Age of the Prophets
All the prophets sent by God brought the same message of monotheism. Therefore, man was required to lead his life as a worshipper of one God.
According to God’s creation plan, man has been placed in this world to put him to the test. To this end, it is necessary to understand what God wants from man. First, God wants to know who makes proper use of his freedom and who makes wrongful use of it.
To distinguish between right and wrong, the first arrangement made by the Creator was to inculcate in human nature the ability to distinguish right from wrong. This reality has been expressed in the Quran: After creating man, God “inspired him to understand what was right and wrong for him” (91:8). This guidance of human nature to distinguish between right and wrong is like an unspoken admonition. Every man and woman has a conscience that guides him from birth, albeit in a silent language.
Along with this, the Creator arranged for spoken guidance to be given to man. By this arrangement, God sent prophets in every age (35:24). These prophets were given guidance through God’s revelations. This is called ‘the straight path’ in the Quran (1:6). These prophets continued to come to the world in all ages: “then We sent Our messengers in succession” (23:44). Adam, as well as being the first man, was the first prophet. All the prophets who came after Adam until Prophet Muhammad have been counted and the figure has been put at 1,24,000 in a saying of Prophet Muhammad (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith No. 22288). The Quran mentioned twenty-five prophets by name. However, to the modern mind, none of these prophets has been historically established. Out of the whole history of the prophets, the Prophet Muhammad, the son of Abdullah, and grandson of Abdul Muttalib, is the only prophet who is a historical figure in the complete sense. A scholar has acknowledged this fact thus: “Muhammad was born within the full light of history.” (The Arabs: A Short History, Philip K. Hitti, London, 1960, p. 23)
Why is it that the prophets are not mentioned in ancient history? The reason is traceable to current imperatives in the writing of history. In ancient times, only events related to kings, wars, and victories were considered worth recording. Since the lives of the prophets were not associated with such political circumstances, ancient historians did not consider them worthy of being recorded. However, since the life of the final Prophet came to be related to political events, contemporary historians attached historical importance to his advent and mentioned him in their books.
All the prophets sent by God brought the same message of monotheism: that man was required to lead his life worshipping the one God. But the prophets who came before Prophet Muhammad could not gather strong teams. That is why the mission of all of these prophets only reached the point of the announcement of monotheism: no real revolution based on monotheism could be brought about. As a result, polytheism continued to prevail. The journey of history could never be made to follow the path of monotheism.
It is the way of God: to lend support to dayees who convey God’s message to man. The support of God was given to the prophets in the form of miracles to facilitate their dawah work, calling people to God. For instance, the miracle given to Moses was that his rod turned into a living snake and began moving. But despite these miracles being so extraordinary, people failed to accept the prophets’ call. Instead, they rejected miracles, holding them to be mere magic.
