of dirayat. In fact there are two things.
One is the report of tradition, who is reporting it, in how many steps it is reported, and each person who is involved at each step, his character, whether he was trustworthy or not, all this is taken into account and this system, this branch of knowledge is called ilm-e-riwayat. And through ilm-e-riwayat, there are very scholarly books written on this. You can go through all the various chains and find out if there are any weak links somewhere and then you can judge the quality of that tradition. And the second is ilm-e-dirayat, which is very seldom applied unfortunately in Islam, but in the early centuries it was applied. Particularly during the time of the Khulafa-e-Rashideen it was applied, but later on scholars did not develop this system. But in the western system, much more stress is given on ilm-e-dirayat, that is the internal evidence.
The story as it is related, the event as we observe, is it free from all internal contradictions? Does it agree with other such incidents related by some other people? Or does it not clash with the fundamentals and does it hold water, rationally speaking or not? All these things are called ilm-e-dirayat. So as far as this tradition is concerned to which the gentleman has referred, I should like to apply both these systems of scrutiny to these traditions and make a further research as to the bona fides of this tradition. And then perhaps we’ll be able to make up our mind as to the nature of what that seal was, if it was a seal at all.
