The Messenger and the Message

By Greg Noakes

A proper understanding of prophecy in Islam is crucial in reaching any meaningful understanding of the faith. As a revealed religion, the history of Islam is in large part the story of God's prophets and the messages He sent down to them. Essential questions include the nature of a prophet, his mission and how it is fulfilled, and his relationship to the message that he transmits from God to his fellow men and women.

Islam recognizes two types of prophets; the nabi and the rasul. The nabi receives divine revelation which remains personal. The rasul (a term best translated as "messenger") is also a nabi in that he too receives personal guidance from God, but is also charged with the spread and propagation of the Word of God. It is this public mission which separates the rasul from the nabi.

The line of prophets begins with Adam and continues through Muhammad. God has provided each community with its own messenger at some point in the past, while Muhammad's prophecy was designed for all men and women in all communities, and is thus universal. The hadith, or traditions of the prophet, state that there have been 124,000 prophets, and the Qur'an mentions more than 20 of them by name.

These messengers, such as Nuh (Noah), Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Da'ud (David), and Sulaiman (Solomon) are well known to Jews and Christians, who also revere them as prophets. Islam also recognizes 'Isa (Jesus) as a prophet (though it emphatically denies that he or any prophet was other than human), and teaches that Muhammad is the last, or "seal," of the prophets.

Each of the messengers sent by God was entrusted with the same basic message. This was islam, or "submission" to the will of God. Each of the messages proclaimed the absolute Unity (tawhid) of God, forbade men and women from associating any others with Him, and provided guidelines for the individual's relationship to God, to fellow human beings, and to himself/herself. Discrepancies between the Qur'an and earlier revelations are, according to Muslims, a result of distortions and confusion in the transmission of these earlier books. Islam was not "founded" by Muhammad, but rather is the message sent down by God to each of His prophets throughout history.

The prophets, though they received divine revelations and performed miracles by the grace of God, were themselves humans with no claim to divinity. In fact, in order to proclaim his own divinity a prophet would have to ignore the message he was given, which clearly separates the Creator from the created. Likewise, the prophet is not an angel or afinn (also created beings), but human. This allows the prophets not only to understand fully and address the trials of human existence, but also to serve as models for humankind and to demonstrate to the faithful how to overcome moral, physical, and spiritual challenges.

The history of Islam is in large part the story of God's prophets.

Due to their human nature, prophets are not infallible. Though they possess exemplary attributes, the prophets were still subject to the same temptations and weaknesses as other men. Muhammad is occasionally corrected by God in the Qur'an, for instance, and the Prophet himself was well aware of his limitations in comparison with the Divine. Thus, in the face of a particularly difficult decision, Muhammad would often wait for some revelation from God rather than exercise his own judgment.

The one exception to this notion of prophetic fallibility is the transmission of God's Word. God ensures that the prophet, at the end of his lifetime, will have transmitted a complete and correct message. Thus the Qur'an and the previous Books (as they were originally revealed) are complete revelations from God to man. It is important to note, however, that during the lifetime of a prophet any part of the revelation already sent down is subject to change and modification, according to the will of God. Indeed, revelation is a developmental event, unfolding over a period of time, and it should be understood that while the completed revelation stands as an integral document, it was revealed gradually over the course of the messenger's prophetic career.

An interesting example of this process of development and correction of revelation is the episode of the "Satanic Verses. " When Muhammad was in Mecca, reciting the Surah An-Najm, Satan caused him to utter verses confirming the existence of three pagan goddesses as "daughters of God" whose "intercession is to be hoped for. " The pagan Meccans took this as a hopeful sign, and prostrated themselves along with Muhammad at the completion of these verses. Later, the angel Jibril (Gabriel) pointed out the error to the Prophet, and God revealed the proper verses, which state that the "goddesses" are nothing but names without power, and which confirm God's unity. Thus the completed Qur'an, containing only those verses sent down by God and not those inserted by Satan, has been rectified and is the authentic message revealed by God.

