JANUARY 5 Mission of the Prophets

JANUARY 5 Mission of the Prophets All the messengers of God sent in ancient times came only to admonish man not to commit idolatry and to teach him to worship the one God alone, so that he might accordingly reform his life in this world and share in God’s blessings in the next. But throughout the centuries of human history, almost all the prophets were rejected by the majority of their contemporaries, particularly those highly placed in society, who never showed any willingness to follow these divine messengers. This recurrent event in history is thus described in the Quran: ‘Alas for the servants! They laugh to scorn every apostle that comes to them’. (36:30). The practice of ignoring God’s prophets went to the extent of depriving these ancient messengers of their rightful place in the annals of human history. That is why we can find detailed stories of kings and generals in the chronicles of the ages, but we do not find any mention of these prophets. The Prophet of Islam is the only exception. And that is because he received special divine succour. Therefore, for the first time in human history, the determination to repudiate shirk and affirm monotheism became a living movement and reached the stage of practical revolution, turning over a wonderful new page in human history. Now the question arises as to why this movement of rejection of shirk and acceptance of monotheism could not in ancient times culminate in revolution. There were two main reasons for this. One was that it was the age of kingship and the other was that superstitious thinking dominated. These were the two basic factors, which continued to be permanent stumbling blocks for the mission of the prophets. The age prior to the advent of the Prophet of Islam was that of sacred kingship. Today is the age of democracy, in which political leaders gain the right to rule through the votes of the people. In ancient times, on the contrary, the king’s interest lay in convincing people that they were God’s representatives, even that they were God’s offspring or that they were the children of the sun and moon. While today the basis of government is secular democracy, in the days of old governments used to thrive on some idolatrous belief or the other. This has been mentioned in the Quran with particular reference to Pharaoh. When Pharaoh confronted Moses he felt threatened by the spiritual powers of God’s messenger. So he assembled his people and