Islamic Inlightment

                                                
Starts with Name of God

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most MercifulA verse from the Holy Quran

He is Allah the Creator the Evolver the Bestower of Forms (or colors). To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names: Whatever is in the heavens and on earth doth declare His Praises and Glory: and He is the exalted in Might the Wise.

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Finality of Prophethood

Finality of Prophethood___A Boon to Civilisation

The belief in the finality of prophethood has rendered a great service to man by ministering to his intellectual development, for it has taught him to rely on his knowledge, experiences and mature judgement. Inasmuch as it tells man that he need not look to the heavens for further guidance, it fastens his eyes upon this world about which he need now think and harness its resources to his benefit. In a like manner, man now needs to exercise his mind and think out to build up a healthy and progressive society, on the basis of spiritual and moral foundations. Finality of propethood, thus, asks, man to be courageous and take risk for his betterment and progress, teaches him to place reliance in his own capacities and lays open the vast field of further progress which can be achieved through his own efforts and struggles.

Had this creed of the termination of prophethood been denied to man, he would have lost confidence in his own self; he would have hanged in doubt, still looking toward the heavens instead of fixing his gaze to the world, He would have still been a state of suspense, uncertain bout his future, like an easy-believing soul who could be easily hoodwinked by every prevaricator. Whenever such a believer was told by a false claimant to prophethood that he had come to give finishing touches to the imperfect garden of humanity,1 he would have been forced to think whether the impairment of human nature could ever be imparted acme of perfection?

And, in this way, man would have looked forward, at every stage, to the promised Messiah to come and finish off the Job left incomplete by his predecessor. Man would have always been marking time, sitting idle, unable to utilize his own resources and intellectual capacities either for improving, refining himself or the world entrusted to his charge. This is what Iqbal explains in the ‘Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam’ in these words:

“ In Islam prophecy reaches its perfection in discovering the need of its own abolition. This involves the keen perception that life cannot for ever be kept in leading strings; that in order to achieve full self-consciousness man must finally be thrown back on his own resources. The abolition of priesthood and hereditary kingship in Islam, the constant appeal to reason and experience in the Quran, and emphasis it lays on Nature and History as sources of human knowledge, are all different aspects of the same idea of finality.”2

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