Some Muslims are uncomfortable with this episode of the Prophet's career and have denied that the events ever took place. The noted Islamic scholar At-Tabari discusses them, however, in both his Ya/sir and his Tarikh, citing various traditions which appear to be authentic. The sense of unease comes about largely because the pagan Meccans and later non-Muslims claimed that this episode shows Muhammad to be an imposter who at first admitted the existence of the goddesses for political gain, then simply changed his mind.

A Confirmation of Absolute Faith

If Muhammad did make up these verses to win over the pagans, though, it is hard to imagine a more inept attempt. First, the adulterated verses clumsily and rather unconvincingly contradict what comes before and after them, and second, neither the rhythm nor the rhyme scheme of the "Satanic Verses" corresponds to the rest of the Surah An-Najm. Rather than a pragmatic political maneuver, this episode is a confirmation of the Prophet's absolute faith in what he believed to be an authentic revelation. It demonstrates, in fact, that Muhammad did not change or manipulate what came to him, but recited the revelation verbatim.

This unquestioning attitude towards the revelation would appear to admit the possibility of other non-authentic insertions, but this neglects God's assurance that the revelation will be accurate and unadulterated at the end of His messenger's prophetic mission. Instead of causing the Muslim to doubt his beliefs, the episode of the "Satanic Verses" serves to confirm the Prophet's role as the transmitter, not the originator, of an authentic and perfect revelation.

Muhammad's role as a neutral "conduit" of revelation is not to deny the impact of his actions on the development of Islamic thought and practice. If the Word of God, in the form of the Qur'an, is the primary foundation of Islam, then the sunna, or practice, of the Prophet is the necessary secondary basis of the religion, without which the revelation cannot be properly understood, interpreted or implemented. Only in this sense can the prophetic role of Muhammad be fully understood.

Some Muslim reformers, in their zeal to return to sources, " have suggested that the various compilations of the hadith, the oral traditions of the Prophet as recalled by others, bejettisoned and that Muslims should rely on the Qur'an alone. This view, however, contradicts the repeated Qur'anic injunction to "obey God and His Prophet. " By stripping the message of its context, it ignores the important developmental aspect of the Qur'an. It also represents a minimalist conception of revelation. It must be remembered that Muhammad was not only a rasul, but (by definition) a nabi as well, and that he was given revelation that did not form part of the Qur'an. Clearly a more holistic understanding of revelation is called for.

Part of this broader revelation is contained in the hadith Qudsi, or "sacred hadith, " which report divine revelation in Muhammad's words. Though sent down by God, they are not His actual words, and thus are not part of the Qur'an. Muhammad received these manifestations of divine guidance in addition to other inspirations from God with respect to many of his practices and deeds. These actions, reported in the body of hadith literature, form the sunna of the Prophet and are themselves a vital component of the revelatory event. To reject the Prophet's sunna is thus to reject revelation itself.

It is clear that Muhammad is revered by Muslims as the last and greatest of the prophets, and that his example is an important part of the faith. One of the most remarkable individuals in history by any standards, for believers Muhammad is, as the Qur'an proclaims, "a mercy to the worlds. " Yet he is not deified by Muslims, as some in the past have charged.

At the time of the Prophet's death in Medina in 632 CE, the Islamic community faced a grave crisis of faith. Many of the Muslims refused to believe that Muhammad, the leader of the community and the Prophet of God, could have died. Abu Bakr, the Prophet's closest companion and his father-in-law, went to the mosque upon learning of his friend's death and proclaimed, "As for him who worships Muhammad, Muhammad is dead, but as for him who worships God, God is alive and does not die." This is the essential element of prophecy in Islam: that while Message and Messenger are inextricably linked, it is the former that takes precedence over the latter.

Greg Noakes, an American Muslim, is the advertising director for the Washington Report.