Last Word
The Prophet’s Companions used the opportunities offered by the ancient civilization. The Brothers of the Prophet will avail of the opportunities the scientific age offers.
According to a verse of the Quran, God “created death and life so that He might test you, and find out which of you is best in conduct” (67:2). The present world is, therefore, a selection ground to select people to inhabit Paradise in the world Hereafter. Here, man is placed in a free environment to find out who proves himself to be the best in conduct so that God may find him eligible for inhabiting eternal Paradise. Making man aware of this reality was the mission of all prophets, including Prophet Muhammad, who was the last prophet. God preserved His guidance through him in the form of the Quran.
The Prophet being the final messenger, God decreed a powerful team of followers for him, known as the Companions. In the last phase of human history, a powerful team of his followers would also be formed, called Ikhwan-e-Rasool, the Brothers of the Prophet. They will be people from the Muslim Ummah from the last phase of human history. With God’s special support, this second team will play an important dawah role.
To fulfill this role, Muslims must first attain a higher realization of God by contemplating of His creation. Then, equipped with new and powerful means of functioning, they need to dedicate themselves to performing dawah work globally by taking the preserved message of God for humanity to the world. That is why believers in later times have been described as bearers of high levels of faith. Certain traditions illustrate this.
According to Anas bin Malik, a Companion of the Prophet, the Prophet said, ‘The example of my ummah is like rains; nobody knows which phase, earlier or later, will be better.’ (At-Tirmizi, Hadith No. 2869)
In this Hadith, the simile of the rain denotes a whole historical process. The revolution brought about in the seventh century by the Prophet and his Companions was, in one sense, the beginning of a process. The historical process that set in in the wake of this revolution was to yield the final result in the future. “Future” here probably means the same historical phenomenon referred to in another tradition as Ikhwan-e-Rasool (Brothers of the Prophet).
Abu Maalik al-Ashari says that the Prophet of Islam once said: “There are such believers as are neither prophets nor martyrs, but even prophets and martyrs will envy them, because of their status and nearness to God, on the Day of Judgement.” (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith No. 22894)
In these traditions, it is most likely that the believers mentioned therein, who will be born in the age of science, are the group called the “Brothers of the Prophet”. Owing to the discoveries of nature, a new framework will come into existence, by availing of which it will become possible for them to experience higher levels of realization.
In one respect, the Companions of the Prophet and the Brothers of the Prophet share the same motivation: to avail of the opportunities in their respective eras to promote the cause of religion. Therefore, the Companions of the Prophet used whatever opportunities the ancient civilization of the Ishmaelites offered. For their part, the Brothers of the Prophet will avail of the opportunities for dawah work made possible in the scientific age of later times. In my view, there will perhaps be three ways in which the Brothers of the Prophet will avail of the prevailing opportunities:
- The use of scientific arguments made possible by scientific discoveries in nature. For instance, substantiating by modern data, the argument from design offered by the philosophers and theologians to prove the existence of God and give arguments to support the veracity of religious Truths.
- The use of modern communications for conveying the divine message at a global level, such as print and electronic media, and other digital communication and technology.
- Making full use of the religious freedom available in later times for the peaceful propagation of the call to God so that the divine message enters every home—big or small.
The Quran was revealed for all mankind. Therefore, the mission of the Muslim Ummah is to take the Quran to all humanity. In the last phase of human history, certain believers rising to the status of the Brothers of the Prophet will find and avail of the new-found opportunities to take the message of the Quran into every home—big or small—in the world. (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith No. 23814)
